A Sympathetic/Tragic Piece of Fanfiction

Please see u/wiibiiz's post explaining their theory on what happened first. It's better written than this post and has more evidence. This post is pure speculation and I wrote it with the intent of imagining a sympathetic best-case scenario in which nearly every party has benign intentions except for a third-party lawyer who wants to make a lot of money. There's no facts in this post and it's basically no different than fanfiction (the details are made up to illustrate how different parties might be thinking), but I wrote it with the hope of broadening people's minds about other possibilities so there's less hate directed at talents in this community.

Background (for this hypothetical universe)

Nijisanji: A vtuber corporation with a laissez-faire management style single-handedly focused on maximizing profits by cutting costs. They have below-average reimbursement rates, but they also have fewer rules/expectations and they don’t micromanage their talents. Nijisanji provides minimal support to their talents as a rule of thumb, but they are willing to invest in particular talents who show promise for the future of the company. This may give the impression of favoritism, but it's primarily business decisions like expanding markets in new demographics/regions. All talents can pitch project proposals to HQ, but it won’t get funded with company money unless the talent can demonstrate how it will lead to increased company profits. Overall, they are your typical publicly traded small business (<500 employees) in a capitalistic ecosystem. There are some highly passionate staff/managers that have a heart of gold, but most of the staff are unmotivated office workers who aren’t paid more than a fast food worker. For context, Hololive isn’t too much better (the average salary at Hololive is 13% higher).
Nijisanji-EN: Given Nijisanji's cost-saving business model, they have minimal staff in EN management, at most 20-25 employees (mostly part-timers). They don't have an in-house English-speaking lawyer and in fact they primarily rely on legal contractors/consultants when it is time to negotiate contracts with international talents, which is normally only done once or twice a year. Their EN comms department is staffed by a handful of college students who have taken English courses. Day-to-day issues are translated (by college students) into Japanese and reviewed by Nijisanji's JP legal/PR department. If there's a particular problem or emergency, HQ will hire a special legal consultant, but for most daily operations an expert consultant isn't involved.
Nijisanji Liver Contract: The talents are independent contractors, and their contract is renewed every 18 months. In addition to the standard NDA and lower-than-average reimbursement rates, it contains some measures that disincentivize early graduation. First, talents who leave before completing their first 18 months will be required to pay back the cost of their models (a common tactic in the kpop industry). Second, 20% of all of the talent’s profits are saved in a hostage fund that isn’t disbursed if the talent quits early without management approval. While it is technically possible for talents to leave at any time, there is a strong incentive for talents to request management approval for graduation in order to obtain the money in their hostage fund. Despite lower-than-average reimbursement rates, top Nijisanji talents can expect to earn a decent amount (most talents earn enough to quit their prior jobs). However, the company does not pay for any assets or miscellaneous supplies a talent needs for their streams, albeit this is standard practice in the vtuber industry. The Liver Contract also lists specific conditions for which talents can be terminated, meaning Nijisanji cannot fire talents at-will unless the talent has broken their contract. Lastly, the contract is reasonable enough that there are no obvious red flags that would escape review by the talents’ personal lawyers. While there are many restrictions on what a talent can’t say, there’s nothing overtly alarming like a “parrot clause” in the contract that would force a talent to parrot statements from HQ. Management can (politely) ask their talents to say things, but they have no legal means to verbally force them to say particular things on stream. Twitter/email is a notable exception, and staff members have access to the twitter accounts and can post on behalf of the talents.
Nijisanji-EN Talents: There's no intentional/outright bullying. However, there are some groups of very very intimate friends owing to many talents being friends in their PL. This can make it different for some talents to penetrate existing friend circles for social reasons. All of the talents have some complaints about NijiEN, given that it takes 2-3 days before anyone gets a response from management for most issues (manager:talent ratio is 1:8, which means management is overworked), but this is how things have always been at the company since day one. Most talents are relatively satisfied that they have minimal supervision and they can say what they want on stream. It's just that big planned events that involve management are hell for everyone. Also, the pay is only mediocre. Still, a number of tightly knit talents are proud of their Nijisanji identity, attached to their models, and think it’s better to stay together with their best friends rather than selling out for cash. In their view, friendship always comes first, and they pride themselves in building a community where talents are constantly collaborating and hanging out with each other on and off stream. Some talents genuinely believe that Nijisanji is a great place to be despite some systemic flaws that are common throughout the corporate vtuber industry.
Selen: Is frustrated about many canceled events/projects and she feels as though management is biased against her. At first, she was happy at Nijisanji but over time she felt bothered by the fact that many of the major projects were going to other talents even though she’s been working so hard all this time. She is very stressed from other issues primarily happening in her real life, which has already put her mental health to the tipping point. Streaming is her primary coping strategy, and her mental state gets worse whenever she’s alone/offline for extended periods of time. She has thought about leaving the company for some time, but she has been ambivalent and changed her mind several times because she doesn’t want to leave her friends and she’d afraid she might not make enough income as an indie which would force her to go back to a part-time job. She believes strongly in justice and fairness, but ultimately she doesn’t want to cause trouble for her friends or create any drama.
Selen's Lawyer: A self-assured general practice lawyer whom Selen’s parents/family has relied on for over 30 years. He doesn’t speak Japanese and he doesn’t have a lot of experience in international law, but he’s trusted by Selen’s parents because he’s done well for the family in the past. He normally does work on accident/injury liability cases in Canada. His rates are very affordable. He advised Selen when she signed her original contract with Nijisanji in 2021, back when she couldn’t afford a more expensive lawyer, but he seemed to give good advice back then so Selen didn’t feel an imperative to find a brand new lawyer three years later.

