@ssruis: I don’t think half this fanbas...

I don’t think half this fanbase really understands rui’s childhood wrt his relationship to his peers but I can’t even be Big Mad and “read the stories” about it because it’s most clearly shown in the single event that didn’t come to en (rmd)

I mean I can. Go watch a fan TL. Despite my distaste of the story within a story, the actual Rui Lore is important. But it’s understandable the en fanbase has a blind spot there.

Rui was primarily isolated and ostracized. He was othered first because of his intelligence & then when he tried to bridge that gap with shows (because he fell in love w them and it worked w nene) he was completely rejected.

There were a few instances of him getting kids to participate in his shows, but they always left because they thought it was dangerous and he was weird for asking them to do stunts/planning that out

By the time he hit middle school he’d completely withdrawn & accepted the “people are people I am me” mindset where he stopped reaching out or believing anyone would ever perform with him

This is also why his relationship with tsukasa is given so much weight. Because tsukasa acknowledges that rui’s direction is Crazy but he trusts rui to keep him safe & encourages him/gives it his full effort. Which he’d grown to believe would never happen.

I’m giving the abridged version w/out my full take on how that shaped him as a character and what you can extrapolate this is more so a “stop getting your info from twitter where people also haven’t read the stories” post. Go watch a rmd fan TL. Do it.

He wasn’t harassed or subjected to what mizuki went through. He was ignored and treated like an other/a weird and dangerous freak. Which is its own form of bullying! but it’s different from what I’ve seen a lot of people saying he experienced.

There are commonalities in their experiences & the game makes that pretty clear. But there’s a reason mizuki skips school entirely and rui doesn’t.