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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 3 years

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Survivor Rankings 1: Story Arcs

//So, in my update post, I eluded to everyone that I would do this, but since we’ve finished such a big chapter of the story, it’s time for me to look back at everything that’s happened so far, and do a bit of self reflection.

//That self-reflection is going to come in the form of these rankings. They’re pretty simple, they work sort of the same as a top 10. The one that I was the most excited to do, and the one that we will get out of the way first is ranking each Story Arc/Chapter in the story, from both phases.

//No, we aren’t done with Phase 2 yet. I was originally going to wait until the end of Phase 2 to do this, but since the Fugitive ended up being such a long story arc, I decided to bring it in now. I may revisit these rankings by the time we get to that point though.

//To be honest, the reason why I wanted to get this one out of the way so quickly and why I was so eager to do this one first, is because I honestly have more shit to say about this particular ranking because it reflects my overall capability of writing a good story, and seeing if I’ve done a good job or not.

//The big thing that I want to get out of the way is I will be analyzing each arc from a critical writing perspective, as well as putting in my own opinion. Also, since this is a self evaluation, I’ll let everyone know now that I’m not trying to toot my own horn or gush my writing up so that people will read it.

//To be perfectly honest, I think every single one of these arcs have flaws. I’ve never outright considered Survivor to be my best work, at least in the Danganronpa medium, but it is one of my projects that I take the most seriously.

//The other important thing I want to cover is that this list WILL NOT include “Inventum Arc”, or “The 12 Days of Christmas”. The reason being that Inventum exists purely as a transition between Phase 1 and 2, and does not have any story outside of Peko’s pregnancy, and 12 Days of Christmas was never written to be taken seriously. Just for fun. And it’s not really worth analysing it.

//I would be excited if you guys could share your own thoughts and feelings on what you found from each arc of the story. Once again, this is just my opinion, and I kindly request that everyone who reads this ranking respects it. Nobody can shit on my own writing quite like I can.

//Anyway, let’s hit it.

All is peaceful until a mysterious time-breaking wormhole appears on Jabberwock Island. What could it mean?

//As someone who studies writing and animation on a University course, I can drop a bit of advice for you. Your first piece of work on any medium is going to be bad. This is because you are inexperienced, and with practice, later down the line, you’ll be able to look back at your flawed writing, and see just how much you’ve improved on that.

//Trouble’s Brewing is proof of that. It was the very first story arc, and it only exists to do two things. Introduce the V3 characters involvement in the story, and establish Kuripa Kurafto as an additional character.

//The only reason why it’s the lowest on the list is because I was still trying to figure out how I would actually go about the blog, and working on a system, and also, since no one really knew about the blog, I basically had no asks to go through, and I didn’t quite know how to best promote the blog either.

//Of course, I don’t have the same problems I do now, so looking back on this arc, really, I just see it as humble beginnings. The writing isn’t terrible, but you can definitely tell that it’s improved as the series has gone on. This arc falls flat really due to circumstance more than anything else.

//...and I wish the same could be said for the next pick.

After becoming desperate to save Keebo’s life, Miu takes control of an important Future Foundation research facility and traps the workers inside, forcing them to tinker with a reactor until it’s powerful enough to wake Keebo up. In order to save the people of the Tower and bring Miu to her senses, Kaede and the others team up with Uchui and an inventor by the name of Mona to infiltrate the tower and stop her before she goes mad.

//Oh god here we go...

//Alright, so if you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know that I’ve made a few very quick self-reflectory posts before, usually in the form of a few lines, and not on the level of a post like this.

//If anyone caught those cute little posts, you’ll know that I FUCKING hate “The Tower”

//I took what could have been a really unique arc about character reflection, or redemption for a character who arguably needed it more than others, and completely butchered it.

//Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, but things just didn’t go the way I wanted them to for this one. The pacing is awful, the conflict is stupid, Miu’s character development didn’t go the way I wanted, Keebo isn’t relevant, despite being the main factor of conflict in the arc, Kirumi and Kaito amounted to basically nothing, despite being on Kaede’s team as the whole story revolved more around the other characters and thus leaving no reason for either of them to be there, Mii-Yu’s arc basically ends here and it’s totally awful...I just really hit a low point with the first arc in Phase 2, and could keep going on and on.

//This arc also took a few days to write, which makes it pretty pointless compared to every other chapter in the blog.

//However, there are things that I did look back, and appreciate when I looked back. Namely, this arc introduced Mona, who as of right now hasn’t done much, but I feel was a very well handled character in that arc, especially with her growing relationship with Mii-Yu. Uchui also gets a bit of spotlight, though not much, and he’s pretty fun too. This arc also served as a pretty good stepping stone for some of Miu’s relationships, namely with Kaede as friends, and Keebo as a friend and potential romantic partner.

//But overall, the good points of The Tower do not make up for complete flop that it was. Originally, I had planned this to be the penultimate end of Mii-Yu’s arc in Survivor, but there’s no way I can allow this to be her send off. Hopefully my arcs in the future can make up for the tragedy that this was.

The former remnants of despair decide that after all the stress they’ve been through lately, they should go on vacation to relieve themselves of it. However, wherever the 77th class go, trouble is not far behind, and trouble comes in the form of the Ultimate Wizard, Mikado Sannoji. Hajime and the others, along with the help of both an old friend and a new one, must stop the vermin!

//I appreciate the things that Neo World did for the blog. This was the point where I felt I really had something going, and even though my community wasn’t as big as it is now, but this arc in particular definitely was where things started to pick up.

//Let’s go over a few things that I liked about this arc.

//Firstly, this arc introduced and re-introduced quite a few great characters into the asks. Kibin and Chiaki in particular are whom I’m referring to. Kibin who eventually gets some pretty great character moments, and Chiaki is clearly one of the most popular characters on the blog as a whole, being the most-asked non-protag character. It WAS Mahiru, but since then, she has taken the spot.

//My second point would be that there were a lot of really good moments in this arc too. This was the arc where Hajime’s relationship with Mahiru flourished, and we got to see a lot of fun, cute and overall entertaining interactions between the cast of the second game, plus Ryota and Yoruko (and Yuki too in some cases). In case anyone wasn’t aware of this, I consider Danganronpa 2 to be the best game in the series, and the cast is the primary reason why. This arc had a lot going for it.

//Aside from that, Neo World is also the first time that Organization Zetsubou are established and NAMED as a main source of conflict. We also get to see Yukari for a little bit for the first time.

//So why is it so low? Well, there’s a few reasons, one of which is a similar problem that I had with The Tower. The conflict doesn't feel real for the most part.

//This arc really only exists to give the Remnants some good character motives. Mikado NEO is present, and yeah, things do pick up at the end of the arc once they actually go into the Neo World and Hajime goes super saiyan and fights him, which was cool, but it doesn’t make up for how the vast majority of the arc was nothing more than mindless filler, with Kibin, or the Enigma Assassin at the time, serving as the breaking point.

//Alongside that, there were some moments that I felt were a little out of character, namely Nagito threatening Chiaki, Imposter’s reluctance to notify the Future Foundation of the incident, as well as Ryota’s willingness to create the brainwashing machine to combat Mikado in the Neo World. The ending also feels incredibly anime, in a story that for the most part has remained mostly realistic, which I consider to be a little cheesy and not fitting in well.

//So yeah, Neo World has it’s problems, but if anyone in particular is looking for an arc that is 80% wholesomeness, then allow me to point you in the right direction.

When old friends and an old adversary return from the dead, Maki Harukawa, with the help of the Kisaragi Foundation, must save her loved ones and stop her old nemesis in the process.

//There really isn’t much to say about Deadly Harmony. It kinda just exists. But overall, I do think it served it’s purpose in the story overall, and did it well.

//The arc that came prior to this one established some basic plot points, but overall, it was just a way to ease into the overall story of the blog. This arc on the other hand sets the ground for a lot of future events and plot points.

//For starters, it established that Shuichi, Maki and Himiko were not alone, and weren’t the only V3 characters to make an appearance. Miu, Kirumi, Tenko, Kaito and Tsumugi all show up, and establish the V3 plot relevance. The reason of how they got here, and all the other mysteries surrounding the group will be revealed eventually, but it was nice to bring the gang into the story.

//Speaking of Tsumugi, this arc also establishes her involvement in the plot as the main, over-arching villain. She’s not very impressive in the arc, and one of the stupidest parts of the story was when she played that little game with the characters, which was ultimately pointless in the end. Still, I think she had a pretty strong introduction all things considered. In addition, while not many people reacted to it at the time, the arc also introduces the controversy of the Reserve Course students, which becomes a very essential plot point during the story’s climax in Phase 2.

//Furthermore, this is the first time (besides Midori’s involvement in the prior arc) that the Future Foundation and Kisaragi Foundation collaborate. They end up doing so a few times in the future of course, but this was the first real point where Tsurugi decides to involve himself, sometimes being helpful and others just being a setback or emotional problem. Speaking of whom, Rei and Tsurugi are both pretty fun characters to write, and I have considered giving the Kisaragi’s their own arc. No promises though.

//Lastly, there’s Mii-Yu. Like I said before, I am frustrated that her arc didn’t “end” in the best way, but around the time that I was writing this arc, I was playing the first chapter of New World Order and was getting really into it. M11-YU, or Mii-Yu, was my favourite character, so I HAD to include her. And all things considered, she’s actually turned out to be really fun. Not really essential to the plot, but a nice character who embodies the good and evils of humanity, a main theme in the blog.

//Overall, I don’t regret writing this arc, but I don’t think the overall story was anything remotely special.

Kuripa forms an anime and manga club along with Ryota and Hifumi. They spend an evening at the High Roller and meet Iroha, who they hit it off with, and allow her to join. After agreeing to go to the upcoming anime convention with her, leaders from 4 other rival cabaret clubs show up and state they plan to evict the High Roller and it’s management. Iroha’s job and life are at stake, so Kuripa decides to team up with Kokichi to beat the owners at their own game.

//This arc’s biggest problem has the same issue as Neo World. It’s a vast majority of filler, and arguably, it suffers from it more than Neo World does. Neo World at least contributed some to the plot by introducing some important characters, like Chiaki and Mikado, but Cabaret Kyojin’s doesn’t even do that. It exists as nothing more than a subplot, and almost all of the important characters either get tossed out of the blog, or become background characters.

//The other problem that I had is that I’m gonna be totally real, I didn’t workshop this plotline from scratch. I borrowed, and by borrowed I mean stole, a lot of plot points from Yakuza 0′s Nightlife Island plotline with Majime trying to lift Club Sunshine back from the brink, battling against the 5-stars, much like how the gang does against the 4 Horsemen. The motives are similar, and I feel like I should have done more with it, instead of ripping stuff off from an already great game with equally great writing.

//I’m not going to hide the fact that Survivor isn’t totally original. I borrow and reference from many different media I’m into. However, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing for writers. Everyone is capable of writing the same plot differently, and provided they can make their own original twists and spins on the format, I think using previously made works is acceptable, and doesn’t go through the line of outright plagiarism.

//The reason why Cabaret Kyojin’s is higher, despite these problems, is that it was just plain fun to write. I enjoyed every character moment, be it from Kokichi, Kuripa, Iroha, the members of the 4 Horsemen, or anyone.

//Speaking of the 4 Horsemen, they were among the more fun antagonists to write, and I still enjoy making little moments for them in the present arcs. Hayamoto and Rokuhana in particular were super fun, particularly with their individual relationships, Hayamoto with Kibin, and Rokuhana with her daughter.

//Kokichi also gets some good development, which is weird, because Kokichi has never been known for his development. And this mainly stems from his newfound relationship with Kuripa, as the two end up being alike in ways neither expected.

//That, in general, is the main theme of the arc, and one of the things that makes it so fun: Relationship Dynamics.

//Kuripa and Kibin, Kuripa and Kokichi, Iroha and Ryota, Iroha and Syobai, Iroha, Hifumi, Ryota and Kuripa as a band, Hayamoto and Kibin, Misako and Misuzu, Kana and Iroha, Kana and Yosaku, Asayori and Datenashi, Kibin and Datenashi, Kokichi and the V3 gang, Kuripa and Komaru. The relationship dynamics and interactions between each of the characters in this arc is what makes it so fantastic.

//This doesn’t resolve it of it’s problems in that I should have had some more originality to my writing, but at least I’m a big enough man that I’m honest about it. Besides, it’s not like I regret writing this arc. It was definitely a fun ride, and the High Roller will continue to be one of the best places in the world.

Ex-Future Foundation member and former Ultimate Scout, Koichi Kizakura finds himself under suspicion of the murder of a street thug. It’s up to Ultimate Detective Duo, Kyoko and Shuichi to save him from being convicted.

//The first arc that had an actual story. And the point where people started to pay attention. And I couldn’t ask anything more of it.

//My only issues with this arc are firstly, like Cabaret Kyojin’s, the plotline borrows a lot from a plotline in the Yakuza series, but in this case I put some more original twists on it.

//The second problem is that the conflict isn’t completely desperate. It’s definitely there, and it’s definitely more tense than previously mentioned arcs, but since this arc is established before the overall over-arching story with Organization Zetsubou is, there’s no real world-ending threat. Sure, the arc DOES have Eje Karma, but let’s be real, in comparison to the OZ members who kill hundreds of people and even try to take over whole kingdoms, Karma’s just a regular street thug. The worst thing he does in this arc is break Makoto’s arm and kidnap Kanon to stop Leon from standing up for Koichi during the trial. Yeah, both of these are pretty serious offenses, and he somehow gets away with them, but Organization Zetsubou have ABSOLUTELY done worse.

//Third is the involvement of the Your Turn To Die characters. At the time of writing the blog, Your Turn To Die was the latest fad for fans of the genre, and to gain clout, I included Keiji Shinogi on the blog. I look back on that and regret it, and yes, I have used the YTTD characters since because of my lack of options. However, I now stand by the belief that Your Turn To Die and Danganronpa are two completely different games that shouldn’t be compared or overlapped. They’re both interesting, they’re both great, and they both deserve respect, but only INDIVIDUALLY, and my early writing did not help.

//That being said, this arc was the first instance where Shuichi adapted to his new life, and worked on his first proper case with his boss and fellow detective, Kyoko. Which was an interesting thing to work with.

//Also, while I said already that the arc happens before the main story is established, this is also the earliest action that Organization Zetsubou take. This is before they are uncovered to be a group, but in reality, the victim in the case that Shuichi and Kyoko are trying to solve was ACTUALLY killed by CELESTE, to silence him. This was WAAY before she was named as the traitor though, so not many would have realized it.

//Overall, I think “The Trial of Koichi Kizakura” is nothing spectacular, but it is a totally solid story arc in comparison to Trouble’s Brewing. This was where I actually had my system, figured out what direction I wanted to go in, and overall, it turned out pretty darn well.

The Ultimate Pianist, Kaede Akamatsu returns from the dead, like the other 53rd Killing Game Participants, only to be found with a bad case of memory loss. Now, Shuichi has to team up with Chihiro, Yoruko and the Kisaragi Foundation, as well as an old nemesis, to get her memories back before Organization Zetsubou can get their hands on her.

//The final arc of Phase 1 ended up being pretty darn good, but as is the case with every other arc in this blog, it isn’t without it’s problems.

//Everyone who followed the blog at the time was heavily awaiting the return of Kaede Akamatsu. She’s been hyped up quite a lot, and everyone took well to when she finally showed up...but the twist was that when she returned, she had no memories of all the events that had led up to this point, after being brainwashed by Organization Zetsubou.

//Which overall, was a very fun plot point to write. However, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really think “The Amnesiac and the Alter Ego” has as many good moments as some of the other arcs in the blog, but I still think the moments it has do...MOSTLY outclass the prior spots. And for this one, I’ll do it in a list form, since for this arc, it’s easier.

While she wasn’t around for very long, Chinami Hasami was a solid character, and her death due to misunderstanding (and Yukari being a bitch) has stuck with Kaede even now, playing a big role in her character.

Shuichi and Kaede’s relationship starts here, and it grows over the course of the arc, which was pretty fun and cute.

Kaede’s identity crisis and overweighing guilt she feels once Miu reminds her of Rantaro’s death was a major conflict source, and led to the arc’s overall climax. And it was a very difficult scene to write, but I think I did it fairly well.

The Kisaragi’s make a return, and they have some new members this time.

