#yosukeposting

[a-sketchy]

Okay I was looking through my files and I’m never gonna get back to it but I still like a couple panels here, here’s a very unfinished Yosukeism comic from a year ago.

The thing about this, is that Yosuke nearly slips up and implicates himself as liking men, liking Yu. “Heck, if you gave this to a guy they’d fall for you” -> wait, I’m a guy I can’t say that, that’d be irrecoverably gay especially after saying all that shit about really really liking the food -> pivot into “if you gave this to a guy that liked guys (not me (I’m not gay (I’m not like Kanji))) they’d fall for you” -> he does not escape the implication because it’s just true that he likes guys and is therefore “someone like Kanji,” but now he’s being a huge fucking dick out of fucking nowhere and souring what was a sweet moment. Yu’s probably “someone like Kanji” too. Being propped up by someone putting someone you care about down sucks ass, so Yu’s mildly like “I kinda don’t agree that what you said was okay or appropriate,” and Yosuke knows that it was shitty, he knew it while saying it, but he cares about reaffirming his own social position more than he cares about not being shitty, and being hit in the face with the reality of that by the person he like most in this dogshit town, the person he wants and wants to be and will never ever compare to, sucks ass and it’s his own fault. The prosecution rests.

[a-sketchy]

i find it interesting how much yosuke will compliment and praise yu despite how he is, considering i think a lot of guys like him would rather die than earnestly be nice to a guy that isnt in a joking way or that sort of acceptable Dude Man admiration. though ive always chalked it up to probably some cultural differences. and also atlus wanting him to be the sidekick that is insanely loyal that (accidentally?) comes off as more homoerotic than anything haha

I feel like a lot of it is that Yosuke genuinely does think Yu is like a paragon of Guyness, any want of him can be dismissed as a want to be him, which very much does exist alongside the want of him. Another part of it is that Yosuke’s a very deeply lonely person, he gets attached to anyone willing to tolerate him, and Yu as a Guy Friend he can model that sort of “one of the guys” -type acceptance with, Yu offers Yosuke personhood through that he doesn’t get elsewhere, and so reciprocates that by affirming him whatever way he can. And like, Yosuke does straight up really like Yu as a person, and the role (he thinks he needs to play) that will let him stay by his side is that of the best friend hypeman, the sycophant that corroborates but doesn’t challenge Yu’s masculinity, that sets him up as an infallible Hero to other people, but is privvy to a sort of vulnerability and Realness by being closest to him, close enough to see past the hero worship, I think it’s a pretty established role. Also men love men in general, I think there’s a lot of man loving you can get away with as long as you avoid like the plague any comparison to liking men like how women like men. And underneath the gender roles threatening to crush him, Yosuke is a person, and likes Yu as a person, the Guyness of it all is hugely relevant to the ways that’s expressed, but I don’t think any fear of being gay could suppress the underlying affection.

[a-sketchy]

really perpetually obsessed with the scenario in my head where yosuke hits on naoto in order to quote unquote microdose on being gay (bi but, y’know)

either as post lab but pre re-realization so yosuke is under the impression that naoto is a girl, but has up until this point known him as a guy and he presents exactly the same as he did when he was all in on being seen as a guy and seems pretty uncomfortable being treated as a girl actually so it’s pretty easy to just keep treating him as a guy but if i hit on him It’s Technically Not Gay (it is).

and in addition or even in an entirely separate scenario disregarding all that, it’s a matter of naoto being the absolute safest guy to hit on in inaba. like, yu is out cause while he’s probably cool, it’s too high stakes. hitting on your boy best friend (intentionally lol) is like crossing the rubicon; no going back from that. kanji is out because yosuke has been too much of an interplanetary scale asshole to him and anything kanji could possibly say would decimate his ego. kou & daisuke are out cause while there’s kind of a vibe there yosuke doesn’t know them that well and ergo can’t trust them to not blab and the entirety of inaba finding out. the entire rest of inaba is out for obvious reasons. the entire rest of everywhere else is out because what’s yosuke gonna do? operation babe hunt but gay this time? c’mon. naoto is the absolute safest option. yosuke’s ego might get bruised but naoto has already had a guy express interest in him and been normal about it (unclear if he realized but good enough), is else-wise queer, and would not say shit to literally anyone. he’s perfect

also i think with their powers combined they could bungle this social interaction so bad they feel Obligated to date for like a week. like they both fuck up their phrasing and mutually think “oh god he genuinely likes me (untrue). i can’t back out now”

[a-sketchy]

the thing with souyo is that yosuke would only ever want things (affection, commitment) on his terms because the situation (being bisexual. while in inaba) is entirely terrifying and far too vulnerable. paranoia at being surveilled + having something he wants bad in his grasp is a deadly combination. he scrambles for any ounce of control he can get so he can feel like the world isn’t ending. at the expense of yu, who could see it for what it is while being Fine with that, because what is he good at if not operating within the bounds of what people want from him. cause he wants this too, in whatever form he can be allotted. but there’s only so much denial of one’s feelings a person can take in a context that should be reciprocal before something breaks. either something changes fundamentally or it ends, badstyle.

[a-sketchy]

i like this sequence. yosuke literally did not need to say anything yet said “i relate to you. not that one part the other part the other thing you said a couple sentences ago. not the main thing. i don’t relate to that” like. sure man. okay.