Timeline of Events

December 25th - December 31st

Selen POV: She has recently returned from the hospital from her suicide attempt, which happened because she felt like she was abandoned by all her friends. During the Last Cup MV incident, a number of her closest Nijisanji friends reached out to her in private but none of them took her side after Selen complained about management. Some of the language was particularly harsh and insensitive. Her best friends told her that it was her own fault that this incident happened, so she felt betrayed and alone (which triggered the suicide attempt). She decides this is the last straw, because if all of her old friends have turned against her, there’s no reason to stay at Nijisanji anymore. She contacts her lawyer saying that she wants to negotiate her immediate graduation from Nijisanji.
Talents POV: The talents were the first to notice that something was wrong. On Dec 28, Selen suddenly stopped responding to private messages (of which there were multiple ongoing threads related to the Last Cup MV). A few days pass and Selen has never been silent for this long. The talents reach out to management, feeling genuinely worried for Selen’s safety, and HQ contacts Selen’s emergency contact. They find out that Selen was hospitalized for a suicide attempt and they’re all very distraught by this. The talents immediately express concern in their private DMs (“Are you okay?? I’m worried about you.”) However, Selen doesn’t respond to them. Even after Selen returns from her hospitalization, she ignores her friends at Nijsanji and gives them a cold shoulder because she’s still angry at them for siding with management and she’s not in a good mental space. The talents have no idea why Selen attempted suicide and they are hesitant to pry if she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Nijisanji POV: Being a profit-centered company, their first thought is “shit” after finding out Selen had a suicide attempt, but they don’t know anything about the details. They tell Selen to take as long of a break as necessary and that she should prioritize her mental health. Privately, management is already concerned about what would happen if the suicide attempt becomes public knowledge. Since several talents already learned of the suicide attempt, Nijisanji circulates a notice instructing talents that they are not to say anything publicly about Selen’s absence/suicide attempt. Meanwhile, Nijisanji attempts to deflect the public attention by posting a message on Selen’s twitter account.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: It’s been several years since Selen last contacted him. When he hears her request to negotiate her graduation from the company, his first reaction upon hearing Selen’s story is excitement. There’s potential money to be made here! Lawyer-san specializes as an injury/accident attorney, and this smells like the perfect situation to make a fortune. Selen tells Lawyer-san that she only wants to graduate peacefully and she doesn’t want a lawsuit, but Lawyer-san convinces Selen that this is an easy case. He clarifies that the goal isn’t a court battle, but he thinks it’s very likely Nijisanji will settle for a large sum of money outside of court (of which he’ll take a 20% cut). Why leave a lot of money on the table when it’s easy to snatch it for free? Selen is reluctant at first, but she eventually agrees since her financial future is uncertain at this point. Lawyer-san instructs Selen to write down everything that she can think of that could be used as evidence in a case. Lawyer-san tells Selen that this is a private document that will be used for his own notes and it won’t be shared with anyone.