A lot of well loved characters return in this arc, aside from Kaede. Yuta, Taichi and Keebo are revealed to be alive still, and Kokichi, who has planted his roots as a solid plot-essential character in the blog overtime, first makes his return here, actually as one of the arcs main villains. In additon, Teruya, Setsuka and Mikako are now revived and members of the Kisaragi Foundation, and they each have their shining moments throughout the arc too.

Same can be said for the return of Sora. While she hasn’t had many strong moments or involvement in the story since this arc, Sora’s return and the way it happened was a fun chapter.

Mikado’s death scene was specifically done to catch everyone of guard, and question the differences between man and machine once Sora absolutely pummels him.

Akira is introduced for the first time, and while he doesn’t get his shinging moments just yet, he’s still pretty good for the short time in which he’s shown.

//There are a few other things, and to be honest, a lot of the basic stuff I said about previous arcs applies to this one. To be honest, I rank this one higher than Ultra Despair Gang, but the two can swap around depending on my mood.

//My favourite parts of this arc in particular are Kaede and Shuichi’s relationship througout, Kokichi’s actions as an anti-hero, and the very bittersweet ending with Mikado’s death. One of the biggest regrets that I have for this arc, are that while I do think that Mikado NEO’s death was a shocking twist and completely out of left field, in meant that the character remained rather underused and wasted potential. There were a lot of things that I still could have done with Mikado, but hopefully, AI Junko now fills those gaps.

//Overall, “The Amnesiac and the Alter Ego” Solid arc, decent writing, but very much the middle tier. No real problems, but nothing that makes it particularly stand out.

Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa, the Ultra Despair Girls, end up taking on a trafficking case, but they get much more than they bargain for. Now, they need to assemble a team of able warriors, an Ultra Despair Gang, to stop Haiji Towa from ending countless lives just for the sake of petty revenge!

//No one really talks about this arc, and that makes me sadge.

//I generally think that some of the best arcs in the series are the one’s that are focused around Ultra Despair Girls, which is odd since UDG is easily my least favourite games in the series. For no reason really, I just don’t find it as impressive or memorable. I still think they’re pretty good though, and I like that I give them a lot of good points in writing.

//Let’s go through a few things that I liked about this arc in particular.

//The first, and main thing, is that in comparison to other arcs in this story, aside from some of our more recent one’s is that this arc is actually kinda...well...Dark.

//Made all the more fitting since it revolves around the cast of Ultra Despair Girls, which I also consider to be the darkest iteration in DR, only outranked by Danganronpa 3. One thing many people seem to forget about Danganronpa, is that it is a VERY DARK game series. Sure, the humor hides this sometimes, and sometimes it’s actually a problem, but the basis of Danganronpa is far from kid friendly.

//The point is, there’s a lot of moments in this arc that are significantly more dark and depressing than the rest. By this, I of course refer to moments like when Haiji tortures Komaru, resulting in her losing a leg, which then forces her to go through military style rehabilitation, and when he shoots and murders Hiroko in front of the Warrior’s of Hope. There’s one other moment in particular that I would mention, but I will get to that because it’s essential that I talk about it on it’s own. Point is, a lot of things that happen in this arc pertain to not only depressing situations, but also realistic situations. Take Komaru coming out as gay to her brother. Not a dark moment, but definitely one that requires a lot of courage.

//This arc also had a lot of fantastic moments and characters that get overlooked. Hiroko was the first major character death (and death in general) on the blog, which meant a lot. It hurt Komaru and Toko, who loved the woman, and it forced Hiro to act, even though he’s usually cowardly and prefers to leave the fighting to others. I generally dislike Hiro by QUITE a lot, so I was worried that my biases would get in the way of allowing him a unique character arc. Fortunately, I think I looked past it.

//The second moment I think that was great, besides the one’s I’ve just mentioned, was the return of Monaca and the beginning of HER arc. I imagine I caught quite a few people by surprise when I brought back UDG’s main villain, not as a threat, but as a HELPER to the cause. One of the best thing’s about writing for the Warrior’s Of Hope in the blog, is seeing how exactly their personality's change over time, now that they’re all adults. Monaca in particular is the best of the group, for reasons that I have established in a previous countdown, but she was fun for the small moments she got. Her development and growth in her isolation didn’t change her completely. She’s no longer evil, but she’s still a bit of a jerk.

//Third point is the New Warrior’s Of Hope. Ryoma and Akeru, while neither have a significant involvement in this arc besides being the one’s who introduce the conflict, but the two were really fun additions to the group.

//Second to last thing I want to go over is Haiji Towa. I would like to say that, like the majority of Danganronpa fans, I HATE Haiji Towa. And any time that someone explains why Haiji is a detestable piece of shit, I always think they have a point.That being said, there was a particular way I wanted to steer his character. The pedophilia problem is obvious, and the one that most people talk about with him, but in some instances, what people fail to realize is that the moral issues don’t stop there. Haiji is overall an awful man, being cowardly, but also deliberate and calculating even though most of his actions are done out of desperation, and it’s clear that given time, he would have descended into madness. So that’s exactly what I tried to show with his character. And I kept telling everyone during the course of the story that the Future Foundation only intended to capture him and arrest him for his crimes in the story, which as a reminder was that he was going to blow up a hospital to kill a bunch of kids, not caring if other patients got caught in the explosion in the process, but let’s be real. In my right mind, I wasn’t going to let him get off easily.

//And that my friends, is where we come to the most essential moment in the arc, and by far my favourite character involved in the whole conflict...

//Kuripa Kurafto.

//This arc marked the FIRST moment, where the readers got to see Kuripa for who he REALLY was. Before now, he was a goofy, nerdy, karaoke-loving, easy-going animator, who just so happened to know how to fight with a sword, which is what gets Toko to recruit him. He even goes as far as to defend both Makoto and Komaru’s perspectives when the two get into a fight, telling Makoto to be less of a helicopter parent, and Komaru to be more open to her brother’s suggestions. But from the very beginning, Kuripa has his own intentions...In reality, he has an arguably justified, but extremely fucked up sense of justice, believing that the best way to take care of a “stain on society” is to flat out kill it. Unlike the rest of the heroes in the story, he firmly believes that murder and manslaughter is a JUSTIFIED action in the face of taking down criminals, with the mindset that if they are gone, it’s the answer to all the world’s problems, not taking into account the fact that violence just breeds more violence. His true nature is that of a manipulative, ruthless and bloodthirsty antagonistic character, who’s justice brings other’s down with him, and leads him to murder Haiji in the most terrible way possible, and then give a “motivational speech” to everyone about his ideal of Despair and Hope not being so different. It was honestly a fantastic moment to write, and I enjoy going back to it every now and then to reread it, and Kuripa has only been taken more seriously over time.

//This arc does have a problem with pacing, and some characters that remained underused, but in summary, this arc was super fun, and I wish people had appreciated it more at the time.

Sonia Nevermind, Princess of Novoselic, returns to her country, aided by her friends, awaiting the fateful day in which she will finally be crowned the kingdoms queen. Unfortunately, Angie Yonaga and her coup have other ideas for the country. Can Sonia, with the help of Gundham, Shuichi and the others, defeat them before the day of the rite of passage?

//Before making this list, I had a read back through each of the story arcs that I had made for the blog. By the time I was ranking them, and put the arc on the list, I thought to myself “Oh. Yeah, this one can go higher up, I actually liked Novoselic Revolution.”

//And then once the list was finished, I looked through it and thought to myself “Holy shit! I actually LOVED Novoselic Revolution!”

//Before I get into what I really appreciated about this arc in particular, let’s just very quickly go over some problems.

//For starters, the pacing could have been a lot better. It’s conflict is good, considering the entire vitality of a kingdom is at stake, and I think the build up to the problem was decently handled. Not everything goes to hell right away, and it takes a short while before Angie, Mikihiko and the rest of the coup actually strike. When it does happen, it’s very sudden, and the confusion is exactly what I was going for.

//However, considering Angie doesn’t have any guards to go after the gang, and that a lot happens in between each substantial plot point, that for the most part, the conflict doesn’t feel incredibly real. And most of the time, a little cliché. The cliché writing for this arc is one that’s a bit of a problem, because (at least for the most part) the plot points are fairly predictable.

//Mikan and Ibuki also get two chapters to themselves, and while I love my girls and the fact that they got together in this arc, I think it was unfair and biased of me to give these two their own chapter that didn’t really need to happen, and not do the same for every other couple on the blog. 12 Days of Christmas does not count.

//A lot of the other things about this arc were pretty damn great though. Sonia, Gundham and Shuichi are the main triad of heroes in this arc, and I think each of them ended up having their highlights. Sonia in particular gets overlooked compared to a lot of Danganronpa girls, which isn’t right, so having an arc revolve around her story and her sacrifice was fun.

//Speaking of which, probably the most fun hero character to write in this arc especially was Mikan. There is a slight problem with the blog in that I make Mikan more badass than she usually is, because while she’s not as skittish or clumsy as she was before, she’s still rather shy, ditzy and is usually very sweethearted. Some of her moments though in this arc were my absolute favourites, mainly, when she went undercover as a double agent to get the scepter, and her big speech to Angie and Mikihiko about true loyalty, and how she isn’t the monster she used to be. It’s a defining character moment for Mikan, and it makes her one of the most entertaining characters to write for on the blog as a whole.

//However, one of my absolute favourite parts of this arc have to be the actions of the villains. In this instance, we’re talking Angie Yonaga, and of course, everybody’s “favourite” antagonist on the blog so far, Mikihiko Koyasunaga. While Mikihiko was set up to be a twist villain, I think the majority of readers were able to see past the bullshit. The relationship the two have throughout the story is one built on trust, which causes Angie to be crushed when Mikihiko tries to kill her, and reveals that he has simply been using her as a means of gaining the kingdom for himself. All the better, one of the things that made Mikihiko great in this arc by the end, is he is the person who stays the most in-character throughout. He’s a twist villain, but once the mask is off, and all his actions here come to light, it shows everyone who he really is: A detestable piece of shit, garbage, rat of a man, who lies, and kills his way through whoever and whatever to make his goals come to fruition. It’s because of this that Mikihiko was my favourite villain on the blog, prior to the introduction of the Rebirth Duo (Akira and Narumi)

//The last thing I will say, is that much like what made Cabaret Kyojin’s fun, this arc is another one that bases itself on relationships, and has a lot of great relationship moments. Some that I can list are

Sonia trusting Shuichi to solve a decade old Novoselic mystery.

Kazuichi and Gundham having Sonia’s back all the way.

Tenko sacrificing herself for Himiko and the others.

Angie and Mikihiko’s “healthy” relationship throughout, which then leads to Mikihiko backstabbing her and giving Angie a taste of her own medicine.

Tenko and Angie’s spiteful relationship coming full circle.

Tenko literally fighting tooth and nail with tigers to save Himiko.

Shuichi working together with Kaito and Maki to take back the castle.

Shuichi and Mikan collaborating together to hatch the double agent plan.

Mikan and Ibuki confessing their feelings for each other.

Mikan and Hiyoko properly reconciling after so many years

Gundham and Sonia getting married and Kazuichi finally accepting their relationship in full.

//And the list goes on. In summary, Novoselic Revolution isn’t without it’s problems, and that is why it is my favourite arc in Phase 1.

//Now onto the top 3!

Future Foundation receives reports that an Organization Zetsubou operative is lurking in Towa City, planning something big, and Komaru and Toko take it on themselves to investigate. However, much to their shock and horror, the agent takes Akeru Yozora, the young girl that leads the next gen Warriors of Hope, captive and forces Toko and Komaru to participate in a deadly IRL RPG-like game. In order to defeat their enemy and save Yozora, Komaru and Toko team up with Makoto, Sayaka, Leon, Yuta, Ryoma and the Warriors of Hope, as they are forced to dig into the Ninja Warrior’s very dark past.

//It should come as a neat little surprise that the top 3 arcs in the story are actually the 3 most recent arcs. Question is, what order are they in? Well, to kick of the top 3 in third place is Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora, which, ironically, shares a lot in common with Ultra Despair Gang in regards to me overall opinion of it. It’s an arc that revolves around Komaru and Toko, it’s themes are significantly darker than the other arcs, and for some reason, no one really took it seriously and that makes me a little sad to be honest, because this is hands down one of the most fun asks to write in the blog as a whole.

//As already said, much like the prior arc that featured the Ultra Despair Girls, there’s a lot of dark shit that goes down in this arc. Namely, Akeru’s entire backstory, the mass murder of the New Warrior’s of Hope, Gonta revealed to be the deadly Mr Kuma, murdering people under Narumi’s control, and of course, the actions of Shinitani Yozora, Akeru’s birth mother who is by far one of the most despicable villains in the blog. There’s a lot I could say about Shinitani, but I’ll save that for another list.

//The arc’s ending is also one of my favourites. To be honest, the beginning and end of an arc is usually the most difficult part for me. You have to make sure that you start it on the right note and end it on the right note, and in a lot of cases, I struggle with that. The only two arcs where I think I did that perfectly are this one, and the next one, but we’ll get to that. The ending specifically was really nice, and it sucked that during the course of writing, I went on holiday for a weke for my mum’s birthday, and thus had to delay it. It was satisfying to get back to it though, because the mother/daughter dynamic between Akeru, Komaru and Toko is now one of my personal favourite things to write during asks.

//Akeru as a character comes full circle here. She carries many similarities with that of the old Warrior’s of Hope, but unlike them, she was able to retain her sense of justice. She killed Shinitani, yes, but she did so out of rage and vengeance, and swore not to do it again. Akeru is essentially what would have happened to Nagisa, Kotoko and the others, had they actually tried to make sense of their situation, and not been corrupted by Junko and Monaca. And I think it suits her.

//Aside from Akeru, a lot of the characters in the conflict do get some decent development too. Toko, after dealing with several years of insecurities and trust issues, finally opens up to her classmates and friends about the truth of her past, and how she isn’t so different from Akeru’s (by the way, she promises that she would tell the other members of Class 78 her story, and she does, it’s just never shown). Ryoma has to deal with his own crises, and after losing his found family, and then discovering that found family was killed by his best friend under mind control, struggles to stay sane, and with him being one of the most calm and collected characters in the series, this means something. Kirumi also learns that her dedication can be easily used against her, and she unintentionally becomes a villain, even if only for a little bit. Gonta’s development and story is self-explanotory, with a mountain of regret weighting on him, and how his character revolves around trying to get over the trauma of the people who he watched die at his own hand. Leon, with help from Ryoma, reevaluates himself and tries to sort himself out, wondering if he can actually put his talents to good use. Lastly, while not as impressive or essential as the prior points, Makoto’s training with Mukuro really pays off here, as he uses his skills to save Gonta. Admittedly, Sayaka and Yuta, the last two members of the main team, fall a little flat, but each of them had their decent moments too I feel.

//The final fights, despite there being quite a few of them, are also very good. Fight scenes are super hard to write on a blog that doens’t have moving images, but the elevator shaft fight against Narumi in particular is among my favourites.

//And speaking of which, we come to what was quite possibly my favourite aspect of this whole chapter. The introduction of Narumi Osone. A breath of fresh air for villains in Survivor.

//My favourite moment from this arc, and one that I consider a shame that people didn’t pick up on very much, was when Narumi waits patiently for Komaru and Toko to show up and stop her Project Neuron plan...before disposing of it herself.

//Narumi’s mindset is very much a mix between Nagito’s and Monaca’s. She has Monaca’s playfulness and desire to play games with the heroes, but she does so out of an obscene desire to watch them overcome the challenges, leading up to when she has a chance to face them down herself. And while she doesn’t show up a lot physically, is really only a child, and destroyed HER OWN PLAN, she was DEFINITELY a threat, and a very real source of conflict in the arc from a lot of the actions she takes.

//I think the biggest problem with the arc’s mainly lie in that the pacing wasn’t the greatest, and also, Tumblr had updated it’s post editor against my will, and I did not take kindly to the new one, so when it was implemented, I had a bit of a nerous breakdown. Naturally, I’ve now sorted it out, but I hope to god it doesn’t happen again.

//”The Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora.” Underrated and Underappreciated, but oh so good, and oh so fun to write.

When the Future Foundation thinks they’ve finally found an opportunity to out the traitor among them, things go horribly wrong. Kyoko Kirigiri is critically injured and hospitalized and Yui Samidare is murdered when a bomb goes off in the latter’s office building. Things look bleak as Makoto becomes the prime suspect behind the attack, and is then endlessly pursued by his own friends and allies. Using the aid of whatever friends they can make in the trying time that is their life, Makoto, alongside Kuripa, must now remain on the run until the truth and the identity of the real traitor comes to light.

