#am i projecting on kaito a bit? well maybe who cares

[mechaseraph]

Dissociation/Self-Confusion/Losing sense of self

I got sick with freaky cold, so this was heavy influenced by my restful sleep 'caused by it.

Stupid bonus comic ft. Hakuba, whom I drew for the first time. I am sorry, Hakuba, I'll draw you better next time I promise

Kaito won't open to him, but will share some of his issues in stupidest way if he thinks it'll be funny. At least that what I like to think of their relationship

[babymafuyu]

hiiii frankie hope you're well! if you feel like chatting, what are your favorite project sekai agere headcanons? one of ours is that airi is a super fun caregiver! she's canonically good with kids, so we think she'd be such a cool older sister figure. she'd definitely love caring for the rest of mmj, as well as maybe ena and mizuki!

- the confluence/@abc04

hii!!! i am feeling super well and would love to talk about this ^^

i absolutely adore caregiver airi aww!! on the topic of mmj, i definitely think haruka is a flip, but she regresses more than she acts as a caregiver! shizuku is also a flip, but tends to caregive more than regress. airi is also a flip to me!! to break the trend, though, minori is exclusively a regressor imo!!

some other headcanons i love are flip shiho, flip honami, regressor saki, regressor nene, regressor emu, regressor kohane, regressor mafuyu, regressor kanade, and flip mizuki, but i headcanon/am open to headcanonning the whole cast as regressors, flips, or caregivers ^^

oh also i think that n25 miku is a flip who is a bit more of a regressor + n25 len is a regressor! also wxs kaito is a caregiver, and so is leo/need luka!! and we can't forget the regressor of all time, wxs miku!

[magicflowershop]

❁ every 12.30 pm

➳ timeskip!sugawara x reader oneshot

➵ fluff, heart-warming, cute kids

✿ you found a cute teacher in your niece’s school, so maybe picking up a kid from school everyday isn’t such a bad idea.

❀ // hi! i’ve been gone for so long and finally i finished this after weeks of letting it rot in my drafts,, i don’t wanna delete this bc it feels like i’ll foresaken my angel Suga so here i hope you all enjoy my first oneshot :>

word count // 3,257

of all days, you picked this day as the day to slack off.

there was no reason to doll up, you reasoned. this was your rest day. no plans were made and no places you needed to go, so you went and picked up your sister’s kid wearing your house clothes.

no biggie. a few blocks distance wouldn’t hurt your sense of insecurity. a kindergartener’s teacher also wouldn’t possibly judge how you look when you’re only out to pick a kid up from school.

today, however, was different.

everything became instinct. your fingers went up the center of your jacket, to zip it up entirely. your hands then reached down to your sweatpants, checking if you were wearing it the right way. to your hair, if there are hair strands that are where they’re supposed to be. everything became instinct so you don’t look so much like a mess

in front of this fine preschool teacher.

“i’m Futaba’s guardian.”

your throat let out the softest, shyest voice you could ever project. you found yourself shamelessly, and instinctively, acting cute in front of this fine preschool teacher. 

how else were you supposed to react? his beautiful gray hair enticed you, with a fringe softly parted on the center of his forehead. his porcelain skin that put Snow White to shame, his round, brown eyes that reflected every star in the galaxy, and his smile that could win a boxing match against the sun. not to mention, the mole under his left eye definitely hit the mark.

“good afternoon, Futaba’s guardian-san.”

hearing his voice for the first time, you’re decided. it was a crush.

perhaps it was superficial of you. you claim to fall for a guy you don’t know only for the fact you found him cute. you thought looking at him, admiring him like this was enough however when his angelic smile brightened at the sight of the children waving bye-bye to him and him waving bye-bye back. when he went down on one knee in front of your sister’s daughter, politely asking her she has to stop playing with her classmates because you have come to bring her home. when Futaba spread her arms and wrapped them around his neck, telling him a lispy see you tomorrow.

how dare you face someone like him looking like this.

on the way home, you were dead-set on asking your sister to let you bring your niece home every schoolday. seeing him once was not enough. something about him gravitated you to wanting to see more of him.

you remember the name written on his nametag when you caught the last glimpse of him. 

“Sugawara”

his name reminded you of grass fields, as it is what it meant. it was perfect for him. the aura he emitted was rather calming. people must like having him around for he’s a breath of fresh air. he really was a perfect kindergarten teacher.

“how was school, Futaba?”

your niece skipped as she walked, visibly excited to talk about her day. “it was really fun! my classmates and i had a tea party earlier! Futaba almost spilled the cup because it was too hot.”

“what about your teachers?” you wanted to smack yourself for squeezing information about a guy from your 5-year-old niece. it is a desperate move however, which else choice do you have?

“ah! Sugawara-sensei read us a beanstalk story before nappy time.” Futaba put a finger on her chin as if to think about what else happened. she had no idea how hooked she got you to listen to her story. “then, then Sugawara-sensei helped Futaba with her clay family!”

you then considered yourself lucky.

“do you like Sugawara-sensei?”

and pushed the topic about the man further, seeing the sparkles in your niece’s eyes and how she skipped even happier. “yes! yes! Futaba’s favorite teacher is Sugawara-sensei,” she declared and continued shyly. “he helped Futaba talk to her crush Kaito-kun.”

when you said you were dead-set, you are dead-set for real. what’s there to lose? kids love him, including your own niece. he’s beautiful. he has a gentle voice. he probably smells like daisies. you just have to befriend him and get to know about him some more before introducing him to your parents-

as a friend. 

right?

“for what? did you find a cute guy there or something?”

it sucked your sister knew you too well.

that day, you invited yourself in your sister’s room the second she got home from work. the sly yet desperate move visibly annoyed the older so much that she knew you had something up your sleeve to even dare show up in her room.

“no. just that, it’s a good way to take breaks from the café. plus, i get to hang out with Futaba.” you explained as simply as you could, even though your sister literally can see right through your lies.

she hummed and replied with, “you never get out of the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. when i asked you to take Futaba home from school yesterday, you hated it because your break time from café is ruined. please. find someone else to fool, y/n.”

you soon admit that you truly are dumb. that, however, did not stop you from redeeming yourself to your sister; that being telling the truth and not exactly redeeming anything. you told her the man you set your eyes on in Futaba’s school. you jokingly told her it was love at first sight even though you never believed of something as ridiculous as such.

besides, your sister has no room to reject. you aimed at two birds with one stone. not only do you get to see more of the guy, but you will do your sister a favor of taking care of her daughter for free.

she sighed, finding no way to deny this. “i hate to say it but your timing is too good. i was thinking of finding a babysitter for Futaba since both of us are busy. but if you insist, who am i to decline?”

so this side job began the following day. 

thirty minutes spared during your break before you engage yourself to war. you decided to spend those thirty minutes to rearrange yourself. you would rather not switch into your house clothes like you did yesterday, would you? this time, you chose carefully. you didn’t want to look like a floor rag but you didn’t want to look like you went there to go on a date either. even to contemplate whether or not you must add a little more blush on your cheeks to look lively.

you changed into a casual fit. a plain shirt, denim shorts and a pair of slip-on sandals. it was an attempt to not look like you were trying too hard. not with those clean ponytail and tinted lips.

“good afternoon, i’m Futaba’s guardian.” you told yourself a good job that you remembered to greet today.

but Sugawara wasn’t the one you directed that to. 

he wasn’t around. you sneaked glances left and right to see if he was playing together with the other kids, but alas.

you walked home with Futaba, holding her hand. you try to match the child’s mood as she was very elated to talk about her day. on the other hand, you; Sugawara could have been busy. you can still see him again the following day.

the following days, you lessened your get up from your first attempt. he was present, but the greetings were the same as first day you met.

what the hell are you supposed to do now? do you start conversations? well, of course, you told yourself, since you’re the one who wants something from him. but how? what should you talk about? your day? his day? the kids? his job? what?

“thank you for taking care of Futaba.”

“hm? it is my job though.”

there goes your little motivation to initiate conversations with people you’re interested in. 

you hear him chuckle at you, which added to the embarrassment you had from your statement alone. 

today was parents’ day. the kids were asked to bring their parents to school to have a little meeting with the rest of the class. it worried you that Futaba only had you as her guardian to go with her, not her mother, but you see the kid in her high spirits since this morning you didn’t want to ruin that for her and apologize on her mother’s behalf.

you think this as you lean against the wall at the corner, until you notice Sugawara stood beside you. so much so, you spoke absent-mindedly.

you should have kept your mouth shut.

“is Futaba’s mother doing okay? we haven’t seen her since a week ago.”

or maybe you don’t have to keep your mouth shut after all. you turned to him, stunned. like, goodness, he’s starting a topic with you himself. how can you not be stunned.

“o sorry. is it a sensitive topic? i’m sorry-”

“no!” you said audibly. too audibly. you clamped your mouth, worried if you took the children’s attention away from the kids who are presenting in front. you continued in a whisper, while he still chuckled at you, “Futaba’s mom recently switched work schedules that clashes together with the kid’s school. she wasn’t allowed to take a leave today, so i’m here in her place.”

geez, were you talking too much?

“i see.”

you probably were talking too much.

“you two are siblings, no?”

“uh, yeah. we are.”

he nodded to himself, turning to the kids presenting again. a silent heave of relief escaped you while you leaned comfortably against the wall again. guess that was enough interaction for the day.

“i guess, we’ll keep seeing Futaba’s guardian-san from now on.” he gave you a gentle smile, leaning a bit closer to you from the half-feet distance.

“you don’t have to keep calling me that.”

“my apologies. what should i call you?”

“y/n.”

“y/n-san then.”

he gave you one last boyish smile before walking off to his station.

hold up.

did he just come here to ask for your name? did he trick you into telling him your name?

you and Futaba went home happily. literally, the both of you had a great day in school. here, you were giggling like a kid who just got noticed by her crush. but you could be wrong. it’s only natural of a teacher to learn one of his student’s  guardian’s name. he cannot be interested in you. 

on the other hand, he did start a conversation with you.

don’t get ahead of yourself, you thought. you cannot help but still think about it.

the traffic lights flashed a green color.

days went on. you stayed as the one bringing your niece home safely every afternoon while the mother is busy. the relationship and trust you built with the child strengthened. your heart swell each time you see her jumping in joy whenever you show up after school. when you thought that alone will bring you happiness everyday, Sugawara greets you everyday with the same boyish smile.

each day pass, soon you become close friends. this made Futaba happy as you two are two of her favorite people.

until one day, the teacher called saying Futaba got sick.

worry engulfed you. you wondered what could’ve happened for the child to get sick, when she was fine earlier before her and her mother left together. could your sister not have noticed? or did it happen during school? more and more questions took shape as you frantically closed the café and ran to the school.

you rushed inside the nurse’s office, panting profusely. your eyes first caught your niece lying on the bed unconscious, and Sugawara sitting by the bed, placing a damp towel on her forehead.

“good morning, I’m Futaba’s guardian.”

Futaba’s teacher explained the situation to you. the kids were outside playing in the playground when Sugawara saw Futaba drenched in one hidden part of the garden. you see another kid standing beside the teacher. the kid gripped the hem of his shirt tightly as if he wanted to rip it off. the scowl on his face says enough of why he was here.

“i didn’t do it.”

the teacher continued, “ever since parent’s day, apparently some students have been picking on Futaba for not having her mother around.

“i’m terribly sorry. i’ve helped Futaba in ways i can. even i wanted to call you for this, but when i told Futaba i will, she begged me not to tell you because you and her mother are both busy with work.” she nudged the kid beside her, “isn’t there something you need to tell Futaba’s guardian?”

the kid averted his eyes. you figured there was no reason squeezing an apology from stubborn children like him. you kneeled before the kid to be at the same level as his eyes.

“what’s your name?”

he spent a few seconds quivering his lips before speaking, “Sora.”

“Sora,” you held his shoulder gently, looking into his eyes. “you’re very lucky to always have your mother by your side.”

tears formed in his innocent eyes.

you went on. “always remember to tell your mom that you love her, long as you still have her around, so she will stay. okay?” you finished, smiling at him as bright as you could.

Sora erupted into tears, storming off out of the nurse’s office and yelling his apology.

kids.

“i’m sorry i didn’t mean to make him cry.” you reasoned, when you know full well you did it on purpose to put that kid into a guilt trip for messing with your niece like this. the teacher said it was fine, that she could’ve done it the same thing but a different way.

ignoring that, you turned to Sugawara, who you forgot was there the whole time, “i’m sorry for the trouble. i’ll be taking her home now.”

“i can help you bring her home.” 

Sugawara stood up from his seat. this startles you because you also forgot you had a crush on him. you try to decline his offer, reasoning that your house is nearby and that you can carry a kid no problem.

but the Futaba’s teacher helped insist, “Sugawara-sensei should help you look after Futaba… uh, y/n-san was it?” you nodded, dubiously. “it was also said by Futaba that you’re working alone in your house with no one to help you. so please.”

you couldn’t decline when you saw Sugawara already carrying the kid behind his back. so you went home together with him, big deal. you felt embarrassed after getting your background get found out like that. guess Futaba is too honest of a kid, but not honest enough to tell her family that she was bullied at school.

“here will do.”

the two of you finally stood in front of your father’s café. the walk was silent, but you believed it was enough interaction for the day once more.

“you weren’t kidding when you say it was nearby, huh?” he said, looking through the glass windows.

“well. yeah.”

“that’s too bad,” he says, still carrying the kid on his back. he looks back to you. the smile appears again, “aren’t you going to open the door?”

you unlocked the doors. then, it hit you. what did he mean by too bad?

after taking Futaba up to her room and tucking her in bed, you went back down to the café where you found Sugawara idling about. “you can rest yourself on one of the booths. let me brew a drink for you.” you took your apron and hurried behind the counter. meanwhile, the man stood up perhaps wanting to leave. 

“oh, you don’t have to make me a drink. i should be leaving.”

this confused you. really, what was that too bad for?

“you went all the way to our café. it’s only natural i made a drink for you.” you try and justify yourself. also, you already pressed the espresso machine. there’s no reason to waste a cup of espresso.

“if so, must i stay?”

this was the second to the last straw.

you stood there, one hand holding the ice scooper and the other holding a grande-sized cup, while staring at him straight into his bright eyes. those orbs must be telling you something. there should be a secret hiding within those eyes. for example, an answer to his question. 

“do you want to stay?” you first broke the gaze.

“i’m the one asking you, y/n,” he said with a chuckle. 

once again, you hesitated. “sure.”

the café flooded with silence while you made an iced latte for him. you trailed your gaze to the top of his head as he sat on one of the booths. concerns arise from the pit of your mind. nothing seemed to be happening. then, what is he here for? if he stayed, what will happen? is this all on purpose? should you put your guards up? 

are the green lights alit again?

you put the iced latte on his table when he spoke. “i’m quite worried about Futaba with what happened to her.”

“well, she did a good job hiding the truth from us.” you say as you sat across him. “she’s a strong kid. i’m more worried if she will continue hiding her pain from the people who care about her.”

maybe you shouldn’t start such a touchy subject like this, yea? Sugawara landed his eyes at you but you avoided it and stood up. you have no idea what’s going on. if anything, this is not the right context of when something will develop. both of you just brought home a sick kid, for Pete’s sake. must you really take advantage of this?