January 1st - January 7th

Selen’s POV: Selen drafts a document containing everything that’s been bothering her about in Nijisanji. Her lawyer tells her that the plan is to threaten Nijisanji to pay $3 million or else they hold Nijisanji liable for her suicide attempt. Selen initially thinks this sum is too high, but Lawyer-san explains that in the accident/liability industry, it’s normal to threaten 5-10x more than the sum they expect the final settlement to look like because like all negotiations, the initial damages claimed must always start high and the final number will be much lower. Lawyer-san looks at Selen’s document and asks if there’s anything else to be added? He tells her that the initial legal notice needs to be extremely aggressive, and the initial claim needs to be as strong as possible in order to have the highest chances of winning the money. He even tells her she doesn’t even need proof for all of her claims – as long as she suspects something to be true, it’s good enough to include it in her notes so he’s aware of her thoughts while he’s preparing the case. Again, Lawyer-san says that this document won’t be shared with anyone. Selen thinks long and hard and writes down everything that she suspects might be an issue, even if it might be a stretch. From an emotional perspective, she’s still angry and in a terrible mental state, so she writes down poorly substantiated allegations that she’ll eventually regret a month later.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san drafts a preliminary legal notice in English (he’s a Canadian general practice lawyer who doesn’t speak Japanese). This preliminary legal notice demands that Nijisanji allow Selen to graduate immediately (+receive the hostage fund) and it demands a $3 million CAD settlement or else Selen will make a public statement and sue Nijisanji for an unsafe work environment causing her to attempt suicide. It claims that unspecified harassment from talents within the company drove her to her suicide attempt and that Selen will also consider independent legal action against her harrassers if Nijisanji does not settle. Lawyer-san shows Selen a draft of this legal notice, and her initial reaction is that it’s too exaggerated (she says again that she doesn’t want a lawsuit or to target her friends or make any public statement). However, Lawyer-san tells Selen that it’s not possible to win cases without exaggerating your position and taking the offense, and bluffing about the charges you might file is a common strategy for getting a better settlement. Legal cases are like job applications. If you don’t present yourself aggressively, you won’t win money in a settlement and it’s normal for everyone to exaggerate a little on their job resumes. Lawyer-san tells Selen to trust him because he’s the legal expert, and he promises there won’t be a lawsuit because he’s 99% convinced that Nijisanji will settle quietly. Besides, she doesn’t need to file a lawsuit if she ultimately doesn’t want to. He explains he’s an expert on Canadian law and the working conditions in Nijisanji are definitely in violation of Canadian labor standards.

