Cendrillon - Tumblr Posts

your thoughts on sumire definitely aren't wrong, but i personally see her as "a bad person pretending to be good." the fanservice, x joker, and being shoehorned into the plot are basically all a given, considering basically all the girls get the first two, and she wasn't in vanilla so ofc she's gonna be shoehorned in royal.

as for sumire herself, her good-girl waifu act is just that: an act. she's meant to come off as a one dimensional waifu to hide her deeper, more toxic traits.

from the first cutscene where we see her true self, it's implied sumire was attempting suicide before kasumi saved her. and her reaction to this? to wish she was kasumi, to take kasumi's successes as her own. and when this doesn't work, she can't compare to kasumi's natural charm, sumire's perfect persona cracks.

and once maruki gains more power, to where he can even ressurect wakaba, okumura, and akechi, sumire still wishes to be kasumi. her desires don't change to bringing kasumi back like the other three. because sumire psychologically cannot stand to live as her inadequate, depressed, talentless self, she has to take kasumi's successes as her own. to her, there's no way "sumire" and "kasumi" can co-exist.

in this way, sumire is an extremely morbid character, disguised as a basic waifu. and the icing on the cake is one of her battle quotes: "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

For context, this a past comment regarding my character opinions post here that I finally decided to include here:

My Rants on Kasumi Yoshizawa + 1 & 2

Thanks for the reply, Anon. I mean, I don’t think Sumire was actually attempting suicide. She got overwhelmed with her frustrations and wanted to get away from the source of them, which is Kasumi, so she ran from her and didn’t look where she was even going. As nice as it is to get responses and feedback, I DO NOT want to relive getting the hate comments from this character’s cult for expressing my thoughts freely. Please be reasonable when you respond to posts and think before firing hate onto others. If you don’t like these posts I have then it’s fine to ignore and not care, it’s not important.

i also agree with your opinion. at first she's kinda cool, i liked the idea of her guilt and thus taking her identity due to the fact she feels that her sister should be the one who's alive. but watching her play out throughout the game was kinda.. meh? everything abt her feels so forced to me. like maruki was also a new character, but he felt more natural. it was pretty obvious that one of the reasons she was there was to be the waifu bait.

tldr: she was kinda cool at first, but was kinda disappointing. 5/10. could be executed better.

For context, this a past comment regarding my character opinions post here that I finally decided to include here:

My Rants on Kasumi Yoshizawa + 1 & 2

Thanks for the reply, Anon. As nice as it is to get responses and feedback, I DO NOT want to relive getting the hate comments from this character’s cult for expressing my thoughts freely. Please be reasonable when you respond to posts and think before firing hate onto others. If you don’t like these posts I have then it’s fine to ignore and not care, it’s not important.

Did I attempt a Cendrillon edit because the fusion between her and Kasumi's soul during the true awakening is still a cool idea and I'm sad they didn't utilize it in her design? Yes.

Like keep the original design for the false one and then change it along with Sumi's PT Outfit for the True Awakening? Just something?

Original for comparison:

Notes:

-Kasumi seemed to have had a primarily Pink color scheme and motif in her Gymnastics outfit so I went with that in mind along with some reds. Also included the brownish hair, red ribbon, ponytail, and even the beauty mark below her eye!

-To add a small dash of Sumire, I put in some blues too! It took a LOT of experimenting with layers and the hue and saturation in each one!

-I just thought it would be heartwarming symbolism of her sister still being there for her in spirit while still accepting her true self and keeping the Cinderella idea at the same time. It's not much, but I loved the challenge and had fun!

So.... Has anyone ever reached a realization that Kasumi's spirit appearing as the main basis for Cendrillon returning might actually symbolize her being more of Sumi's true fairy godmother character in her story as opposed to Maruki who was a more twisted version of that trope?

Like think about it for a sec... And this is coming from someone who adored the fairytale (Disney version especially) when they were little so... In any version, Cinderella's main traits are her selflessness and kindness along with bravery considering that despite the abuse she went through, she still stays kind and true to herself and does not let the abuse affect that. That's part of what makes her a rebel, albeit an unconventional kind.

Sumi has those traits deep down (showcased by the lead up to her false awakening which she spoke more as Sumire since as I've mentioned before, her ultimate breaking point was more about hurting and letting her loved ones like Maruki and Joker down. She was more concerned about them as opposed thinking about herself or the scholarship) but the biggest problem was that she wasn't being true to herself and acted selfishly, even preferring to run away from her problems instead.

The fairy godmother character shows up when Cinderella was nearing her lowest point. It was even sometimes interpreted that the godmother represents Cinderella being rewarded for her unending kindness and unselfishness, leading to her happy ending.

When Maruki helped like so, it made things worse for her but when Kasumi's spirit showed up... It made things better for her and helped kickstart her own happily ever after. Just like the actual fairy godmother!

Starting with bringing her Persona back and this was when Sumire regained the other traits she was starting to lack/lose and became more like Cinderella herself. She became brave enough to stand on her own feet and stop running, she shows more of her kindness to others and even Maruki despite what he did, and she became selfless by deciding to mourn and honor her sister properly by moving forward and not basically live as her for her own selfish reasons as that's what Kasumi would have actually wanted her to do.

In a sense, Maruki was unwittingly rewarding her selfish desires and enabling it. ("Accept this contract... The spell cast upon you.")

Kasumi's spirit on the other hand was rewarding her for being honest and not running anymore. ("Such tenacity... It seems to fit you better than ever before...")