foolish-thief

also atlus what The Fuck are you doing what is this writing why is ren just sTANDING AROUND. THE KID WHO GOT ARRESTED CAUSE HE STUCK HIS NOSE INTO A MATTER WHEN A STRANGER NEEDED HELP. WHY IS HE LETTING RYUJI TAKE ALL THESE LS. REN WOULD NEVER

ryuji: tells his angry ex-friends that they can hit him ren: NO?? NOT ALLOWED??

ren would sooner get in the way and risk getting expelled and ruining his future than let them hurt ryuji for something that was never his fault to begin with.

its like ryuji thinks. he can just be a human stress ball, if he makes someone he cares about angry. he isnt always good with words or apologizing so usually he just lets people kick the shit out of him if he thinks he had it coming. like. i have no doubt this kid had worthlessness beaten into him by his dad. emotionally and physically. (nevermind kamoshida) and i KNOW that a kid like ryuji would have tried to take the target off his mom if he could help it.

if hes going to get beat anyway, he might as well have some say over how and when it happens. trying to grasp at ANY control in his life. BUT JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK YOURE IN CONTROL CAUSE YOURE INVITING IT TO HAPPEN DOESNT MEAN THATS THE CASE...

but. god. due to everything hes been through. something in ryuji thinks he deserves more punishment than others for the same transgressions. hed take all the hits cause hey. hes…. good at taking hits.

it's really hauntingly accurate writing for a victim of physical abuse, and i use that word because 9 times out of 10 the instance is played for comedy or lighthearted tension release which .? in a vacuum slapstick is like fine. but in this situation it really is antithetical to persona 5's writing and what ryuji deserves

even with kamoshida he was less angry about physically feeling pain, it was the fact he couldn't run for a long while, the fact kamoshida overworked his team, the fact it led to his team breaking up, all this not allowing him to get some background and a scholarship for college, which mind you he seemed to care more about as helpful for his mom than for himself, and the fact all the blame was thrown completely onto him afterward. ryuji's awakening feels like one of the most powerful moments for him because it's one very rare one where he stands up against a person because they look down on him, among a sea of moments where he just allows people to.

so anyways basically all this to say yes he's either quite unaware of just how self destructive he is or he sees it as completely not a big issue at all and refuses to confront it as more than that augh

and it was 100% about his team mates more than it ever was about him. of course he was pissed at kamoshida for the bullshit he was putting him through personally. anyone would be. but he was so much more pissed off on behalf of his team. who he saw getting abused every day. like. he was the star runner. he was CAPTAIN.

and kamoshida knew the kind of kid he was dealing with. each abuse dealt to ryujis team was another fork being stabbed into ryuji himself. kamoshida bringing up stuff from ryujis home life and spreading it around the school was just the fork that sent him over the edge. (and kamoshida got that information out of one of ryujis friends, who he hurt or blackmailed in order to do so.)

and we can clearly imagine how shujins well known oh-so-normal study body might have treated him when kamoshida started blabbing. hell, his ex-friends show us how. to his face. and in front of ren. comparing a child to his abuser. his mothers abuser. is fucked. (and lord knows how much ryuji might already worry about the ways he's like his father, in his temper) and ryuji could deal with the physical abuse. he could deal with the insults. all of which he'd learned to endure from his old man before. but. you talk about his family? you make the hell he and his momma had to endure the new school gossip? final straw. final fucking straw.

(im surprised he was even still attending shujin after the incident. i cant see his mom not wanting to pull him out. but i guess athletic scholarship money goes crazy though,,)

sometimes i think about how godawfully lonely he is before he meets ren. because he IS. and it hurts. it hurts a lot. (ryuji got attached to ren JUST as fucking quickly as ren got attached to him. honest to god) i think about how grueling his recovery must have been. nevermind physically. its hard enough emotionally. suddenly finding yourself physically disabled. but he was also abandoned and spat on by everyone who should have protected him and uplifted him.

(im surprised he was even still attending shujin after the incident. i cant see his mom not wanting to pull him out. but i guess athletic scholarship money goes crazy though,,)

Through conversations/various dialogue we learn Ryuji still attends shujin because Kamoshida advocated for him not to get expelled or face charges for what happened. he has no record, then, but he has a reputation. the reason Kamoshida did this was to be seen as Ryuji's SAVIOR, not his abuser. He touted it as such. it was so the staff, students and parents would look upon him as the kind soul who gave the rotten kid a chance he didn't deserve, who was so generous as to not ruin his life even further. (it's sickening.) Adds a layer onto Ryuji's disdain for him, as well as how much Kamoshida controls the school by being perceived as their gold star.

Everyone's always picking on him. He outright admits he knows he's not smart. Self esteem issues are very very common in abuse survivors. The whole school hates him and treats him like a pest. He doesn't ever mention such a thing but that doesn't mean they're not there just masked, there but unacknowledged, or he's not just unwilling to be open abt them. Apologizes for shit that's not his fault (ex. He apologizes if you heal him in battle) showing general willingness to blame himself for things when he shouldn't. Willing to let himself get hurt to appease the track team (doesn't value himself or his safety) He gets so caught up in the fame and positive attention bc self esteem issue havers crave external validation. Are you with me here or am I in too deep