January 8th - January 14th

Selen POV: Selen eventually gives her green light on the legal notice, especially after her dad tells her that their family lawyer is very good and has helped their family many times in the past. She tells her lawyer she’s okay with proceeding with the legal notice as long as the entire settlement process occurs secretly. She doesn’t want any of her friends at Nijisanji to find out about this, because honestly it’s a little bit of a stretch to accuse her friends of harassment, although it is technically true that their harsh language on Dec 28 triggered her suicide attempt. Lawyer-san promises that no names or specific details will be given to Nijisanji until they sign an NDA.
Nijisanji POV: Nijsanji receives the preliminary legal notice (in English). Their immediate reaction is “what the fuck?” (after google-translating the legal notice). However, there are no English-speaking or Canadian staff lawyers in the company so they know that they cannot respond immediately without expert opinion. They begin their search for an expert legal consultant with appropriate qualifications for this situation. Meanwhile, the JP lawyers draft a vague google-translated response to Selen, saying: “Thank you for your concerns. We are taking this situation very seriously. As you know, Nijisanji does not have English-speaking lawyers. We are seeking legal counsel from an expert consultant and will provide an official response to you in 3-4 weeks.” Note: Long turnaround times are normal in the legal industry and it can take months to years to conclude any case. Delaying for additional time is a common strategy employed by lawyers.
Selen POV: Selen is furious when she hears about the 3-4 week delay because her manager has done this to her countless times in the past. She is convinced that Nijisanji is intentionally fucking with her. She wants to graduate immediately and she’s tired of being told that X, Y, or Z needs to be delayed. She tells her lawyer that she doesn’t care about the money if she has to wait for months in order to resolve this. She just wants to leave immediately, and she suggests that she’ll hire a different Japanese-speaking lawyer to negotiate with Nijisanji if this is what it takes to leave sooner.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san secretly panics. If he gets dropped from the case, it’s like being shut out of an untapped gold mine. There’s so much money at the tips of his fingers that he begs Selen to be a little bit more patient. While he doesn’t have very much experience in international law (and he can’t speak Japanese), he promises her that he’s a reliable lawyer and he’ll hire a translator so that he can negotiate with Nijisanji in Japanese immediately. Lawyer-san finds a sketchy translator who can translate his letter in less than 24 hours (note: he’s not an experienced international lawyer) and subcontracts the translations. Then, he sends his translated letter to Nijisanji. All future communications with Nijisanji are in Japanese and there are some mistakes in the translation given that the ultra-fast translator he subcontracted the job to isn’t experienced with legal translation.
Nijisanji POV: Nijisanji receives the translated letter from Selen’s lawyer before they find a bilingual English-speaking lawyer who is an expert on Canadian law. The Japanese translation sounds even worse than the original one in English because the translator didn’t capture the nuances of Japanese language/customs that are relevant for Japanese law. The translated letter sounds as though Selen will definitely pursue legal action against the company and she’ll definitely pursue legal action against her harassers. It also states that Selen will release a public statement. However, the lawsuit/statement might be called off if Nijisanji pays $3 million CAD. Nijisanji decides that this is an emergency and they make their next actions based on the content of the letter (as written in Japanese). They ask Lawyer-san to provide proof of Selen’s suicide attempt and further details about the unspecified harrassment while they deliberate internally on what they should do.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san drafts an NDA before providing further details. The original NDA (in English) says that Selen’s personal/health information is confidential and will never be revealed to anyone. Secondly, the details of any settlement regarding Selen’s graduation will not be shared with other talents. The NDA is then translated to Japanese (by a sketchy translator) and sent to Nijisanji for a signature. Nijisanji agrees to sign it, but there is a misunderstanding about exactly what it covers. “Personal information” is very vague, and Nijisanji will later argue that the scope of this NDA does not cover Selen’s document that will be sent in the future on Feb 5.

January 15th - January 25th:

Nijisanji POV: Nijisaniji receives the hospital records and a few more paraphrased details about the alleged harassment and unfair treatment. They begin a quiet internal investigation in an attempt to verify if the allegations are true, starting with reviewing discord logs and interviewing staff/managers in secret, but it will take a lot of time (many weeks) to conclude an investigation like this. Over two years of internal communications needs to be reviewed by contracted external lawyers for a risk assessment to determine if there is actually legitimate grounds for a lawsuit. Irregardless if the claims are true or false, HQ realizes that these allegations would be extremely damaging if they were publicized. It would also be a PR disaster if Selen’s suicide attempt became public. HQ determines that they must do everything to silence Selen at any cost. The bottom line from their side is that Selen must sign a brand new NDA that she will never disclose to anyone that she attempted suicide at Nijisanji. Selen must also sign an NDA that she will never make statements claiming that anyone harassed her at Nijisanji. If Selen agrees to two those points, then Nijisanji’s counteroffer is that they will allow Selen to graduate with $300k CAD (in Nijisanji stock) as a settlement as long as she signs the two additional NDAs that would silence her for the rest of her life.
Selen POV: Selen was not expecting to be presented with two new NDAs. Upon reviewing the details of the new NDAs, she then realizes that terms are quite draconian. Specifically, the NDA states that she will never be allowed to disclose her suicide attempt to anyone, not even her IRL friends or loved ones. This would be an extremely unreasonable/unfair contract. Nobody else at Nijisanji was forced to sign a new NDA about their medical condition when they graduated, and her mental health diagnosis shouldn’t be taken hostage by the company. While Selen had no intent to announce her suicide attempt to the public, this kind of NDA is out of the question because she should still be allowed to talk about her mental health with her friends and supporters whenever she is emotionally ready in the distant future. She sees this as further evidence that Nijisanji is evil. She tells her lawyer that she refuses to sign these new NDAs.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san is content to make additional offers and counter-offers. He always expected that Nijisanji would haggle the price of settlement. For 2-3 weeks, communications cycle back and forth a few times but no consensus or agreement is reached.
Selen POV: Sometime in mid-January, Selen attempts suicide for a second time because her mental state has worsened again. She desperately wants to leave Nijisanji ASAP. Selen gets into an argument with her lawyer. This entire process is taking too long and she can’t wait several months for a negotiation to settle. She flatly tells him that she doesn’t care about winning money and she won’t sign any new NDAs. She tells him to drop the plans for a cash settlement and that she wants to immediately leave Nijisanji on neutral terms, specifically the terms of her original contract.

