#no listen I've watched the first one which was awkward but ok overall

[sidsinning]

50 Shades was really bad fanfiction that got the highest production value ever x3

It's a terrible series but what a sight to behold I can't believe it exists

[ruanbaijie]

um ok so i have a backlog of tag games (I love them okay I just take very long to get back to them 🥲) so instead of answering them one by one and spamming everyone's dashboards, I'm gonna smash all of them together to create one HUGE tag game

tagged by @thitiponqs [x] [x] and @asterdust [x]

presenting:

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

1. why did you choose your url? i mean, look at him. what a bitch (affectionate).

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. nope this place is a dumping ground

3. how long have you been on tumblr? october 2010 *awkward monkey meme*

4. do you have a queue tag? luQiao - which is the most common question i get 🌚

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? my friends were mentioning it (this was during blogging heyday and everyone was on blogspot) and i was like cool what is it let's check it out and uh i've been here ever since

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? i wanted to something red + black (my favourite colours) to go with the overall ✨ aesthetic ✨ and xia zhiguang just happened to have this ridiculously out of this world badass modern wuxia-esque photoshoot with a red and black theme so

7. why did you choose your header? because hua chenyu is an AMAZING singer and god it's on my bucket list to attend his concert live

8. what’s your post with the most notes? this rainbow edit for jjk [x]

9. how many mutuals do you have? um so i keep an excel sheet that lists all my mutuals including main blogs (if the mutual blog is a side blog), names, what i tag their posts by, and tracked tags. said list is currently at *checks list* 288 🌚

10. how many followers do you have? 5.4k+

11. how many people do you follow? 455 but i think a lot are inactive 😭

12. have you ever made a shitpost? oh yes this is one example which i did for shl [x] and which got reposted on instagram (ugh) and i made them take it down yes i still remember it

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? too much

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? yeah a whole episode that involved death threats instant report and block

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts people don't have to reblog every single thing but at the same time this is tumblr the reblog place don't just like things all the time without reblogging yknow

16. do you like tag games? YES i can be very long-winded i love them a lot

17. do you like ask games? yes but i get worried that people don't send in anything at all and i'm just talking to myself so i don't do them

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? definitely you @thitiponqs 💕

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? eh no i don't crush on people easily? and i probably need to meet that person in real life before any crushing happens

20. what is the last song you listened to? currently having blaze of clear sky (the insert song of episode 19 of the apothecary diaries) on repeat for DAYS now it's so good and it makes me want to cry

21. what are you currently watching? the apothecary diaries, yatagarasu, dededede, the king's avatar donghua season 3, isekai shikkaku, meet you at the blossom

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? SWEET

23. what is your current relationship status? single (anyone wanna date lol)

24. what is your current obsession? THE APOTHECARY DIARIES i'm so sorry i'm so late to this game but also STILL NOT OVER the spirealm it still causes me a lot of pain and rips my heart out and stuffs glass shards down my throat on a daily basis

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

齐天（华晨宇）- equal to heaven (hua chenyu)

双节棍（华晨宇）- nunchucks (hua chenyu)

斗牛（华晨宇）- bull fighting (hua chenyu)

麒麟（早安）- qilin (zaoan)

星星（早安）- stars (zaoan)

乡下来的（玖壹壹）- from the countryside (nine one one)

abyss (yungblud)

gento (sb19)

blaze of clear sky (takenaka daichi)

26. tagging (no pressure!) @alienwlw @lianhuajing @guzhufuren @miwtual @kolomo

@xiaobaosnoona @naughtynanzhu @mokacheer @alicenthighstower

[mysticdragon3md3]

I too was excited to see why Ryuji is trending and... ;_;

People are comparing him to a sexual abuser, like Kamoshida? I mean, yeah he shouldn't have looked down Ann's shirt. That wasn't cool. And some of his comments about Ann's Panther costume when she first got it, were not in good taste. But is Twitter seriously saying that puts him on the same level as Kamoshida? KAMOSHIDA???????????? omfg... I just can't anymore, you guys...I just can't anymore... x_x

