to the person with pants with one yellow and one purple leg at the pasila train station today, I hope we meet again sometime!! have fun on your trip to whereever you're going <3
I wish I was a female tiger because then if I was talking to someone and I was getting off topic I could say “but I tigress,” and then kill and eat them because I am a tiger
found some copium on twitter theorizing that because mizuki's has a bunch of stickers and ena's has one, mizuki probably put that sticker on her paper, meaning they filled these out together, so they were too shy / too tsundere to write each other's names. i'll accept that.
There's obviously a huge difference between Minori and Kanade in terms of outlook on life and personality, Minori is an extrovert and full of hope and joy, Kanade isn't a very social person and doesn't have hope or a plan for the future at all. The biggest similarities, in my opinion, lie in how they're both group leaders fixated on the secondary member of their group. Said secondary members, Haruka and Mafuyu, are obviously also very similar but that's stuff for part 2.
Minori absolutely adores Haruka and she's basically her reason for living. If it weren't for Haruka, Minori wouldn't be where she is today or what she is today, Haruka is the person who made Minori keep going despite failing 50 idol auditions. Every time Minori is sad in especially the main story, she comforts herself with Haruka's words, Haruka told her to not give up, after all.
When Haruka leaves ASRUN and the group disbands, Minori is absolutely devastated and spirals, because her dream is so dependent on Haruka. It's only later in MMJ's story that Minori starts pursuing her dream not because she wants to be like Haruka (or with Haruka) but because she wants to be an idol that spreads hope. She still obsesses over Haruka and her identity is still somewhat dependent on her, but especially now that she sees Haruka not in Idol Mode sometimes, she has been able to see Haruka as a person and lower the standards she had for her.
Kanade, in a much scarier sense than Minori, is also completely dependent on Mafuyu; in her state since the Main Story, her sole reason of living is saving Mafuyu. Kanade was in the depths of despair before she met Mafuyu over the internet, and also saw a very different version of Mafuyu before getting to know the Real her, but she hasn't necessarily gotten that much better mentally over the course of the storyline. It's pretty obvious, from how we see her react to Mafuyu moving back home, that she genuinely thinks there's no worth in living unless to save Mafuyu. Kanade neglects herself and all of her needs, starves herself and never goes outside, because she doesn't value her own life at all, not outside of what she can do for Mafuyu.
In a very similar sense to Minori, Kanade is ALWAYS seeking Mafuyu's approval, and when Mafuyu is in a bad place, Kanade will also get worse. Both of their reasons for living are for another person, and they desperately want to help said person. Both Minori and Kanade are distraught when they see that their attempts alone aren't enough to save Haruka and Mafuyu, and they're both willing to do anything, even actively harmful things, to be enough.
Another similarity is that their obsession isn't necessarily mutual. Don't get me wrong, Haruka and Mafuyu both are very grateful for their group leaders's efforts, but they aren't nearly as intense about the leaders as the leaders are about them. This of course ties into how Haruka and Mafuyu are similar, which I'll talk about more in part 2.
Sorry for the somewhat unclear writing, too many she/hers are present (I would color code but it's very tedious to do on mobile)
as many of you know, i wrote a fic exploring the (very real) possibility of ena having been groomed through her selfie account. today, i'm here to argue, based solely on the canon text, that she was in fact groomed. not necessarily in a sexual way, and not by any one individual, but by social media as a whole.
it's a big claim, so i want to go about supporting it properly. we'll begin with terms and premises, like i learned in ap english. according to dictionary.com, grooming is:
the behaviors and practices that serve to condition ena are mainly comments on her selfies, so let's take a look at some of them. after posting for the first time, she fell asleep and woke up to 700 likes and people saying things like this:
that last one. let me emphasize, this isn't a comment on an established account saying "keep it up!" no it was on the FIRST picture this middle schooler ever posted saying "GIVE ME MORE." flattery, directly followed by demands.
a similar example, this one from insatiable pale color. comments like these have always come across as the most uncomfortable variety to me. they blatantly cross the line from appreciation into desire.
back to the ribbon flashbacks. this one hurts, seeing her cave into their demands so easily. in return for the validation she needs, she gives them, in a sense, access to her body. it's a totally uneven exchange because the relationship comes with an inherent power dynamic.
after all, targets of grooming are usually the most vulnerable people in society. and ena posts selfies at precisely those moments when she's at her most vulnerable. when all she wants is to stop feeling worthless, she gives the internet the power to decide her worth. knowing they'll decide based on one thing only.
that's how she gets trapped in this predatory cycle. the high she gets from those comments makes her addicted, so she continues to exploit herself for their benefit, and they get exactly what they want out of her.
taking a step back, you see what's really so insidious about this. it's not like an individual perpetrator or even a group of perpetrators deliberately set out to manipulate and abuse her. it's a system (if i had to name it it'd be Patriarchy -_-) that conditioned this vulnerable young girl into believing her only value came from her body, and if she wanted to BE valued she'd have no choice but to keep offering up her body for consumption. it's how quickly and easily she fell down that path, to the point that it feels out of her control, like the system was built to facilitate that very outcome. and to whose benefit? rhetorical question, we all know who.
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
annaxmalina
stormborns
izzy806
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
areudirty