January 26th - February 4th:

Selen’s Lawyer POV: Reluctantly, Selen’s lawyer communicates on Jan 26 that Selen will drop the settlement negotiation and she wants to leave the company immediately on the (“neutral”) terms of her original contract. He emphasizes that Selen refuses to sign the new NDAs and she reserves the legal right to speak about her mental health at any time she chooses.
Nijisanji POV: This puts Nijisanji in a very difficult spot. Currently, they have the broad legal authority to silence Selen as long as she remains a member of Nijisanji. However, if she leaves, the default Nijisanji post-graduation NDA isn’t comprehensive enough to guarantee that she won’t speak about her suicide attempt in the future. Nijisanji HQ decides to switch to a delaying strategy. They will attempt to delay her graduation until they can convince Selen to sign the new NDAs. Selen is legally entitled to leave on the terms of her original contract, and Nijisanji does not have legitimate grounds to stop her, so they find excuses to respond as slowly as possible. They reply with vague circuitous language along the lines of: “We are still investigating your concerns and will rectify them soon. We hope we can change your mind about leaving the company. Can you please provide additional details about your experiences so we can address the issue?”
Selen POV: “Fuck you, I just want to leave” (worded more politely through her lawyer). From this point onwards, Nijisanji does not respond.
Nijisanji POV: Internally, HQ is debating how much of a liability it is if Selen leaves the company without signing an NDA about her suicide attempts and harassment claims. Different parties inside Nijisanji draft multiple potential statements/responses for several different scenarios. A draft of a (peaceful) graduation notice and a draft of a termination notice presented to CEO Riku Tazumi so he can decide which route to take. At this point, HQ is split 50-50 in terms of trusting Selen. If they’re willing to trust that Selen won’t make a public statement despite not having signed an NDA, then it makes sense to graduate Selen amicably. If they’re distrustful and convinced that Selen will inevitably make a public statement at some point in the future, then it makes sense to terminate her first in order to limit the future damage. The cynics in the company argue that Selen recently attempted suicide, so a “mentally ill person” can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut or behave in a predictable/logical manner.

February 5th:

Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san was disappointed/frustrated when Selen insisted that she wasn’t interested in pursuing money. The gold mine that he could have laid his hands on evaporated in total smoke. Ever since then, he lost interest in her case and it ends up on the bottom of his priority list. He’s not interested in investing any more extra effort into this case, especially since the money he spent on translating those legal documents into Japanese was wasted with nothing to show for it.
Selen POV: Nijisanji has been silent for 10 days. She’s frustrated and angry that they apparently won’t even let her graduate on her original contract terms. To her, this is the ultimate proof that Nijisanji management is pure evil and wants to intentionally screw with her, because every single other Nijisanji talent (e.g. Nina, Pomu, Kyo) had been allowed to graduate on their original contract without any of the stupid shit she’s receiving. She emails her lawyer asking him to do something about Nijisanji’s unresponsiveness.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san gives half-assed advice. He tells Selen that the best way to get Nijisanji to act is to threaten them with a lawsuit again. He explains that Nijisanji is likely to keep dragging their feet since Selen won’t sign a new NDA, and they’re waiting to see if she’ll terminate the contract on her own (thus forfeiting the hostage fund, which is probably worth almost $500k in itself). In order to achieve this, they should present all the evidence that they have in order to scare them into thinking that a lawsuit is actually coming. Lawyer-san suggests that they should send Nijsanji the document containing her private grievances that she wrote a month ago. Note: This is terrible legal advice and the main reason why I think her lawyer is sus and possibly poorly qualified.
Selen POV: She’s just so tired of everything at this point. She doesn’t care anymore. Whatever that gets her out of Nijisanji in the quietest/fastest way possible is all that she wants. She tells her lawyer it’s okay to send her private document as long as it’s kept confidential between lawyers only.
Selen’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san writes a quick low-effort email (sloppily translated into Japanese) stating that: “Nijisanji has not replied in 10 days. Selen will possibly take legal action against Nijisanji and against their talents if Nijisanji does not provide an immediate response. The following is a confidential statement that Selen has prepared with evidence of harassment and favoritism at Nijisanji. Additional consequences may occur if Nijisanji does not respond by 2/6/24.” The lawyer attaches Selen’s unredacted private statement (in English) without summarizing or paraphrasing it.
Nijisanji POV: Lawyer-san’s email (poorly translated in Japanese) is not clear enough. “Confidential” gets mistranslated to “secret” and it doesn’t make sense with the rest of the email so it gets ignored. Nijisanji misunderstands the email to mean that the attached statement is a draft of the statement that Selen imminently plans to go public with. The deadline to respond also does not specify the timezone, which leaves Nijisanji with very little time to make a decision. Adding to the confusion is that Selen’s document is in English, and all of the communications have been in Japanese up until now. Why would Selen’s side suddenly send a document in English attached with an ultimatum? Nijisanji staff conclude through poor deductive reasoning that this must mean it is a draft of a public statement that Selen was threatening to release.
Nijisanji POV: Nijisanji is in panic mode. The legal communications have all been in Japanese for the past month, so Nijisanji does not have an English-speaking lawyer on site (once again). There’s not enough time to consult an English-speaking Canadian law expert, so Selen’s English document is translated into Japanese by college students and reviewed by the JP legal/comms team. Given the pressure of the immediate threats, a decision is rushed. The entire office at HQ is exploding like chickens running around with their heads cut off. They decide that the document is proof that Selen isn’t trustworthy and that she intends to release a public statement soon, so they hastily release the previously prepared draft of the termination notice with only minor edits. This termination notice is only reviewed by English-speaking college students and JP legal before it is urgently posted. Selen is ultimately terminated two hours after Lawyer-san’s email is sent.
Elira POV: Elira landed in Japan on Feb 4 (the day before) and coincidentally happened to be at the Nijisanji HQ office the exact moment this chaos unfolded on Feb 5. She really didn’t know anything about Selen’s negotiations before this point, but she sees all of this unfold in the HQ office in real time. While she doesn’t see the full document, she overhears all of the main points, including the fact that Selen has accused the talents of harassment. She immediately shares this news in the NijiEN internal discord and talents explode into an uproar. Soon afterwards, the termination notice is posted.
Doki POV: Selen, now Doki, is stunned to hear about her termination on Twitter. The termination notice is filled with a bunch of poor excuses (frankly, Nijisanji did not have good evidence that Selen violated her contract) and the hastily assembled notice is obviously intended to discredit her. Aggrieved and angry, she makes a public statement on twitter about her suicide attempt. She is annoyed that Nijisanji terminated her (meaning she lost the hostage fund), but at least she is finally free…....

