#idk what to tag my posts where i go on vague rambles about danganronpa

[vampelune]

This is your open invitation to infodump about an opinion you've been wanting to share. Go off, friend 💙

well considering my recent post, think its safe to safe to say im a strong opinion of the fact that komaeda + mikan would not be best friends, like most people seem to think they would be. i think they would strongly dislike each other, if not outright hate each other at some points.

there's a few reasons for that. for mikan, she's just... she bitter. jealous. anguished. i think of the line she said in her trial, to komaeda -- "is it because you're also someone who isn't loved by anyone?"

and i read that as mikan not only comparing herself to him, but bitterly envying him. because at this point, she knew -- she remembered their time in despair so there is no reason she would not remember komaeda's own love, toward kamukura, and perhaps she read it as one-sided.

and perhaps she's bitter, because as she knows, kamukura is alive. komaeda feels love toward someone, at the very least, who is alive. komaeda has what she doesn't, even after she killed for her love, twice over, she knows that enoshima is dead, and soon she will be too.

and she felt that way during the tragedy, seeing komaeda have what she doesn't. knowing that komaeda, as well, had earned enoshima's "love", whatever it was. felt jealous of him twice. felt angry.

and komaeda? he just thinks that tsumiki's weak. tsumiki, unlike the others, isn't into despair for the sake despair. she fell into it for love, plain and simple, and that disgusts him. komaeda can say he's in despair for the sake of the hope that will overcome, that he instigates despair to lay ground for hope, to provide stepping stones to overcome, and his classmates all still bear that hope somewhere deep within them, even as they fall to despair, but tsumiki?

she just loved enoshima. she did what enoshima told her, fell in love with despair because enoshima loved despair. she didn't idolize hope or despair, she was just in love, and then, in anguish at the loss of their love.

to me, i think they would just... hate each other because they see each other in themselves, the parts they hate most.

there's just things that they would dislike, too. jealousy, and envy. things like how kamukura certainly doesn't mistreat komaeda to the same degree enoshima mistreats tsumiki. things like how komaeda hates hospitals, hates medical equipment, hates the superficial care and compassion of a nurse who's paid to deal with him. how tsumiki is alone, after enoshima's passing, mostly because she forces herself to be out of undeserved "loyalty" to enoshima, but komaeda moves on so quickly to letting kamukura be his sole master instead of enoshima.

how komaeda, in all his similarities to tsumiki, how they are so deeply alike, how their traumas and sadnesses and attitudes are similar but far apart, how they're mistreated and hated by their peers, still has love. he has something she doesn't. and why? what does she lack, that he makes up for? why is she undeserving, when he isn't?

but they're so "kind", they play nice, now. despair is over, and the m.o. on jabberwock is to be nice. to put past grievances behind them. to get back their lost youth and be happy, with everyone there.

but tsumiki and komaeda don't let things go easily. they may play nice, may put themselves down around others in an attempt to make up for their grudges, hatred, annoyances -- but they internalize it all the same, still feel bitterness in one form or another.

tsumiki, in wanting to finally have dominance over her bullies, over others, to have control and agency when she's never had it, so she hurts others. makes them dependent on her. takes joy in it.

komaeda, when he finally finds a reason to be put himself above someone, he does. he takes joy in it, takes joy in any form of control because it's what he lacks, in his life. the ability to have a path he dictates, not luck.

so they speak to each other tensely, with teary eyes and tight-laced smiles. put themselves down in a way that reads as passive-aggressive, in a way that sleights the other. sometimes they snap, say things that go over that line they obsessively toe, and usually someone's nearby to pull them apart because they don't like to be alone with one another. don't trust one another, not at all.

they both want control. but at the same time, they just want to let go of it completely, to find comfort in the lack of agency, of letting someone else take the lead and control their lives. willingly, this time. because they chose it. chose someone like enoshima. someone like kamukura.

they need therapy, really.