//Finally, we arrive right where we left off. The most recently finished arc.

//This is the other arc on this list that I’m going to have to break down in the format of a list/bullet points, but unlike “The Amnesiac and the Alter Ego” I’m doing so for a different reason. The reason being...HOLY FUCK this arc is SO LONG!

//It took almost exactly 3 months to write this whole section of the story, and while I’m not against longer arcs, with more conflict and tension, 3 months is definitely pushing it.

//In any case, let’s go through a few things that I think makes this arc overall pretty solid.

Unlike most arcs, the beginning and end to this arc were both very satisfying. The opening post featuring Gyalusetsu perfectly set up the tone of the arc, and how this one was going to be far more dark and depressing compared to a lot of the others. The ending on the other hand is bittersweet. It’s a victory for the heroes, but a lot was lost in the process, so it’s hard to be completely satisfied with the conclusion to the conflict, shown mainly in Makoto’s letter.

The main three characters in the arc are Makoto, Mukuro and Kuripa, three characters who are kind of like a trio on the blog. As I mentioned before, interactions and relationships are a big part of what makes some of these arcs great, and these three in particular have some great moments together. Their interactions are almost like that of a family, with Makoto being the father and keeping the other two in check, but with stern kindness, Mukuro as either the mature and sensible mother or the older sister, and Kuripa being the rambunctious and wild son or younger brother.

The arc by far has the strongest conflict and the highest stakes of any other. The entire Future Foundation is against Makoto, all due to a misunderstanding, and if not for certain variables in place, i.e. Shuichi involving himself, Organization Zetsubou may very well have won right there and then. Even now, as already mentioned, while technically the heroes won, the OZ members still got the last laugh. Kyoko is hospitalized, Mukuro winds up dead, Shuichi’s hands are permanently scarred, and Celeste is revealed to have betrayed the group and unveils that she was never looking out for anyone other than herself. The conclusion cant be satisfying because the victory doesn’t feel like a victory at all. Instead, it feels like half of one. And that’s only a few depressing things that came out of the conclusion.

I think the twists, tense moments and battles of this arc really stood out. Despite the fact that there’s a few good fights here, and some of them drag on, they’re all pretty solid.

Mukuro is by far the biggest death in the blog. She was a very essential character, and in her final moments, she finally achieves the redemption that she had been searching for for so long.

As mentioned already, the villains really did shine here. Yukari/AI Junko, Gyalusetsu and Celeste are the three main one’s here. Munakata too, but he’s kind of his own thing.

One of the more satisfying things about the arc was Shuichi’s character development. By the end of his story here, he solves the case, becomes the new Branch Chief, and gets the girl, despite what he sacrificed along the way. And to be honest, he deserves it.

While their role is ultimately rather minor, the Kisaragi’s stand out in the scenes they are in, particularly when Tsurugi, who is rather overconfident and mighty sure of himself up to this point, crumbles under the pressure Kuripa puts on him.

Emotional conflicts come and go throughout the characters in this arc, and I think most of them are executed very well. Mukuro’s desire to seek redemption, Kuripa reflecting on his actions and making his own decisions in regards to avenging his sister and protecting his boss, Makoto wondering if continuing to run is the right thing to do, Shuichi overcoming his fears, and gaining the confidence needed to make the sacrifices he does.

Kokichi pushing Kaede along to confess to Shuichi, despite his own feelings, is a redeemable moment for him, despite being the same confident brat that he usually is, and also having his own feelings for Shuichi. He doesn’t let his selflessness ruin things for Shuichi in this case.

While I think things could have been written better, Mukuro grows from allowing herself to tell Makoto the truth about her inner conflicts and her feelings for him.

//To be honest, thee’s a bunch of other stuff that I could write about, but we’ll be here for a while if I do.

//With all this in mind, you may then be wondering to yourself. If there’s all these good things to say about this arc from the mod’s perspective, why isn’t this arc the number one spot? Well, the reason is actually something that I haven’t really taken into account on any of these other parts, but I consider this to be a problem, and thus am including it.

//Writing this arc...was NOT fun.

//Do I think it’s story is solid? Yes I do. Did I enjoy it when I wrote it? No, I didn’t. Because life was hell for me in the three months it took.

//I was transitioning into life as a university student, and having to deal with deadlines and stockpiled work, as well as new systems really got to me. Not only that, but because of a countable number of situations in my personal life, I was dealing with a lot of health issues, both physical and mental. People might not remember this, but it took 3 chapters to write the Kuripa and Munakata fight, and on the first night, I had to cut off asks because I was THAT close to going to hospital after I very nearly collapsed.

//What didn’t help was that a group of people decided “Hey! An ask blog! Let’s BULLY IT’S MOD!” and I got a whole heaping load of hate messages and critical asks, bullying me and delivering accusations. Namely, calling me sexist for some of the things that happened to the girls in this arc, which was purely coincidence, and even when I said “I would do the same thing if they were male” they’re just like “yeah, ok but...no you wouldn’t, sexist prick’ you’re sexist, the most sexist writer on Tumblr, good idea, how about you stop writing and go kill yourself?”

//I’m not exaggerating by the way, that is legit what one of them said.

//Some of the characters on the blog, namely Kaede and Shuichi, also got shat on by some askers for absolutely no fucking reason. One person, who is now blocked permanently, was SO desperate for Kaede to die this arc, and not get with Shuichi, that they actually THREATENED me, and told me they would report me if I didn’t. Needless to say, banning them was satisfying.

//So yeah. Thanks to some assholes, life changes, and health issues, this arc was a fucking nightmare to pull my way through. And that is really the only reason why it misses the top spot, besides from a few other small complains which I’ve already talked about for the other spots.

//I can look back on “The Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora” and “Novoselic Revolution” with fond memories. The same cannot be said for this arc.

//But with that said...there now only remains one more arc...and by process of elimination, you know what it is.

When struggling to come to terms with the power that he holds, Hajime encounters a misfortunate boy by the name of Ayumu Fujimori, who is alike to him in many ways. Employed by Zetsubou, Fujimori and his band of societal rebels intend to weaponize the preserved Reserve Course and some new special drugs in order to break the current society. Hajime must save the country from Ayumu, and come to terms with the fact that the two of them aren’t so different.

//Alright. I know that many of you may disagree with me, but take a lot of what good things I said about all the previous arcs, and put almost all of them into “Misfortune’s Revenge.”

//The characters are great, the conflict is real, the beginning and ending are good (not as good as Number 2 and 3, but still) the pacing is actually somewhat decent, the emotional dynamic between the heroes and the villains, the villains backstory and motivations...All of it perfectly culminates into a very good chapter, and my personal favourite so far.

//Is it perfect? Absolutely not.

//In fact, I think there’s quite a few things that do somewhat hurt it, namely certain characters not getting as much attention as others. However, I very much think that the positives of this arc outweigh the negatives. Let’s just breakdown a couple things to talk about.

//For one thing, this arc is pretty long. The Fugitive is longer of course, but Misfortune’s Revenge had quite the run time. However, there aren’t many points in the arc where the story feels like it’s being dragged on, or there’s some pointless filler. The story remains fairly consistent, and the most out-of-plot scenes you get are the scenes that focus on Ayumu and the UUV. However, those scenes had a purpose, showing off Ayumu’s growing and changing character.

//Speaking of Ayumu, while he may have been around for this arc and this arc only, he is absolutely the highlight. His character, as I’ve mentioned before, turned out to be far greater than I held him to be. A few problems that I have with him are that his Ultimate Bad Luck doesn’t make an awful lot of sense in this context, and also there are a few questions about him that remain kind of unanswered. Still, there are many parts of him as a character that really stand out, and killing him off was depressing, but it was ultimately necessary for both future events and Hajime’s character arc in the near future.

//Ayumu and Hajime are very much alike in several ways. Their life experiences are basically the same, and it leads them both down the same path. Where they diverge is what they actually decide to do with their powers. Hajime really lacks a choice after the Hope’s Peak board erases him in place of Izuru, but Ayumu had no such issue. What makes the UUV’s goal so difficult to tackle is that they are doing awful things, stealing, fighting, relying on Organization Zetsubou for help, and a lot of other stuff, but they’re doing it for reasons that can be considered very justified. All they want is to fix the government, and unite the world leaders to create the ultimate age of peace and prosperity, but knowing that creation comes after ruin, they need to break it down before they can build it back up again.

//Hajime, and his friends in this context, understand these goals. In fact, Hajime agrees with Ayumu and the UUV’s fight. He simply does not agree with the way they are fighting it. And if you give it some thought, thanks to Hajime, Ayumu’s dream of uniting the overseas parties and creating a single, unified government body to help save the world...actually kind of succeeds? Hajime is able to talk some sense into the world leaders, which is another moment in this arc that I really enjoyed. Despite not really possessing the right, since he’s partially responsible for the whole tragedy in the first place, Hajime stands up to the higher power, and completes Ayumu’s mission for him. Not in the brutal way. In his own way. The Hajime way. The RIGHT way.

//However...on the other end of the spectrum, and honestly, the ACTUAL antagonist of this arc...is Nagito.

//Ayumu is an antagonist and a threat to the Future Foundation in the arc, but him, Kego, Aruma, Mitsunari, Mikoto and ESPECIALLY Marin, aren’t actually villains, nor are they evil in any sort of way. They’re just misguided kids, with the right mindset, and they even have a policy against violence and murder. Yes, Ayumu goes a little stir crazy at the end and abandons his morals, but first of all, it’s clear that he doesn’t mean or intends to follow up on any of his threats. Hajime even calls him out after their climactic fight at the end and points out that Ayumu very much said that he would rather Hajime save the hostages than spend time focused on him, which shows that right when he’s about to reach his penultimate goal, he has doubt eating away at him, and wants nothing more than to stop his own desperate actions, feeling that he’s incapable of doing so. The OTHER thing to note, is that Ayumu would not have gone off this deep end, if NAGITO hadn’t decided to go crazy.

//One thing that many people did observe, but I will clear up, is that Nagito’s change in character and his out-of-character actions in this arc were not sudden. If anyone has been around since the early days of Survivor, over the course of the story, Nagito slowly but surely becomes more unsure and doubtful of his position. And it’s mainly thanks to Hajime that this is the case.

//Nagito holds Izuru Kamukura in very high regard, but post-survivor, he finds out that Izuru and Hajime are the same person. Now, if you were to ask me, I think that if Nagito were to find that out, it wouldn’t lead to the romantic fantasy and happy, wholesome gay relationship with Hajime that a lot of the fangirls of the series would adore (not bashing on Komahina by the way. I used to hate it, but now I think it’s ok) but in reality, knowing Nagito, I think he would have his reservations, and not necessarily know how to feel about it. Hajime, a “talentless, worthless, run-of-the-mill nobody” and this almighty, talent-bound GOD of a human being Izuru being the same person? Nagito probably wouldn’t feel completely satisfied with this outcome, and over time, would probably harbor some ill feelings and thoughts to his boss. The Nagito in this blog does not consider the project that Hajime went through to be talent, because Hajime was not BORN with his abilities. Thus, the artificail talents held by Hajime do not count in Nagito’s eyes, and not only does he shun Hajime for this, but he considers him a cheater. Is there jealously involved? A little bit, but at the same time, it’s mainly because Nagito believes that if you’re born as nothing but talentless and useless trash, you should stay that way, like it’s your fate and your destiny for your whole life, and trying to change that is pointless, and offensive to people who are BORN with talent. He doesn’t believe or accept that something like the project could make Hajime so powerful, and give him so many abilities, not does he think that he can, or is allowed to, amount to anything.

//Then you have to consider that the entire arc revolves around a kid who is basically the EXACT same case as Hajime. Now Nagito has to deal with TWO of these cretins, who are worthless stains on society, but are now powerful potential threats. Hajime and Ayumu collectively are a threat to Nagito’s ideal, and the idea that this project exists that can just grant human’s these talents, TERRIFIES him. In comparison to the rest of the squad in this arc; Hajime, Mahiru, Fuyuhiko, Chiaki and Peko, Nagito doesn’t feel that Ayumu and his team are worthy of saving, or redeeming, simply because of Ayumu’s fatal choices. As such, like when he goes against the plan in the basement of the lab building, and when he fights Ayumu in the construction site, Nagito actively tries to end Ayumu’s life. While he advocates for it constantly, Nagito thinks of this particular Hope as a disease, and while he doesn’t think he’s powerful enough to destroy it, he believes he’s smart enough to stop it from spreading.

//Then...of course...there’s the case with Marin. And the reason I brought all of these prior variables up is to better explain this penultimate moment.

//This scene has a lot of parallels to Kuripa’s big scene in “Ultra Despair Gang” but arguably, it’s so much better and has far more of an impact. Haiji’s death was sudden, and quick, so much so that it took a while for everyone to process it fully. MARIN on the other hand, died a slow, painful, brutal death, from being beaten to death by Nagito.

//And the reason this scene is so essential, is because, in the words of Cole Cassidy (formerly Jesse McCree) “that’s when things started...to go wrong.”

//Nagito’s actions in this arc, are ultimately what lead to the events of the story we currently find ourselves in. Organization Zetsubou are getting a foot above the Future Foundation, the public are beginning to doubt the FF’s justice, society is beginning to emotionally crumble once more, and another tragedy ins’t far from sight...

//All it takes is one bad day...One fleeting moment for things to completly go to shit...And of every crowning moment in Danganronpa Survivor...This...was...it...

//Nagito up until this point is up on top, and about to topple. Thanks to the actions of serving under Hajime, and Ayumu’s presence and actions, he’s questioning everything he knows, is getting scared and desperate to protect his hope and talent based ideals, and once Seiko goes bye bye after Akira kidnaps her...THAT is the final, tiny push, that sends Nagito over the edge...and Marin Mizuta pays the price for it.

//It’s a powerful, devastating scene to see someone as reserved as Nagito in a state of genuine rage, fury and anger, and to see him take such a violent approach against another human being, particularly against Marin, the UUV’s arguably most adorkable and loveable member...And it’s all too clear that from this point on, Nagito Komaeda is no longer the man he was...Now...he’s far more dangerous...

//But, overall, that concludes most of what I have to say about “Misfortune’s Revenge” our number one for this list.

//This arc was definitely not perfect, but it was in my own opinion, successful at taking the story to a much darker plotline and tone that it may never come back from, and overall proves to be a more mature take on a story full of characters living in a grey area. And a fantastic story about two lost souls with a connection that will tie them together till the end of time.

//And that concludes my analysis, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

//This won’t be the last time I make one of these analysis’ and I’ve got more breakdowns on the way, as I mentioned before.

//I had also planned for this to go up yesterday, but it took way longer than I thought it would, so I’m uploading this on December 1st which is my birthday, so...Happy birthday to me I guess? I think it was fun though.

//In any case, I know the ask box is currently closed, but I would REALLY love to hear what you guys thought of my arcs. If you want to share your own thoughts and opinions, maybe you can repost this and do a little mini analysis of your own? I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on what their favourite chapter of the story was.

//But for now, I’m tired and need my rest, so I’ll catch you guys in the next countdown~

-Mod

#danganronpa survivor #ranking #self reflection #troubles brewing arc #the trial of koichi kizakura arc #deadly harmony arc #neo world arc #ultra despair gang arc #novoselic revolution arc #the amnesiac and the alter ego arc #the tower arc #cabaret kyojins arc #the life and lies of akeru yozora arc #misfortunes revenge arc #the fugitive arc

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rovelae · 3 years

Text

Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

Today marks exactly one year since I posted arguably my most popular fic. “Hologram” is a postgame Saiouma one-shot about escapism, loneliness, and running away from the past. I put a lot of myself into this fic and I’m blown away by all the love it’s received, not only on AO3 but in Discord servers and other social media. All that excitement made me keep thinking about it, so I thought I’d share a (very self-indulgent) behind-the-scenes of sorts about how I wrote it, as well as what I think of the story.

This essay will contain spoilers for the whole fic, so if you’d like to read it first, you can find it here. Of course, if the tags scare you off, that’s valid, but you might want to skip this post too since I’ll be quoting it throughout (so, just to be safe, expect the warnings I’ve posted on AO3 to apply here too).

If you’re a Lorde fan you’ll recognize the lyrics in the fic summary – “Nothing’s wrong when nothing’s true,” from “Buzzcut Season.” The inspiration for this fic came to me while I was on my way to an early shift at work, and I needed a good song in my head to give me the will to live for the next eight hours. Not sure why I chose that song in particular, but maybe part of it is because I like imagining stories to go along with the songs I listen to, like AMVs playing in my head, and I’d never been able to pin down exactly what this song reminded me of.