Just this past week, I watched an Anituber video essayist mention the ubiquitous female objectification in anime as "because you know anime is going to anime", and I felt so validated about sensing that the amount of female objectification in Japanese media has become pretty much expected, normalized, even in the most unnecessary, tiniest ways. I'm so tired of being gaslit about this. Yes, Japanese media in general has a problem with making sure to have close ups of girls' bodies being ogled and women being reduced to (romantic) prizes to be coveted. That beach scene in Persona 5 did panning close-up shots of the girls' swimsuits; not the guys'. All the dating options in Persona 5 are from the pool of female Confidants; not the guys. Because "guys as romantic prizes to be won? Feh, what a *riDIcUlOuS* concept!" I understand that sex sells, that traditionally female sexualization sells to a traditionally cishet male audience which is still presumed to be the largest demographic, and that the anime industry (and presumably other Japanese pop culture creation) is actually financially high risk with low financial rewards for most studios, so they have to desperately scrape for any advantage. (Though recently, the Japanese pop culture industries, like anime and videogames, have begun to realize that there is a cishet female market, large enough to cater to as well, by mainstreaming series like Touken Ranbu. And they've also even recently begun to recognize that catering to fujoshi is worth investing into mainstreaming the BL genre, even a little bit. Thus, we're starting to get more mainstream BL fanservice, through series like Free Iwatobi Swim Club, Yuri on Ice, and Classmates.) So it's kind of our fault, for incentivizing studios to mandate and ensure each thing they make contains female objectification. The audience's spending habits and the industries' presumptions of our wants/demographics, have made cheesecake fanservice and waifu bait the most reliable bet for most studios. We spend the most money on collecting waifu bait merch and gacha cards of waifu. We argue the most about who is the "best waifu" and show our allegiances by buying their merch. We have turned waifu and cheesecake fanservice of such waifu, into the most reliable financial returns on investment for studios. And with studios so constantly, precariously on the precipice of bankruptcy, we the audience, have incentivized the mandate of cheesecake fanservice (of women/girls), even at the cost of cohesive storytelling/characterization. I understand all that. Studios are desperate, and they need to stay afloat. They need to cling and scrape towards any advantage they can get. That's why I'm so tired of people saying we're just imagining things. Anime and videogames are mandating to insert female cheesecake fanservice for cishet males, even at the cost of cohesive characterization, story themes, and good writing.

This includes Persona 5 shoehorning Ryuji into being the horny audience surrogate, no matter how awkward, nonsensible, and misaligned it would skew his characterization and previous writing. This is why fans of Ryuji often say his more "perverted" actions in canon, simply feel like a case of bad writing. Those actions don't feel like him. They feel more like fulfilling the Japanese pop media "obligation" to objectify women, than aligned with his character, as set up so far. Because anime/games just *have* to provide a POV audience surrogate character for everyone to ogle the girls through. Or at least reinforce the types of reactions they want from their audience, after showing us all these T&A shots. It felt more like fulfilling anime tropes than further building upon Ryu's established character of defending people, including women, against perverts like Kamoshida. I mean, this is the guy who was chasing down Kamoshida's car because he knew that pervert might do something. This is the guy who ran straight to the faculty office to punch out Kamoshida for torturing Shiho to her tipping point. The guy who jumped in front of a moving cab to rescue Makoto. The guy who survived watching himself and his mom get abused by his dad. And you want us to believe he wouldn't think twice about looking down Ann's shirt on the way to Futaba's Palace? Or up Ann's skirt, when she laid down from a food coma, after they Yusuke's welcome-to-the-Phantom-Thieves meal? Or so eagerly coerce Ann into posing nude? o_O? Atlus wanted us to believe this was consistent characterization??? To the Atlus writers' credit, they did write Ryuji feeling too guilty about going through Project Maid-Watch and they wrote him ditching it at the last minute. But they also wrote AkiRen to look down Ann's shirt without any hesitations and they wrote morgana to also look up Ann's skirt when she laid down from food coma. The Atlus writers---and most Japanese pop culture---just seem to have an unwavering determination towards these female objectification scenes, and they just saddled Ryuji with it, because he's the "silly, rambunctious, comedy relief" character "that you won't have to feel bad when he inevitably gets hit with *slapstick* retribution". Nevermind, it's counter to the story's theme and his characterization, that they've driven pretty hard as being something to take seriously. So some Ryuji fans will just call-out his inconsistent characterization into being creepy towards girls, as "bad writing".