February 5th - February 11th

Talent’s POV (Vigilantes): Internally, NijiEN is an ugly mess. The talents were not aware that Selen was going to be terminated, and from their perspective, management has suddenly terminated a good friend for shitty reasons after she recently attempted suicide. A vocal group of Selen’s closest friends within Nijisanji are up in an uproar and they lead a witch hunt against other talents inside the NijiEN discord. They are furious that someone in their midst could harass Selen to the point that she attempted suicide, and they’re dead set on uncovering the identity of this secret bully. Initially, most talents are on Selen/Doki’s side. Accusations fly and the discord is a total nightmare, and it’s worsened by the fact that this is a small community and the Nijisanji talents are so close with each other. Dearsqn (who is still a member of the NijiEN discord), watches the witchhunt unfold and privately tweets on Feb 5, “I’m just so sad and so stressed for everyone”, implying that she’s heartbroken on all sides.
Talent’s POV (Accused): The bulk of the heat is focused on a handful of talents mentioned in Elira’s leak from Nijisanji HQ, specifically the talents who messaged Selen on Dec 28 regarding the Last Cup MV. During an emotional witch hunt, some talents immediately get attacked in the NijiEN discord, and they become especially vindictive. Attempting to defend themselves, the accused talents post screenshots of their discord conversations with Selen to prove that they weren’t bullying her on December 28th. The talents angrily argue and accuse each other and it’s just a horrible situation overall for several days.
Talent’s POV (Vigilantes): More evidence/screenshots accumulate in the NijiEN discord. Gradually, a horrible feeling arises when Selen’s friends realize that this is just a witch hunt and they’re hurting/attacking each other for no reason. There doesn’t seem to be any convincing evidence that anyone in particular was bullying Selen in secret. The entire group shares and reviews all of the discord messages each member sent on Dec 28, and while some of the messages are harsh, it would be a stretch to call it “harassment” or bullying. Some doubt is sowed about whether Selen is even telling the truth.
Nijsanji POV: Nijisanji is on fire in all directions, inside and out. Truthfully, the problems within and worse than the problems from outside, in the sense that morale in NijiEN is at an all-time low. The worst possible outcome would be if multiple talents decided to quit NijiEN because they were so hurt and burnt by this controversy. Management is terrified of a mass-quitting scenario. Consequently, when talents beg staff to show the document that Elira mentioned, staff eventually capitulate and show them the document. Management’s thinking is that the witch hunting within NijiEN has gotten out of hand, and it’s better for internal transparency to bring this investigation into the open. Management shows the talents the results of their investigation, including conversations between Selen and her manager. This further skews NijiEN against Selen.
Talent’s POV: Selen’s document is shared with the talents. Their opinion of Selen rapidly sours, as the information (from their perspective) is badly exaggerated and misrepresents certain events. This is also a very heartbreaking time, as many talents can’t believe that Selen (one of their best friends) wrote something like this. The talents who led the witch hunt apologize for accusing certain talents of cyberbullying and the morale in NijiEN becomes very somber and depressed. Everyone is affected by the overwhelming narrative on the Internet that a clique of bullies in Nijisanji who drove Doki nearly to suicide, but they all feel helpless in their inability to change public sentiment.
Vox POV: Some of the most cynical/spiteful talents begin to speculate that Selen did this intentionally. They felt so betrayed by the things they read in the document that they begin to entertain conspiracy theories that Doki was doing this out of greed to win a boatload of money through a lawsuit, or exploiting the drama to launch her new career as an indie. Of note, these talents were not aware of the mistranslations between lawyers at this time (as well as the fact that Doki never wanted to file a lawsuit in the first place), so their opinion of Doki at this time is understandably a lot worse since they are not aware of all the facts. Emotions are high from their closed-doors witch hunt, and some talents feel particularly vindictive. Vox, a notable member of this group (in my headcanon), volunteers to speak on the Feb 12 black box stream and shares his actual opinion with a thinly veiled sour attitude.
Elira POV: In my headcanon, Elira has the most complex thought process and the most tragic conclusion. In this rendition of the events, she inadvertently started the witch hunt (by sharing the things she heard at Nijisanji HQ on Feb 5), and she feels guilty about how much the wild speculation hurt everyone. Initially, she was on Selen’s side and accused some of her other friends for cyberbullying, but then felt horrible after she realized they were innocent. Considering how bad the misunderstandings were inside the NijiEN discord, Elira realizes that the speculation is even worse online with the fans, and it breaks her heart to see her beloved community torn apart like this. She concludes that the best path forward is total transparency and sharing as much of the truth as possible… since this will end the hate and conspiracy theories… but she tragically does not know how much worse things can get….........