The mood of the music is really what compelled me – there’s something lonely about it, and the lyrics sound like the singer’s trying to convince herself that everything’s okay even when all evidence points otherwise. There are “explosions on TV”, and “The men up on the news / They try to tell us all that we will lose,” but “we live beside the pool / Where everything is good.” Despite everything going wrong, despite the notes of fear creeping into the pre-chorus, the character will “play along… in a hologram with you” and “never go home again.”

From there, it was an easy jump to “postgame Saiou” and that was that.

There’s a cloud of seagulls hovering in the air around him, and a dozen or so more standing just out of reach, staring him down with beady black eyes. Kokichi takes a slice of bread from the loaf he’s holding and tosses it to one of the birds, watches it catch it and stumble under the weight, watches its head bob as it tries to swallow the whole thing at once. It gets remarkably far before four other birds descend on it, shrieking wildly.

“Mine, mine, mine,” he mumbles into his folded arms, wondering if Shuichi would get the reference.

He really wishes Shuichi was here.

Kokichi upends the rest of the loaf of bread onto the sidewalk and laughs at the resulting chaos until his chest aches.

To start off, I wanted to create the same lonely mood from “Buzzcut Season” in Kokichi’s simulation. He’s not exactly trapped there, but he’s refusing to leave, because as long as he’s on the fake Jabberwock Island, he can pretend the killing game never happened. The trade-off to that escapism is that the only people he can talk to are the NPCs, who aren’t complex enough to be remotely interesting to him, and Usami, who… well, tries her best, but is more of an informational / moderation program and can’t offer him what a therapist could.

The only thing Kokichi has to look forward to is Shuichi, who he’s convinced is an extremely lifelike computer program rather than the real thing, because the real Shuichi would definitely hate him for everything that happened during the killing game. He’s so locked into this line of logic that he doesn’t let himself consider that Shuichi has forgiven him – he doesn’t even have a good answer for why the Future Foundation wouldn’t just keep the supposed Shuichi AI on indefinitely, believing it’s their way of baiting him into leaving the simulation.

It’s not a healthy or sustainable lifestyle in the slightest, but Kokichi stubbornly refuses to do anything but wander the islands aimlessly, passing the time with ice cream and feeding seagulls until the next time he can see Shuichi.

He dreams that DICE is here in the simulation with him, smiling and carefree as they explore the weird music venue. One of them has gotten the karaoke machine working, and another found a box of kazoos and maracas in the back room. Kokichi already pities anyone unfortunate enough to walk by the building tonight.

“Not going to sing, Joker?” one of his DICE asks (over the sound of their youngest member shrieking through seven kazoos at once), sitting on the bench next to him.

“Some games are more fun to watch than play,” he answers, leaning back on his hands and sighing.

“Like a killing game.”

The warm dream-atmosphere turns cold then, and Kokichi’s head snaps over to look at him—but his brother is gone and Kaito’s looking back at him instead, blood in his teeth and face ashen pale.

“You... we don’t have to do this, man,” Kaito says, but it’s a lie and they both know it, and he doesn’t want to look behind him because he knows the machine’s looming over him with its unyielding steel and slow slow slow descent—

“You’re not real,” he snaps at dream-Kaito, who doesn’t respond except to lift him up again. “Nothing’s real, none of—PUT ME DOWN! LET GO OF ME! DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!”

“Death is more mercy than you deserve,” Kaito says, and Kokichi claws and bites and kicks his way out of Kaito’s grasp like a wild animal, only to end up in front of a prison cell full of—

DICE, his beloved DICE, trapped and hurt and afraid, bloodied and beaten and helpless.

“Why didn’t you save us, boss?” says his second-in-command, clutching the bars with bleeding hands. “Why didn’t you do more? Now we’re all dead and it’s because of you.”

Moments like this are my reference to Buzzcut Season’s pre-chorus, where the not-okay starts to creep into the illusion. Despite Kokichi’s valiant efforts to forget, he’s still dealing with the aftermath of seeing his family hurt and in danger, watching his friends die, orchestrating the deaths of two of them, being killed himself— and then being told every bit of it was made up to entertain an audience who sees nothing wrong with that picture. Running away is not the way to heal from trauma, and one day soon it’s all bound to come crashing down around him.

“Do you know what this … island paradise represents, Kokichi?” [Hinata] asks, and Kokichi’s really not in the mood for a lecture but he continues anyway. “Jabberwock Island … was the setting for the fiftieth season of Danganronpa. The golden anniversary, they called it. It was my season.”

Kokichi hunches over, hugging his arms over his torso and stifiling a scream. He does not want to think about this right now—

“They wanted it to be the best season of all, which, unfortunately for us, meant it was also the bloodiest,” Hinata says. “Twice as many participants, deadly traps hidden across each of the islands— they even changed the way the motives worked, like when they told Fuyuhiko to cut out his own eye so Peko could have a quick death instead of suffering for days.”

“Do I look like your therapist, porcupine-head?” Kokichi hisses. A sharp pain is pounding into his skull, and there’s a bitter, metallic taste at the back of his throat. A taste like poison and blood.

“There was so much going on that the simulation malfunctioned,” Hinata says. “When people died, their Ultimate talents downloaded themselves into me. I’m told that the stress of so many personality grafts came close to liquefying my frontal lobe. I’m lucky I woke up at all… especially considering more than half of the others didn’t.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Kokichi grates out through the static building in his head. If he opens his eyes, will he see the beach or the dull chrome of the machine closing in on him?

“Because I know how much you want to forget about what happened,” Hinata says. “Believe me, I get it.”

….

“These things that happened to us… we can’t erase them, no matter how much we want to. Some things have to be remembered.”

I’d mostly like to leave Hajime’s season up to interpretation, but there are a couple things I wanted to say about it. I imagine Danganronpa is like the Hunger Games in that it’d go all out for big anniversaries. So, there were twice as many participants for the Jabberwock Island beatdown that was probably subtitled “Bloodbath Bay” or something equally appealing. The game’s formula changed from a focus on the mystery and the trials to “look at all these kids massacring each other a la Lord of the Flies,” and since the VR system wasn’t equipped to handle that many people and their deaths, it malfunctioned, giving Hajime way too many Ultimate talents and putting half the cast into comas from which they never woke up.

Viewers either absolutely loved or absolutely hated this season, depending on whether they were DR fans because of the “blood n’ guts” factor or the “mystery and psychological thriller” aspect. Team Danganronpa faced quite a bit of backlash for actually causing the real-life deaths of half its participants, but were able to weasel their way out of serious legal repercussions because of the waivers the participants had signed beforehand (plus a lot of bribery and falling back on their longstanding popularity). So, the cast of Season 50 failed to end the killing game, but helped provide great evidence for the “Danganronpa is morally wrong” argument.

Hajime works as a victim liaison for the Future Foundation and has been trying to take down Danganronpa since he got out of it. He’s like that in a few of my fics, actually; I like the idea of Hajime acting as a big brother of sorts to the V3 cast. It’s especially entertaining to imagine his interactions with Kokichi— though maybe not so much in Hologram, since to Kokichi he’s a representation of the past he’s trying so desperately to forget and the future he refuses to acknowledge.

“SHUT UP!” He launches himself at Hinata, his hands wrapping around the other man’s throat as he uses his momentum to slam him to the ground. “SHUT! UP!”

“Ko— ghk—” Hinata coughs, eyes wide with surprise, but aside from moving his hands up to grip Kokichi’s wrists, he doesn’t seem all that worried about fighting back.

The thought only fuels Kokichi’s rage until he’s choking Hinata so hard his knuckles are white. “If you want me out of this simulation so badly, you can kill me,” he snarls. “I’m never waking up! I’m never leaving, do you UNDERSTAND ME?”

Hinata grimaces, the outline of his avatar flickering, but he still doesn’t struggle, and Kokichi hates him all the more for it, despises him with a seething malice that festers low in his stomach. He wonders distantly if he’d actually kill this man in real life. Or if he’d be able to stop himself, feeling like this.

Kokichi’s breakdown here is more out of fear than anger. Like I mentioned, Kokichi sees Hajime as another piece of what’s hurt him, and no matter how Hajime tries to help, Kokichi will always remember Danganronpa whenever he sees him.

Warm yellow-orange light casts a relaxed, cozy glow over the dining hall. It’s an ambience compounded by the flickering candles on the table, which seems overly idyllic, but Kokichi will let it slide because of the adorable way Shuichi flushed when he noticed them as they sat down. Well, if he’s being honest, everything about Shuichi right now is adorable, from the way his hair keeps falling into his eyes to the way he’s nervously fiddling wth his chopsticks. Kokichi wishes he could keep staring at him forever.

Ah, not… not in a weird way, though, just… because Shuichi’s beautiful, and when Kokichi looks at him he can forget everything bad that’s ever happened, can create some new and brighter world to exist in.

This is an idea I wish I’d had room to explore a bit more in the story— that is, just how far Kokichi will go to pretend everything’s fine. I thought about making him border on delusional, like having him talk to people who aren’t there or forget what’s actually happening around him because he’s so lost in his fiction-within-a-fiction. It would have creeped Shuichi out a whole lot.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for that past the plot I’d already nailed down, so I focused on his loneliness and escapism instead. I do touch on it later in this scene, though— the couple paragraphs where he slips into fantasizing about being a phantom thief having a surreptitious meeting with his detective under the not-so-subtle supervision of his DICE. There would have been a lot more of that if I’d gone with the ‘delusion’ stylistic choice, to the point where even the readers would be confused about what’s real. Maybe I’ll look into writing something similar in a future story.

Eventually, Shuichi sets down his bowl and looks away with a little sigh, and Kokichi clenches his teeth because that’s the sigh he does when it’s time for that conversation.

“Um… Kokichi?”

Kokichi’s only response is to exhale the breath he’d been holding in a quiet hiss.

“I-I know you don’t want to, but… but I really need to talk to you about something,” Shuichi says. “Please?”

“My Mr. Detective can talk about whatever he’d like!” Kokichi says with a lilt to his tone that makes it sound more sarcastic than he wants it to. He takes the last bite of curry and wishes that it burns hot enough to hurt.

“It’s about Kaito.”

This more serious part of the date scene is meant to reflect the little bridge in “Buzzcut Season”:

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

It’s a part of the song that sounds especially bittersweet to me, a bit of self-awareness between the insistence that everything’s okay.

Really all I think I managed was to reference it when Kokichi’s internal dialogue comments on his drink being “so sweet it tastes burnt” and then later not tasting like anything. But hopefully the mood’s still there.

“Tell him… that I have nothing against him,” he says.

“That’s … not a lie?” Shuichi presses.

Kokichi shakes his head idly, still not raising his gaze. “I wanted to wreck the killing game and he wanted to save his friend. We both got what we wanted. I’d say the end more than justifies the means.”

Was that a lie?

(I don’t want to die Shuichi I’m sorry I’m sorry save me Shuichi please I’m sorry ithurtsmakeitstop—)

His fingers tighten into clawlike shapes, nails digging sharply into his forearms.

I really don’t think Kokichi would have anything against Kaito, even if here he’s not being completely honest with how much he’s affected by what happened. It wouldn’t make sense to him to hate Kaito for something he himself proposed, but I think there’d still be a subconscious barrier between them. Too much history.

“Don’t go, Shuichi, I’m so sorry, I— that was so dumb, what I said, please don’t be sad anymore.” He’s not sure if he can’t breathe because of the exertion of running or because of the hysteria boiling over in his head. “Please don’t go, I didn’t mean to hurt you— please don’t leave, Shuichi, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Kokichi….” Shuichi’s tone is strange, soft and pitying, like he sees something Kokichi doesn’t, and he shakes his head slowly as more tears follow the paths of the others.

Kokichi goes to his knees, ready to grovel if that’s what it takes, but Shuichi follows him down, closing his other hand over Kokichi’s, and then they’re both crying and he doesn’t know why, and all he can do is repeat a mantra of I’m sorry and hold on as tight as he can.

It’s horrible. Shuichi’s horrible. Shuichi’s wonderful, and kind and lovely and perfect and Kokichi hates him, Kokichi adores him, and it doesn’t matter because Shuichi’s not actually here but Kokichi doesn’t want to be alone, just let me pretend some more, please, please let me have this—

“I’ll… I’ll stay,” Shuichi says at last. “I can stay a while longer.”

You shouldn’t, Kokichi wants to say, but his mouth won’t obey him. You shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I don’t deserve having you here. I’m not worth your mercy.

But there on the bridge, crying tears of relief, he soaks up as much mercy as he can get and hopes it’s enough to drown him.

I wanted to create a contrast between them that highlights just how the isolation and trauma Kokichi’s experiencing has affected him. He has an almost unhealthy reliance on Shuichi as “the only thing that makes this world bearable,” and panics when faced with the prospect of being alone again so soon. Part of why Shuichi’s crying is because he’s realized the extent of Kokichi’s desperation. It’s not that he thinks Kokichi’s apology is insincere, but that he’s hardly heard him apologize for anything before, so Kokichi going this far has him realizing how bad things really are.

The door rumbles and slides open when they approach, revealing the bright light of the log-out point that took Shuichi away every time, that would wake Kokichi up in his real body if he walked into it. Shuichi stops just a step away from it, biting his lip as if searching for something to say, but before he can find it, Kokichi reaches out to tug at his sleeve.

“Shuichi?” he says, distant as the waves on the beach that he can still hear if he listens closely enough. Shuichi turns back toward him. “Before you go, can I be selfish one more time?”

“Huh…?”

Shuichi doesn’t move when Kokichi steps closer, reaches up to ghost his fingertips over Shuichi’s jaw and around the back of his neck. He lets Kokichi tilt his head downward, lets him hover inches away, close enough to feel their breath mingle in the night air. Kokichi pauses there to give him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t.

So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

That last line is a ZEUGMA! It’s a literary device where one word refers to two more in a different way. A popular example is the hyenas’ line “Our teeth and ambitions are bared” from The Lion King. It’s my favorite grammatical trick and I’d love to see more of it in fanfic.

Slowly, he slides his hand down to Shuichi’s shoulder, using it as leverage to push himself away. That hurts even more. He can’t seem to open his eyes, and he feels so weakened, breathless, fragile. Cracked open, hollowed out.

When he finally does open his eyes, Shuichi’s are wide with some mix of astonishment and a dozen other emotions. Kokichi bows his head, taking a deep breath to ground himself. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I just wanted to know.”

“Kokichi,” Shuichi breathes, like a bullet through his heart.

“Goodbye, Shuichi,” Kokichi says, and shoves him into the light.

Shuichi’s little yelp of surprise cuts off abruptly as he falls through the door, vanishing into the glow, and all too soon, Kokichi’s alone again in a dream that suddenly seems far too vast. Alone, with the faintest taste of Shuichi’s lips still lingering on his own.

And he thinks, It was enough just to know you.

It’s a lie.

Nothing to say here except that this is my favorite scene and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

Fake sun rises over fake ocean, fake seagulls glide through fake sky while fake wind tousles fake palm fronds. Kokichi lies on his stomach in the fake grass and talks to his fake family in the fake notebook. Gives them fake names and runs through everything he remembers about them. Apologizes, over and over, wishes he could hug each of them goodbye one last time. Wonders if it would be more painful to die or to never have existed at all.

He leaves the notebook of his memories on the seat of one of the Ferris wheel cars on the fourth island, because one time he promised them they’d steal the London Eye together.

He buys a can of fake soda from the fake convenience store on the first island and sits on the fake beach watching the fake waves. Wonders when he’d hit the end of the simulation if he started swimming, or if he’d drown first.

White sand, blue sea, bluer sky. Washed out, like an amateur watercolor painting.

He opens the soda can and raises it to his mouth, but … even the thought of drinking it makes him sick to his stomach. He sets it down in the sand and flicks it over, watching the bubbly liquid run down and sink into the sand. The color’s all wrong, like blood streaked against a metal floor.

He walks the fake streets of the fifth island, passing fake skyscrapers and fake commuters and their fake conversations, until he finally stops outside the factory he’s never been able to bring himself to go into. Smells like oil, and metal and machines and he can hear the sounds and he’s immediately back in the hangar, dizzy on adrenaline and desperation and leaning heavily on Kaito so he doesn’t keel over and die then and there. Kaito says something about how maybe he should sit down for a minute, and Kokichi didn’t agree back then but he does now, goes down on all fours and dry heaves.