On the other hand, it's wholly possible and realistic for a guy to exist who is against all the sexual abuse, that scum like Kamoshida do, while still being a dumb horny teenager who will do dumb horny teenage boy stuff. (I'm sorry for all the toxic heteronormative presumptions. But that's kind of the archetype that Atlus has been trying to slot Ryuji into...unfortunately.) They grow out of it. Gradually learning to curb dumb horny inclinations, is _not_ the same level as a sexual abuser! Why are people conflating that today?! o~O????????

And from what I've seen of Ryuji in Persona 5 Scramble/Strikers so far, he has been growing out of it. There's a whole lot less creepy ogling coming from him (AKA the writers), even during scenes which any other anime would have. He didn't get creepy about the girls' yukata, he didn't strain to listen to the girls on the other side of the Sapporo onsen, he didn't make grabby hands at the girls' swimsuits again, etc. Any other anime---hell, even in the previous chronological episode of their story, in the original Persona 5---Ryuji and the camera would have been creepy about the girls' yukata, he would have shut up the other guys so he could listen to the girls compare boobs in the onsen, he would have tried to sneak a peek at the girls' onsen, and there would have been a repeat of that close up scene of the girls swimsuits, with Ryuji providing the expected lecherous audience reaction. But none of that happened in P5S. Heck, even if you choose the option to say onsen are great, as if to imply that overhearing the girls talk about their boobs is great, Ryuji gets embarrassed about the topic and immediately tries to change the subject. Watch any anime from the 2000s or earlier, and the goofy, masculine archetype, like Ryuji, would have not only agreed, but would have suggested sneaking a peek at the girls' onsen. I'm actually really surprised that the Kyoto onsen scene didn't result in fanservice, because that's usually what happens. Even in anime where the boys know to escape fast instead of sneaking a peep, there's usually a screw up where they'll Rube-Goldberg-trip into girls' boobs or trip into full-view of the girls without their towels. Any other anime or Japanese media would have done that. It's typical, expected. "Anime is gonna anime." And yet, none of that normalized perversion happened in that scene. Persona 5 Scramble/Strikers, including Ryuji, did a whole lot less "dumb horny teenage boy stuff", suggesting Ryuji was growing out of that with time. Because even if Ryuji can be a little bit of a "dumb horny teen", he still knows better than that, is curbing such inclinations, and is a much better person than to increasingly act on or nurture such inclinations.

Ryuji is a good boy. Please don't conflate him with Kamoshitty.

9:53 AM 9/17/2021 Ok. I found the original Tweet that started this shitstorm. https://twitter.com/HerielP48/status/1438677678400409607

But this Tweet isn't actually saying that Ryuji is the same as Kamoshida. I thought this Tweet was saying that the overall writing, using Ryuji as a mechanic for "pervert comedy" was a bad decision from Atlus's writers, especially since it contradicted the themes of the Kamoshida Palace story arc. I actually agree with that.

9:56 AM 9/17/2021 Oh, wait. There's a previous Tweet to that one: https://twitter.com/HerielP48/status/1438677262145101824

I see that you tried to save the first sentence, with your second sentence---which I agree with: I agree that the writing made an awful decision in having Ryuji or any character sexualize their female friends, after the sexual abuse they suffered. But your first sentence was still very strongly implying that Ryuji as a character is a problem, more than the writing injecting out-of-characterization into the character that they had already established with Ryuji thus far. That wording was just kindling waiting to start a firestorm. ~_~;

10:29 AM 9/17/2021

Well, the one good thing I'll say about Ryuji trending because of dumb, offensive reasons, is seeing the sheer avalanche of people jump to defend him. This wasn't something Ryuji got, early in the fandom! ;o; Remember when he was the most hated character in the fandom??? And now, everyone is overwhelmingly loving on Ryuji today! ;u;!!! Thank you guys. ;u; He is a good boy. ;U;