“anyway, i’ll tell my sister what happened. she can help Futaba better than i-”

“i wonder if i’ll still see you every afternoon.”

his honesty astounded you. Sugawara’s pale face flushed from shame. guess he didn’t mean to say that. this means, if you weren’t getting ahead of yourself again, it’s how he actually feels.

you tried to lessen his embarrassment, “of course you will, who else will pick Futaba up from school?” so you played dumb.

“if your sister knew about the situation, she might switch her schedule.”

what was he trying to say?

“she can’t do that easily, you know.”

“there will still be a possibility.” he rested his chin on his palm, smiling at you, “which reminds me, i have been looking for a part-time job around here. is your café looking for more workers?”

“you wanna work here?” you ask as you went and flip the sign to open, since you’re already back for work.

“sure,” he picked himself up from the booth and walked towards you. “but i think i should follow someone’s footsteps first and make an impression. you know, you’re going to be my boss. i should meet you with casual clothes, not with a track jacket, sweat pants and unkept hair. what do you think?”

you flipped the sign to close. “are you mocking someone here?”

he tried to not make himself laugh at you. “i’m just saying i shouldn’t half-ass it if i’m looking for another job, y/n.”

“doesn’t sound like you’re actually looking for another job though?” 

“i’m not,” he admitted. “i’m only looking for a reason to see you more. every 12.30 pm isn’t enough.”

the traffic lights said go. it is now 12.31 pm.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.6

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as trial 6 began (and no, this trial is not getting any exclamation marks), we retried Rantaro’s murder, Rantaro’s Survivor Perk note was not a video, Kaede still did meaningfully bear responsibility for his death but her execution was not justified even by the game’s rules, Kaede’s twin was a ridiculous and very telling red herring, Himiko continued to be a little bit Kaito (though only on a surface level) in her desperation to keep believing in Tsumugi, Shuichi still hated accusing his friends of murder but managed it anyway, and Junko Enoshima waaaas…

Tsumugi:  “Junko… Enoshima is…”

“Junko”:  “Right the fuck here!”

…Not actually even remotely here at all, of course.

“Junko”:  “Even if nobody was waiting, even if it makes you go, ‘What, again?’… The diva of despair takes the stage once more! Junko Enoshima the 53rd!”

So… are we seriously to believe that in every single in-universe Danganronpa series up until this point, they’ve always found some excuse for it to be Junko each time? That this really is literally the 53rd time she’s appeared? Damn, no wonder she’s lampshading the repetitiveness and how bored everyone must be of that.

That’s difficult enough to believe that I’d rather assume she’s only saying 53rd to give them a hint, and really Junko has appeared more than enough times for people to be tired of it but still not nearly every time.

(This also reads like a dig by the out-universe writers at themselves for this, even though she only returned once and that was pretty believable because of the situation they were in. Unless she also somehow returned from the dead in the anime or UDG. Geez, I hope not.)

Monokuma:  “Bwah-hahahaha! There you have it! Once again, the mastermind is Junko Enoshima!”

Monokuma has apparently just become like a sports commentator, now that the mastermind herself can play the role he usually has. This is after all the first time Monokuma’s still been around once the mastermind takes the stage, because he’s not a literal puppet this time.

Himiko:  “Tsumugi… wh-what’s the matter? Aren’t you… Tsumugi Shirogane? Our friend who survived with us?”

“Junko”:  “Hahaha, sorry about that. You can go ahead and forget about Tsumugi Shirogane.”

Tsumugi:  “Cuz I’m just a character! Y’know, a lie!”

This is, in a certain sense, not wrong. The Tsumugi they thought they knew and were friends with never existed – it was just an act being put on by the real Tsumugi who was cruelly making this fiction for entertainment and enjoying every second of it. It may have been somewhat based in reality in that Tsumugi based that lie off herself and just did what would come naturally to her if she wasn’t a fucking terrible person, but it was still ultimately not a person who really exists. “Tsumugi” was the only one of the students here who really truly was just fictional.

“Junko”:  “Sorry to all her fans out there. If any of you even exist, that is.”

And now joining Monokuma in the Not Remotely Subtle club: Tsumugi! Not that she probably cares because she’s intending for Shuichi to figure out the real truth soon enough.

“Junko”:  “Tsumugi Shirogane was nothing more than a cover for me, the mastermind.”

However, here she’s trying to imply that there never even was anyone called Tsumugi Shirogane in the first place and she was just Junko in disguise the whole time. And for some reason, the students seem to kind of buy this (as did several of the blind LPers I’ve watched), when nobody should? Tsumugi is a cosplayer. It is still perfectly possible that this is just Tsumugi cosplaying Junko rather than the other way around, and especially since Junko is supposed to be super super dead, that should be what everyone immediately jumps to rather than believing this.

“Junko”:  “As you can see, I am a perfect reproduction of Junko Enoshima.”

Maki:  “So… you’re just a freak pretending to be Junko Enoshima, huh!?”

“Junko”:  “No, a perfect reproduction!”

Tsumugi:  “Perfect reproductions are exactly the same as the original.”

She’s clearly talking about cosplay here, guys! At least Maki seems to get it, but nobody quite zeroes in on the fact that beneath the mask she still is Tsumugi the Ultimate Cosplayer and it’s just that the Tsumugi we thought we knew was mostly an act.

Maki:  “So if we kill you, then that’ll be the end, correct?”

Maki Roll, no! Didn’t you decide back in the investigation that you weren’t actually going to kill the mastermind?

Shuichi:  “You killed Kaede, and Monokuma covered it up with a false narrative!”

Hah, I like how he calls it a narrative. Way more appropriate than he realises.

“Junko”:  “I knew of Hope’s Peak Academy’s Gofer Project, and my inner Junko told me…”

…

Tsumugi:  “And then I took the name ‘Tsumugi Shirogane’ and sneaked in among them.”

She can’t even keep her own narrative straight! “Junko” is implying she’s not really Junko and just wanted to be, and Tsumugi is saying she’s not really Tsumugi! Which one is she even trying to go with here!? Apparently she’s just trying to confuse everyone as much as possible.

Maki:  “Did… Kokichi know about this? Wasn’t he a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki, you were with Shuichi when he saw Kokichi’s motive video, you should know now that he wasn’t! It seems she was so fixated on her belief that he’s a Remnant (for reasons we will get into soon) that she told herself the motive video must have been some kind of hoax.

Himiko:  “Who’s this killing game being shown to!? Where are the survivors of humanity!?”

Tsumugi:  “There’s nobody watching.”

You literally just talked about your “fans” like five minutes ago, Tsumugi, I don’t know why you expect this to work on anyone.

Shuichi finally brings up with the notion that their memories might not be true. He let Tsumugi ramble on for far longer than he needed to about things he had every reason to think were most likely lies before coming out with this, but.

Shuichi:  “This book contains years of research about Hope’s Peak Academy. Nothing would indicate this book is a prop. I believe this information here is accurate.”

Oh, no, Shuichi, this book is very much a prop and everything written in here is also a lie. I guess he’s saying this because, for the out-universe audience, they already know that everything written in that book is the real truth about the Hope’s Peak story. But it’s still pretty flimsy the way Shuichi just takes this book as the truth at this point in the trial in order to argue that their memories are the part that’s wrong. Especially when he now has plenty of other ways to prove that anyway.

Monokuma:  “Alright! Time to play some Danganronpa trivia!”

…Apparently this is why the narrative is doing this and is about to make us go through three Nonstop Debates just about this: because they really did just want to make us play Danganronpa trivia. Anyone playing this game who hadn’t played or seen the other games can just use the book to be able to do this, but man, surely they’d feel so bored and left out and questioning why they should care about all this.

(Also, the students are probably wondering why the hell Monokuma just started talking about Bullet Rebuttals like that’s supposed to mean anything. …Or maybe they’re not, because Monokuma was always full of non-sequiturs anyway and this is probably just another one, right.)

Maki:  “Wasn’t Junko the Ultimate Despair?”

Keebo:  “…That’s what I recall as well. That label should only apply to her.”

Apparently they don’t think that the Remnants of Despair count as being called the Ultimate Despair in any capacity. In DR2, a certain group of people who were referred to as “Ultimate Despair” were definitely also called “Remnants of Despair” in at least one or two lines. However, that’s the part of the story that everyone’s fake memories seem to be missing out, so I suppose that explains why they see the Remnants of Despair as a totally separate thing.

“Junko”:  “Ugh, does it even matter? I’m bored already.”

Really? Because you don’t seem that bored. This “Junko” we’re seeing here is only really showing one personality, the “base” Junko so to speak, rather than switching between multiple different ones like the real Junko would do because she kept getting bored. Of course Tsumugi isn’t going to get bored like that – how could she ever be bored of being one of her favourite characters?

Keebo:  “…because Junko had prepared countless ways of spreading despair.”

“She did no such thing!”

“Oh, maybe she did…”

Is Tsumugi switching characters mid-debate in order to disagree with herself? Boo, only Kaito was allowed to do that. (Or maybe she’s just arguing with Monokuma.)

“Junko”:  “It just means those documents were written all half-assed. There’s no need to worry about it. Your memories are all correct.”

Shuichi:  “What you’ve been saying isn’t consistent! First you said it was just ‘coincidence’.”

I appreciate Shuichi picking up on how inconsistent her narrative is and calling her out on that. The previous time he’s talking about was her claiming that everyone coincidentally misremembered the same thing, which is the complete opposite of her claim here that the book is wrong and not their memories.

Keebo:  “And with that… recruitment of talented students resumed.”

This is supposed to be Keebo remembering that they all applied to Hope’s Peak when the “truth” is that the school didn’t accept applications and scouted all its students. But the phrasing “recruitment of students” definitely sounds like Keebo is saying that they were scouted. Probably a localisation error, but way to mess that one up, localisers.

Shuichi:  “Me too. I *chose* to come to Hope’s Peak.”

And if you think about it, that really isn’t in character for you, is it, Shuichi? Until you met Kaede and Kaito, you hated your talent and didn’t think you deserved to be called the Ultimate Detective. You were scared of revealing the truth and certainly wouldn’t have decided on your own to apply to make that something you had to do even more of.

On that same note, why in the world would Maki have applied to be recognised as the Ultimate Assassin and have that become well-known?

Shuichi then goes on to mention the other evidence of this all being bullshit, specifically that they have no memory of the killing game Rantaro participated in, and that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair. It’s almost like we didn’t need to do all of this business with Shuichi inexplicably insisting the book must definitely be the truth in order to prove this.

Maki:  “He wasn’t… a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki in particular looks very shocked to hear this. If he wasn’t, then it means she had no good justification for trying to kill Kokichi – not only was he not actually the mastermind, but she had no genuine, non-fabricated reason to even assume he was. It means she was just being manipulated into doing what others wanted of her and killing who others wanted her to kill on an even greater level than she was already aware of. She’d thought at the time that it was her own decision and her own desire, but all of it was just manipulation, just someone else using her as a puppet to kill, like always.

Shuichi:  “An organization centered around petty crimes, one that forbids murder.”

Whoops, there’s a remnant (no pun intended) of the original Japanese line in Kokichi’s motive video that mentioned their explicit motto about not killing people. Apparently Shuichi’s localiser is not the same one who localised the video and did not get the memo.

Maki:  “You mean… he wasn’t a Remnant of Despair? That’s… not possible…”

Because if it is possible, if it is true, then why did she try to kill him? Was she really just killing for someone else’s whims yet again? Is she not allowed to have any of her own agency at all?

Shuichi:  “Kokichi didn’t tell us because he wasn’t exposed to that Flashback Light. And… neither was Kaito.”

…

Exisal Kaito:  “… Junko?”

I like that it calls back to this and allows the players to very explicitly realise how utterly fucking confused Kaito must have been during those bits. (Even though it’s technically wrong for the text box be calling him “Exisal Kaito”; sure, we know now it was Kaito, but he was pretending to be Kokichi at the time and that makes him “Exisal Kokichi”. The name “Exisal Kokichi” never referred to the real Kokichi at all.)

Shuichi finally gets to the point and starts talking about how the Flashback Lights were fake. Since he has pretty concrete proof of this, I really don’t know why he couldn’t have brought this up sooner. (Because clearly we all really needed to play some Danganronpa Trivia, I guess.)

Keebo:  “So the memories we recovered with the Flashback Lights were…”

Shuichi:  “Not real. They were all false memories. They were all lies!”

One thing to note is that nobody remembers the very first Flashback Light at the beginning where they “remembered” their talents – understandably, since it created their entire characters and overwrote everything that came before. So, even though Shuichi now knows that the entire backstory about the Gofer Project was all a lie, he’s not yet able to think this through to its conclusion of just how bad this is.

Monokuma:  “Then everything was a lie! All the suspense and foreshadowing was for nothing! Can you believe it? It’s like everything that happened didn’t matter at all.”

You’re giving yourself and your in-universe writer friends way too much credit, Monokuma. It’s not like the backstory ever actually really mattered. The things that mattered most in this story were the deaths that happened in this killing game and the efforts everyone went to to avoid letting more happen, all of which was very, very real. All this changes is that a few of the murders – Kirumi’s and Gonta’s, and Maki’s attempted one – were done for a reason that was based on a lie. But that doesn’t make it not matter, that just makes it more tragic in hindsight to know that they were manipulated.

Tsumugi:  “Lies are just like snowballs. The more you roll them, the bigger they get. The bigger they are, the more fun and shocking it is when they’re revealed.”

“Junko”:  “That’s why everything up till now has been lies! That’s the truth!”

Not even remotely “everything”. Tsumugi is right to say that a bigger lie being revealed makes for a better plot twist, but doing so to too great an extent does run the risk of making the entire story seem pointless. I think the out-universe writers struck a good balance here, though, because not everything has been lies. Everyone still formed bonds and fought and struggled and died, and all of that has been real. Everything which really mattered still matters. And most of the actual meaningful foreshadowing and suspense we’ve had has been very much on an out-universe level, because the in-universe writers couldn’t have predicted what would happen in future, especially not for cases 4 and 5 which were all “written” for them by Kokichi.

Himiko:  “We’re not students from Hope’s Peak?”

Himiko is the only one who even seems to be particularly upset about this part of the relevation, probably because she’s the only one of them who’s truly proud of her talent and would have been happy to think she’d been part of a huge legacy of talented people.

“Junko”:  “Looking back, it was a mistake to have you remember Hope’s Peak.”

Tsumugi:  “I didn’t originally plan on giving you those memories, but… I was in a rush and overlooked all those inconsistencies, so you figured it all out…”

It wasn’t only a mistake because it let them figure everything out, Tsumugi. It was also just bad writing.

There’s no reason to doubt this claim that she didn’t plan this from the start. Everything about the Hope’s Peak part of the backstory was clearly shoehorned in and not truly connected to everything that had come before it; nothing about it was foreshadowed in the previous memories. That book in Kokichi’s lab was thrown in there in a hurry and had nothing to do with the rest of the room.

(It would have been perfectly possible to foreshadow Hope’s Peak in their memories. They could have all vaguely remembered growing up in a world that was slowly recovering from some apocalyptic event, even if they were unclear on what that event was. Instead of remembering being at ordinary schools and just having their talents recognised by a separate Ultimate Initiative, they could have remembered being at some fairly prestigious kind of school and just forgotten the name of the school and that it was the same one for all of them. And they maybe could have had it so they didn’t remember why they knew of their Ultimate titles, only for it to turn out that that’s because Hope’s Peak bestowed those titles and they forgot the specifics about Hope’s Peak. But nope – none of that was in their memories, because none of this was planned.)