February 12th - February 18th

Elira POV: Elira goes to management and begs them to allow the talents to make a statement. Nijisanji HQ initially tells her no, but Elira manages to convince Riku Tazumi that Western culture prizes transparency over anything, and that they have nothing to hide because they did nothing wrong. She asks him to please trust her judgment about the EN market, as the EN talents have largely been managing themselves throughout the years and they’re all responsible for their own successes. The EN talents all know their own communities best. Elira tells him that the termination letter was a disaster and she thinks that the talents would be able to communicate better than the staff, who are largely ESL. Overall, she just wants him to give her one chance to fix everything.
Nijisanji POV: After considering it for a long time, they decide to trust Elira and Vox on this one, mostly because they’ve always been trustworthy up until this point. They discuss things that would be included in the video (in Japanese) and Riku Tazumi is willing to give it a shot. After all, morale is very low in NijiEN and he generally thinks that allowing them to have their own personal statement will help sustain their morale.
Elira POV: At first, Elira wanted to show screenshots of literally everything. Her planned stream would be an hour long and it would include a disclosure of everything that was going on in the NijiEN discord. It would include how everyone originally felt about Selen’s suicide attempt, screenshots from how the talents were initially angry when Selen they found out was terminated, and then proceed on to how the talents determined between themselves how there wasn’t really cyberbullying going on behind the scenes. It would be an endless stream of receipts, and her idea was that extreme transparency would reassure everyone and help the community heal from this mess of misunderstanding.
Nijisanji POV: Most of Elira’s ideas get rejected. Still, Elira, Vox, and Ike go on to make a very long recording, but it ultimately gets edited and cut down to 15 minutes by Nijisanji staff. At this point, Nijisanji has already begun to fire staff internally, and there are disgruntled staff members who vehemently resent the traitor “menhera girl in Canada” who caused all of this. Although there was hardly any Selen/Doki hate before December 28th, this entire sequence of events in January/February created a lot of brand new hate for her among staff in the company. The video is edited in a way that erases Elira’s good intent and emphasizes things that might discredit Doki. Finally, it is posted exactly at the same time as Doki’s first solo stream.
Doki POV: She is genuinely shocked that her document is being talked about on livestream, furthermore by some of her good friends. She had told her lawyer multiple times that she didn’t want her friends to find out about her allegations, and from her perspective Nijisanji had even signed an NDA… She immediately contacts her lawyer and has him reach out to Nijisanji.
Doki’s Lawyer POV: Lawyer-san contacts Nijisanji, but Nijisanji expresses confusion over Selen’s document being confidential. At first, Lawyer-san has a greedy moment and thinks this is the perfect moment to sue Nijisanji for breaking NDA/Canadian privacy laws…! But once he gets in an argument with Nijisanji, it becomes quickly apparent that Lawyer-san’s Japanese translations were just riddled with mistakes all over the place. To be fair, he hadn’t even been aware that the translator he hired (as a subcontractor) was so unqualified for legal translations. He absolves himself of any liability by claiming that the translator is liable for all damages by making erroneous translations.
Doki POV: Disgusted, she fires Lawyer-san. Then she realizes that a terrible misunderstanding had taken place. Doki hires a new lawyer who is actually bilingual and has her new lawyer clarify with Nijisanji that she has no intent to file any lawsuit or pursue any legal action against the company or the talents. She conveys that her document was not intended to be shared publicly and it was meant to be her private thoughts meant only for her lawyer’s eyes. She also writes a letter to the NijiEN talents apologizing for the contents of the document, saying that she wrote it in her darkest moments and it’s really not what she truly feels about her friends. She tells them that she understands if they can’t forgive her, but she’s not a perfect person and she’s really trying her best. She tries to emphasize that no one should be harassed, hurt, or disparaged for any reason and commiserates that the toxic environment online right now is horrible. She tells them she is very sorry.
I can’t write any more… is the rest of this story a happy ending? ;-;