CV: Hoshiki Seena (星希成奏) Original TL from Anonymous: pastebin.com/phMZ81Hg All Riamu's commus to date: • Yumemi Riamu Original version: • [OLD] Yumemi Riamu Com...
Between the "Hello, I'm trash!" line and the fact that you find her arguing over the internet... This isn't an idol, or a waifu. It's my spirit animal.
Riamu is very cute, even if she doesn't have a lot of confidence in herself, and it shows even as she is, she does really love being an idol due to how she met Producer at an underground event and he recruited her into 346 Production and the Cinderella Girls Project.
I feel sympathy for her, after reading her background and all, and tbh I'd give all love I have for her if not cause I already madly in love with shimamura uzuki
Y'know, I thought the subs were a troll at first. But when they started speaking I was like, "Damn, I actually know what they're saying; I watch way too much anime."
There are a few layers to this. Layer 1.) Canonically Riamu is mentally ill. Just how severely so is up for debate but just going off of this she very strongly resembles someone I know IRL... who struggles with getting into fights online and spiraling into self-loathing and suicidal ideation as a result. You can infer that Riamu probably struggles with self-harm of some kind, especially given how poorly she views herself (after all, if you see yourself as "trash" then you'll probably see yourself as "expendable" by extension, so self harm is "no big deal") Layer 2.) In association with her mental illness, Riamu is also a "menhera" - a "mental healther" - so, someone who aligns with a subculture focused on mental health awareness and coping through a mixture of things that *may* include fashion, often following a "yami kawaii"/"yamikawa" or "sick-cute" aesthetic which mixes "yume kawaii"/"yumekawa" aesthetics ("dream-cute" - cotton candy colors like she's wearing and ultra cute things) with medical themes, macabre themes, self-harm and injury themes, words and phrases that represent or interact with the wearer's illness (sometimes as extreme as "fuck you" or "I want to die", but often as simple as "broken" or benevolent as "breathe"). Note the cotton-candy-colored skeleton of her shirt and the cute-and-fluffy heart which both plays into the macabre theme (it's a heart) and contrasts it with cuteness (but it's a heart *symbol* instead of an actual heart, and it's pink, fluffy, and anthropomorphized with googly eyes). Also note that the yume kawaii aesthetic's employment is a double-edged sword simultaneously softening the blow of the morbid themes *and* sending a message of "mental illness and cuteness are NOT mutually exclusive". Welcome to a beautiful, boundary-pushing subculture Japan desperately needs which gets way too much bad rap as "romanticizing mental illness" (when in reality it's trying to *destigmatize* it, and a supposed increase in cases just means more people are *revealing themselves* and does not validate the argument that it makes mental illness "trendy"). The truth is, Japan's mental healthcare and mental health culture in general are absolutely horrible and desperately need for a movement like menhera to thrive. Layer 3.) "Vent art" is another part of menhera subculture, though it's something many in the West will recognize readily. Many artists who struggle with mental illness will make gory illustrations as a means of coping, sometimes by employing aesthetic choices similar to yamikawa and sometimes by just getting downright dark and puking all those horrible, insufferable emotions right onto the canvas without mercy. Naturally this gets shared for a billion and one reasons ranging from a sort of "group therapy" pursuit and the same kind of "show what's really going on" mentality menhera totes to people finding it emotionally provocative and evocative and/or dumping money into a Patreon in response. So... all that adds up to people's imaginations doing a *lot* with poor Yumemi-chan. You can infer that she'll *have* those gory moments or experience emotions those images strive to emulate, she's part of a subculture that has strong ties to vent art, and so people are going to draw her beaten and bloody. It's an homage to her nature, an attempt to connect and emulate or create representation and fellowship, and many other things.