Shuichi:  “So that’s why Kokichi had to die?”

I mean, really, Kokichi was planning on getting himself killed for his grand plan anyway whether the mastermind had any say in it or not.

Shuichi:  “He usurped the mastermind’s role, but in doing so, became a thorn in their side. So to get rid of that hindrance, the mastermind played along with the lie.”

However, the mastermind was probably hoping to get Kokichi killed before he could pull off whatever grand plan was going to be the endpoint of all his scheming and possibly make things even worse for them. Too bad that didn’t work out – all thanks to Kaito jumping in the way of Maki’s arrow, which is emphatically not something that was part of the writers’ script.

Tsumugi:  “At the same time, having everyone remember Hope’s Peak Academy… made you guys target him because you thought he was a Remnant of Despair.”

Yep, she’s straight-up admitting it. It wasn’t just believing he was a Remnant, but also the fact that they believed they themselves were these symbols of hope whose duty was to “defeat” anything associated with “despair”. Hope’s Peak was very much a part of the manipulation.

Maki:  “Then the reason I tried to kill Kokichi was…”

Monokuma:  “You were being controlled by false memories, like putty in the mastermind’s hands.”

I’m afraid so, Maki.

Monokuma also goes on to confirm that the Hope’s Peak memory was also to artificially make them recover from the despair they were in. Really they should have been able to figure this out themselves at the time, but hey.

“Junko”:  “New mysteries and truths turn to motivation. Motivation drives a story. Everything from the Flashback Lights was just motivation to move you forward. But… I guess it was fake motivation.”

Monokuma:  “You idiots kept getting jerked around by meaningless lies!”

I mean, yes, she’s right, they needed motivation to make the story interesting and that was a lot of the point of the Flashback Lights. But it really wasn’t to the extent that she’s claiming. Most of their motivation was just wanting to get the hell out of here and not die, which was entirely the truth and nothing to do with the Flashback Lights. The only fake motivation that actually drove the story was some of the motives for murder – but then everyone’s reactions and further motivations in the wake of those murders were very real.

“Junko”:  “This class trial was like that too, wasn’t it? Why was it you were so motivated to do it? Because you got a memory from one of the Flashback Lights, right?”

Haha, no, stop giving yourself credit you don’t deserve. She goes on to talk about all of the flashbacks they had during the investigation and how that supposedly filled them with the hope to fight back, but no, that had nothing to do with why Shuichi and his friends were determined to do this. This trial would still be happening exactly like it is now if they’d never had those flashbacks. Shuichi is doing this because of his determination to end the killing game, thanks to the promises he made to Kaede and Kaito and everyone else, because he doesn’t want their deaths to be in vain. All of that is completely real and had nothing to do with the pointless flashbacks that were entirely irrelevant to anything that’s actually been happening here.

“Junko”:  “Remembering the weight of that hope should’ve made you feel stronger.”

Eh, that depends. That could also have just put too much pressure on them and made them hesitant to act for fear of messing up and letting down everyone who’d supposedly been relying on them – especially for someone like Shuichi.

Tsumugi:  “Even though Kaito and Kokichi were gone, and Keebo started to go berserk… You guys didn’t give up hope.”

Oh, you can fuck right off with your implication that now that Kaito’s gone he has absolutely nothing to do with them holding onto hope. Kaito’s death is precisely why Shuichi is so determined now! And if you didn’t think that was going to happen when Kaito died, why in the everliving hell did you even *kill him*!? Am I seriously going to have to accept here that Tsumugi didn’t have any kind of meaningful narrative in mind for Kaito’s death? That she killed him not even for the sake of at least Shuichi’s arc in her story, but purely for the hell of it?

I can try and tell myself that she doesn’t quite mean this and is only saying it in a pathetic attempt to sell the importance of her pointless backstory and even more pointless flashbacks, but geez.

It also sounds awkwardly like she could be saying that Kokichi ever inspired anyone with hope, but I presume what she means there is that he was providing an obvious enemy whom they could be inspired to fight against.

Maki:  “You were controlling our emotions? Even our resolve to defeat the mastermind?”

Maki’s voice sounds very distressed here. She is not at all happy to realise that she’s still just being controlled and used by a higher power that doesn’t care about her, even now after she’d begun to feel like she’d started to make her own decisions and break free of that. Her desires matter? No, actually, her desires were never really hers in the first place.

I really enjoy how, even though it’s never explained why Maki’s so distressed over this and over learning that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair earlier, it’s still very much there in her voice. This is hitting her right in the issues in a way that’s going to continue to be very relevant as this trial continues.

Himiko:  “A-All the memories… were fake? Then… what was everything till now?”

Still real, Himiko! Angie and Tenko still really died, you know! This doesn’t change that much!

Himiko:  “If they were all fake memories, then… Where… are we? Why are we in this killing game?”

She’s acting like the memories of the Gofer Project and everything somehow justified that they were being put through this killing game, but… they really didn’t. The killing game part of that was unrelated to the actual backstory and was supposedly because one single evil asshole suddenly decided “hey wouldn’t it be fun if the survivors of humanity all killed each other”. Which is the only reason a game like this would ever happen: because some asshole thought it would be fun. The wider context of it really isn’t that relevant – it only served to make it more tragic that they were killing each other despite how important their lives were to humanity – so it really doesn’t matter now that it’s all been revealed as fake.

Shuichi:  “But we have nothing to do with Hope’s Peak, so you can’t be Junko. So who the hell are you!?”

I… don’t know why this is only just occurring to you now, Shuichi. It should have been obvious from the start that she’s not really Junko. Why is it so hard for you to think that she could just be Tsumugi, albeit a different “Tsumugi” to the one you thought you were friends with?

“Hajime”:  “I’m me. No one else.”

Shuichi:  (…What?)

Keebo:  “What… is this?”

Tsumugi:  “Huh? You know him, don’t you? He was in the Jabberwock Island killing game.”

The general public in the Hope’s Peak universe didn’t watch that killing game, though. Shuichi and friends shouldn’t have fake memories of Hajime or anyone else from DR2. At most, they should vaguely remember a list of names and faces of the people who were involved in that conflict that the general public maybe learned about afterwards, but they shouldn’t be familiar with them.

Tsumugi:  “What am I doing? I’m just cosplaying.”

Shuichi:  “Cosplaying?”

I would say “come on, Shuichi, this isn’t hard to grasp”, but, to be fair… at this point, it becomes less cosplay and more shapeshifting. I can just about stretch my disbelief to buy that she can change clothes ridiculously fast – sure, whatever, this is an anime-style universe, let’s go with that. But now, she’s not only cosplaying Junko, she’s cosplaying several characters who have completely different body types to her. To some extent cosplayers can copy body types by using binding or padding, but not to this degree! Some of these characters are significantly shorter than her, and there’s no way you can do that!

So, everyone else’s talents are faked, but Tsumugi is so talented at cosplay that she can just do what has to be literal shapeshifting. Sure, sure, I guess we’ve just got to go with that. Tsumugi is a shapeshifter, okay then.

“Kazuichi”:  “Check it out! Even my voice sounds exactly the same!”

(Haha, hi, Kaito’s voice actor. The English dub had all of the V3 characters voiced by someone who did one of the DR1 or 2 cast in order to spend less money on this. Apparently the Japanese dub didn’t and yet still managed to get all the old VAs back anyway.)

We’re also supposed to believe that Tsumugi can just perfectly mimic all the voices, even the deepest male ones. I guess the Ultimate Imposter could do that kind of thing (even though they couldn’t change their body type), so sure, whatever, even though this is not supposed to be a universe where some people are born with talents that are practically superpowers, I guess Tsumugi can do that too.

I suppose her being able to do this does make it slightly more justifiable why the Exisals randomly have a voice changer that can perfectly mimic anyone’s voice, right? That’s a plus to this, isn’t it??

This is the moment at which Tsumugi’s magical cosplay aura is meant to appear… but there’s a well-known glitch where if you save and quit and then resume at any point before this while “Junko” is here, the aura will show up before it should and somewhat spoil the reveal. I write this commentary in sessions that don’t necessarily correlate with the post breaks, so this happened to me too this time. Whoooops, game devs.

Shuichi:  “How can she cosplay as students of Hope’s Peak Academy!? Because Tsumugi told us…”

Shuichi, that stupid cospox claim should not be taken as any kind of evidence for anything! You have no proof she was even telling the truth about that!

Tsumugi:  “Ah, you remembered! Yes, that’s exactly right.”

“Makoto”:  “So then… what does this mean?”

The cospox nonsense is supposedly used to “prove” that the characters she’s cosplaying are all actually fictional. But that really is not necessary, because Tsumugi is clearly ready to have Shuichi figure that out and would have therefore been quite happy to just tell him if he couldn’t figure it out himself. This entire stupid cospox plot point was just 1000% Not Needed. Even if they wanted Shuichi to be the one to figure this out to give the players a game to play, they could have just used the fact that Tsumugi always very strongly argued that it was wrong to cosplay real people and seems to still be agreeing with that philosophy even as Shuichi brings it up now.

(I mean, I suppose since Tsumugi is a literal shapeshifter maybe I shouldn’t be considering it such a ridiculous leap compared to that that her superpowers come with the caveat of only being able to do it with fictional people. But still. (And when she “demonstrated” it to Kaede, she did not attempt to shapeshift into her, just put on her clothes, so.))

Shuichi:  (Hope’s Peak Academy is…) “It’s fictional… It’s all fictional!?”

Shuichi looks incredibly shellshocked at this realisation… but I’m not sure why it’s getting to him so much now. As soon as he realised that their memories from the Hope’s Peak Flashback Light were all fake, it follows that not only were they not Hope’s Peak students, but also that the school and all the backstory surrounding it may well have never existed in the first place.

Shuichi:  “Dangan… ronpa…?”

I love how bewildered Shuichi sounds at hearing this name for the world he thought he was a part of. Okay, sure, maybe rebuttals are kind of relevant to these class trials, but what do bullets have to do with anything???

Himiko:  “S-So… this was all fake? Everything was made up? And the whole time… we thought it was real?”

What do you even mean, the whole time? You guys started thinking Hope’s Peak was real literally only two days ago! Again, this should not be the point at which everyone’s being the most shocked about this – that should have happened simply when they realised their memories from the Flashback Lights were all fake. I think the out-universe writers are slipping a bit too much into having them react like the audience would to such a revelation, because obviously Hope’s Peak is totally the most important thing, right? Not to these characters, it shouldn’t be. The last time they reacted more like a fan than they should have done regarding Hope’s Peak revelations, that was probably in-universely deliberate brainwashing from that Flashback Light, making them super excited for the sake of artificial “hope”. But this time there’s not that excuse.

I’ve also seen one or two blind LPers get kind of upset at this revelation that DR1 and 2 were “all fictional”, as if it callously retconned things so that nothing in those games ever mattered – but this is completely misunderstanding how fiction works. Of course Danganronpa 1 and 2 were fictional. We ourselves consumed them as works of fiction. But within that fictional universe, it all really happened and really mattered. All this is saying here is that Danganronpa V3 does not take place within that universe after all – instead, it takes place in a universe similar to our own where DR1 and 2 were works of fiction. That does not make the events of the Hope’s Peak storyline any less meaningful to itself – it just means that those events aren’t a part of this story like we’d been led to believe.

(And like I mentioned back in chapter 5, this is a good thing, because it means that those surviving characters we cared about in the Hope’s Peak universe weren’t randomly, meaninglessly killed off by meteorites! They did still live somewhat-happily ever after!)

While Himiko’s saying this, we also get a bunch of flashback images from both DR1 and 2… and again, she shouldn’t be remembering any of the specifics of Danganronpa 2, because the general public didn’t watch that killing game.

Tsumugi:  “Did you think the Ultimate Cosplayer’s talent was only limited to characters?”

“Junko”:  “It’d be kinda lame if that was all the big bad mastermind could do…”

I guess that’s our reason for why she’s a straight-up shapeshifter. Because she’s the big bad mastermind, so she’s got to be able to do something over-the-top like that. Sure.

Tsumugi:  “I can do far more than that… I can cosplay the world itself!”

…No, not really? Shoving memories of that world into people’s heads and making them think it’s the truth isn’t “cosplaying” it and has nothing to do with your superpower and everything to do with Flashback Lights.

Shuichi:  “B-But… why? Why would you do this? Why make us think it’s real—”

“Hina”:  “Well, duh! It’s so you’d all play the killing game!”

That’s really not why. They were all playing the killing game just fine long before they thought any of the previous Danganronpas were real. You don’t need to know about the previous ones to be forced to do what the bear tells you to. The only reason she made them think it was real was to pander to the in-universe audience when they were mad at her after Kokichi had made things temporarily boring.

“Nekomaru”:  “In other words, it’s Ultimate Real Fiction!!!”

In other words, you’re still killing real people for this killing game, regardless of how fictional the backstory is.

Maki:  “But… if it’s fiction… If everything… isn’t real… Then… the world being in ruins is also fiction, right? The world outside… is fine, right?”

It would be a little surprising that it took so long for someone to mention this part, the thing that would be good news about all this… but I suppose they didn’t only get the “truth” about the outside world from the Flashback Light. It’d be harder to find a reason to doubt what they also saw with their own eyes until reaching this point.

Unless, of course, you’re Kokichi and are already certain there’s an audience and using that as your base premise, resulting in a thought process of, “there’s definitely an audience, so what do you mean the world’s been destroyed?”. But since everyone else only learned there was probably an audience after seeing the outside world, they had the destroyed outside world as their base premise instead, and so they were faced with a mystery of, “the world’s been destroyed, so I’m not sure how there can be an audience even though the evidence suggests there is one”.

---

[Next post]

[trans-shuichisaihara]

instead of working on my other projects, I decided to write almost 2k words of another spaceship au fic. where are my priorities

(you don’t really need to read the previous two fics, but it’ll explain where kaito is lmao)

small tw for implied(?) suicidal thoughts, it’s nothing huge though

---------------

Shuichi thought the whole plan was doomed from the start. The progression of life on the spaceship just confirmed that in his head. It wasn't the picture of chaos, sure, but it was plain to see - as Shirogane would say - that everyone was bored out of their minds. The only ones content were Shinguuji and Angie, the former in finding entertainment in their descent and the latter living in her own fantasy land with her god.

He certainly wasn't happy. He never wanted to be on the Ark, and he definitely didn't want to be woken up from cold sleep to an empty meaningless existence. But the others outvoted him, and when it came time to set the cold sleep mechanisms Iruma was sure to sabotage his pod as well along with all the others.

He wanted to die with everyone else, but not like this. Not wasting away, falling asleep every night with the hope that he wouldn't wake up in the morning.

The only motivation he had not to find a secluded part of the school to lock himself up in and just get it over with was his budding friendship with Momota and Akamatsu. The two of them had gravitated towards him quickly after awakening, the former citing his "emo aura" as something needing fixing. And by that, he meant lots of exercise and little time to himself. If he wasn't with Momota helping him dig through files on the computers and in the library, he was sitting watching Akamatsu play the piano, and even learning to play himself.