When his vision solidifies and he can stop gasping for breath, he sits up and presses his back against the factory wall, covering his ears and hiding his face in his knees. Tries to convince himself not to imagine Shuichi’s there with him, holding his hand again, promising everything’s going to be okay.

“I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you anymore,” or maybe, “Breathe with me, it’ll be over soon. You’re safe now.”

I love you.

He laughs until there’s nothing left in his lungs. He called these little daydreams obsession, before, but now they just seem sick and insane.

I wanted to indicate throughout this scene that Kokichi’s gotten substantially worse. Instead of halfheartedly interacting with the NPCs or finding something to spend time doing, he’s aimlessly wandering the islands, focused on how fake all of it is. Not even talking to his sketches of DICE can make him feel better. The suicidal ideation starts to slip in even if he doesn’t realize it— a fixation on wondering what death is like, purposefully triggering himself by walking by the factory….

The thing I want to talk about most though is the italicized I love you. I left it outside of quotation marks and dialogue tags on purpose because I wanted it to be ambiguous as to who’s saying it. If it’s Kokichi’s line, it’s sudden and almost out of place, like he couldn’t hold back from thinking it anymore. But it could be Shuichi saying it, too. Since it’s outside quotation marks, unlike the previous dream-Shuichi lines, it’s more vague, almost a whisper in Kokichi’s thoughts— like he can barely bring himself to imagine it and even feels guilty doing so, because there’s no way it could possibly be real.

Which do you think?

Eh, I don’t have an answer. When I hear it in my head, they say it at the same time.

“How did you know?” he finally croaks.

Shuichi’s breathing still sounds shaky, too. “Because you said ‘goodbye,’” he says.

Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

“You never say goodbye,” Shuichi says, rubbing his sleeve over his eyes. “It’s always….”

“‘See you later,’” Kokichi finishes for him. Despite himself, a tiny huff of astonished laughter escapes him. “I didn’t even know, not until a couple of hours ago. And you figured it all out from one word?”

Shuichi bites his lip at that. “You kissed me,” he says.

Kokichi’s stomach twists and he looks away. “I said I was sorry—”

“No.” Shuichi squeezes his hand into a fist and lets it fall to thump against Kokichi’s chest, like he’s trying to knock some sense into him. “It was so honest, and vulnerable, and… and I know how much you hate showing how you really feel.” Another tiny sob catches in his throat. “And so it felt like … like something you’d do if you weren’t going to s-see me again.”

“Shuichi….” Kokichi trails off as Shuichi muffles his cries in his hand again. He’s so breathtakingly smart. There’s no one else in the world who thinks that way, no one else who could possibly be that attentive and that clever. Not a programmer, not a team of shrinks… how can an AI manage it? How is it that Shuichi always manages to take him by surprise? How can he see straight through him when he least expects it?

Kokichi’s hand reaches up to Shuichi’s cheek. Reverently traces the path of the tears falling down it.

“I wish you were real,” he confesses in a whisper.

Kokichi’s stubborn. So, so stubborn. And he’s not used to being cared about, if the way he does everything by himself is any indication. So it makes sense to me that he’ll refuse to believe anything good can happen to him even in the face of convincing evidence. He’s pretty self-hating for someone so arrogant.

Kokichi’s weak, deep down to his core, weak for this man. Already knows he’d do anything for him, and the thought is terrifying—that one person could have that much power over him, even if he doesn’t realize it.

But what if he has realized it? Couldn’t this all be an elaborate ruse, a lie he knew Kokichi would be so desperate to believe that he wouldn’t bother questioning it?

…Shuichi’s never hurt him, though. Only that one time, when he really deserved it. Shuichi wouldn’t … betray him, even for what he thinks is Kokichi’s own good. They’re… different from each other, that way.

But still….

“I’m so scared, Shuichi.” It’s barely a whisper. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You won’t be.” It’s so hard to be skeptical, lost in his eyes. “I’ll be right there with you, for as long as you want. I won’t let you feel like this anymore.”

Promise me, he wants to blurt out. Promise you’ll stay. Promise me you’ll never leave me, Shuichi, he wants to demand, but that’s wrong, that’s manipulative and selfish and everything he doesn’t want to be for Shuichi anymore.

Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

“I promise, Kokichi.”

…

“Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

Shuichi leans in close, then pauses, his brow furrowing the way it does when he catches him in a lie.

“I’ll kiss you again in the real world,” Shuichi says. “Okay?”

Kokichi shakes his head. “Shuichi, please.” Please, I don’t think I can do this. Please, I don’t want to wake up to a lie. Please, one last kiss for me to remember in case it was all fake.

Shuichi reaches out to tilt his chin up and Kokichi closes his eyes, savoring every second, burning it into his memory.

Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

“Trust me,” he murmurs.

Kokichi’s eyes flutter back open, searching his face. Shifting him around on the white board in his head, seeing what categories he fits into this time. Weird, of course. Suspicious, maybe not. Trustworthy?

Trustworthy….

“I do trust you,” he realizes.

Kokichi’s still hesitant to accept all of this— Shuichi kissing him didn’t magically fix everything. He’ll still doubt all the way to the log-out point, but at least now he realizes that this simulation is only hurting him— that if things are to get better they’re going to have to change, too. He’s got a long way to go before he’s all right, but he’s not going to have to face it alone anymore.

And that’s a wrap!

Once again, I’m really proud of this story, and I feel like I grew as a writer because of it. There are a few things I would change if I wrote it again, but for all its flaws it’s still my baby and I like how it turned out.

Thanks again for all your support for “Hologram,” and thanks even more if you actually waded through all this nonsense of a director’s cut. It’s a huge confidence-boost to think that people liked what I wrote, and even wanted to hear what I had to say about it. If there’s any interest, I’d love to review some of my other fics here, or theorize or brainstorm or whatever else you’re into. (Ask me what Byakuya’s Thing is in my superhero AU, I dare you 😉)

I do have a WIP in my folder of bits and pieces currently titled “boy finally gets that kiss”, and it’s a post-Hologram scene from Shuichi’s point of view to just sorta… tie it all together, have them talk things over again… and kiss, of course. We’ll see if anything comes out of that.

Until next time!

#Rov talks #Hologram #Saiouma #Oumasai #Behind the scenes #Director's cut #Fanfic review

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dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3 · 3 years

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Random Dream Post

Hey guys! This is a random post, but it’s related to Ishimondo. Basically, last night I had a dream that was about Mondo and Taka and it was honestly very interesting, so I wanted to share it with all of you. Don’t worry, it’s not an inappropriate dream, aha. I’ll add a ‘read more’ to not bother people who are uninterested.

Anyway, last night, I had a dream that was kind of weird about Taka and Mondo. It was part of a larger dream that I won’t go into too closely, since I don’t actually remember all of the details, but it was like I was playing a VR cartoon style fantasy RPG game, kind of like Breath of the Wild, or Mario Odyssey, or even like a more advanced version of Spyro. I was playing the game in first person so it looked like I was in the world, but my thoughts made it clear that it was a video game, and that I was playing with my mom and older brother in the room.

At one point, I was trying to get a secret prize from an area by collecting coins and jumping on platforms, since I knew a secret was hidden there, but I kept messing it up. My brother helped me out by giving me clues and soon I was able to reach the hidden area. I was excited, and it turned out that the area contained a small cut scene for a more realistic, ‘gritty’ looking Danganronpa show/movie, this scene relating to Taka and Mondo and how they became friends. I would like to specify that this was a completely made up scene that is not related to the actual game canon, but my dream self seemed to think it was perfectly normal and real. Also, I have no idea why this RPG fantasy game had a cut scene for a Danganronpa thing, but hey, that’s dreams for you.

Anyway, the cut scene starts with the cast of Danganronpa looking sad, all of them kind of morose. This scene is kind of fuzzy in my memory, since it was a bit disjointed, but from what I can piece together they had all just come back from a funeral for one of the characters that was not named. All of the characters looked slightly different from the game too, like it was a live action version of the game, but I think a character who was supposed to be Hina said something like ‘I’m so tired of losing one of our friends,’ or something like that, indicating that this was not the only person to have died. They were not in the killing games, though, since the next scene takes place out on a city street.

The next scene shows Taka in multiple scenes that were cut together, like the cut scene was trying to show the audience who Taka was. There was some dialogue explaining about Taka and Mondo’s relationship that I don’t quite remember the details of, but I know talked about how they didn’t like each other much originally.

Finally, the scene shifts to show Mondo, Taka, and Celeste (she had short hair and didn’t much look like Celeste to be honest, but based on context of what my dream self was thinking/feeling, I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be Celeste, so I’m going with that) walking out of a door onto a city street. Taka and Mondo are seen griping at one another, but there is no dialogue, so you just see them visually arguing. They’re all still a bit somber and wearing dark colors, so it’s clear this was not long after the unnamed character died.

As the trio is walking down the street, the camera pans behind them, where I (the player) see a masked gunman. I remember myself (again, as the player) gasping at this, reminding me that this was my dream self watching a scene from a movie/cut scene/whatever.

Anyway, on screen, Mondo notices the gunman and begins talking with them, but again, we can’t hear any dialogue. At one point, Celeste throws a scarf at the gunman to distract them (very artistically, the shot shown from above in slow motion) and runs away, but Mondo stays behind to try and subdue the gunman further. It is not shown where Taka is, so I (the player) don’t know if he ran with Celeste or if he’s still hanging around. This does become clear later.

Before subduing the gunman, however, Mondo grabs a piece of newspaper the gunman had dropped when Celeste threw the scarf at them, and notices that it says something about his… now, I’m assuming the dream meant older brother, but I distinctly remember the dream saying “older sister,” and it was not considered weird to me or the characters. So… maybe in this live action reimagining of Danganronpa, Daiya is a girl, not a boy. Which, you know what? Good for them. But I’m digressing.

Anyway, Mondo is very perturbed that the gunman has something related to his ‘sister,’ and gets a bit aggressive, asking the gunman why they have this newspaper article (which is about Daiya’s death) and what it means. Unfortunately, the gunman still has, ya know… a gun. And instead of explaining the newspaper article, the gunman just shoots Mondo. It hits his arm, so he’s okay, but then the gunman raises the gun to shoot Mondo again, and this time it’s clear they’re aiming to kill.

However, right before the gunman can pull the trigger, Taka suddenly bursts into the frame and shields Mondo with his body, taking the bullet instead. This was a very shocking moment, since my dream self and my mom’s dream self were very perturbed, having a small dialogue basically going ‘oh no, poor Taka!’

Mondo has a similar reaction, screaming and getting closer to Taka, who is covered in blood (red, not pink) and is clearly much worse off than Mondo is. There is a scene of Taka in Mondo’s arms, looking up at him with wide, dazed eyes, with Mondo looking down at Taka with intense concern and panic, not even seeming to notice his own wound. The scene ends there, but considering that this was the story of how Mondo and Taka became close, I assume they both make it out alright.

The dream then shifts and it becomes a bit weird after that. I guess my dream self forgot that this was technically a cut scene from another game, and so it moves onto a kind of meta interrogation of the gunman?? It was very weird, but the gist of it was that the Danganronpa cast had prevented the gunman from making money for some reason, and the gunman was bitter about it. The gunman was also not working alone, they had a whole network of people all dedicated to getting revenge on the Danganronpa cast and getting the money they felt was rightfully theirs by doing that. How, you ask? I honestly have no clue, this scene was very confusing and I woke up halfway through it, so your guess is as good as mine.

If I were to try and make sense of it, though, I’d say that the gunman was probably Junko and her accomplices were her despair group from the games. They wanted ‘revenge’ on the Danganronpa cast more because they like despair than money, to make it more similar to the game. Additionally, the original person who died and the characters were all mourning was also ‘Junko’, but it was the same sort of situation as in the games, where it wasn’t actually Junko, but Mukuro. None of this was stated in the dream, but it’s just my own personal interpretation now that I’m awake. Also, I have no clue who the other people who died were, but again, to make it more similar to the game, I’d say it was Sayaka and Leon, not killing one another, but killed by Junko and her despair group.

All in all, this was a very weird part of what started off as a very different dream, but it was honestly really interesting. Part of me would want to make this into an actual fic, but I have no idea how I’d even go around doing that, ha. Plus, I’m still so pressed for time and energy I wouldn’t have the ability to actually write it all out anyway. But I still figured I’d share it with all of y’all, since it’s still interesting to read about, I’d think.

(Also, TPWM update: I’m still working on the companion to chapter 19 and am currently writing the beginning part of the explicit stuff. It’s, uh… something. Mondo’s perspective is turning much sadder than I anticipated and I’m honestly kind of living for it. His angst is different to Taka’s, so it’s at least fresher for me. By chapter 30 I bet it will get tiring like Taka’s did by the end, but for now it’s not too bad. Anyway, just a tidbit for those of you who decided to read this post of mine. ^-^)

#Personal post #Weird but interesting dream #Ishimondo #Mini update about TPWM progress at the end

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themadauthorshatter · 3 years

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I should probably back-track to Ninjago Season 1.

I've been excited for the rewrite of Episode 7😈

For context, in Episode 4, we'd see Zane's "green ninja" dream, which Wu would ask he share. He does fully; he half truths it to the others, exceot Cole, who gets pushy. Like I said in Episode 5's rewrite, he collapsed and heard the falcons shouting his name.

This is also the episode, hopefully, where Zane talks the most. And there's a lot of glaciershipping in this one.

We start in the dead of night, as a pan over the ninja shows they are all sleeping peacefully. All except for Zane, who we see close up tossing and turning as he writhes and groans in a cold sweat, possibly having a seizure and a nightmare.

In this nightmare, Zane sprints through a wooded area as hands and snake tails reach out to grab him. He's tired, sweaty, and really doesn't want to be grabbed because he doesn't want to know what could be waiting to pull him to his doom.

Thankfully, he breaks through the foliage and lands infront of a pair of a certain black clad six year old.

"Lloyd?" He asks as he stands. "Lloyd, thank goodness. Sensei has been worried sick. Quickly, we must-"

"Why, Zane?"

It rattles Zane to his core that a girl's voice comes oit of Lloyd's mouth, but not enough to pull him close as dark figures approach and surround them.

Zane pulls Lloyd close and unsheathes his shurikens to defend the two of them.

It gets worse when Zane can't move because the figures are armed men, not serpentine.

Lloyd asks him, 'Why?' again, and this time Zane backs away because half of Lloyd's face looks sunken in while the other looks fine enough considering how he's crying and coughing up blood, as in his tears are also blood.

He loses his shurikens and, in his panic to gind them in black colored snow, gets a muzzle to the cranium and a boot to the stomach.

"The hell's your problem!?" He gets another kick, this time to the face. "First you ask for a fight, and now you can't even make it a good one!?" Zane groans as the soldier stomps on his ear. "You little coward! You worthless, spineless bastard!"

As he tries blicking all the hits as more soldiers join in, Zane hears numerous people screaming his name, begging the soldiers to stop. He sees the messed version of Lloyd try to reach him, even though he's being held back by a smirking Pythor.

He cries for it all to stop, the screaming, the kicks and punches, and the pain he's in, quiet at first, but soon shouting as loudly as he can.

"STOP IT!" Zane screams as he shoots off his back and readies a kunai under his pillow; all you need to know is that Kai and Jay tried pulling a prank, and it went TERRIBLY wrong, and he feels safer, despite being among friends.

Regardless, Zane pants as he looks around and sees that the others are sleeping soundly, even though there's some movement from Cole's bed, like he just got back into it. (Hmmmmm?)

He calms down and holds a hand against his very sweaty forehead, very much shaken and stirred by his nightmare as he groans and rest his head against his knees. "Damn. Why?"

Hope you noticed that detail of Cole moving because we cut to his perspective as he lies on his side and pretends to be asleep. He's really just keeping his eyes on the wall as he listens for any more distress from Zane, who cautiously leaves his own bed and the bunk rooms entirely.

After a minute, Cole quickly gets up and follows him. He doesn't bother trying to be quiet because Kai and Jay can sleep through anything.

It's night and the moon is out, which gives the perfect lighting for Cole to look for Zane on the deck, where he is not.

He looks up and finds him on the mast, more specifically the part that actually holds the sails.

With Zane, he's sitting and switching between staring at the sky and staring at the kunai knife from his pillow, turning it in his hand and sort of inspecting it, not noticing Cole climb up to meet him.

