- Joined
- Sep 27, 2021
Archive of the previous title of Maria and Zaion's duet cover on Maria's channel, and archive of Zaion being thrown down the memory hole. I'll add that I don't know if this is a Niji directive or if Maria did it on her own. Petty either way.
Also appropriate:
Crossposting an edit of my Zaion essay under the spoiler.
We have two sources for Niji's version of events: Niji's suspension and termination notices, and XSoliel's statements. Zaion/Sayu's version of events is currently limited to liked comments and spicy vague-posting on Twitch.
My thoughts on the announcements:
- The termination announcement confirmed that stealth suspensions are real. Some people argued that Cover should have done this for Vesper. I really don't like this approach. It places responsibility on the talent to lie, more blatantly in some cases than others. E.g. At the time of Vesper's suspension, he had already said he'd rather stream than visit his family for the holidays. It also breeds rrats about every unannounced break going forward. But it's possible that management sometimes gives the talents a choice: "You're suspended. Do you want to cover it up or do you want us to announce it?"
- About the reasons given: "They're really petty" vs "A corpo has the right to expect these" - open to argument. "Other livers did many of these things" - fact. "Other livers don't do all these things at once" - also fact. "Other livers were punished when they did these things" - I don't know whether that's true.
- What irks me about how Niji has presented this, both from the announcements and XSoliel's statements, is the way they've mixed legitimate offenses (e.g. "Giving false information to other NIJISANJI EN Livers regarding the contents of her communications with ANYCOLOR Inc.") together with subjective offenses (e.g. "Offensive remarks regarding discrimination and sexual assault"). That has completely warped the discourse. The pro-Zaion camp glosses over the legitimate offenses and seethes about preferential treatment and her genmates throwing her under the bus, while the anti-Zaion camp digs for her cancel-worthy clips and her dox and crows about her genmates hating her.
- My speculation: Management jumped down Zaion's throat for something they should have let go, e.g. dark jokes. Zaion looked at other people doing the same thing and seethed about it, then doubled down on stuff she should not have, e.g. running her mouth on stream about fighting with management over her old accounts. Then things spiralled. You can swap whoever started it.
- More detail vs less detail: The level of detail is definitely intended to get people on Anycolor's side. But regardless of whether or not Anycolor intended it, it makes Zaion unemployable to JP corpos at the very least. And there's the reason corpos are often vague, and the reason why employers have codes for bad references. The more you say, the more likely it is that an ex-employee can accuse you of slander or wrongful termination. I do not know if Zaion has any legal ground to stand on, or whether it would be wise for her to sue even if she did. But as things stand, she is pretty much forced to address the situation. Contrast with Yugo/U-san and even Oceane/Zoey, who aren't admitting wrongdoing but are also (currently) content with "I'm thankful you found me" sentiments instead of spicy vague-posts.
- Adding on Zaion's likes on her PL account as an offense is a dangerous precedent. I'll admit I'm a hypocrite because I wished something would happen to Kyo for liking comments attacking Zaion using his PL, but now I think I'd rather not have it on either of their rap sheets.
My thoughts on XSoliel's statements:
- A group stream like HoloJP3 and Kawaii did might have been more prepared, but individual streams are fine in principle, following the precedent of Noctyx and Yugo. If XSoliel knew Zaion's termination was coming, they had the time to think about what they wanted to say when the announcement dropped.
- These statements really do a lot to make people think Zaion deserved to be terminated.
-- For Rushia, the main things that showed the termination was necessary and not just corpo BS were the massive short-term cost Cover incurred in canning her before 3rd Fes, and that the other talents were sad but accepting of Rushia's fate.
-- For Yugo there was less acceptance; there was NijiEN Sad Day on Twitter and Uki went as far as to say that they fought for Yugo.
-- For Zaion... I can see how Kotoka can be taken out of context, but I think she was just disappointed that Zaion didn't take her advice. But Ver goes into a lot more detail than I would want an ex-colleague to, explicitly saying that this wasn't a "one oopsie, you're out situation, this was a compilation of several rule breaks, one rule after another" and so on.