He supposed he should be grateful. He never really had friends that would go to such extremes to keep him engaged and distracted. Yes, there was always a part of his mind whispering to remind him of their inevitable fate, and that their actions were as much to distract themselves as they were to distract him, but he could pretend that things would be okay for at least a little while.

At least, until Ouma shoved himself into his quiet existence.

"Hello, Saihara-chan, Akamatsu-chan!" He grinned from their bundle of blankets on the floor, clearly inviting himself into their neverending makeshift slumber party.

"Ouma-kun," Akamatsu greeted, "Why are you here?"

He stood, wearing one of the blankets around his shoulders like a cape. "Momota-chan said I could stay! I- I was just so lonelyyyy," he sobbed, though from Shuichi's little experience with the Ultimate Supreme Leader, it was highly likely that his tears were fake. In fact, his whole statement could be a lie.

"Did he really?" He asked, unable to keep the doubt out of his voice.

Ouma glanced to him, humming, "Hmmm, welllll, I meannnnn... I didn't aaaask... But he didn't kick me out when he left for dinner, so I figured that was permission enough! Where is he, by the way? He said he'd bring me food." He pouted.

"He said he wanted to shower before joining us." Shuichi shrugged, silently accepting that Ouma probably wasn't leaving.

He was quiet while the two of them fixed up the bed area, though the self-satisfied smirk he wore made Shuichi feel antsy. He hoped Momota would come back soon.

As they sat down, Ouma spoke up again. "Soooo, like, do you guys just go straight to sleep, or do you play fun party games before? Because I've been dying to play Truth or Dare."

"Um, we normally just talk and do some exercise, I guess," Shuichi answered, looking to Akamatsu for support.

She nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Saihara-kun's right. But Truth or Dare would be fun." Really? He didn't see it being fun...

"I'm glad you agree, Akamatsu-chan! Let's start while we wait for Momota-chan!"

"H-Huh?"

He ignored both of their shock, running over to Momota's desk. He returned with an empty water bottle and a grin still fixed on his face. "So, who wants to spin first?" When neither of them responded, he shrugged and sat down. "Guess it'll be me~" He placed the bottle down, spinning it. It wobbled and clattered, but quickly settled on pointing at Shuichi. "So, Saihara-chan, truth or dare?"

"Truth." Like he would trust letting Ouma dare him.

"Hmmm..." He tapped his finger against his cheek thoughtfully. "So, who do you think is the most attractive boy here?"

"W-What?!"

"Isn't that what normal teens ask at this sort of party?" He asked with false obliviousness, "I'm not asking if you would bang them, if that makes you feel any better. Aesthetically, who's the prettiest or most handsome?"

Akamatsu didn't hesitate chiming in her own opinion. "Amami-kun's a good choice. He definitely has that player vibe to him, though don't tell him I said that." She laughed. "I know he doesn't like being told he looks like someone that sleeps around."

Ouma nodded in approval of her choice, but still looked at him expectantly. He swallowed. "Um, ah, I, I guess Amami-kun's pretty, yeah. Um, but, I don't think Momota-kun's that bad looking either..." He mumbled, hiding his mouth behind his hand. Revealing the truth was never kind to him. Maybe this game was absolutely horrible both ways.

"Ooo, nice choice," Ouma commented, "Oh, but that was a lie; he's pretty, but only as in pretty dumb." He nudged the bottle towards Shuichi. "Anyway, your turn!"

He picked it up and spun it, feeling a bit relieved when it landed on Akamatsu. He wasn't sure what he'd ask Ouma yet. Assuming he'd pick truth at all. "Ah, um, truth or dare?"

"Well, I want to pick dare, but... I'll go with truth this round." She smiled at him. His gut twisted uncomfortably at the implication that it was his fault that she had to pick truth.

He tried to ignore it as he thought of a question. "Um..." He couldn't think of anything. He was horrible at this game. Think. Treat it like a criminal interrogation. "Where were you the night before last?" SHIT. NO. NOT LIKE THAT. "Ah, ahahaha, um, you don't have to answer-"

"I was with Tenko-san. She asked if I wanted to stay over, so I said yes."

"Given names already? So forward," Ouma teased.

Akamatsu flushed. "Well, it's, I don't think it's that weird. Momota-kun calls Saihara-kun by his first name."

"Yeah, but he's an idiot. Calling people like that means nothing special to him." He picked at his fingernails idly.

Okay, Shuichi was officially uncomfortable with this conversation's direction. "Um, so, it's your turn, Akamatsu-san," he interrupted. Thankfully, she took the hint and spun the bottle. It landed back on him.

So, it would probably be safe to pick dare this round, right?

She gave him a wide smile. "I dare you to sing the first song that comes to mind." She paused. "Oh, but if it's classical, humming works too." For her, of course it would be classical above all else. Unfortunately, to him music meant either Detective Conan openings or American emo rock music.

He quivered. "Um, can, can I pass?" That was a rule of Truth or Dare, right?

Akamatsu pouted. "Aww, but I wanna hear you sing. Please, Saihara-kun?"

Ouma grinned. "I wanna hear it too!"

He sighed, relenting to his punishment. Quietly. Hopefully neither of them would go running to Shirogane and tell her that he liked one singular anime, assuming they recognized it at all.

He spun the bottle, almost unsurprised when it landed on Ouma. "So, um, truth or dare?"

"Dare, of course! Oh, but don't dare something stupid like, 'oh you have to tell the truth', that's just boring."

He needed a break. "I dare you to go downstairs and bring something back from the warehouse."

Ouma blinked. Then gasped dramatically. "Saihara-chan's so cruel! How could you dare me to do something so boring?!"

"You think a lot's boring, Ouma-kun," Akamatsu pointed out.

"Oh, I guess so." He hopped to his feet. "Well, I'll be back~ Don't have too much fun while I'm gone!" With a wink, he darted out. Shuichi sighed in relief, letting himself fall back onto the bedding.

"He's tiring, huh?" Akamatsu said sympothetically, "Don't worry, I'm sure Momota-kun'll be back by the time he returns. Oh, and you have a really nice voice; we should find some piano songs you can sing to while I play."

"Um, I don't know... Maybe..."

The door slammed open. "I'm backkk!" That was too fast. How long was he gone?

"What did you bring back?" Akamatsu asked as Shuichi pulled himself back up with a groan.

He showed his goods. "Some playing cards and another blanket. But they're mine; you didn't say I had to share what I brought back."

"Okay, well, it's your turn then."

His grin felt almost malicious as he spun it, landing right back on Shuichi. "Should I assume truth?" At his nod, he continued, "So, remember when Angie-chan threw that pool party the week before last and you refused to participate? You said it was because you couldn't swim, but I know that's a lie. So, what's the truth?"

His heart lept into his throat. "Um, pass?" He looked to Akamatsu pleadingly.

"I'm okay with a different question. Ouma-kun?"

He paused, covering his lips with a finger. "Are you sure? My next question might be worse." When he didn't object, Ouma bypassed the pretense of the previous question straight to the actual question he wanted answered. "Are you trans?"

He swallowed, shaking as he pulled his knees to his chest. "Um, huh?" Please accept his false ignorance. Please ignore all the body language betraying him at this very moment.

"I won't care if you are," Ouma added, "I was just curious."

Akamatsu stayed quiet, but reached forward to place a hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing. Finally, she softly said, "I think we should stop. I'm getting tired." She removed her hand, gathering her blankets up and dumping them in the space next to Shuichi's.

"I... I am," he quietly confessed, not meeting Ouma's eyes as he turned to lie down, retreating into his bed.

His gaze felt heavy on his back. "Sorry, Saihara-chan."

[nightlight-stardust-and-rain]

They're still named Alceo and Caleb. They have some magical power that makes them able to have a mind link and to be able to travel to dimensions other than the human world (it's just funny to me that Vector could do clones and no one said anything about it, which means that diverse magical powers are common for the Barian, therefore *gestures to my ocs* powers). Alceo is made of purple stone (lavender with violet patches all over the left side of their face and body.)

they also have little white gems on their body. They hair is still white and their eyes are still turquoise. Caleb is made of dark blue stone with light grey streaks on the jaw and forearms. They both have wings like Vector's but they wear normal clothes unlike whatever Barians wear. It's just such a hassle to have to change clothes every time they go to another world, so they don't. They are not, I repeat they are NOT, duelists. Both because I don't care much for duels and therefore know basically nothing about how they work due to disinterest and because I think it would be funny to have non-duelists characters in a Yu-Gi-Oh world.

They are mercenaries who take jobs in the differents universes they travel to. Not necessarily for money (althought there is that) but also because they like this job. Alceo's thing is still close-to-mid-range fighting, be it with or without weapons. Caleb is still a sniper. They don't care very much about the whole rivalry with the astral world and neither about whatever the fuck is happening with the humans (for the record, they think Yuuma's hair is ridiculous. Those universes where there are duelists always have the most ridiculous hair *sigh*). But when they hear that there's a concrete chance that their world might be destroyed, they're a bit worried. Because 1) hey, it's still their world, even if they're nomadic between dimensions. And 2) they really like Alit, Nasch and Vector, and don't want them to die (am I projecting because those three are my favorite Barians? Absolutely). Vector pays them to momentarily incapacitate Yuuma so that Vector can have the time to scheme something truly wicked without being interrupted. The twins think that killing Yuuma might be a much more permanent way to incapacitate him, but well. Vector's the client, after all. They decide to use their usual strategy for "assassinations in worlds where they can use their barian forms", which is : Alceo, being more eye-catching (color-wise) than Caleb, plays the distraction, while Caleb snipes the target from a distance. It's foolproof.

They spy for a few days to make sure that every strong person is in the same place when they do their thing (all your ennemies being in the same place means that you know where they are which means that they can't sneak up on you from behind to rescue your target). When the moment is right, Alceo goes to them, reveals their barian form, tries to do an evil monologue... Sadly, while Alceo's very good at being menacing, they're the absolute worst at acting, so their evil speech feels very forced (which it is). Thankfully, Yuuma is dense and does not see the trap (what's weird is that his less dense friends, Kaito maybe ? Do not see the trap either) and challenges Alceo to a duel. Which, to everyone's surprise, Alceo refuses (I was thinking that yes, the duel monsters are very powerful, but what do you do if your enemy refuses to play by your rules? You can't beat someone in a duel when they don't duel). It basically goes like : "then I challenge you to a duel!" "no." "what?" "I said no. I'm not a duelist." "really?" "yes. It happens sometimes." "but you said you wanted to eliminate me?" "did it occur to you that something like a fistfight might exist?" "you're here to fight, no duel ?? That's weird" "pretty much, yeah. Have you seen yourself? You look like a twig, I could snap you in two without trying, and I doubt any of your friends know how to fight. That said, my main job is to be a distraction. I am a wonderful distraction! Are you distracted?" "wha-" and that's when Caleb shoots Yuuma in both shoulders, both elbows (the bony outer part, mind you, not the fleshy part where there might be important veins, theyr'e not here to kill him) and in the center of both hands. After all, without arms he can't duel, therefore he's incapacitated. Job's done. In the panic, they go back to the Barian world to report (and be paid) and that's about where I stop.

I was mainly wondering how characters who deal with everything hostile with duels might react to people who don't ; who fight physically and use weapons, people they can't affect because duels are based on consent : you can't beat anyone in a duel if they refuse to duel you. I concluded that they would die.

T33n w0lf ocs which I'm putting in this post bc I don't want anyone to see them

They're chimeras! Kind of. Little bit. It's complicated.

They're two halves of an Anuk-Ite, but they never got to reunite/fuse because the Dread Doctors got ahold of them before they could. They got experimented on and somehow became chimeras. Alceo is half kanima and Caleb is half hellhound. Due to being also something else, they can't reunite to form a complete Anuk-Ite. Not that they necessarily wanted to become an incredibly ugly fear monster, but the need to reunite was in their very core since forever, so emotionally it's a bit rough.

They were captured by the Dread Doctors at.... Some point? They don't really remember anything before waking up as something they should not be, so it's fuzzy af. They spent a lot of time with the doctors bc stabilizing their chimera-ness took a lot of time. But they have no fucking idea how long exactly, bc there were lapses of time they were asleep or in a coma, and their sense of time is extremely messed up. They don't know if it was like that before the doctors but they're so so bad at time. Won't remember if something happened a month ago or a week ago. They suspect that they've spent several years with the doctors. Physically they're 16? Maybe? They're not sure. They also feel like those bodies are their own, not bodies they've possessed, but they can't be sure (not that they care, really).

So Alceo is half kanima and Caleb is half hellhound. The goal of the Dread Doctors was to erase the weaknesses of those races - thus, like Jackson, Alceo doesn't need a master and is perfectly cognizant of their own actions. They're only half so they can use the tail and the teeth, but the claws can only appear on one hand at once. Right of left, but not both at once. They can make scales appear pretty much everywhere on their body, but they can only cover one half of their body at once. No full-scale (ha) shifting for them. Their left eye can be shifted to reptilian, but the right one can only light up the luminous purple of the Anuk-Ite. They're a huge fan of the tail (and tend to leave it shifted on when alone or among other supernaturals) but they're a bit jealous of their other half's flame powers. How come the non-pyromaniac half is the one who gets flame powers? Simply unfair. They have paralyzing venom tho! It's not as potent as a full kanima's but it's still pretty damn paralyzing. Very useful in a pinch.... Or in a fight.

Caleb doesn't get the fugue state hellhounds do. He is somewhat compelled to protect the secrets of the supernatural, but it's easy to overcome, particularly when he mind-merges with Alceo. And sometimes the urges are right so no issue following them. He can grow sharp teeth and like Alceo, can have claws on one hand at a time only. No tail, which he is pretty sad about. He has flame powers, which is neat but as a person he's more water-oriented so meh. He can produce flames from his body and heat up his skin to a considerable degree. Useful when it's cold, useful to fight, and useful to cook. His right eye can be shifted to flame-orange but the left one is the luminous purple characteristic of an Anuk-Ite.

Timeline-wise, they escape the Dread Doctors and are found by Derek (and Braeden and Peter) during s5 or something. They (probably) have no family, only remember their own names, and are chimeras of partially unknown species so Derek decides to sort of... Keep them. Both for their protection and others', and to teach them how to function in society (not that he's the best at that).

Their fear powers are complicated. They're not a full Anuk-Ite and they can't be, but they're still half of one each and they can sorta merge their minds, will go back to that later, but they still have some powers.... They can't turn people to stone, but they can activate someone's prey instinct to flight or freeze really fast. They can make people afraid of them even when those people reasonably shouldn't be. Sadly sometimes this backfires and the fera turns into wariness which can turn into agression really fast. If they concentrate really hard they can make people have panic attacks. One of their tactics is making someone super afraid so suddenly that their body can't handle the extremely fast rise of adrenaline and they faint. They can emit a low-level to mid-level anxiety shroud, but it's really hard to direct it at particular people rather than having it float like a rain cloud around them (their range is like 100m). They have to hold hands and mind-merge for most of those except the low-level anxiety shroud.