"You know, you're pretty hard to wake up, especially when you're having those seizures."

Zane bites back a retort as Cole joins his side, egging him on to express himself.

"For the leader of the tean, you are terribly disciplined."

Cole takes the jab, and asks what he dreamed of, seeing as how shaken up Zane is.

Zane shrugs it off and simply half-lies that he's worried about Lloyd, hoping that he's okay. Cole agrees and asks for Zane to try and go back to bed, because it's late.

As Cole goes back to bed, Zane stares back up at the sky, seeing a very vague shape of the falcon fly above.

Cut to the serpentine, who walk to an underground cavern with Lloyd, who's in a cage and really doesn't want to be here.

Like before, Pythor needs the general's staffs to reaveal the silver fang blades on a map.

They set it down on a "table" with the staffs just strewn around it like before, and they all sit and play the waiting game.

Yeah, short jump cut, but the serpentine play a minor role here.

Back with the ninja, Zane is under water because he dropped a training shuriken and just stayed under because he's still stressed about the nightmare.

He stays under for almost an hour and a half before resurfacing.

They ask if he's okay, and Cole covers for him that they might be reaching their full potential.

We get the 'full potential' talk with Wu and the origin of how Garmadon became evil, though the only thing I'm changing in the origin story is that we'd get a flashback of Wu and Garmadon talking, where Garmadon attacks Wu and screams in his face that it's his fault Garmadon's on pain and sick from the snake venom. Their father pulls them apart and Wu runs, terrified as Garmadon shouts that he's weak, a coward, and should be the one who got bit.

Wu leaves and, TV perspective, we get a pan shot of the ninja seeing him off, though we focus on Zane, who's still contemplating the whole "break through your inner limits to reach your full potential" and wonders what's holding him back, considering all he knows about himself. We fade to the ninja enacting their greatest plan yet: using fliers to get info or locations on the fang blades; they already searched a library and archives and found nothing.

Zane's zoning out until Jay shakes him out of it. "Hey! Keep up, man! We need to put up as many of these as possible."

Now it's Kai's turn to ask what's wrong, citing how Zane woke up screaming, was distant all morning and is a lot quieter than usual, even refusing to be carried on Cole's back.

Before he can respond, Zane spots a little girl being picked on by two other kids, a boy and another girl. Good thing her older brother saves her and scares them off.

Rather than a seizure, it gives him a very bad headache, one that makes him fall to the ground and drop the fliers, much to the annoyance of some passersby.

Cole holds him as Kai and Jay pick up, though they aren't focused on their task for long as the spot the falcon.

Nya, who's totally been hear the whole time, takes up putting up the fliers as the ninja go after it, first by foot, with Zane on Cole's back where he belings, before switching to their vehicles, where Zane must ride with Kai as he has another headache, though the death metal grunge trash Kai listens to does absolutely nothing except piss him off.

When they're back on their feet, the sky's getting darker as dusk approaches and Jay falls behind because he may be fast, but he can't run forever.

Kai, Cole, and Zane continue, until Kai falls behind, then followed by Cole, who we stay with as Zane races onward. He calls for Zane to stop as he catches his breath, finds the 'Beware of treehorns' sign, and wonders to himself how Zane can run forever like that.

Speaking of Zane, he sprints after the falcon, demanding where it's taking him.

It continues to fly until it falls, panting as it instead hops onward.

Zane stops running and, getting uncomfortable, goes for and turns on a small flashlight in his pocket.

Turns out that stupid bird led him to a graveyard, which he learns by seeing numerous tombstones in the light.

"I apologize for breathing on all of you."

The falcon chirps, and Zane follows, finding it on top of a tombstone that is next to many other tombstones, all the first names different, but the last names the same. A family. The falcon pecks on the one it's perched on and Zane reads it.

'Zane Silver. Beloved son, and a brave fighter. May he rest in peace.'

The falcon walks away from the grave and leads Zane to a large tree...

Where a cougar-robot hybrid thing leaps out in front of him, growling and hissing at him

Zane fights it, even though it beats him senseless, and prevails.

Good thing, too, because the falcon pecks at the tree, which Zane opens to find the 'lab' from before, except it's bigger and the lights turn on when he steps inside.

The falcon makes a rough landing on a desk, amd Zane follows in half-wonder, asking why it brought him to here and the graveyard.

He gets his answer when he examines the papers and journal on the desk. TV perspective, we don't see what he's reading, but he removes his hood and shows confusion before that melts away into utter fear and despair, shaking his head and muttering, "No," over and over again as he searches them all over again in a crazy jump cut montage that shows his face, controted with pain and even more Danganronpa style despair, his hands practically tearing through the papers and journal pages, and flashes of his dreams and images of people he doesn't remember meeting(yet).

Unable to take the pain, Zane throws the journal, shouts, "NO!" and collapses as he hears the screaming from his nightmare, and even the sound of people just saying things to him.

We don't see the images, but we hear the voices, which stop as Zane, clutching his head as he screams at the very top of his lunges.

CUT TO THE SERPENTINE!!! That piece of paper has done nothing and they're all sitting and being bored. Maybe we can have a gag of a Constricti and a Hypnobri playing poker as Lloyd watches, just for shits and giggles.

Pythor, however, isn't in the mood for that, and growls that something MUST be missing.

Hope you remembered that drawing of either Garmadon or a shaded figure drawing blood on a map, because Skales wonders if blood mixed with the Great Devourer's venom will help, seeing as how Garmadon was bitten by the thing.

He and Pythor turn to Lloyd, who panics as they approach him. The Hypnobri, however, grabs him arm and holds his hand out to the two of them, and Pythor shushes Lloyd as he rubs his head.

We see the serpentine all brace themselves for what's going to happen next, but breathe a sigh of relief when Pythor simply pricks Lloyd's finger and takes a small amount of it and returns to the table.

He drips it on the paper and, through the power of some magic BS I can't explain, it makes a map of ninjago, but no location of the fang blades.

So they're back to watching and waiting, except Lloyd, who's seriously planning on how he can escape.

BACK WITH THE NINJA!

They find the tree lab and see Zane lying on the ground on his side with the falcon trying to get under his hand, so it can get pets.

Cole rushes to his side and shoos the bird away before pulling Zane into a sitting position to see if he's hurt.

He's fine, but his eyes are red and puffy, his hair is messier than Kai's, and his cheeks are heavily tear stained.

Kai and Jay catch up and they ask if he's okay, what happened, how did he end up like this, etc.

He just shoves past all of them and sprints out of the tree lab, journal in hand, which prompts them to follow, the falcon on Cole's shoulder and pretending to fly because it's exhausted from flying for real.

"Can't the guy just WALK for once!?" Kai shouts, "We've already done enough running!"

Fade to them walking through the trees, with Kai lighting the way with his sword, as they reach the cemetery and Zane.

He's kneeling and holding on to his tombstone as he shakily weeps. They're all at a loss of words for seeing him like this.

Cole approaches and puts a hand on his shoulder, asking him what's going on with him.

Zane sighs and takes a breath before standing and moving away from the tombstone, so the others can see it.

Without looking at them, he takes a scalpel that was in the journal, which he tosses to them, and unties his gi so his torso is showing.

GORE TW, even though it's not that explicitly shown in TV perspective, Zane carves lines into his body, a straight line that goes between his pelvic bones, a straight line going up from that line, his stomach, and stopping at his heart, and to diagonal lines that meet at the vertical line, making a Y shape.

The ninja are horrified, especially at the fact he didn't even react.

Zane meets their eyes, sad and very emotionally drained, and pulls his skin back to reveal a bunch of mechanisms and gizmos inside his body, especially the core I talked about in his character touch-up post.

They all scream, and this is what follows:

"Y-You...," Kai stammers. "Zane, you're-"

"You're a ROBOT!?" Jay shouts.

Zane sighs and shakes his head. "No, Jay. I... I am not a robot."

Kai babbles on about nonsense in the background with his hands in his hair as Jay pales and Cole only slowly shakes his head.

"You're... No. You can't be. How!?"

"I do not know," Zane admits as he holds his head in his hands. "I just learned myself, and... I don't know."

Kai calms down and states, "Hey, we just learned this, too, so maybe we can figure it out together. I mean, you have all the time in the world now, so..."

"A-and it probably explains why you didn't get jokes before, right?" Jay offers.

Cole glares at them both, but Zane continues.

"Didn't get jokes before. How could I when I did not even remember?"

Zane turns to the other graves and drops back onto his hands and knees.

"Wait," Kai murmurs. "'Remember?'"

"Yes. I believe I am starting to remember, but I do not yet know everything. Someone killed me and I had been brought back to life. That lab was where I... resided for many years."

"Why'd you leave?" Cole asks as he kneels next to Zane.

Zane only clenches his fist on the ground. "I... don't remember."

"Didn't you just say-"

"Kai, didn't I just say I do not yet know everything?" Zane snaps, effectively shutting him up before continuing. "I remember asking someone to make me forget, but... what was so awful that I had to force myself and my mind into hiding?"

He breaks down again, but this time, Cole puts an arm on his shoulder.

The ninja comfort him and tell him he's still Zane, even with the elephant in the room of him being not exactly alive.

They try motivating him to fighting again, but he tells them he'll catch up, because he needs a serious minute to think about what he just learned; he has been dead for a WHILE now.

The ninja leave him, but are then swarmed by treehorns, though it's a harder fight because it's night out. Yeah, that cougar-ribot thing was meant to keep them away.

Zane hears rhem and races to help, but he too get his ass handed to him as his powers are stunted from learning the truth. He ebds uo getting thrown into the tree lab, where he tumbles down the steps and breaks his fall on the desk before hitting the ground. (As Cinemawins would say: Brutal).

We cut back to the fight, and see the ninja do well enough until they don't. Cole, especially, who frantically shouts for Zane, having not seen him step in earlier.

Good thing I bring up Zane, because he comes to and finds the falcon in front of him. He sits up and asks what it's teying to tell him and why, seeing as how he knows the truth.

Silly Zane. Knowing is not understanding.

The falcon gives him the journal and flips to the very first page, which Zane begrudgingly reads.

We get a voice over from the writer as he talks about how, as a 'taboo' scientist, he's had to choose serving the army over being executed, how the village he's stationed in really maked him want to continue his research, and how he met a boy that's really caught his attention, one with quite a large family, a mother, father, grandfather, uncle, 3 cousins, and 5 siblings, where the boy was the second oldest-having learned from having dinner with them after a mishap in the street.

Zane has another headache and sees flashes of this family, and the man who wrote the journal, who, as a slight gag, sits very uncomfortably between two arguing twins before they ask this secind eldest to take a side.

He reads on and remembers more, seeing more of his family, that he did indeed die, get resurrected, and lived until the doctor-soldier died of old age and left Zane alone.

The mechanisms and circuits meant to keep these memories away give, and Zane weeps at all of this new found knowledge, even the fact that HE HIMSELF asked to forget his family.

That word catches him: Family.

He may have had his adopted family, who are all dead, but then there's his new family. Sensei Wu, Cole, Jay, Nya, Kai, and Lloyd. People he's laughed with, semi-cried with, trained with, fought with, people he genuinely doesn't like, but people he really loves with every ounce and fiber of his being.

The falcon watches Zane collect himself and examine the core and mechanisms in his body, remembering the doctor, his father, tell him it will keep him alive, and that it, ironically, makes him more human because his heart is literally bigger than his brain, amd humans are usually more emotional than logical.

With a rush of vigor, Zane seals up his torso with some skin glue, ties his gi back up, and races back outside.

Thank goodness because Cole is being thrown like a rag doll, Kai's exhausted, and Jay's about to become fast food, which Zane prevents by dive-tackling him and tossing him a few yards away, making some snow for him to land in, which surprises them both.

Zane ignores it for now and saves Kai and Cole, the latter almost hugging him before Zane shouts that they need to focus.

They regroup, amd we get an Avengers spin around them, because it's cool, and they leap back into it, Zane lending a huge hand as he uses his ice powers to help them, given their injuries.

As they continue fighting, Zane can't help but notice he feels extremely light on his feet, like a weight's off his shoulders.

They fight off a majority of the treehorns before the queen struts her way in, and Zane is more than happy to oblige her a challenge.

The ninja tell him they can ALL take her, but, TV perspective with Zane's back to the camera, the white ninja states, more serious than he's ever been in his life, "I lost my family once to a power hungry monster. I refuse to let it happen again."

The snow on the ground circles Zane and he glows brightly as the queen of the nest snaps at him.

He levitates and holds a hand out, shooting ice at her at freezing her into a treehorn-cicle.

The other treehorns back off as Zane floats back to the ground.

His powers cease and Zane sighs as he falls back onto his rear, panting as the ninja join him and tell him how awesome that all was, Cole especially so as he asks how Zane did all that.

Zane admits he doesn't know, but reveals he now remembers EVERYTHING, his life from before he died, that he died trying to keep them and others safe, that he'd been brought back and 'raised' by his father, who erased his memory for him before dying himself, and how Wu RE-FOUND Zane and let him join the team. He remembers playing with his siblings, and annoying his older sibling, remembers helping his father-the doctor- with his research and how they even played chess. He remembers that dying SERIOUSLY hurt and was killed for trying to save an old man who was getting hurt. He remembers having his mind physically altered so he wouldn't remember, and that the seizures were due to his mind literally fighting itself.

For those in back, HE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.

The ninja are all silent upon hearing this and, knowing he'd been the first to ask, Kai apologizes for everything Zane's been through, especially with the seizures.

Zane shakes his head, admitting with tears in his eyes he's too glad for words he remembers. He now knows that he wants to keep others safe, even the team, and hopes he can still help in stopping Pythor.

He's still in, and the group decide to camp out at the tree lab for the night before heading back, though as they settle in, Zane is about to drift off before he feels his old bed creak and someone hold him close with their arms around his shoulders.

It's Cole, though the falcon hops its way to Zane and falls asleep next to him, glad to have him back.

Back with the serpentine, they've all had it, tired of waiting and having their time wasted before they discover the venom in the staffs and use it ro reveal the fang blades' locations.

