#maizono

pairing: kyoko kirigiri x gn!reader x sayaka maizono

tags: romantic rivalry, popular!sayaka vs. loner!kyoko

sayaka and kyoko are quite the opposites! sayaka is the cheerful and popular girl that everyone has their eyes on, while kyoko is quiet and keeps to herself most of the time

however, both girls ended up falling for you! and for both of them, it's pretty obvious that they have a thing for you!

after all, kyoko always prefers her alone time over the company of other's, but with you, she sticks around you, when she really doesn't have to

and the same goes for sayaka. she's always the one being chased by others, but now she's the one actively seeking out your company and always clinging to you!

neither of the girls is open enough to just confess their love to you right away. sayaka might pursue you, but she wants you to make a proper move on her, not to have to ask you out herself

but kyoko might be bold enough to confess to you, once she is close enough with you. and if kyoko where to confess her love to you, sayaka would have no other option but to confess to you as well, just to have a chance with you…

In canon, we see her as a confident girl with high self-esteem, and she has every reason to be: she's certainly beautiful, very smart and rich. She lives a near-perfect life. And she's not deprived of attention, at least from men (Hifumi is an example). Most likely, she received a lot of admiration from others even before entering Hope's Peak. But she remained lonely (her most precious thing is literally a cat, guys). Perhaps she pushed people away, trying to show that she didn't need it, or simply not considering anyone worthy enough to be close to her. Celestia has reached such heights, accomplished so much that people usually don't achieve in their entire lives, and she's only about 16 or 17 years old, yet she exists with a lack of warm human love and care. And when Sayaka appears in her life, genuinely interested in Celestia as a person, everything falls into place. Caring, kind and loving, Sayaka makes Celestia's life so much brighter. With Sayaka, Celestia can be herself without fear of being considered ordinary and uninteresting. This is literally the final push to create a perfect life; the puzzle comes together, everyone is happy and content (especially me)

DR doesn't always have the best track record with women but god does it still do a lot well, especially in the first game. In the first chapter, where we still don't know what to expect in terms of character depth, I feel like Kodaka really takes advantage of that by having Maizono and Ikusaba seemingly play into misogynistic archetypes only to completely subvert them later.

Like, ah yes, here's the female deuteragonist that's starting to emotionally rely on the male protagonist despite seeming much more capable and self-driven than him*. Welp, there she goes being fridged for his manpain or something- hang on, she did what now? She was manipulating him to frame him and her dying message was partly made out of guilt?? Holy shit, where did her act end and her genuine desperation and fear begin??? Did she even know herself?????

And ah yes, an airheaded model character. There she goes doing something stupid and being killed for it; shame there wasn't more to h-FUCKING HELLO?????

They're some of the shortest-lived characters in the series but still have so much nuance to them, just like every other character in DR, if you put even a little effort into looking below the surface. And both of them feel designed to call out the player in targeted ways for reducing people to stereotypes.

Danganronpa