About the mind-merging. Thing is. They were not born to be two. They should not be two. It is in fact mildly uncomfortable for them to be two. Everything in them (well... Except for the kanima and hellhound parts. Those are the problems) urges them to merge. To be one again. They can't! And it's horrible. Being away from each other is literal torture to them (why would they want to be apart, anyway?) and they don't like not being in physical contact but they can deal with that. They can however merge their minds. It's harder if they're not touching. They become one mentally. It's relieving for them because that's as close to their natural state as they can get. This is what they are and what they should be! When they're merged, they refer to themselves as "I" instead of "we" (admittedly they tend to do that even when not merged......), when they talk about each other other they say I too (like Alceo going "I'm hungry" but the one who's hungry is Caleb... Who is also Alceo at the moment, so. Or someone asking Alceo if they're okay and Caleb answering "yeah, I'm fine" because in a way the question was directed to him). When they're merged their senses merge too so they have trouble distinguishing who heard what or who saw what (not that they're usually far enough apart for it to be a problem). Un-merging is somewhat difficult (and annoying) the longer they've spent merged, so Derek isn't super fond of them staying merged for long periods of time (he knows that if they got stuck like that they could not function in society without being sent to an asylum). They (Alceo mostly) whine about it but mostly comply because they like Derek and want to make him happy.

Relationships wise :

Derek being the one who took them in, they kinda seem him as a dad/big brother. He's certainly not old enough to be their father (if they're as old they look) but mentally they're younger than they appear and they're not even sure what a dad does so..... But they usually call him big brother because that's a role he's more accustomed to and more comfortable in. They like his softness and his awkwardness and the way he expresses his emotions (having kids (?) rely on him completely has actually been pretty emotionally taxing for Derek and that's what convinced him to go to therapy : the twins were already fucked up enough, he didn't want to mess them up further)

Due to Peter's relationship with Derek, they see him as an uncle too. They like his sass. Peter is mostly bewildered by those weirdly affectionate eldritch-adjacent little monsters. He's also curious as hell about their powers and their nature. But he also likes them at least a bit.... They're weirdly innocent in some ways and pretty cynical in some other ways, it's entertaining.

[lore-a-lie]

Chapter 1, Act 3: 110’37’’ (110 Minutes, and 37 Seconds)

Daily Life

Kaede was the last to enter the AV room, as she made sure to remind everyone to come down before making the trip herself. Kokichi was on Gonta’s shoulders making sure everything up there was hooked up the way Miu wanted it, while everyone else had taken what seats they could. The Monokub pads were still in the same order Kaede and Kokichi had previously agreed upon since this was their idea.

Kokichi had initially wanted to do the opposite order of who voted for what, so those who didn’t want to see the videos went first. Kaede couldn’t tell at the time if it was out of petty spite against them disagreeing with him or to give them an excuse to leave early if they really wanted to, so she decided to quietly believe the latter. That didn’t stop her from making her own changes to it, like being against keeping Ryoma’s last since he was most interested in what could be inside it.

It boiled down to Kokichi and Kaede first since they pushed for this, then Miu so she could go back to her projects if she felt she needed to. That did result in Kokichi pestering what she had commissioned from the inventor but he eventually dropped it in favor of focusing on the task at hand. Ryoma was most eager so he would be next, followed by Korekiyo since he was against it and they decided Maki would go last. After Korekiyo would be Kaito, Tsumugi, Kibo, Himiko, Tenko, Angie, Kirumi, and then Gonta.

“Why exactly am I the one going last?”

“So you can sit there agonizing about what we’re going to see! Duh. Nee-heehee~”

“No, that’s wrong! We agreed on this to try and respect your wishes best we could. This way if you really don’t want to see your own you can just leave without missing anything else. Angie and Kiyo still at least seemed curious about what their “motives” could be so I thought having them be earlier would be okay.” Angie was making a puffy face as she considered it before she reluctantly nodded in agreement, Korekiyo held his hand to his mask in thought for a while but eventually shrugged his own consent too.

“And so you didn’t try to kill us until after the show’s over!”

“Please don’t talk like that.” Keade scolded, but Kokichi couldn’t care less about the number of glares he got from that comment. “Is this okay with everyone?”

No one else had any objections or questions about when they were going, so when the lights went off everyone settled down to see what exactly Monokuma could have believed would drive them to kill.

“Alright! Back by popular demand, it’s time for the motive video~” Monokuma’s voice crooned out over a title screen proving it was indeed “Kokichi Oma’s Motive Video”.

As it went on it showed Kokichi and his fellow “DICE” members, all but himself in clown themed masks to protect their identities, and explained the nature of this group. How…Innocent his “secret organization” really was despite all of Kokichi’s earlier claims. Honestly, it sounds more like they were an overblown gang of pranksters than the sort of world controlling monsters he liked to paint it as being.

Only 10 members strong, indicating that the 9 masked figures seen here behind their “leader” really were just it. Sounds more like they were his best friends, maybe even practically family for him, rather than “goons” who disliked him as much as he’d claim they did.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their friends. If this video is accurate this means a lot of what he said has been lies, just trying to trick us into thinking he’s a worse person than he is. How could someone only interested in harmless, petty, nonviolent pranks possibly be enjoying a killing game?

Then the scene changed and the group of 3 girls and 6 boys were behind bars. It’s unclear how badly hurt any of them were but there was blood on their previously spotless (but still ragged) white outfits much like Kokichi’s own and at least one was lying on the floor. At the end Monokuma’s avatar appeared over that image mocking him over how little he knew about the “event” that happened to these people so precious to him, taunting him to try and find out as if graduating could help solve this.

“Well so much for being the Ultimate Evil Leader huh?” Despite his insensitive words Kaito was obviously taken aback by all of this, as if unsure what to do with this information. It made sense to her, as it shows Kokichi does understand the value of teamwork and companionship at least as well as Kaito does. His experience was just in a more close-knit, personal way than Kaito’s astronaut training opened him up to.

“Kaito! I’m… Sorry that your friends are in trouble like this Kokichi” Kaede reached out as if to try patting his shoulder but decided against it due to how closed off his body language became.

“Guess you were lying when you said no one outside would miss a little menace like you back then, huh?” (Seriously Tenko? Now is NOT the time for hateful wordplay! )

“I’m sure they’re fine, this has to be a lie! After all, if their crimes are as petty as it claims they couldn’t be in too much trouble for anything right?” Tsumugi offered to try and lighten the mood.

“Unless it wasn’t just the law they got in trouble with,” Ryoma mumbled as he stared at the screen as if he was lost in a memory of his own.

No matter what anyone said Kokichi just sat there impassively looking forward but Kaede could swear there was a sharpness in his eyes that wasn’t there before and his knuckles were nearly as white as his shirt. For all his talk he really did choose to hold off on watching his video until it was time to do it with everyone else instead of coming in with the upper hand.

As agreed upon as the second ringleader Kaede’s was next. Looks like every video’s going to start with Monokuma making explicit who the video was for by stating their name and talent, which made Maki in particular bristle for reasons unknown.

Next was an image of Kaede’s family, her mother, father, and sister smiling proudly at the camera in front of her favorite piano. She remembers when this was taken, right after her last big show before all of this happened. Then Monokuma starts talking about how close she is to them and how they’re all waiting for her to get back home. But as he starts talking about how worried they’re getting now that she’s been gone for so long without a word, the image changes.

The room’s dark, everything trashed, even her piano was broken now, but worst of all there’s no trace of where her own family has gone. He makes it sound like looking for her lead to them all getting into some sort of accident, and she’s just about ready to throttle him to find out what that is. But only Monokuma! She’d never hurt someone else over this, never her friends. (Except maybe the mastermind if I got my hands on them for causing everyone so much needless pain. For both the living and the dead. )

“Mom, Dad…”

“Wow, Kaede you really are boring aren’t you? Even your lines are sooooo cliche, I think you need to hire a better writer.”

“Oh so now the clown prince of crime has something to say? Leave her alone, this is no laughing matter!” Tsumugi came to her defense this time, only barely beating Kaito to the punch. And in a less literal sense at that, given how his fist is raised.

“But he doesn’t have any scars-” (Seriously Miu, that’s what you’re choosing to take from all this?)

“He wasn’t a clown, that doesn’t count-”

“Can we not ignore Kaede’s plight in favor of arguing about comics right now? This is serious you guys” Kaito managed to get everyone back on track. It was nice to see Tsumugi restrain herself from getting off topic while it lasted, particularly to try helping someone else for a change.

“Indeed, the loss of a family member is no small matter, even if it’s only a vague possibility. At the very least it didn’t show them in any kind of direct distress, that sort of damage to the room could be easily staged or done when they were gone. However I don’t recall you mentioning a sister before, is she your twin perhaps? You both look remarkably similar.” Korekiyo’s offered distraction of a more pleasant type of reminiscing was greatly appreciated so Kaede gladly took it.

“Y-yeah, we’re twins but she’s a bit younger. We get along great, even though I think she’s... kinda bitter she didn’t also turn out to be some sort of Ultimate like I am? Since it’d put me in the spotlight so much, and would end up with her either getting ignored or mistaken for me which is the worst. I mean it’s one thing when we’d want that to happen, but when it’s a genuine mistake it’s just frustrating and awful... We’d do the “twin switch” trick a lot when we were younger, but all our folks ever had to do to tell us apart was stick us in front of a piano, it didn’t even matter what type.”

“Aww, lucky I’ve always someone I could do that with! Hey, Tsumugi do you want to try it sometime with me?” Tenko eagerly asked, cooing about how “cute” it could be.

“Ah, you do remember the Cospox right? That won’t really work out I’m afraid, not unless we both dress up as the same fictional character. A bit of a shame since it does sound pretty fun. Maybe we can think of something similar to do with everyone later?”

“Oh, I think that’s a great idea! We could make a great big party out of it, and everyone can wear fancy outfits! I can do the decorations if Gonta and Ryoma will help me get supplies and put them up~” Angie said.

“I-isn’t that kinda random? And it sounds like a lot of work…” (Himiko says that but she does look interested. Maybe she’d like the chance to have us as an audience for one of her magic shows?)

“Well, it’s an idea for another time at any rate. With how the videos may be we might need this sort of random levity if we can find a way to get everyone involved. Maybe even show off what we can do for each other if we want.” Kaede suggested since it sounded like a fun way to get together for everyone.

“More work for me to do? Let a girl catch a fuckin’ break guys, my stamina's good don’t get me wrong, but even I have my limits. Speaking of let’s just get my vid started so I can leave already okay? Your little “talent show” can come later, just like-”

Right on her cue, Miu’s video did just that, Monokuma’s voice being appreciated for once as no one wanted to know how exactly she was going to finish that thought. (Please let her motive be cleaner than the rest of her.)

All that was seen was what looked like a workshop of sorts. All sorts of half finished projects and equipment could be seen but it’s hard to tell what any of it was supposed to do. Monokuma starts going on and on about how wasted all of her work’s going to be if she can’t leave and get back to them. How no one else cares enough to realize they even exist, much less how to make them carry on her legacy.

He even starts naming a few, a machine that can safely recycle those cheap plastic bags no one knows what do with into things like medical gloves or… Condoms??? Another that would help clean and regulate water supplies when resources are low. Even some that sound like they’re meant primarily for emergency relief efforts or helping the handicapped. But only if they’re finished, they’re useless like this. He goes on to claim she’s useless like this. And how badly the world might need some of these now due to an “event” going on that he refuses to clarify.

“... That’s it?” Tenko breaks the silence that followed.

“WHATT’YA MEAN THAT’S IT YOU BASTARD?! Those are my babies we’re talking about! Do you have any idea how many people I could help with those? I mean sure obviously my “while you sleep” series was my most recent pride and joy, but only because I couldn’t get the headway I wanted on any of those other suckers. I promise they are going to definitely blow those measly little “eyedrop contact” designs I sold way back right outta the fuckin’ water!”

“Wow, that’s really impressive Miu! I had no idea you cared about other people this much.” Kibo looks pretty proud of her actually. This was a surprisingly mature motive for an egotistical and rude girl like her. In a different sort of way than her fellow students were expecting her to be “mature” at any rate.

“Well duh, why do you think I’m willing to let you fuckers give me requests without charging you out the ass for ‘em in this situation?”

“But… Aren’t you even a little concerned there wasn’t anyone in it?” Angie brought up, which was a good point. The only thing seen in the video were her machines, no friends, family, or coworkers.

“What’s that supposed to mean jailbait?”

“Yeah, everyone else so far had people they obviously cared a lot about and cared about them, so where’s your parents or anything?” (Tenko I’m not sure this is the best thing to be asking about now.)

“Who fucking needs ‘em? Barely do jack for me anyways except give me shit because I point out how school’s a fuckin’ waste of my precious time now.”

“Talk about an ungrateful brat.” Maki’s voice had a new sharpness to it, beyond her normal bluntness. Not that she wasn’t always honest, something just felt more personal this time. (I guess someone who never had any parents would be pretty upset hearing someone else complain about being cared about.)

“H-hey. Th-that’s not true, my work more than earned my keep. They’re the ones who-!”

Miu cut herself off as her voice cracked and Kibo tried to help calm her down. No one bothered asking why there weren’t any of her friends at that point. Given who she is this should have been obvious, but the idea she was this alone regardless of if it was by her own doing was a sobering reality nobody wanted to address. The only other sounds until the next video started was a quiet sniffling.

Ryoma’s video started the same way as those before it, but something clearly went wrong. All that was there when his name and talent were stated was a Monokuma in a yellow hard hat in front of a black screen with yellow “under construction” tape running along the top and bottom. And when he spoke again-

“Unfortunately there is no one in the world who is important to you.”

It didn’t matter what “sympathies” or “apologies” Monokuma gave after that sentence, the damage was done. (It doesn’t even matter if this is real or a lie this time.)

“... I don’t know why I expected anything else.”

“Holy shit. I’m… I am so sorry Ryoma, I had no idea.” Kaede was too stunned to say much else. It was her fault he had to see this.

If only they looked through the videos first, then maybe- No, Ryoma wanted to see this too much for anything to be done barring them trying to make one up, and who knows how that would have gone. Some leader I'm turning out to be, doing my friends more harm than good again .

“Hey, at least this means if you do have people outside that means they’re completely safe from Monokuma!” Tenko tried giving this her own positive spin, but all she was doing was kicking up dust.

“Atua agrees, and wants to remind you that you aren’t as alone as you fear. He says she’s still watching over you and everyone’s wishing you well from the other side-”

“Tell your god to shut up and mind his own business.” (What the hell Angie, what were you expecting him to say to that?! What are you even talking about? You’re as in the dark as the rest of us aren’t you?)

“Well, you do still have your cat right? The Russian blue you talked about before? I’m sure they’re waiting for you and Monokuma just overlooked ‘em because it’s a cat!” Even for Kokichi this attempt at a kind lie sounded pretty weak, and he realized it too, but he was still trying to help the best way he knew how.

I wonder if it’s because he’s feeling just as guilty about this? He was more likely to have peeked at these than I was and we both knew it. This was his plan. How could we have known not all of these videos would be “motives” to get us to commit a murder?

“Are you sure a familiar wouldn’t be enough to count? Miu’s didn’t have humans in it either-”

“Come on man, it’s a fuckin’ cat! That’s way harder to find than my glorious resume, of course this sad sack of shit couldn’t find ‘em. Why’d you think guys have so much trouble finding puss-” It was nice to see Miu managed to bounce back to normal at any rate. Kibo was still holding her hand but she sounded as strong and assured as she always did. Just not nice enough for Korekiyo to let her finish her sentence.

