The Ayato discourse is genuinely one of the funniest examples of fandom hypocrisy I've ever seen because some of you will perform Olympic-level mental gymnastics to justify literally anything Yui does and then suddenly become the world's strictest judge the second Ayato does something wrong. Why? Because:
1) Yui is a woman, and a huge chunk of this fandom became performative “girl’s girl”. You’ll bend yourselves into pretzels to defend female characters only because they’re girls or in order for everyone to know how much you “hate men”;
2) Yui is also white and blonde, which gives her an automatic halo of purity in this fandom. Slap that design on a character and suddenly people are projecting every possible Eurocentric ideal of innocence, softness, and eternal victimhood onto them;
3) Ayato is one of the most, if not THE most, fully developed characters in the franchise, with a big amount of material exploring his character and backstory. His story is also shaped by East Asian themes, and that genuinely frustrates some of you because Ayato is loved and hyped by so many people despite not fitting the Western interpretations you keep trying to impose on him. You project Western frameworks onto a character whose story was not written through those frameworks, and then act surprised when people interpret and appreciate him differently from you.
And before somebody starts foaming at the mouth: no, this is not me saying Ayato is a complete saint. The fact that I even have to clarify that every single time proves my point. Because apparently in this fandom, the second someone says “Ayato is an extremely complex character who did bad things but feels guilty, tries to fix his mistakes and is always there to protect and sacrifice himself for others” half of you hear: “Actually Ayato has never done anything wrong and should be canonized as an angel uwuwu”
Let's get the HDB complaint out of the way first.
People complaining that Ayato is toxic in HDB will never not be funny because HDB is literally fanservice built around the fantasy of falling in love with unhinged, attractive and demonic men with trauma. That's the entire premise, since it’s a game for MASOCHISTS. Besides, the HDB versions and timeline were completely erased so they have nothing to do with the main story.
MB is where the double standard becomes genuinely embarrassing.
Because suddenly everyone is very concerned about how Ayato treats Yui while conveniently forgetting that Ayato has a PERSPECTIVE too.
So… Let's reverse their genders.
You've known some man for ONE MONTH.
And he starts telling you:
“You're so cute. Hurry up and give me pleasure!”
Would you be flattered? Or would you be staring at this man thinking: “Why the fuck have you already reduced me to something that exists for your sexual gratification?”
Because if a woman started treating a man badly after that, especially a man who was less attractive than her, you people would be lining up to defend her, saying things like:
“She doesn't owe him anything.”
“She’s too pretty for him”
“She has every right to do that.”
“He doesn't see her as a person.”
But when Ayato is the person being reduced to a source of pleasure, suddenly the rules change, huh? Because to some of you, objectification is only morally relevant when the object is female.
And then there’s THIS situation:
Let’s reverse their genders again.
You've been abandoned by the people closest to you because of a misunderstanding that was also fuelled by your loverboy.
You open up to this man, and then he exposes your weakness to the ENEMIES, who use that against you. You feel betrayed, you feel abandoned, you become hunted down by clans and organisations, you become completely alone and you end up sui€idal.
If a man did this to a woman, do you genuinely think the internet would be sitting there trying to find excuses for that man? Because that exact scene happened already in a recent movie and a bunch of people still hate on the male character for that.
But when Ayato is the one who suffers due to Yui’s choices we're expected to prioritize Yui's “good” intentions over what actually happened to him.
Why does Yui's intention automatically matter more than Ayato's experience?
Why don't we apply the exact same grace to Ayato?
Because somehow to you guys, when Yui does something hurtful, her POV matters more than the action. But when Ayato does something hurtful, the action is apparently all that matters??
And THEN there’s the Cordelia situation:
Let’s reverse their gender for the third time.
You’re a woman whose childhood abuser comes back into your life.
Now imagine your man repeatedly forces you to face that person, that person starts making you feel hopeless or like a no-good, while your man’s showing more sympathy toward your abuser than toward YOU, their VICTIM!
This is how the Internet would treat him: toxic boyfriend, red flag, “she deserves better”, “I hope she leaves him”
People would be writing paragraphs about how he’s retraumatizing her and invalidating her feelings.
But when Ayato is put in that situation? Nobody cares because it’s Yui who is toxic 🥰🥰
Ayato gets stripped of trauma, stripped of his perspective, stripped of his feelings, and then everyone acts shocked when he doesn’t respond like a perfectly adjusted person.
You cannot spend hours explaining why Yui’s intentions, circumstances, and emotions matter, and then turn around and reduce Ayato to a cardboard cutout whose only purpose is to be “the toxic guy who’s mean to my fav girl”
And tbh, after they start dating, Yui is objectively the worse partner to Ayato than Ayato is to her. It’s okay to admit that. It’s okay for female character not to be perfect angels. Why do you want female characters to always be victims? Let them be in the wrong too; isn’t that equality? You don’t have to twist yourself into knots trying to justify everything she does to him only because he treated her unfairly IN THE PAST BEFORE DATING + these aren’t even all the moments where Yui does Ayato dirty after they become a couple.
Also, what she does to him in the MB manservant ending, paralyzing him completely, putting him in a vegetative state, and SA-ing him afterwards because he can’t talk hence can’t consent remains the most evil thing a main cast DL character has ever done and if you disagree, you don’t understand the gravity of the situation. Like, even Karlheinz, the DEVIL, got weirded out.
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