[a-sketchy]

yosuke’s deep understanding of social dynamics and like, the themes of the game, and the way he then perpetuates said social dynamics always gets to me. guy who understands how the world works, resents it, and then enforces the status quo on everyone around him. bro.

[a-sketchy]

i can’t stop thinking about cishet souyo now… yosuke’s getting a good grade in heterosexuality. it’s insane either way. girlyosuke’s slink is a hallmark movie built on the bones of psychological horror. a bisexual girl with homophobia so internalized it hits marrow in love with a guy that keeps saving her. the platonic ideal of acceptable attraction. oh my god. i entirely do think rank 10 still happens like that. wanting to be equal to yu instead of the roles of girl and guy, thereby trying to cast away the heteronormativity girlyosuke was clinging to in favour of becoming people to each other…

and then yosuke’s inferiority complex thing with girlyu is insaaaane. absolutely nothing would change about girlyu except the way people react to her. so like literally everything that yosuke sees in yu as the paragon of masculinity is still there, but recontextualized as something feminine. the whole tangled up envy/attraction… yu is everything yosuke wants to be, and i don’t think that’d change even slightly if yu were a girl. here’s how transfem yosuke can still win. and yes rank 10 still happens like that, there yosuke grapples with how he’s been seeing her as a girl and as someone out of reach above him instead of an equal, yada yada.

also i think het souyo is an unstable isotope that usually degrades into gay souyo because yosuke compulsively becomes whatever gender yu is. and i’m barely kidding

[a-sketchy]

considering yosuke's character is based largely on internalized societal values and toxic masculinity, how do you think he would be like as a cis girl? i feel like he would be hyperfeminine and probably to the point as a typical mean girl and the other possibility in my head apart from that is being a femcel who resents other women for managing to be pretty, get a boyfriend, etc since yosuke would quote on quote 'fail' in 'womanly' roles. but im curious for what your intepretion would be

ooooh, interesting question! i think first of all, the way in which yosuke is ostracized would change, so the way she reacts to it would change, at least somewhat. i don’t think cis girl yosuke would be hyperfeminine or a mean girl cause both of those things are very social, they’re only really acceptable if they’re what your clique are doing, and yosuke doesn’t have a clique. my interpretation is probably closer to your second option, though i think she’s more inclined to envy and self-deprecation more than resentment.

i think femininity wouldn’t “come naturally” to girlyosuke, so she’d overcompensate and double down on anything she can perform, say heterosexuality. like how i believe canon yosuke is more interested in women as an extension of masculinity, i think cis girl yosuke would be more interested in men as an extension of femininity, but those dynamics aren’t quite parallel. pursuing men isn’t performing acceptable femininity. not pursuing men isn’t acceptable femininity. there isn’t really an acceptable femininity at all, no comfort of doing it right. i think girlyosuke would still have an interest in fashion magazines, just womens fashion. so she’d parrot the same kinda “guys like girls who” shit, especially as justification for her own taste lmao, but she wouldn’t then use that to be hyperfeminine herself, cause trying too hard to be pretty/attractive to men despite being plain will get her figuratively murdered, socially, especially when she’s already in a precarious position as the face of the thing that everyone loves to hate. i mean, not trying hard will also result in her ostracism, but that’s the baseline. girlyosuke is so dire. she’s even more like saki. she’s simultaneously put on a pedestal and degraded as the princess of junes. i think she’d be pretty desperate for any friendship she can get, while resenting the town that shuns her.

honestly girl yosuke is just yosuke + misogyny. vast swathes of her deal are the same just flipped, then reconsidered how she would be seen by the society around her keeping in mind misogyny.

the things i think would most change are her relationships to those around her, depending on if they’re also cisswapped or not. girl yosuke with guy yu is (superficially) uninteresting like every romance in p4, except it would be like a romance in p4 even if the writing around it wasn’t p4, you know? cishet souyo is inescapably very persona 4. it’s plucked straight out of yosuke’s dreams. the comphet + bisexuality combo… dire. a guy she genuinely likes coming along willing to tolerate her? she’d think him a saviour. it’s fun to think about. but if yu’s also a girl then it’s as it is in canon + internalized misogyny, which is also very fun.

the most interesting thing that i think would change is girlyosuke’s relationship to saki, chie, and yukiko, if they’re also girls. with saki it’s that they’re then very very similar, and without the looming spectre of heterosexuality (other than what’s peddled by yosuke lol) i think saki might be a fair bit more open to her. girlyosuke would still like-like saki. and saki would still find the way she desperately clings to her annoying and etc. but they might be closer than they were in canon, which of course would make what comes next worse. in this situation, i think you could get girlyosuke’s shadow explicitly acknowledging that which shall not be named (bisexuality), which is awesome and could have lasting effects on her character arc compared to canon yosuke. with chie and yukiko, i think girlyosuke still wouldn’t necessarily fit in with them, especially with her penchant for heteronormativity and acting stupider than she is, but they’d be more sympathetic and not outright hostile to her. (also, it’s neither here nor there, but imagine the homoeroticism of girlyosuke saying the exact same shit she says about them in canon. fun.) three people that tolerate her starting out the story is pretty sweet, but they also all come with caveats, and she wouldn’t feel safe being attracted to them as she is, so.