HOWEVER

SAY 👏 IT 👏 LOUDER 👏 FOR 👏 THE 👏 PEOPLE 👏 IN 👏 THE 👏 BACKKKKK

Every time I see someone hating Rui for being “weird”/“crazy” I feel it as a personal attack. This person genuinely becomes a GIGANTIC red flag for me.

Now y'all are gonna bear with me because I'm going to rant about this. And I believe this is an important discussion to the fandom in general, even if you don't do these things.

The first wxs event immediately establishes that Rui cares about the safety of those who are going to perform his stunts even MORE than the stunts themselves. He doesn't have ill intentions, and his actions actually benefit others instead of hurting anyone.

Now, I'll admit it, Rui crazy jokes are kinda funny, and they're not the problem on itself. I laugh about them. I make some menace Rui jokes. I don't think the jokes themselves are the problem, when they don't cross the line and are actively disrespectful or harmful towards people who may act the same in real life.

HOWEVER

THE FACT THAT SOME PEOPLE TAKE THESE JOKES AS FACT, AND SINCERELY BELIEVE THAT HE IS LIKE THAT IN CANON

Shows not only a lack of actually reading the stories, but also ignorance at the very least.

Every single project sekai character has their "main struggle" mirror the experiences of actual real life people. And to dismiss Rui's struggle as just "he's quirky XD" is disrespectful at the very LEAST.

Now the thing is. I kin Rui. I went through the exact same thing he goes through: people thinking you're “weird” or “crazy” for being hyper and out of the box, to the point of being excluded due to some kind of fear/disgust and openly bullied and/or harassed, having people be ENCOURAGED to mistreat you because "you're weird".

I've seen many parts of the fandom react this exact same way towards Rui. SOME people would not HESITATE to actually harass Rui if he were to exist. However, everyone who actively promotes or believes that this kind of treatment towards someone like him is right are perpetuating it being applied to actual real life people.

"Oh, but he's fictional!"

Fiction mirrors real life. Reacting this way to a character based on real life experiences DOES tell a lot about you, and DOES tell a lot about how you'd act in real life, even if you don't think you'd act that way. Many perpetrators believe what they're doing to be okay and that it's something that should be done, mostly because they were raised to believe that it is natural, and that to act the opposite way would be socially unacceptable.

Yes, he's funny and just a lil guy but people need to know when shit needs to get serious. Fiction affects reality, reality affects fiction. Fiction and reality are correlated, no matter what some people may want to push into you.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with Rui jokes AS LONG AS THEY DON'T CROSS THE LINE. He IS a silly guy, but he's not limited to just that. Know when to get serious and take actual real life lessons, people. It is crucial to one's development as a person.

im so sorry for this yapfest but i am very passionate about rui kamishiro. tldr at the end

this probably isnt even a hot take. cold take even. but the mischaracterization of rui in this fandom is actually wild, especially among rui fans. as someone who has had a lot of similar experiences to his past experiences it's really upsetting to see.

rui is a very nuanced character and (at least in my opinion) far more subtle than a lot of the more tropey characters in the game. and my guys. he is patently NOT insane. he has NO will to hurt people. hes just very passionate about his interests and he's actively incredibly kind to his friends. but so many people in this fandom misread his passion as a will to hurt others or like. literal insanity?? which makes me really mad because guys!!!!!! THAT'S THE SAME THING THE PEOPLE WHO BULLIED HIM DID!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S MISREADING HIS PERSONALITY AND USING THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO WRITE HIM OFF AS THE "TOKEN CRAZY ONE" BEFORE EVEN GETTING TO KNOW HIM!!! this is the EXACT kind of behavior rui's story is supposed to preach AGAINST. reading comprehension! please!

"but it's just a joke otter it's not that deep" heres the thing it stops being a joke when its repeatedly being used to flatten rui's character. especially since he was bullied for the exact things the fandom likes to "joke" about (him being "crazy"). and also if we cant respect the struggles of a fictional character who was bullied/ostracized im not sure how we'll be able to properly respect real victims of bullying!

"oh but he's always trying to hurt tsukasa with his crazy stunts" im not even adressing this one because theres literally an entire rui event on it. and its literally the FIRST one. the FIRSTTTTT one. go read wonder halloween

i really dislike that people are saying the exact same things as rui's classmates who ostracized him as a "joke." i feel like if we're fans of rui its our job to properly understand at LEAST what is arguably the biggest conflict he dealt with as a kid and to be sensitive to his struggles. i could go on for DAYS about the way the struggles of neurodivergent people who present more "hyper" are constantly trivialized and how commonly theyre villainized but thats only tangentially related so. guys. lets PLEASE be better

tldr: in my opinion. the jokes about rui being "insane" have LONG crossed the line from being just jokes to being lowkey insensitive mischaracterization

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