“Do not forget, we all promised to remain friends when we leave this place did we not? Regardless of those who are gone you do still have us here for you should you find yourself in need of our support.” His words here were rather unexpected, normally it’s Kaede to be the first to push the value of this promise. (He was the one that said being a bit insensitive was useful for “avoiding suicidal thoughts”, wasn’t he? Is... Is this hitting too close to home for him too? What if Ryoma’s video isn’t the only like this?)

“Aren’t there some prisons that let you have pet cats too? For therapeutic purposes as I recall. If you must return to prison when this is over we can all try to give a good word for you to have you transferred to one if you’d like.”

And with that, any progress towards a lighter mood they may have been making was gone at Kirumi’s words. The uncomfortable truth hung in the air, souring any positive notions for what’s “outside”.

“Oh fuck. Right, prison’s a thing ain’t it? We’ll be sure to visit you too, as much as we can, okay man?” As well-intentioned as Kaito’s words were it didn’t seem like anything being said was helping Ryoma that much.

But his eyes weren’t as hopelessly empty and blank as they had been when the film first ended, hearing how many people here tried to speak up for his sake, so Kaede considered it a small victory and made a promise to herself to spend more time with him from now on. (Will that make things better or worse? Will it be seen as concern or pity? Will there even be enough time for this to matter anymore?)

That awkward silence stayed until Korekiyo’s video started up. There was something already a bit off about this one, as Monokuma started off talking as if he found this, rather than make it himself, and is making it sound like he’s doing Korekiyo some sort of favor by showing it to him.

This video is an actual video for a change, not the static images with basic animations and voice over of the previous. Ironic the history nerd’s motive is technically the most high-tech, as low as the quality the film may be, as he might have appreciated the more Kamishibai-esque natures of the others. (That’s what that was called right? The thing with the traveling picture based storytellers who’d give candies to children to get them to listen. Maybe not the best comparison, not exactly my field here.)

A young woman appeared in some sort of hospital bed, and this time she’s the one doing the talking rather than Monokuma. She’s clearly addressing her little brother, but something feels very off here. It starts normally enough, she’s repeating some of what the doctors told her, how it isn’t looking good, and that she doesn’t want him to feel guilty over anything since he can’t be there right now. Sounds like they might even be the only family they have right now too, as she doesn’t breathe a word about any parents or other relatives. (But that wouldn’t explain where the money came from for the equipment or his trips.)

But then while it’s like she’s trying to give him advice to stay calm despite how bad her situation is, it almost feels like she’s coaching him on what to do to. “You mustn’t” this, “You mustn’t” that, all in order to hide how he’s feeling from others. And it takes no time at all for him to try and start doing what she says too, though all it really does is keep him quiet at the moment.

He did mention she made his current “uniform” too because she didn’t think his previous one “suited him” right? This is feeling… A bit more controlling than I previously thought. I mean no one would blame him for being upset, none of us have been told our loved one is dying no matter what we do. What sort of motive is this?

Right as it seemed like she was just about done with what she wanted to say, finishing with telling him how much she loves him and how no matter what she’ll always be looking out for him best she can, she’s interrupted by her own coughing.

Her fits’ nearly as violent as Korekiyo’s own shaking, which only gets worse at the sight on the screen. The sight of blood on her hands. Her blood on white sheets.

It’s as doctors start to rush in to try and help, alerted by the machines going off, that the visuals of the video finally cut off. But it isn’t a Monokuma avatar with a vague warning that appears at the end here, just his sister’s voice one last time over the black empty space.

“But remember Korekiyo. Most of all... You mustn’t forget your promise to me. ”

There’s almost a chill in the air at those words, regardless of what this “promise” may be. Even so, despite everything Kiyo’s still clearly trying to maintain his posture and keep quiet like she told him to, even if it isn’t working that well. It even sounds like he may be on the verge of hyperventilating under his mask as Kaede tries nudging his arm to get his attention. It’s not clear if he notices thanks to the layers he’s wearing as he just keeps hugging himself tightly.

“I’m so sorry Kiyo. I had no idea your sister was doing this poorly. No wonder you wanted to get back home to her as soon as you could.” Kiyo starts a bit at Kaede’s words, it looks like he nearly forgot he wasn’t alone.

“I-... Yes, I had mentioned that already hadn’t I?”

“At least we can see the creepy’s just a thing that runs in the family, eh Gimpy?” (What the fuck Miu?! Even if you’re just trying to help lighten the mood that’s uncalled for right now!)

“ I beg your pardon? ” (Yikes. Okay, note do not risk insulting his sister to his face. Ever. He’s scary enough when he doesn’t look ready to kill someone thanks.)

“She did come across as a bit... Intense, didn’t she? B-but I don’t think Monokuma would use this as a “motive” for you if she wasn’t still at least a little okay, right?” (Oh god Tsumugi why, this is Not Helping.)

“Being so spirited in such a state would appear to be a good sign for her overall health and recovery, even if that ending was… Ominous. How long has she been like this if that’s alright to ask?” (Okay thank you Kibo, that helped calm him down a little somehow, his breathing is more even now. Less ragged.)

“She’s been prone to illness since she was a child, some of my earliest memories of her were from visiting her at one hospital or another. This case was rather… different than most of her previous conditions however.”

“What exactly was the promise she talked about?” Angie has an odd look on her face, like something’s troubling her more than the tone that came up with this “promise”. As if she’s only half listening.

“... She was always lonely and often bedridden, so she wanted me to help her… Make new friends while on my travels. So she wouldn’t need to be so alone anymore, even when I was away. Only female companionship though, she was rather adamant on that part, and I’m more than happy to help her.”

Then why did this sound so much more serious than that? That’s kinda a weird thing to make be her parting words, is Monokuma trying to guilt him by making it sound like she thought he hasn’t kept that promise? If she is gone and I’m the first person he’s asked who agreed to it that might be true  He’s got some light back into his eyes now at least, he’s even sounding more like himself again.

“At least she has excellent taste! Limiting herself of the stresses and troubles degenerate males cause will surely help her get better soon. I could try visiting if that might help her too, I’m often told my energy’s “infectious”!” (I don’t think that was meant as a good thing Tenko. Given how his mask twitched it must have been a good enough pun to get a smile from him at least. Unless that’s a grimace. Still progress!)

“If you mean to insinuate my own presence causes her issue I must strongly disagree on that front, as I’m the most consistent company she’s ever had by far. I believe her reasoning was less about worries towards her physical safety as much as it is cultural norms regarding social interactions between genders and her definite lack of female contact in general beyond that of medical professionals.”

“Wow. This explains so much. The weird girliness, the creepy face mask, the sister comple-ow” For Kokichi’s safety Kaede cut him off with a warning jab and a glare. Thankfully Korekiyo missed what he was getting at towards the end, so for now Kokichi gets to live to see another day after all. (Hopefully. If he’s lucky.)

“I could do a show at her hospital… That tends to bring spirits up. Not sure if her problem’s something my level of cure spells can cover at the moment though, sorry…”

“If there isn’t anything too wrong with it we could all give her a visit! She can’t mind some guys stopping by once in awhile right?” (Okay even if boys could be okay you might be a bit much for her Kaito.)

“... Thank you all for your consideration. Shall we move on to the next video now?”

Kiyo definitely seemed less distraught than he did at the start now, but something still felt off. He was still only speaking of his sister in the past tense, made more concerning by how his sister’s footage makes his video feel older than the others have so far, but at least he was making future plans. Albeit only ones that can happen if his sister’s still stable when everyone gets out, and not ones that directly involve him.

It does feel less awkward to think of him as “Kiyo” now, so at least some of this as a bonding experience is working right? Or maybe it’s because of how wrong his name sounded when his sister was saying it. Not really looking forward to meeting her anymore, but I can’t really afford to tell him that yet. Too soon.

Kaito’s was next to come. A photo of him in his astronaut gear standing between an elderly couple appears that Monokuma identifies as his grandparents. It changes to the couple sitting on a couch looking concerned, and like Kiyo’s this is actually real footage of them, though it’s less grainy than his video was.

They talk about how all they want is for him to never give up and keep on living, not just for himself but for them too. Monokuma’s voiceover then cuts in and claims the two got into some kind of accident right after this interview, but as is typical he refuses to go into any more detail than that.

“Oh, wow Kaede I’m sorry. Really I am! Kaito’s is waaay more boring than your video was.”

“OI SHUT THE HELL UP YOU BRAT-”

“Easy there Kaito, you’re fine and I’m sure they are too. They certainly looked safer than other examples so far yeah?” Kaede put a hand on his shoulder and helped push him back into his seat, saving Kokichi’s face from a punch to the jaw for at least a few minutes longer. Hopefully. For a boy with such a cute face he sure doesn’t care much about keeping it that way.

“If they don’t know about the killing game, why would they be so concerned about you “surviving”?” Maki’s voice cut in like a knife. “Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

“Jeez Maki Roll, you worry too much. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it and it’s pretty cute for you, but it’s not like that. It’s just astronaut training’s very stressful and the job itself is dangerous ya’know? They’ve always been a coupla worry warts, no biggie.”

“What have I told you about calling me that?”

If looks could kill, his grandparents would be very upset with all of us right now. But she isn’t objecting to the fact she cares which is a lot of progress for her! Great job Kaito. Now PLEASE stop trying to make your way to an early grave for once?

“Oh gawd, please take this weird flirting elsewhere so we can move along already, okay?” (Kokichi why does it feel like I’m putting more work into keeping you alive than you are!?)

One strongly restrained but furious Maki and a securely duct taped Kokichi later everyone was indeed ready for the next video. Time to see if Tsumugi can win out in the contest for “least interesting motive video” or if for once she won’t be able to claim to be the plainest person in the room.

Its opening was as plain as one could expect for her, an image of Tsumugi with one of her cosplaying groups with Monokuma talking about how much she loves working with them. Sounds like they even did other types of fanworks too, something about writing and designs.

Most of the references flew of Kaede’s head since she couldn’t really identify “who” anyone was meant to be or if this was what they genuinely looked like. Then came the transition to a shot of where they worked in tatters, much like Kaede’s, with one of their abandoned buttons with a streak of blood on it in a way Kaede’s fairly certain she’s seen on a graphic novel cover somewhere before. (I don’t recognize this logo though. Is it DR as in “Doctor” or an abbreviation for a multi-word title? That red mark feels familiar, like it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t place it.)

“And here comes the “oh no some event happened! Find out what, next time on Monokuma’s mystery theater!” teaser at the end just like all the others, see? Nothing special.” Tsumugi says this but she’s clearly nervous about what she’s seen. It’s impressive what a brave face she’s been able to keep, though it may help unlike the rest of them she has had time to process this already.

“I’m suddenly grateful he didn’t actually try to call them that.” Kaede joked before asking, “Still, aren’t you worried more about them? It looked to me like seeing that button freaked you out a little.”

“W-well of course I am, I mean there was blood on it and everything! But I’m a part of a lot of groups you know? So if one of them was in trouble I’m sure one of the others would be trying to help them out, since there’s a lot of loose connections like that with us. I don’t think Monokuma could have possibly done something to all of my close friends since a bunch of them aren’t even in Japan, so I’m just… Choosing not to think about it.”

As she didn’t look too worried about all of this the group quickly let the topic drop. Avoidance may not be the best response to have in a situation like this, but at least it isn’t anything more dangerous.

As the videos had hit an almost pleasant lull in their severity everyone decided to take an intermission, to stretch their legs and whatnot. Despite earlier concerns though no one decided to stop watching with the others though, even Miu claimed she wanted to stick around to at least see Kibo’s since her workload wasn’t that bad now that she thought about it. (I wonder if that means she’s nearly finished already?)

On the way out to the hallway, Kaede pulled Ryoma aside.

“H-hey, listen about the video-”

“I’m not going to do anything stupid if that’s what you’re worried about. Nothing’s really changed for me after all. I won’t be putting everyone’s lives in danger over something like this.” (Ouch. I wasn’t really thinking about what might happen if a body was found without a murderer. That could be dangerous.)

“I wasn’t- I didn’t think you were going to. I just wanted to make sure you know how much we really do care about you. You may try to keep all of us away but you’re still our friend here. Nothing you’ve shown to us indicates you are a bad person, no matter what you may have done in the past. So please, why not let us get to know you? This might sound selfish or arrogant but… Maybe we can become your reason for living if you can’t find one on your own.”

“You’re right, that does sound pretty selfish. But in an honest, naive kinda way. I… Appreciate what you’re trying to say. Thank you. I’ll think about it. But I promise I’m not going to do anything drastic. I’m not sure Kiyo can say the same thing. He’s weird, and something about him has never really felt right to me, but you might want to check in with him next if this is going to be a “thing” for you right now. I don’t think he’s a bad kid, and I may be reading things wrong here, but his motive seemed more like mine than one to lead to a murder if you know what I mean. And unlike Miu, he isn’t all that close to anyone in particular from what I’ve seen.” (Well with how creepy he is that is kinda expected. But he’s right.)

“Yeah, I thought as much too. Thank you, Ryoma. And if you ever need to talk I’ll listen, okay?”

He gave a bit of a smile as he walked away. Far from a happy grin but less melancholic than those before, probably meant to comfort Kaede more than anything else. It looked like Kaito was running up to him too, probably with something similar to say. She overheard the word “training” but not much else, so it sounded like maybe he was setting up a way to spend more time with the former tennis star. Kaede couldn’t really focus on that though as she tried finding where Kiyo’s gone off to.

She didn’t need to go very far as it turns out as he was muttering to himself in the library across the way.

Looking around in the corner Rantaro died in. It’s still a small comfort the books were put back to how they probably were originally rather than in that death tr  No. Not. Now. This is much more important.

“You okay there Kiyo?” Kaede softly asked, but the answer was obvious as he nearly jumped and seemed to wipe away some tears before he turned to face her.

“A-ah, hello! I hadn’t heard you come in, my apologies. I’m doing better I believe, nothing to be overly worried about I assure you.”

Nope, he stuttered and I was the one able to sneak up on him for a change. That’s enough to be at least a little worried about, even if he didn't look like he's been crying. Not that I haven’t heard him when he’s come up to me before nope, definitely have never been spooked by a certain creepy too tall ninja man. Which is kinda weird come to think of it, with how good my hearing is and the fact that he’s always wearing those heavy boots  FOCUS KAEDE!

“Well if you’re sure. I just wanted to let you know that if you need someone to talk to or anything you can always come to me about it okay? I’m sorry you had to see something like that.”

“Thank you, that is very kind of you to offer. But I’ll be alright... I was just getting a book to read later, in case the films to come make sleep difficult to reach tonight.” (More like the one you've already seen, but okay.)

“Hmm, that sounds like a good idea. What exactly do they have here?”

The ten-minute break passed by pretty quickly like that, since there were a lot of books to look through and most of them looked dreadfully boring. Kaede did find a cute looking romance novel though, which would hopefully come in handy. She couldn’t really tell what the book Kiyo found was about, as the title was in Russian or something. The mood in the AV room certainly felt better now than it did before their intermission, as everyone began coming back in to see what else Monokuma had in store for them.