The episode ends with Pythor holding the map up in victory and Lloyd staring at the map in fear of what's to come

#ninjago #ninjao jay #ninjao cole #ninjago zane #ninjago kai #ninjago rewrite #child endangerment tw #angst #slight bloof and gore tw

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seijch · 4 years

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ANNOUNCEMENT: NOT A HELLO, BUT NOT A GOODBYE EITHER

omg hi ... im like . ashamed to come back after saying brief hiatus in october and then disappearing off the face of the earth til FEBRUARY but under the cut i will be explaining myself and the following, if youre interested (and a tl;dr at the very bottom if you don’t wanna scroll thru this obnoxiously long post):

the reason(s) i was gone for so long

what i was doing during that time (its just a personal account yall can scroll past this idrc)

the status of those um . halloween requests

the future of this account

i. so . Hiatus .

i know. i know . i probably mentioned it when i made the announcement post, but my mental health likes to go on one of those rides. yknow the ones where you go like up rlly fast then down maybe and then up then DOWN .... its like that. i needed a break and every time i wanted to come back or thought about it, something would happen and i would get stuck in my own head.

a big reason for getting stuck in my head was (and i hate to admit this ... i hate to admit that i have Insecurities On The Internet) my feelings of inadequacy regarding my writing. i love to plot fics, i love concepts and characters and making little headcanons but i dont ... know if i love writing rn. and i thought for the longest time that like . whatever ill just push thru it its fine ill be fine but it kinda wasnt lmao you can kinda see it in my halloween reqs and what become of them when i get to that but i began to feel like nothing i had put out or would put out would hold up prose wise (and normally i dont feel like this im much more “idc its my life im living it” but thats not a rant for tumblr LMAO). i still feel like that -- like im better as a reader than a writer. but . You Know :-)

tl;dr: mental state go brrrrr

ii. anywhere here’s wonderwall

when i left, i was in a steadily decreasing mental and emotional state, made worse by a situation at work that really was a case of petty jealousy on my end and rlly isnt very consequential now despite how much pain and resentment it gave me when it Was a problem so i wont get into it. the tl;dr of november and december was me using work as an crutch and distraction -- i know my job, i do it well, it helped me not think about my responsibilities and obligations and inadequacies. of course, as the holiday season grew busier n busier i was scheduled so often that i moved 88 or so miles (according to my apple watch, which i ONLY wear at work since im never anywhere else outside my house) and fell into a cycle of showering n sleeping at my house before going back the next day. (theres definitely something to be said abt capitalism and “grind culture” here but once again its not the time or place snsjkdfds)

at the turn of the new year, i happened to remember a birthday card i hadnt filed away for safekeeping from a friend of mine that id been horribly out of touch with til that point. i started crying because i realized how out of touch id been in general up until that point. the month of january was great for me: i was focused, happy, and in a much better place than i had been before. the end of it brought me down focus wise and im hoping that enough time away from my distractions will refocus me bc i ... need it LMAO and though ive burned out from that level of productivity and gotten distracted again im ... trying to stay positive which i think is the most i can do 😁👍🏼

media wise, i got real into stardew valley (but burned out bc i played it extensively as a way to wind down after work), the pokemon platinum romhack renegade platinum (still havent finished it bc of school n i played it w the intent to see if i could nuzlocke it ... bitch its so hard but its so fun bc of it), briefly assassins creed: odyssey (im one of those ppl who completes an entire region before i move to the next so you can tell i burned out of that one + wouldnt have the time to properly devote to it even if i didnt), got back into genshin impact after pulling for xiao (after not touching it for like . months), and danganronpa. yes . danganronpa 😐 i Know. i stopped playing it after the second trial of the first game bc i was so hurt by the outcome and picked it up in late january only to get sucked in (thank god i had the foresight to buy the second and third games during the steam winter sale). rn im at the start of chapter 4 if anyone wants to come in my asks and um . talk to me abt danganronpa

tl;dr: I’m Into Danganronpa Now

iii. you realize halloween was three months ago right

i mentioned this in the first section, but i love to plot things. every request is plotted or at least has a solid foundation. i had fun detailing what concept i wanted to go with considering what i was given, and there were some bangers i might touch up in the future. but heres whats going to happen to the requests themselves:

there are two finished requests. one will be posted tomorrow and the other will be touched up (just bc i finished it doesnt mean its good 🧍‍♂️) and scheduled for next saturday. as for the ones i never got around to ...

i will not be finishing those requests. i hate to be That Person, but i feel like we all expected this 🧍‍♂️ what i will do is post all of my notes for each request in batches -- requests that have an @ to go with them will be mentioned in the post proper, but anon asks will be pictured. (there are some asks that came from blogs who are now deactivated but i wrote down all the prompts and remember most of those askers so ill cross that bridge when i get there) there will most likely be an excerpt or two simply bc i think i mightve written a few plot points or interactions in the form of bullet points. i rlly am sorry about doing this but i remember looking at my notion doc with all the prompts and feeling ... like i wasnt measuring up n it wasnt just to myself or to some intangible concept of “other” id constructed but it was instead to those who requested n actually WANTED to see and hear and read my writing and i ...... im gonna admit thats another big reason i avoided this site.

regardless, youll definitely get what i have (and likely more than just my bullet points and illegible handwriting).

tl;dr: im sorry. what i have in terms of plot, concept, and interaction for every request will be posted, but i cant say ill ever complete them and mean it.

iv. so what now?

well i mean . im not entirely sure how sold i am on haikyuu in the content creation department (as a creator n to a lesser extent, as a consumer). as mentioned previously, its no longer my primary focus. it doesnt mean im not into haikyuu anymore; i have a lot of love for those boys but i cant rlly say im even caught up w recent fandom activity and also havent even finished s4 pt2 LMAO thats on my to do list

and despite all that, i still want to share my plots n concepts and snippets and maybe even fics. it wont happen anytime soon. it might not even happen. but i mean . its better than me saying i wont write ever again shjdkfs but either way ill probably use this blog as a personal blog w the occasional ask game for dialogue prompts (those are always so fun i love making up aus to fit like . the most mundane prompts)

as for my works (past and any potential future), ive opened an ao3 acc here n ill be editing n possibly expanding on my old works to post there. tumblr, to me, is The x reader hub, but i figure more x reader fics on ao3 is never a bad thing.

ill be deleting/posting drafted posts to the queue since they were all meant to be queued anyway as well as (sorry again 🧍‍♂️) deleting or answering asks in the inbox. (moots if you get a notif from me saying i rbed your post from months ago ... mind your business) im very hard to get ahold of and its ... a problem. expect an overhaul of the nav n shit to reflect my new direction n also because i feel like i cant tell if my passion for carrd is shared by the majority HSDKLFS maybe its better to read my info in a normal post ykwim .......

and of course . if youve read all this n decided im no longer worth the follow, i sure as hell cant stop you. thank you for wanting to, at some point, hear what i have to say -- it means more than you think.

tl;dr: writing will be edited and reposted to ao3, this blog will be a personal blog with a hint of writing (sometimes)

the tl;dr to end all tl;drs:

im back! i wont be as active as i used to due to a lessened interest in haikyuu in general, but i have an ao3 acc now where all my past work will be edited, possibly expanded, and reposted. any future work will also find itself there. my halloween requests will be posted in batches as incomplete concepts, plots, and snippets of scenes; i wont be promising to finish any of them.

there are still fic concepts im attached to and want to finish, but i cant promise any more writing on my end. this blog will be a personal blog with maybe writing, not a writing blog with my personal thoughts all over it.

regardless if you stick around or not, its been crazy sexy cool (equal emphasis) being on haikyuu tumblr even tho i wasnt around for long ... even tho its not my main focus anymore, im still excited to see what the future might hold 🤝

love, ari 💌

#did i have an announcement tag #announcement #also regarding work hsjkdfsd the company i work for didnt give my location the opening for the full time position i wanted #my managers all agree id be promoted if we had it but we dont so i . hee .#anyway um i hope everyones doing well #some of my moots changed urls while i was away and now i have no idea who anyone is #its like when you see your familys friends and theyre like omg youre so big now! i remember when you were a baby and youre like 🧍‍♂️#and you have to play along bc apparently they remember you hskdfsd #im not very funny in this post but i figured id rather be honest considering my lengthy absence #consider this my comeback stage

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a-student-out-of-time · 4 years

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Rambling about V3 Again

Today I saw a really interesting quote from author Brandon Sanderson and it honestly got me thinking. He talked about what he considers the single worst thing you can do with critique in writing, and that’s if a critic “tries to make your story into one they would write, rather a better version of one you want to write.”

That got me thinking about V3.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that V3 is a very polarizing game, and I’ve seen many people talk about how they would’ve preferred to see the story play out, from character arcs to deaths to story conclusions. And while I do honestly enjoy seeing alternative perspectives and takes and AU’s, I feel like a lot about the game, what it’s trying to say and be, is skewed by those ideals.

I’m not saying that the critiques about the game are invalid, because there are a fair share of flaws with the game. What I am saying is that we end up talking so much about what we wish V3 could’ve been that what V3 was trying to be often ends up lost in that, and I want to talk about it.

It wasn’t until I really saw this quote that I was able to articulate all my likes and dislikes about the game and the reactions to it into a cohesive whole, which is what I’d like to do here.

So let’s ask this: what was V3 really trying to be?

Let’s start from the game’s theme: the relationship between truth and lies. This is best exemplified by the fact that you have the option to lie during trials, that you can use deception to find the truth. That’s a very different take from the previous games, where hope was associated with finding and confronting the truth.

Kokichi is another example, as he’s a self-admitted liar who claims to lead a criminal organization and it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking or saying. Yet Kokichi actually helps bring the group to several truths: he helps find the culprit in trials, he reveals Maki’s identity as the Ultimate Assassin, tells the truth about Gonta murdering Miu and it’s thanks to his actions that the group later discovers the reality of their situation.

Throughout their journey, the group is confronted by numerous truths they don’t want to acknowledge, even refusing to do so and attacking people who continue to push them through. And with every revelation, there’s always those lingering details that don’t really make a lot of sense.

Let’s look at the game’s main narrative. At the start of the game, Kaede remembers she was kidnapped in broad daylight, thrown into a van, and brought to some abandoned school with a bunch of other people. She doesn’t act like a particularly nice person and is dressed differently, at least until the Monokubs arrive and give everyone their new clothes and memories. From that point, the narrative shifts considerably.

Kaede is suddenly an outgoing, optimistic leader and Shuichi is a sullen, withdrawn detective who serves as her deuteragonist for Chapter 1. She’s resolved to escape the Killing Game and tries to rally the group together. However, when her methods don’t prove successful and they start drifting away from her, she considers saving them by any means necessary and goes so far as to attempt murder against the mastermind. When that happens, she’s found guilty and executed, leaving Shuichi to take up her role as protagonist.

As you go through the game, using devices called flashback lights that apparently reawaken lost memories, you learn more and more about the reason that the group was brought here: the Gofer Project. When meteors began raining down on earth, all seemed lost until they established this project to send a group of survivors into space to colonize a new planet. A group of Ultimates.

They had established early on that Ultimates have even greater rights in this world: they’re the only ones allowed to vote and hold office. As the meteors came down and the news of this project got out, some people formed a cult that believed it was divine judgement and that mankind should be destroyed. That’s when they began the Ultimate Hunt, pursuing the candidates for the Gofer Project across the world. The Ultimates, with no other way out, decided to erase their memories of talent and live their last days as normal people.

To protect them, the people in charge spread a false story that the Ultimates had died, even holding a fake funeral for them and sent them into space secretly. However, while everyone was in cold sleep, one member of the cult- Kokichi- had sneaked aboard and piloted the ship back to the ruined and now inhospitable earth. They have no way back and no way to survive outside, and thanks to Kokichi’s claims to be the mastermind, they’ve been killing each for nothing. The group ultimately loses hope.

However, they’re resolved to continue on in their fight against the mastermind when they find a flashback light that reveals they weren’t just any ultimates: they were the next generation of ultimates from Hope’s Peak Academy. It wasn’t really the meteorites that got everyone, it was an alien virus that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. That the cult that rose in the wake of this was Ultimate Despair.

That seems like a definitive way to link this game with its predecessors...until you really begin to stop and pick it apart. If this was about saving mankind, why did nobody have their memories right away? Why would you only bring 16 people? Why students who don’t make them suited to colonization? Why people like a death row inmate, a serial killer, a self-proclaimed liar and criminal, and an assassin?

Furthermore, going through many Fte’s highlights how much of the characters’ backstories seem very out there. Gonta wasn’t raised by wolves but a race of dinosaur people living in the woods, Kirumi is so hyper-competent that she became prime minister during the meteor crisis, Korekiyo’s killed almost 100 women and yet has never been caught, Maki can attend high school despite Japanese orphanages being too underfunded for kids to usually attend, Tenko’s neo-aikido breaks all the rules of traditional aikido and she's impulsive, has low pain tolerance, and disregards fair rules, none of which are very befitting of a martial artist.

And to conclude, even I thought that the reveal of their connection to Hope’s Peak felt very fanficy and out there, especially when the game had made no references or implications of it beforehand. But the reason for all of this is simple and effective:

None of this is real. It’s all staged.

Chapter 6 reveals that everything from their identities to the outside world they thought they knew was all just a fabrication. In truth, Tsumugi shows herself as the mastermind and that they’re actually in the 53rd season of an in-universe show called Danganronpa. Something alluded to even in the beginning of the game with the Team Danganronpa logo. This moment was very make or break for a lot of people, but let’s treat it fairly.

According to Tsumugi, the outside world has become a peaceful, boring place and Danganronpa is the only source of real entertainment the people have. A place where people literally come to have their identities replaced with those of Ultimates and then made to kill each other. This, as it turns out, was an outgrowth of the actual series we’d played before. A game that’s gone over 53 times.

This revelation is devastating for the characters. The lives and memories they’d known were all fabrications, which Tsumugi claims to have intentionally written. The Flashback lights were designed to implant fake memories to manipulate them, which is why that Hope’s Peak connection was set up after everyone gave up following the reveal of the outside world. A truth that could lead the world to despair, a lie that could lead the world to hope.

She even goes so far as to show everyone’s audition tapes, claiming that Kaede, Kaito, and Shuichi himself were willing to participate in the killings out of sheer misanthropy, popularity, and morbid excitement

Kiibo is also revealed to be the audience’s means of interacting with the game, able to carry out their wishes and can even be hijacked and used as a way to fight against the characters’ decisions.

In the end, Tsumugi claims that the ongoing battle of hope vs despair needs to continue in perpetuity and that the survivors need to sacrifice someone, since only two people can survive Danganronpa. Shuichi, however, convinces Maki and Himiko not to vote for anyone and actually convinces the in-universe audience to give up on the series. Kiibo then blows the set to hell and allows Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko the chance to escape and see the world outside and what sort of influence they could have.

Now, let’s this break this down piece by piece here, because I feel like this part of the game is often conflated. Often I’ve seen people say that Chapter 6 is a giant middle finger to fans of the series, that nothing about the series really mattered, or that the flaws of the game can simply be attributed to bad writing on the creator’s part.

I honestly used to be in that camp myself, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I feel those statements don’t hold up to scrutiny. We often conflate writing and narrative decisions we don’t like with bad writing. However, if the creator deliberately wants the narrative to move in that direction and has made intentional foreshadowing, references, and motivations that match it, we can’t simply equate that with it being “badly written.”

It’s not bad simply because we would’ve preferred they do something different. There’s a lot of very acclaimed books out there that I’ll admit I don’t care for because of their narrative decisions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re badly-written.

Furthermore, if something intentionally doesn’t make sense in-story, that is not bad writing. That is purposeful on the part of the creator, not a plot hole. The Gofer Project is not supposed to be a logical narrative, it’s meant to serve V3′s role: deconstruction of the nature of the series. It does this in many different ways:

Sequelization: 53 is a ridiculous amount of entries in a franchise and as I’m sure we’re all aware, as the number of entries goes up, the writing quality tends to go down. The Gofer Project story was purposefully meant to be nonsensical because it’s a story in an in-universe franchise that jumped the shark long ago.

A lot of people found it confusing or ridiculous that Shuichi and Kaede would have a romantic connection despite knowing each other barely a few days. That’s also the point; quick romances are a convenient narrative device to establish a means for character growth, followed by fridging her, a bad narrative trope designed to propel Shuichi toward development. Tsumugi even said as much during Chapter 6.

Similarly, Maki’s role in the story and her feelings for Kaito were reminiscent of that as well, with him helping her come out of her shell.

When you go back, you can see Danganronpa is loaded with references to other series. Tsumugi is an obsessive otaku and went so far as to fill the entire story with deliberate references and callbacks to things she enjoys.

The Monokubs are deliberate references to executive decisions to add more marketable and merchandisable characters as the series drags on.

The fact that there are (supposedly) people willing to sign up for a killing game deconstructs the idea that some in the fandom may have had. That is, actually being in a killing game would not be fun or exciting, but horrific and traumatizing. Most of us wouldn’t be badass detectives or heroes, we’d be scared out of our minds, afraid, and want to find a way out.

Furthermore, Shuichi being repeatedly told that he’s just a fictional character and that his role is to be the protagonist, to go through hardships and come out stronger for the audience’s entertainment pisses him off so much that he wants no part of it.

The climax is ultimately a deconstruction of what the series is famous for: the battle of hope vs. despair. In-universe, this has been reduced down to a simple narrative where the audience wants the same thing again and again: to see hope win in the end. Because hope keeps winning, the audience keeps wanting more. It’s become so formulaic that the audience doesn’t want to break out of its shell and just wants to see it over and over.

The final PTA against Kiibo is not meant to be an insult to the audience, but a representation of fighting against toxicity and entitlement in the fanbase, especially the ones that don’t want change. It’s not saying “you’re stupid for liking this series,” it’s saying “don’t be like these people.”

And how does the game? An unsatisfying ending that’s so bad that it drives the audience to give up on the show, finally allowing the killing to stop. Tsumugi decides she can’t live in a world without her favorite show and decides to die.

And that brings me to what I think is the ultimate thing that people conflate about the ending: that it’s all fiction, so nothing about it matters. That the entire franchise was fake, so it’s not worth your time.

That’s exactly the opposite of what V3 is trying to say.

First, Tsumugi is a completely unreliable narrator. The kind of person who let fiction consume her entire life, yet she believes it can’t change reality. She’s a liar and a hypocrite, and there’s no way of knowing if anything she says about the outside world is even true. It could be like she says or it might not be.

The fact that they have technology that can remove memories and add fake ones adds an entire dimension of ambiguity to everything she says, especially when you consider how the beginning of the game does not match up with what she says. We have no idea what the kids were really like before the killing game, so why should we believe anything she says?