- Having said all that, I don't think Zaion is a backstabber. Before she was suspended, she talked about being the "trouble child" and spoke warmly of her genmates and senpais for their support. So even if Zaion fought with her genmates and senpais as Kotoka and Ver imply, she never held it against them. She might feel differently now though. It's also possible that the fights only occurred after Zaion's suspension.
My thoughts on the announcements:
- The termination announcement confirmed that stealth suspensions are real. Some people argued that Cover should have done this for Vesper. I really don't like this approach. It places responsibility on the talent to lie, more blatantly in some cases than others. E.g. At the time of Vesper's suspension, he had already said he'd rather stream than visit his family for the holidays. It also breeds rrats about every unannounced break going forward. But it's possible that management sometimes gives the talents a choice: "You're suspended. Do you want to cover it up or do you want us to announce it?"
- About the reasons given: "They're really petty" vs "A corpo has the right to expect these" - open to argument. "Other livers did many of these things" - fact. "Other livers don't do all these things at once" - also fact. "Other livers were punished when they did these things" - I don't know whether that's true.
- What irks me about how Niji has presented this, both from the announcements and XSoliel's statements, is the way they've mixed legitimate offenses (e.g. "Giving false information to other NIJISANJI EN Livers regarding the contents of her communications with ANYCOLOR Inc.") together with subjective offenses (e.g. "Offensive remarks regarding discrimination and sexual assault"). That has completely warped the discourse. The pro-Zaion camp glosses over the legitimate offenses and seethes about preferential treatment and her genmates throwing her under the bus, while the anti-Zaion camp digs for her cancel-worthy clips and her dox and crows about her genmates hating her.
- My speculation: Management jumped down Zaion's throat for something they should have let go, e.g. dark jokes. Zaion looked at other people doing the same thing and seethed about it, then doubled down on stuff she should not have, e.g. running her mouth on stream about fighting with management over her old accounts. Then things spiralled. You can swap whoever started it.
- More detail vs less detail: The level of detail is definitely intended to get people on Anycolor's side. But regardless of whether or not Anycolor intended it, it makes Zaion unemployable to JP corpos at the very least. And there's the reason corpos are often vague, and the reason why employers have codes for bad references. The more you say, the more likely it is that an ex-employee can accuse you of slander or wrongful termination. I do not know if Zaion has any legal ground to stand on, or whether it would be wise for her to sue even if she did. But as things stand, she is pretty much forced to address the situation. Contrast with Yugo/U-san and even Oceane/Zoey, who aren't admitting wrongdoing but are also (currently) content with "I'm thankful you found me" sentiments instead of spicy vague-posts.
- Adding on Zaion's likes on her PL account as an offense is a dangerous precedent. I'll admit I'm a hypocrite because I wished something would happen to Kyo for liking comments attacking Zaion using his PL, but now I think I'd rather not have it on either of their rap sheets.
My thoughts on XSoliel's statements:
- A group stream like HoloJP3 and Kawaii did might have been more prepared, but individual streams are fine in principle, following the precedent of Noctyx and Yugo. If XSoliel knew Zaion's termination was coming, they had the time to think about what they wanted to say when the announcement dropped.
- These statements really do a lot to make people think Zaion deserved to be terminated.
-- For Rushia, the main things that showed the termination was necessary and not just corpo BS were the massive short-term cost Cover incurred in canning her before 3rd Fes, and that the other talents were sad but accepting of Rushia's fate.
-- For Yugo there was less acceptance; there was NijiEN Sad Day on Twitter and Uki went as far as to say that they fought for Yugo.
-- For Zaion... I can see how Kotoka can be taken out of context, but I think she was just disappointed that Zaion didn't take her advice. But Ver goes into a lot more detail than I would want an ex-colleague to, explicitly saying that this wasn't a "one oopsie, you're out situation, this was a compilation of several rule breaks, one rule after another" and so on.
- Having said all that, I don't think Zaion is a backstabber. Before she was suspended, she talked about being the "trouble child" and spoke warmly of her genmates and senpais for their support. So even if Zaion fought with her genmates and senpais as Kotoka and Ver imply, she never held it against them. She might feel differently now though. It's also possible that the fights only occurred after Zaion's suspension.
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