First Chapter     Previous Chapter     Index     AO3 Version     Next Chapter

[femmeslash]

im making the college au free for anyone to write about/draw if they want, so this is now a V3 GAY COLLEGE AU BASICS POST. for more info see my #GAY FLOOR AU tag.

roommates (this is in a separate post in my tag but i’ll do it here too for clarity) Amami - Kaede Miu - Tenko - Kiibo (kiibo is not a student, he is miu’s project. he can still talk. he mostly hangs out in their room though) Ouma - Gonta Angie - Himiko Saihara - Kaito Maki Tsumugi - Kirumi Shinguuji - Hoshi

naegi is their RA (resident assistant, this means he is like their floor dad). he’s a bi trans dude. maizono is also there a lot. maizono knows everyone and is extremely gay. miu also knows souda from her engineering classes. feel free to throw anyone else in there as you wish.

gender/sexuality

amami - gay genderfluid/nb boy kaede - bisexual cis girl maki - trans lesbian miu - ???? ?????????? ?? tenko - the only important thing is that she’s a lesbian himiko - tired lesbian angie - pansexual nb-ish girl. doesn’t care much shinguuji - dmab agender hoshi - i dont know kaito - closeted cis bi dude with an extreme lean towards dudes saihara - bi trans dude. was closeted until coming to college ouma - gay gonta - pan cis dude. chose gay floor to live in to learn to be tolerant and gentlemanly to all people. surprise! he’s not straight tsumugi - bisexual trans girl kirumi - trans lesbian [SPOILERS] - trans girl. she is still an alter. please be normal and not cursed about her

everyone uses canon pronouns, except shinguuji, who uses they/them. people forget a lot but they don’t really mind. kiibo uses any pronouns seeing as he is a robot.

FLOOR INTRODUCTIONS

“Why don’t we go around and introduce ourselves? I guess your name, your major, and an interesting fact about you would be fine.” Makoto looks at the ceiling like he’s searching for answers. “I’m Makoto. I lived on this floor as a freshman, and I liked it so much I came back. I’m a psychology major.” Kaede nods. “I’m Kaede. I’m a music major with a focus on piano, and I’ve performed at concert halls all over the place.” “Rantarou. I’m undecided. Haha… I can’t really think of anything? Kaede and I came here together, how’s that?” “That’s fine,” Makoto says. “And you?” The loud blonde girl from earlier speaks up. “I’m Miu! I’m the greatest engineer you’ll ever see, ‘n’ I got into college by building my own fuckin’ robot! He’s in my room if you ever wanna talk to him.” She cackles, spitting a little. Kaede edges away just the slightest bit. The introductions continue. “Korekiyo, anthropology major. I am unsure of anything about myself that could be considered interesting.” “I’m Gonta! Gonta came from a very small town to study insects.” “I’m Maki. ECE. Pass.” “My name’s Kaito! I’m on my way to becoming an astronaut, haven’t picked a major yet but it’ll probably be, like, physics or somethin’. I’m here as a straight ally.” “…I’m Shuuichi. I’ve, uh, actually published a novel.” A quiet uproar demands details. “It isn’t that good, but, yeah, a mystery novel. I’d like to do forensics or detective work someday.” “I’m Tsumugi. I’ll be creating my own major as well, since I hope to become a fashion designer. I love to cosplay, love all kinds of anime and games, and… yeah!” “My name is Tenko! It’s very good to meet you all! Tenko is studying fitness and exercise, a-and she apologizes, but she is very very afraid of boys!” “Ryouma. I play tennis. I’ll also pass.” “I’m Himiko. I’m gay and existing is exhausting.” This earns a few laughs. “Angie is an art major, and she loves avocados! Angie is from a reeeeaaally small island in the Pacific.” “I’m Kokichi! Haven’t decided on a major. I’m the leader of a secret society, and also I’m a liar.” He follows this up with a giggle, and a few people snort or chuckle back. “Kirumi. I also enjoy cleaning. I haven’t yet decided on a major, but maybe hospitality.”

canon pairings are currently saimomo, tenhimi, kaemaki (which is like the longest slow burn ever because maki never comes out of her room), and shirotojo. if you would like to make something happen that doesn’t involve any of the characters already paired off, go for it!

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 2.11

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as we finished up the second trial proper, Kaito continued to be adorably supportive and encouraging to Shuichi, Kirumi was desperately, furiously determined to save “everyone”, Shuichi was brave enough to face the truth and do his own version of saving everyone, and Kaito noticed Shuichi being a hero apparently without his help (even though he definitely still did need Kaito’s encouragement to do so, just not directly in that precise moment).

Now for the trial conclusion and Kirumi to continue to be determined.

Kokichi:  “Phew, thank goodness we managed to get through the class trial again!”

Yeah, no thanks to you, who could have made it take half as long if you hadn’t been an asshole.

Angie:  “Hey, hey, how long have you been lying to us? Is that why you took such good care of us? So you could deceive everyone?”

More of Angie not giving a fuck about anyone ever – she’s happy to immediately jump to assuming Kirumi never cared about them and was always deceiving them, rather than being hurt that she apparently did so.

Kaito:  “Hey, Kirumi. Tell me… Why? You were always thinking about everyone around you… How could you kill someone?”

Kaito, as always, really wants to understand! He could respect Kirumi for her selflessness and caring about everyone else, and that just doesn’t add up with someone who’d commit murder, so he’s desperate to make sense of it.

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu… Human beings have always been selfish, self-centered creatures.”

That’s rich, in this game. Kirumi isn’t even remotely the only selfless person here.

Kiyo:  “Well, Kirumi? Were your feelings towards us simply another falsehood?”

Kokichi:  “N-No! It can’t be! Say it ain’t so! That… was just another lie, too?”

Kokichi is still trying to get everyone to think that if someone seemingly trustworthy lied to everyone then nobody is trustworthy ever.

Shuichi:  “I don’t… think so… I still believe Kirumi cares about us.”

Maki:  “…And how would you know?”

Shuichi:  “I can’t say for certain, but I can sense that this trial has been agonizing for her.”

Shuichi is also showing some good people-intuition! Although if he really did get this sense then I don’t know why he pictured her grinning evilly during the Closing Argument.

And of course Maki is the one to question that, because she runs on the belief that if someone is a murderer then you should just assume they’re a horrible person and stop trying to understand them further or consider whether they still care about people despite that, right?

Kirumi:  “I’m just… lost. Because if I tell you why I did it, you will regret what you’ve just done.”

Isn’t that what she wants, though? To make everyone try and sacrifice themselves for her so she stands a chance of escaping? She should be quite happy to tell them her motive. Maybe this apparent conflictedness is also part of her gambit.

Kaito:  “Spit it out already. Otherwise… we can’t accept this outcome.”

Kaito still just really wants to understand and can’t accept things if he doesn’t.

Kokichi:  “Does that mean someone broke the agreement and traded you your motive video? Alright, fess up! Which one of you did it! Close your eyes and raise your hand if it was you!"

Obviously Kokichi knows full well nobody showed Kirumi her video because she received her own. He’s just trying to make everybody think that everyone’s agreement to co-operate by not sharing the videos was all a big lie and someone secretly stabbed everyone in the back because that’s always what people will do, right?

Monokuma:  “Hmmm? Y’know, I meant to bring this up earlier cuz it’s been bugging me for a while… All this talk about videos being switched… What does that mean, exactly?”

Monokuma did not intend to switch the videos! Everybody was meant to see their own and nobody else’s.

The kubs argue for a bit about them getting accidentally switched and admit that that’s what happened, then:

Monokuma:  “Ah, it seems I misunderstood. I completely forgot that the plan all along was to redistribute the videos.”

Monophanie:  “D-Daddy!”

Monokuma:  “It’s not your fault at all, kids. It’s my fault for forgetting.”

This is clearly Monokuma lying to save face and try and pretend to the audience that he’s still a good gamemaster who totally knows what he’s doing. The truth is that the videos getting switched was completely unintended.

Kirumi:  “I see… The Monokubs merely distributed the motive videos at random… Receiving my own video was nothing more than… bad luck.”

I really like how Kirumi considers receiving her own video to be bad luck, and not good luck! She would have preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that her country was in danger than to know about it and feel forced to sacrifice her friends.

Monokuma:  “Only Kirumi could save the country from impending doom. Yes! The future of the country rests entirely on her capable shoulders! But Kirumi is up to the task, for she only accepts requests that only she can fulfil.”

The emphasis on the fact that only Kirumi can do this is pretty important. If someone else could save the country without her, then it’d be wrong of Kirumi to sacrifice thirteen people to escape when she doesn’t need to. But, given the Flashback Light properties of these videos, I can completely buy that Kirumi might have become convinced that only she was capable of saving everyone and therefore that she had to escape or everyone would definitely die without her. Maybe some of the other students should have questioned that part a little more, though.

What with Kirumi being the de facto prime minister and the one responsible for saving the country from impending doom via meteorites and space virus, one has to wonder what her connection with the Gofer Project was supposed to be. Kirumi would never have approved of a strategy that only saved a tiny handful of people including herself and left most of the country to die. The Gofer Project was presumably run by a separate part of the government that didn’t believe Kirumi was capable of saving everyone and figured it would be better to at least save some people. Still, that brings the Ultimate Hunt part of the backstory into question, since Kirumi would never have given up her position as prime minister and her ability to save everyone by erasing her talent-related memories. She’d have wanted to avoid the Hunt, but she’d have also wanted to continue acting as prime minister and trying to save everyone at the same time – if anything, she could have used her influence as prime minister to try and shut down both the Ultimate Hunt and the Gofer Project.

Again, this backstory is actually pretty flimsy when you think about it for a while.

Kokichi:  “And we just stopped Kirumi from doing that, because we selfishly wanted to live… Wh-What should we do? D-Did we just make a terrible mistake? If everyone outside dies because Kirumi is dead… Doesn’t that mean we pretty much destroyed the country!? Wh-What do we do!?”

This is another one of those outbursts from Kokichi that sounds pretty genuine and therefore probably involves Kokichi telling himself that he’s totally just acting and he doesn’t really feel this way at all.

Monokuma:  “I am the ruler of this world. Nothing is beyond my power.”

Shuichi:  “Nothing is beyond your power? What kind of arrogant, ridiculous—”

Keebo:  “That is 100% a lie! It is impossible that he could bring disaster to a country!”

Monokuma is telling the truth, but only in the sense that he’s talking about “this world” as in this fictional story, which he can manipulate the backstory of as he pleases. In this universe, Monokuma can’t actually bring disaster to the whole, real world. Junko’s ridiculous despair-spreading powers don’t exist here.

Monokuma:  “Let’s talk about Ryoma. It would be a shame to completely neglect him.”

In this game, it makes perfect sense that Monokuma would want to take the time to explain Ryoma’s motive. Not for the sake of spreading despair, but for the sake of making the story more interesting. What’s the point in having this whole story about how Ryoma gave up on living if nobody ever hears it?

Kokichi:  “We know your motive to kill, but why did you kill Ryoma specifically?”

Kirumi:  “Because he was easy to kill…”

Because even with how determined Kirumi was to save everyone outside, she still couldn’t bring herself to directly kill anyone who wanted to live.

Ryoma:  “So… you got a reason to survive… That’s the complete opposite of me… Heh… That’s good… If you’ve got something to live for, it means your life has value. Hmph…”

Kirumi:  “After he said that, he told me he would clean up the tennis balls lying around… And then, he turned his back toward me.”

Ryoma just let Kirumi kill him. He never wanted to throw his life away for no reason, but he was happy to die in chapter 1 to let everyone escape the time limit. By showing him her motive, Kirumi gave Ryoma a reason to die.

Kirumi:  “A person like him would have noticed my bloodthirst emanating. He already knew…”

Kirumi is aware of how perceptive Ryoma was! Although calling her feelings “bloodthirst” is a bit much; it’s not like she was going to enjoy killing him.

Shuichi:  “Then Ryoma… knew he was going to be killed…”

Kaito:  “…”

I like that it makes a point to pan over to Kaito saying nothing here. He is not happy about this.

Kokichi:  “Wait a minute, it’s Maki’s fault that Ryoma decided he didn’t want to live anymore.”

Maki:  “…What?”

Kokichi:  “Ryoma only gave up on life after you showed him his motive video. Well, since you didn’t watch his motive video, I guess you had no way of knowing…”

Yes, she didn’t, so let’s stop trying to make it sound like Maki’s a terrible person who deliberately led Ryoma to his death, shall we, Kokichi? The only person who knew the contents of Ryoma’s video before he saw it and therefore arguably led him to his death by helping him see it was you. Good job deflecting that responsibility onto someone else.

In fact, yeah, Kokichi could absolutely have prevented Ryoma’s death. Most people, if they’d seen Ryoma’s video and had him asking them where to find it with the earnest plea that he just wants a reason to live, would awkwardly be all “uhhhh not sure you should see it actually”. A reaction like that would probably result in Ryoma figuring out what it contained anyway, which would be just as bad as him seeing it. But Kokichi? He is the one person who could just go “Nope! Not gonna tell you! Because I’m eeeevil, nee-heehee!” or something to that effect, and Ryoma wouldn’t have questioned it. That would have been Kokichi using his villainous persona in a way which is secretly for the purpose of saving someone, like I see frequently argued as what his character is supposedly about. But that’s not what he did. He did the exact opposite, being “helpful” for once and in doing so deliberately giving Ryoma information that he knew was likely to lead to his death.

Shuichi:  “Wait a minute, you’re talking as if Ryoma saw that motive video… Didn’t you just say that he only checked the name and didn’t watch the video?”

Uh, localisers? Think you made a booboo here. Shuichi’s definitely supposed to be talking about how Kokichi supposedly only checked the names and didn’t watch the videos in full.

Maki:  “…You’re right. He was looking for a reason to live.”

Kokichi:  “Which means you shouldn’t have shown him his motive video in the first place.”

Kaito:  “Wh-What do you mean? What… did his video show?”

I like how Kaito butts in here because he cares about understanding what happened to Ryoma and can’t comprehend how a motive video could possibly have given him less reason to live.

Monokuma:  “This message is for Ryoma Hoshi, the Ultimate Tennis Pro… Unfortunately, there is no one in the world who is important to you!”

Gah. Monokuma just puts it so goddamn bluntly.

Just, seriously, poor Ryoma. Even though he had no reason to live that he knew of, he was so desperate to find one, to find even the tiniest shred of hope. Going to his motive video, where he expected to find that hope, only to be met with absolutely nothing… that right there is genuine despair. These games love to throw around the words “hope” and “despair”, so much that honestly most of the time they kind of forget what the words actually mean, but Ryoma’s story here is a perfect example of their real meanings. And the game doesn’t need to use either of those words at all while telling it!

Kaito:  “Th-That’s what he was shown…? If he saw something like that…”

See, I think even Kaito gets it after seeing that.

Tsumugi:  “He just… gave up, then?”

Kaito:  “To hell with that! That damn moron!”

Kaito does not for a second actually think Ryoma is a moron for being suicidal after what he’s just seen. He’s just lashing out and deflecting his own pain because he realises now more than ever that he could have helped, that he should have helped, and if he had then maybe Ryoma wouldn’t have even wanted to see his motive video and wouldn’t have given up on life like this.

Kirumi:  “You are free to judge me for killing Ryoma… I would bear the burden of being seen as evil for the sake of my nation and its people. Because *that* is what it means to serve with selfless devotion.”

