zeno/salem

Happy Birthday Johnny Cade! 🎂

this is the guy who is a direct parallel to mafuyu asahina. who, y’know

y’know. very narratively and thematically and aesthetically different but at the same time they’re so fucking similar and i am DYING for colorful palette to let them meet because goddammit. kindred spirits. and while i firmly believe that at least mafuyu will register just how similar they are (not sure about tsukasa because he is very much “i am closing my eyes. i do not see it.”), i want to see what direction the actual writers will take it.

we’ve got two kids who have been emotionally neglected in a big way - who have been forced into these perfect little boxes. the prim and flawless daughter, always at the top of her class, always gentle and polite, never causes a single problem, always smiling. VS the big strong older brother who can take care of his chronically ill little sister and who never needs to be taken care of himself, who never causes any more problems for his already stressed parents, who never cries, who never stops smiling.

in their desperation for even a crumb of approval and recognition from the two people in their lives who should have been more attentive and should have been there from the very first moment ANY semblance of a problem began manifesting (their parents) - they have contorted themselves to these boxes. so much so that they have completely lost who they might have been before. all that’s left is what everyone else wants them to be.

and now we’re stuck in a sort of endless cycle of existential dread: “How much of me is real? Do my friends love me for me, or the mask? If I take off the mask, will I still be loved? If this is all I know, can I call this the real me? How am I supposed to find the real me, if I can’t? Who the hell am I?”

these are questions no kid should be asking themselves. these are questions with no answer. but at the same time, they are questions that have to be faced and answered - in one way or another. you must come to your own personal interpretation of them, or you’ll never find peace. they’ll always haunt and torment you.

(side note that i almost forgot about: while mafuyu is very much putting up a front and acting like someone who doesn’t exist, has never existed, and never ever will truly exist, tsukasa’s not going that far? it’s not a full mask. more like, he knows who he wants to be, he knows how much he’s capable of, and he just. wasn’t achieving that naturally. so he took the “Fake it till you make it!” approach. but he didn’t completely destroy his own personality and replace it with something 100% false like mafuyu did. he just kinda…deleted the less savory parts. the parts that might make people worry about him instead of smiling bright - the parts that are still very much a lonely, scared child left alone in a dark house, wondering if his little sister would die; wondering if he would lose everyone who has ever cared about him; wondering if he would be forgotten and abandoned, left behind in a pile of worthless, insignificant bits of trash like a worn-out stuffed animal. [i don’t think it’s a coincidence that his SEKAI is populated by so many stuffed animals, which are typically thrown out or tossed into storage and forgotten about as the children who once depended on them grow up. and i believe kaito’s motherly disposition towards them reflects tsukasa’s lingering desire to just… be taken care of. for once. so he can feel safe and like he’ll never be abandoned, like his loved ones will never stop needing and wanting him in their lives.] because pretending these feelings don’t exist totally won’t bite him in the ass later.)

and even with that in mind? funnily enough, mafuyu’s farther along the road to recovery and peace than tsukasa is. we could sit and debate about the healthiness of her methods - but here’s the thing: she sees the box she has trapped herself in for years, and she has separated herself from it. she understands that that is not who she is. and she’s slowly figuring out who the real mafuyu is. the person beneath layers of expectations and pressure and masking.

tsukasa hasn’t even fucking started yet. (ha. get it?)

he’s deeply afraid of and resistant to confronting his past and his true feelings. we see it in the beginning of wonderlands x showtime’s story. his SEKAI unsettles him. which is so interesting because every other character goes to their SEKAI and they’re like, aw hell yeah. love this place. they feel right at home. after all, these places are culminations of their feelings. they were made FOR them. like, the one other time we’ve seen two characters resist their SEKAI was shiho and honami!!

because they were denying their true feelings. because to embrace their true feelings would mean pain and regret and guilt and a million other things they were too afraid to deal with.

so with that, we have confirmation that tsukasa didn’t just “forget” why he decided to pursue acting. he was actively repressing those memories - those feelings. and possibly having to face them scared the shit out of him. because once they’re faced, he’s just a hair away from uncovering why he repressed them in the first place, isn’t he? within an instant, the magical wonderland mirage can fall apart. and without that… what does he have? what does he have to offer? to justify his existence? how can he make people smile if they know he’s suffering beneath the sparkly grins and showy costumes? how could he be so selfish, putting his problems onto others? didn’t his parents always tell him to be brave and strong and not to cry and put on a great big smile instead? he needs to listen to them; he needs to make everyone happy. he needs to be a star.

(and i do have to say - the use of “star” to define himself does disturb me on some level. because stars don’t live forever. and the bigger and brighter the star, the shorter its life cycle. stars expand, and then they explode - one last dramatic, breathtaking display; the ultimate show - and then they fizzle out. and then they die. i’m going to just leave this analogy where it is.)

i think another reason why tsukasa was so disturbed by his SEKAI is because he recognized in an instant the… falsehood of it. it’s just like him. all noise and distractions and bright colors and confetti and theatrical drama that distracts you from seeing what’s, really, juuuuuuuuuust beneath the surface. emu, nene, and rui feel more or less at home in it because it’s just like tsukasa!

the tsukasa they’re allowed to see, anyway.

and i do think rui’s constant poking and prodding at the inner workings of the place goes a little deeper than just his natural curiosity. he’s an intuitive person - he knows how to dig under people’s skin, how to get them to open up… but i think, to a degree, tsukasa is kind of a mystery to even him?? and he doesn’t question him right to his face because he already knows it won’t work. luckily for him, there’s a magical place created by tsukasa’s feelings that he can investigate. if he can learn more about SEKAI, he’s bound to learn more about this guy he knows and calls a friend and yet at the same time, he doesn’t know at all…????

alright, anyway. backpedaling to mafuyu for a moment - like i said near the beginning of the post, i want her to meet tsukasa. i want something to happen where they are forced to interact for longer than 5 seconds. because i think… meeting her would spark a chain reaction in tsukasa. no i don’t want tsukasa to have a mental breakdown but it’s gotta come out at some point because i don’t like the star analogy you guys.

i say mafuyu would see herself in tsukasa because like. in an Instant, she singled out mizuki as being even more suicidal than she is. despite mizuki’s bubbly and bright attitude. she sees through people’s shit without even trying. i don’t think it’d be any different with tsukasa.

You didn’t ask to be born into this world.

You didn’t ask to be treated the way that you were treated—whether it was by bullies, parents, or other family members.

You didn’t ask to “be a burden” to your caregivers, you deserved that space to be loved and safe

You didn’t ask for your consent to be broken.

You didn’t ask for the shame and guilt someone put you through.

You aren’t bad for something happening to you. You aren’t your trauma.