The whiplash I just got is crazy, how did we go from “guy helps friend get over his toxic girlfriend” to “guy threatens to upload CP to blackmail a minor into sexual exploitation”
I thought the progression was pretty straight forward.
This is practically the 5 stages of grief for Hanabi
1. Denial MC left her
2. Anger/Bargaining at trying to get him back
3. Depression from finally being aware of what she did
4. Accepting that she was in the wrong.
She's now at the state where she thinks this is what she deserves. Even if the asshole guy who's trying to exploit her wasn't there, it would have likely lead to her trying to punish herself in some way.
Either way, I don't think this "punishment" is fair for her. I thought her character progression is interesting as its actually not that common for the "power abuser" to reflect afterwards. its more often they are depicted as comical villains who double down on their initial belief that they were right and try to re-establish the status quo where they bully the MC and then just dies/gets removed from the story (followed by 100+ chapters of useless promoting the MC as he's surrounded by beauties on oh how great he actually is).
I'm a sucker for redemption arcs, so I do hope she becomes a better person. Not forgiving her for what she did, nor do I want her to be a love interest to the MC, but enough that they can both find peace with each other and move on.