I love all of this game’s selfless murderers who are willing to turn themselves into horrible people and become the villain for the sake of others. It’s not that any of them don’t think the murder they commit is an awful, unforgivable act – they’re just selfless enough that they’re okay with corrupting their own integrity and decency like this if it’s the only way they can save everybody else.

Gonta:  “Monokuma… Gonta have question…”

Monokuma:  “Oh? What is it?”

Gonta:  “Can Gonta be blackened instead of Kirumi?”

Oh, Gonta. Of course one of our future selfless murderers would be the first one to offer himself up as a sacrifice to let Kirumi save the rest of the country.

Several of the others agree with Gonta that Kirumi’s life is more valuable than their own and maybe they should have got the culprit wrong.

Shuichi:  (Then… what was the point of me doing all this…? Why did I reveal the truth? What have I done…? Was I wrong? I-I shouldn’t have—)

More fuel for Shuichi’s issues about how he’s afraid of revealing the truth! Not only is the idea of the murderers doing it for selfless reasons a strong running theme of this game, but it also fits very well with Shuichi’s arc about the truth being painful sometimes.

Kaito:  “What kind of face is that, Shuichi? If you’re my sidekick, then suck it up!”

Shuichi:  “…What?”

Kaito:  “That goes for all of you! To hell with all this value of life shit! Life’s not just some thing! You can’t trade it or put a price on it!”

Shuichi:  “Kaito…”

Kaito:  “And your life doesn’t just belong to you. It’s for your parents, your grandparents, your friends, even your neighbors. It’s not something you can just decide to throw away on your own. So we didn’t do the wrong thing! Life’s purpose is to be lived!”

Kaito is so good, yet again. He believes that life is infinitely valuable, and therefore that one life is worth just as much as several and that no one should go throwing their life away, no matter the reason.

Kaito:  “So I’m just gonna go ahead and say it! I wanna live!”

I like the way he phrases this. He knows that everyone in this room still wants to live, but it’s like they’re all afraid to admit it because they don’t want to come across as selfish next to Kirumi’s desire to save the country. Kaito puts it this way, as if he’s coming out and saying the thing everyone else also wants to say but won’t, because he believes that there’s never anything selfish or shameful about wanting to live – that’s just what living things are supposed to do.

Kaito:  “I haven’t even traveled to space yet. There’s no way in hell I’m gonna die here!”

Reminder #2 that KAITO CANNOT DIE BEFORE HE HAS GONE TO SPACE. This is still important and will never not be.

Maki:  *sigh*… “The idiot’s talking again.”

Tenko:  “But… he’s right. I mean, you’re right, too. He is an idiot. But he’s right.”

Angie:  “Yep! He’s an Atua-damned idiot!”

Miu:  “Hahahaha! I dunno why, but idiots always fill me with inspiration!”

Kaito:  “H-Hey, shut up! I told you to stop calling me an idiot!”

Yeah, sure, he’s an idiot – an idiot who potentially just saved everybody’s lives with his “idiocy”. All they really mean by “idiot” here is that he’s incredibly straightforward, with his fundamental belief that throwing your life away is always bad regardless of how complex the situation may be, like it is now.

Kokichi: “Maybe his stupid speech is just what we needed to hear. Kirumi certainly looks shaken by it.”

Gonta:  “Huh? Shaken…?”

Kirumi:  “…”

Kokichi:  “Do you really think someone as desperate to live as Kirumi would give up so easily? Of course not. In fact, she probably still hasn’t given up, even now. She was hoping that learning the truth would make one of us volunteer to die in her place.”

See? Kaito just quite possibly saved everyone by having the conviction to not let go of his own desire to live.

Kokichi:  “But Monokuma would never allow a blackened to escape punishment, so maybe… she wanted everyone to rebel, so she could use that as cover to escape on her own. …How about it, Kirumi? Am I close?”

Kirumi:  “You… are the most detestable cretin I have ever met. You knew exactly what I would attempt, yet allowed me to explain anyway.”

Damn right, Kirumi. Someone needed to say it. She’s got an especially good point that even though he knew her plan, he let her carry it out anyway. Someone who genuinely cared about helping the others would have used that insight to warn everyone before Kirumi started trying it. There are so many things about this killing game that Kokichi is more aware of than everyone else and could be telling the others about to help them stand more chance of escaping – but he doesn’t, because he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone except himself.

(Also, as underhanded as her methods may be right now, Kirumi is so impressively determined. She is still looking for any possible way to get out of this alive even though her situation is almost completely hopeless at this point.)

Gonta:  “You… try to trick Gonta!? Try to trick everyone!?”

Miu:  “Seriously!? You back-stabbing cunt!”

I would say it’s harsh of people to blame Kirumi for being manipulative when their own desires to sacrifice themselves for her were still genuine. But it does make sense coming from Miu and Gonta specifically – Miu because she’s the second-least trusting of anyone here, and Gonta because he’s still just barely learning to wrap his head around the idea that anyone can be manipulative and want to trick people.

Kaito:  “Enough! She was just trying to stay alive in her own way. Nobody can blame her for that!”

But of course Kaito would be the one to shut that kind of talk down. He wants to live strongly enough that he’s not willing to throw his life away for Kirumi’s, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still respect Kirumi’s desire to live and want her to get out of this alive too if at all possible.

Kirumi:  “So no matter what, I cannot die!”

This is accompanied by a voice clip of Kirumi saying, “You must live!”. Oops again, localisers. In Japanese, such a phrase wouldn’t have a subject, and apparently when translating the short voice clips, they didn’t necessarily know the story context they’d be used in, so they clearly didn’t realise that this one was obviously supposed to be “I must live!”

Shuichi:  (She just ran as fast as she could. …I heard my voice call out.) “R-Run… Run! Run, Kirumi!!!”

Tenko:  “Please ruuuun!!!”

Keebo:  “Run! Please hurry!”

Kaito:  “Hurry! Run!”

I like everyone else cheering her on like this – even after what she did to them, they still all want her to survive! Even Kaito, who was the one who stopped everyone else from sacrificing themselves for her!

Also, props to Kirumi’s voice actor for going all in on this part. Like, damn.

It’s a neat touch how in the usual “Game Over” animation, Kirumi is still running the fuck away instead of being dragged. I’m not sure where she’s planning on running to, though. Presumably the only way out of the trialgrounds is the elevator, which I imagine only works when Monokuma wants it to. The only other things in the trialgrounds she could run towards would be… oh, yeah, right. The execution devices. Whoops.

I’m reasonably appreciative of Kirumi’s execution, because it’s very relevant to her relentless determination to escape and her willingness to utterly destroy herself for the sake of her people. Could do without yet more fanservicey clothing damage, though.

Apparently, it’s based off a Buddhist story about a prisoner in Hell who was given the opportunity to escape by climbing out up a thin thread, but then other prisoners started climbing up beneath him, he didn’t want them to escape with him and he shook the thread causing it to break and all of them to fall back into Hell. But I gather the point of that story is supposed to be that the prisoner’s selfishness was his downfall, because he wasn’t willing to let anyone but himself escape. That really doesn’t fit for Kirumi. She would have been more than happy to escape with everyone else if she could have done. It’s only thanks to Monokuma’s ruleset and not her own will that she had to try and sacrifice them.

Kokichi:  “I… I can’t take this anymore… Even Kirumi was killed so brutally… WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! I DON’T WANNA DO THIS ANYMOOORE!!!!!”

Sure, Kokichi, you just keep overexaggerating your feelings so that you can tell yourself they’re all just an act and you don’t actually care at all that someone was killed horribly.

Himiko:  “A-Am I… gonna… end up like that too…?”

A rare case of Himiko actually expressing how scared she is! The shock of the awful execution might have brought it out of her and made her forget to hide it behind Atua.

Shuichi:  “That must be why Kirumi did not want to show the videos. She thought that if everyone felt the same murderous rage that she did… this killing game would become pure chaos. She… wanted to stop it.”

Kokichi:  “If that’s the case, then we really shouldn’t show our videos to each other!”

Keebo:  “That was our consensus from the beginning. Not including you, of course.”

Shuichi’s right, and this is exactly why Kokichi’s attempt to get everyone to watch the videos without any sense of camaraderie was a terrible idea and why his reasons for doing so were not for everyone’s sake.

Kiyo:  “I had assumed Kokichi would try to show us our videos to… get under our skin. But that did not come to pass. What, I wonder, were his intentions…?”

Kokichi:  “Huh? I’d never do anything like that. I’m still thinking about what Kirumi said.”

Yeah, Kokichi, you’d never try to get under people’s skin, it’s not like that’s your entire talent and the point of your “secret, evil organisation” or anything.

By “what Kirumi said” he means the hint that the videos worked like Flashback Lights, which, now that we know that, is a very good reason to not share them. But Kokichi saw his own video too, so he’s the only other person who might have already known about their Flashback Light effects. If he knew that before he tried to show everyone the videos then he clearly cared even less about protecting everyone.

Shuichi:  “Still… how could Kirumi remember something she never should have forgotten? Serving the entire nation seems too important for her to just… forget.”

Yep, it’s almost like Flashback Lights don’t recover lost memories at all.

Tenko:  “Does that mean we have motives to kill that we’ll remember by watching our videos?”

Shuichi:  “And if that’s the case, maybe it’s for the best that we don’t watch the videos. As long as we don’t see the videos, we won’t know our motives.”

Kaito:  “Yeah, now I’m convinced. It’s probably for the best. Those motive videos would just mess us up. It’s better if we just believe in each other.”

The first time Kaito “changed his mind” about what to do with the motive videos, it was less that he’d really changed his mind and more that he’d just gone from being unsure to actually having a strong opinion. But now he’s very decidedly changed his opinion to the opposite one. Kaito is very adamant about sticking to his convictions, but despite this he is still also willing to change his views if new information comes to light that makes him re-evaluate things and realise he was mistaken.

Kiyo:  “Hearing you speak of everyone’s sake is the least believable lie I’ve heard yet…”

Kokichi:  “How rude. I’m always doing stuff for everyone’s sake. I’m sure you won’t believe me when I say stuff like that, so I’ll just keep lying…”

No. Kokichi is not doing anything for everyone’s sake. If he really cared about everyone else, he should be acting in literally any way other than this.

Kokichi:  “But maybe seeing Kirumi’s final moments has made me change my views.”

I doubt it, considering how completely impossible it is to get Kokichi to even acknowledge how he really feels on the inside, let alone act upon it and change himself as a person.

Kokichi:  “Running away to live… might not be a bad idea.”

…Although this is interesting. Implying that Kokichi wasn’t already planning on living, and Kirumi made him vaguely consider actually finding a way to survive himself. But, well, guess he really doesn’t change his mind about that after all, then.

Kaito:  “Yeah, true… It’s okay to run sometimes. You just gotta win in the end. That’s all you gotta do…”

Meanwhile this situation has genuinely made Kaito change a little and realise that you can’t always throw yourself recklessly at every obstacle and expect to never get killed. He’s accepting that sometimes you have to back down and take minor losses for the sake of surviving, just so long as you don’t give up overall.

Gonta:  “It’s just… even when all this bad stuff happens, stars are always so pretty. But stars here different. Not same ones Gonta used to.”

Shuichi:  “Different? Do you mean… the position of the stars?”

Gonta:  “Yeah… Gonta looking, but no can find star he remembers.”

This is supposed to be a hint at the backstory of them all being sent to space. It wouldn’t be hard to give Gonta memories of stars that are different to the ones up there.

Although… isn’t the story that they were taken back to Earth? That’s what the fake outside world on the other side of the tunnel is for. They were only meant to be in cold sleep for a few hundred years; the stars shouldn’t have changed significantly enough in that time.

That said, the stars they’re seeing are only false projections onto the dome, so they could be anything. But in story, the starscape projected onto the dome would presumably be the correct one, right?

Regardless, I’m also calling bullshit on the fact that Kaito doesn’t recognise that the stars are wrong too. You’d think he’d be another person who’d definitely know what they’re meant to look like.

Kokichi:  “Everyone seems to be treating me like some kinda compulsive liar… But that’s ridiculous! There’s a way worse liar than me in our group!”

Shuichi:  “A liar worse than you?”

Kokichi:  “… …I’m talking about Maki.”

Of course Kokichi would think that Maki, who is lying about precisely one thing, is a “worse liar” than someone who lies every other sentence. Because someone who lies all the time and never gives anyone any reason to trust them is totally fine, but someone who claims to be trustworthy and is lying about that – that’s the most terrible kind of lie anyone can tell, right?

Kaito:  “What do you mean, Maki’s a liar?”

Ha, of course Kaito would care and butt in about this.

Kokichi:  “Ryoma was blackmailing you, wasn’t he, Maki?”

Keebo:  “B-Blackmail?”

Kokichi:  “Ryoma just so happened to discover Maki’s true identity. So he used that to blackmail her. I bet he said something like… ‘If you don’t show me my motive video, I’ll tell everyone what you really are.’”

This is complete and utter bullshit. Ryoma is not the kind of guy who would threaten another person like that. Especially not when he would have seen in the video exactly why Maki is an assassin, and when he himself has killed several people and is therefore in no position to judge someone else for it. Kokichi is only assuming that Ryoma blackmailed Maki because that’s exactly what he would have done in Ryoma’s position, and he’s projecting his own distrusting, manipulative assholery onto everyone else.

I think it’s likely that Ryoma mentioned that he’d seen Maki’s true talent, which might have contributed to Maki being unwilling to admit that they met, but there’s no way Ryoma would have threatened to tell anybody else about it. To put it how Ryoma would, that’s just not cool.

Kaito:  “Wh-Why you… What shit are you making up now? Maki’s true identity? What—”

I like how Kaito assumes that Kokichi is making up shit to discredit Maki. It’s almost like that’s basically what Kokichi was doing the entire trial and Kaito has every reason to assume he’d keep doing that even though this time he’s actually telling the truth.

Kokichi:  “Nee-heehee, I’ve known Maki’s true identity the whole time.”

Maki:  “…!”

Shuichi:  (For a moment there, I thought Maki had disappeared… She moved so fast…)

Kokichi:  “…Gh!”

Maki is so terrified of everyone finding out. The moment she hears confirmation that Kokichi definitely knows her talent, she immediately attempts to shut him up. Even though this attempt is desperate and hopeless – they both know that she can’t kill him in front of everyone unless she wants a very swift trial and execution. She’s just trying to intimidate him into keeping quiet, but since he’s smart enough to keep his cool and know that the threat is empty, it won’t work.

Kaito:  “H-Hey, Maki! What the hell is going on?”

Kaito is still trying to understand Maki and figure out why she’d suddenly threaten to kill someone like this.

Kokichi:  “Y-Yeah… you can probably… snap my neck like a twig right now… But that’s… not your style… Y-You would rather… kill from the shadows…”

As if it’s remotely about this being her style and not the fact that if she killed you in front of everyone she’d be immediately executed. He’s still just trying to force across the fact that since she’s an assassin she’s obviously a sneaky, horrible, backstabbing person that nobody should ever trust or like, right.

We don’t see what happens after Kokichi reveals her talent, but Maki probably dropped him in defeat as soon as he did. There’s no point her threatening him any more now that the worst possible scenario has come to pass, after all.

I imagine that she left to hole herself up in her dorm without a word soon after, while everyone else was busy being shocked. And that Kaito tried to call out to her and get her to talk, to no avail.

---

[Chapter-end ramble] [Next post]