And how can we be certain of her claims that she just wrote everything as planned? Kokichi and Kaito managed to put together a plan that completely threw her and Monokuma for a loop

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko ultimately choosing to take the words of Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko to heart, even if they were part of a fictional narrative, is proof that they still had an influence on the trio. They choose to take something meaningful from their experiences regardless of the reality of their situation. And that’s something we all do.

The media we consume has an influence over who we are as people, and it’s part of why so many of us have such strong attachments to works we love. They were often influential in help shape who we are as people now, for good and for ill, and it’s important to take that into account.

V3′s message is that yes, that is important, and that you should read and enjoy stories and fiction, just as long as you don’t let it consume your life. They can influence you and even the world at large, and so it’s our responsibility as writers, artists, and creators to use that influence positively, to use the medium as a way to change the world for the better. That the only way for stale franchises that we’re tired of seeing over and over is to demand change, even if that means walking out on them. That the only way for things to change is for us to take action and demand change.

And by the end, we may not see immediate results, but we can at least work hard at trying to bring them about. V3 ends with Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko facing an uncertain future in a world they really know nothing about, but hopeful that their actions can and will change the world for the better. Real life doesn’t have solid, satisfying conclusions and it always doesn’t play out like a story, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on ever finding something satisfying or hopeful out there.

This, by no means, is me saying that V3 is a flawless story. I can point to numerous critiques that I still think hold water. However, Sanderson’s point is that we shouldn’t criticize a work based on what we wish it was rather than how it is and what it was trying to do.

I know there’s a lot about the story that bothers people, I know there’s a lot that wasn’t polished and a lot that feels uncomfortable and hard to swallow. Like Shuichi, coming out feeling confused, lost, unsure of what to do, but choosing to see merit and things to take to heart even in a story that turned out to be full of lies and uncomfortable truths.

If you didn’t enjoy V3, I wouldn’t force you to enjoy it. If you did love it, then you should love it. These are all just my thoughts on a story that, as time goes on, honestly feels more and more relevant to me.

#mod talks #a student out of time #mod rambles #danganronpa v3 #v3

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hajimes-erect-ahoge · 4 years

Text

Postmortem- Chapter 14

Everyone finally moves out of the hospital and into the new apartment complex!

ao3 About a week had passed since Ouma’s encounter with Amami in the recreation room, and the participants of Danganronpa’s 53rd season were finally being discharged from the hospital. The moving process was pretty simple; All that had to be done by the participants was gather whatever belongings they had and be relocated to the new apartment complex. After that, they would move into their individual apartments and settle into their rooms.

The apartment complex was surprisingly small, though in retrospect that was to be expected given that only 15 people would be living there. The complex consisted of two buildings adjacent to one another, one of which was for the boys and the other one being for the girls. Each building contained the aforementioned apartments, a game room and a common room. There was also a nearby park, as well as various stores and local businesses.

After being dropped off outside of the apartment complex, the participants separated into two groups and headed to their assigned buildings. Saihara and Momota stuck together, practically inseparable as best friends, while Ouma trailed behind, vaguely following them.

The three of them eventually arrived at their apartment, which was located at the very end of the hall. Upon entering, Ouma observed that the apartment was well furnished and quite spacious, containing a living room and a kitchen adjacent to one another, with a bedroom off to the side, and inside the bedroom was the door to the bathroom.

Throwing his bag down on the floor, Ouma immediately set to exploring his surroundings. The living room contained a large couch with an average sized television right across from it, accompanied by light brown carpeting and a coffee table. The kitchen was also visible from there, and it contained all of the basic kitchen necessities: a stove, oven, microwave, counters, a dinner table with four seats, and a kitchen island with some stools on one side of it.

Venturing further into the apartment, Ouma couldn’t help but let out an excited gasp upon seeing the bedroom. On the right side of the room was a single person bed, and on the left side of the room was a bunk bed which, of course, was practically begging Ouma to occupy the top bunk. He immediately dashed towards it, climbing up the ladder and making his way towards the top.

“Woah! Ouma!” Momota’s voice rang throughout the bedroom as he entered, watching Ouma eagerly climb the ladder. Saihara only chuckled at his childish antics.

“Back off, Momota-chan! This bed is mine!” Ouma had reached the top of the bunk bed, lying on it face down and sprawling his limbs out. “And you can’t have the bottom bunk either! That space is reserved for my beloved Saihara-chan!” He grinned at them, propping his chin up on his palm.

“Wha- You can’t just go around making decisions like that for us!” Momota protested, “I bet Shuichi doesn’t even wanna share the bunk bed with you!”

Saihara frantically waved his hands in an attempt to calm Momota down, “It’s fine, Momota-kun! I don’t mind at all, really!”

Momota clicked his tongue in annoyance, Ouma giving a small “nishishi” in victory before climbing down from the top bunk.

The trio then brought their belongings into the bedroom, unpacking whatever few things they had brought from the hospital. Ouma’s belongings mostly consisted of silly drawings he made in his free time, along with other basic items like clothes and toiletries. He haphazardly shoved all of his belongings into the top drawer of a dresser, not really taking the time to make everything neat and organized.

It was already evening by the time they were all finished unpacking, the day passing by rather quickly as they all relocated to their new place of living. Just as Ouma was about to sit down on the couch and watch some television in the living room, he was stopped by Momota.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Momota asked, “We’ve got training to do!” He grinned, pounding his fists together. Saihara was also standing with him, sheepishly smiling at Ouma.

“Training? What the hell does that mean?” Ouma questioned, clearly confused.

“Every night during the killing game, Momota-kun and Harukawa-san and I would do training in the courtyard together so that we could get stronger… though if I recall correctly, Momota-kun did more talking than actually training.” Saihara remarked slyly.

Ouma eyed Momota skeptically, who spluttered in defending himself.

“W-Well I was already the strongest one there, so I didn’t need to train as much as you guys! That’s why!” Momota shook his head indignantly as he spoke, while Saihara just laughed it off. “Maki Roll won’t be joining us for training tonight, and since you’re one of my sidekicks now it’s your responsibility to show up and train with us!”

“First of all, I’m not your sidekick!” Ouma protested, “Second of all, where do you guys even plan on doing this? I don’t recall this place having a courtyard or whatever for you guys to do your dumb training in.”

“Actually, there’s a park right across the street from this place! It’s perfect!” Momota beamed like an overly excited puppy. “So c’mon, what’re you waiting for!”

Knowing that Momota wouldn’t give up until he got a yes for an answer, Ouma conceded.

“Fiiiine…” Ouma sighed, “I’ll go to the park with you guys. But just this one time!”

“Great! Now let’s go!” Momota cheered.

Ouma rolled his eyes, resigning himself to his fate.

It was only one night… How bad could it be?

~~~~~~~~~~

“Twenty-one… Twenty-two… Twenty-three!” Saihara grunted, diligently doing his push ups.

To his left, Momota was, surprisingly, doing his push ups as well, while Ouma was to his right, picking at the blades of grass beneath them. To be fair, Ouma did genuinely try doing his push ups, but after about four or five he got tired and opted to lay down on his stomach and relax instead.

“Ouma, what gives? I don’t see you doing any push ups!” Momota stopped doing his own push ups to momentarily scold Ouma, giving himself a small break. “I thought you said you would workout with us!”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong Momota-chan!” Ouma chirped, “I said I would go to the park with you, not that I would do your stupid training!”

“You little-!” Momota began, only to be cut off by Saihara.

“That doesn’t mean you can take a break, Momota-kun! I’m the only one doing any training here!” Saihara spoke through labored breaths, straining through his exercise.

“Wow, Saihara-chan is super strong! Not like wimpy ol’ Momota-chan over there!” Ouma teased, glancing in Momota’s direction.

“Hey! Who are you calling a wimp?!” Momota took the bait, not realizing that Ouma was intentionally provoking him.

“Nishishi, I thought Momota-chan was all muscle and no brains, but it turns out he’s neither!” Ouma taunted.

“That’s it!” Momota sat up, fuming. “I’ll show you who’s a wimp!”

“Momota-kun, wait!” Anticipating the worst, Saihara attempted to deter Momota’s next actions.

But it was too late.

Ouma let out a yelp and scrambled to his feet in order to get away, but Momota caught up to him and put him in a solid headlock.

“What the hell?” Ouma tried prying Momota’s arm from around his neck, but it was no use. “Get off of me!”

“Take back what you said about me!” Momota smirked.

“Wh- Huh?” Ouma stopped struggling momentarily, processing Momota’s words. “No way!”

“Maybe this’ll convince ya!” He started ruffling Ouma’s hair with his free hand, giving him an old-fashioned noogie.

“Stop!” Ouma protested, clawing at Momota’s arm.

“Momota-kun! Don’t…” Saihara interjected, but trailed off once he realized that both Momota and Ouma had huge smiles on their faces, laughing at how ridiculous and childish they were acting.

Saihara couldn’t help but laugh too.

They bickered with each other for a while longer before Ouma finally conceded despite his stubbornness.

“See? That wasn’t so bad!” Momota grinned.

“Ugh…” Ouma pouted, smoothing his hair back down. “You’re the worst.”

“We should probably head back now.” Saihara suggested, looking up at the sky. “It’s getting pretty dark out.”

“Damn, already?” Momota followed suit, observing the quickly darkening sky. “But we just got here!”

“Unless you want to stay here and finish your hundred push ups.” Saihara remarked.

“Uh…” Momota stammered, “I already did a few hundred push ups this morning, so I’m already good!”

“Now that’s definitely a lie.” Ouma linked his hands behind his head, walking away. The other two followed, heading back to the apartment complex.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ouma tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. He rolled onto his side, trying to avoid facing the crushing reality right in front of him, but it was no use.

He opened his eyes.

It was dark. An obvious statement considering the fact that all three of them decided to go to bed, turning off all the lights save for the nightlight in the corner of the room. Peering over the edge of the top bunk he could see the nightlight, shining brightly in its designated spot. He could also see Momota, who was fast asleep and snoring quite loudly.

Ouma was feeling restless, wanting to adjust his position by turning over and facing the wall instead. But doing that required momentarily laying on his back and- even if only for a split second- facing the ceiling. Squeezing his eyes shut, Ouma braced himself to do just that.

Three… Two…

“You’re alone Ouma-kun, and you always will be.”

One.

His eyes shot open, but the pitch black darkness didn’t help the image of the hydraulic press looming over him dissipate from his mind. With a sharp inhale he sat up as much as he could (which wasn’t very much), jerking his body forward.

The feeling of the cold metal of the hydraulic press on his back despite laying on Momota’s galaxy-printed jacket…

The sensation of tears gently streaming down his cheeks as he prepared himself for his death…

And the recollection of how alone he felt…

All of it was coming back.

Blinking rapidly, Ouma tried to clear the tears from his eyes as he sniffled and trembled.

That’s right. No one wants you here anyway. They all hated you from the start, before you committed to that stupid evil persona of yours. No one cares that you died. You’re alone and you always have b-

“...Ouma-kun?” Saihara’s gentle voice rang throughout the silence of the room, startling Ouma.

Not wanting to be heard crying, he rubbed at his eyes harshly and stifled his breathing.

“It’s okay, it’s just me.” The sound of Saihara getting up from his bed could be heard, followed by a short pause. “Do you wanna… talk?”

No response.

“Please just… come down from there, I…” Saihara whispered, “I think I already know what the problem is.”

After hesitating for a moment, Ouma complied with Saihara’s request, climbing down from the top bunk.

“I wasn’t crying, just so you know.” Ouma stated blankly, despite his sniffling.

“Is it okay if I…?” Saihara tentatively reached out, placing a hand on Ouma’s shoulder. The other boy nodded, giving Saihara permission to pull him in closer for a tight hug.

Moments passed by in silence, Saihara simply hugging Ouma in an attempt to bring some comfort to him. Whether it was due to the tenderness of the gesture or the lack of sleep, Ouma broke down into another crying fit, sobbing into Saihara’s chest.

“It’s okay…” Saihara rubbed soothing circles into the small of his back, whispering comforting words into his ear. “Everything’s gonna be okay, I’m here for you.”

Ouma’s sobs eventually died down, leaving him weakly hugging Saihara, seeking for confirmation that he was real. Saihara pulled back ever so slightly, looking down at Ouma.

“Do you…” Saihara whispered, cautiously checking to make sure Momota was still asleep. “Do you want to switch beds for now?”

Ouma nodded, letting Saihara guide him to his bed. He chewed on his lip in thought, sitting on the edge of the bed rather than tucking himself in. Just as Saihara was about to walk over to the ladder leading to the top bunk, Ouma reached out and lightly tugged on his arm.

“O-Ouma-kun?” Saihara stuttered, a bit taken aback.

Ouma gave his arm another light tug, pulling him even closer.

“Ouma-kun, what is it?” Saihara asked.

“...Stay with me?” Ouma’s voice was barely audible, a faint whisper in the darkness.

After taking a moment to process those words, Saihara stepped towards Ouma and joined him on the bed. He grabbed the other boy’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Of course.”

#postmortem #my writing #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #kokichi oma #kokichi ouma #shuichi saihara #kaito momota #saiouma #oumasai

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prompt-master · 4 years

Note

Would you be willing to share how you might rewrite Yukizome, Sakakura, and Munakata to make them likable characters (if not ppl Bc there’s a big difference)???

ahhhhhhh this ask got me so stupidly excited that I was like wavin my hands around. I think about how to rewrite their characters OFTEN. very often. I’m gonna go with likeable character over likeable people because I think they work better where they’re actually not that likeable people.

The one I think about the MOST is Munakata. He was SUCH wasted potential and I partially blame the medium for that (a single season anime is too constrained for future, it needed more time and care to be a proper story). But Munakata is actually so close to being a compelling character but they made some MAJOR mistakes with him. This ended up getting really long and more like a 3 page ADHD ramble essay. SO IM VERY SORRY to anyone who cannot read this but TYTYTY if you did because these ideas make me very happy! Oh it’s only about Munakata btw because of how long it got

The thing about Munakata is that he is designed to be a foil to Naegi. In fact a majority of dr3 future FOCUSES on this foil dynamic. It is Naegi’s hope vs Munakata’s hope. The World’s hope vs The FF’s hope. And more importantly it is True Hope vs Corrupted Hope.

This is a fantastic concept...so why didn’t it work in canon? I think that the biggest most glaring issue with Munakata’s hope is his logic. Munakata is meant to be a logical man, although with corrupted morals that lead him astray. Yet in canon his logic is laughably infallible. For example as a major figure in the FF and someone who wants to spread hope....why would he tell Naegi to kill himself? More importantly why does he continue to try and slaughter Naegi? The issue here isn’t from the fact that he wants him dead but from the fact that he is under the IMPRESSION that this entire game is being broadcast to the world.

Think about this for a second. In Munakata’s eyes he is going to kill the Ultimate Hope, an international symbol of a better life, live on TV. He doesn’t just want to kill the Ultimate Hope..he wants to do it BRUTALLY as a MAJOR FIGURE OF THE FF. IMO this should have happened later on as the game furthers the emotional turmoil in Munakata’s head and he eventually snaps and gives in to the desire to kill Naegi despite the fact that this is live. And then there should be CONSEQUENCES for that. I wanted so badly a realization where Munakata realizes that he is hurting the Ultimate Hope in front of what he believes is the entire world.

Another issue with Munakata’s logic is saying things such as...implying that the HPA KG was...just a game. I mean...people DIED. it's not hard to see how wrong that logic is. you can't say “this is the real world now” when what Naegi experienced WAS the real world. I think that this could be fixed through a bit of world building. DR3 Future is rather isolated from its world. We don’t really know much about the world and its dynamics. I think it would make perfect sense if the general public viewed the HPA KG as a tv show, they got numb to the sight and even those untouched by despair had a hard time connecting that these are REAL people suffering. With this previously established Munakata expressing that the KG was not real would make a lot more sense and play into his corrupted idea of hope.

There is also Munakata’s connection to his other friends. Now I’ve talked about this before but the game was clearly designed to BREAK Munakata and Naegi. This way the FF would die, both the FF and World’s hope would be broken, and upon seeing this Mitarai would have no choice but to deploy his own forced hope. So it makes perfect sense that Yukizome’s death would break him (in fact if she hadn’t died in that way, her NG code was designed to be Munakata’s fault). But something about it felt...superficial. Again I think this is the mediums fault but it almost feels as though Munakata just forgets about Yukizome until later. I think they should spend more time establishing his pain and what he has lost and why this pushes him to kill. In his eyes if she can die then nothing else matters. It should be THE breaking point, not the first push. I do like the betrayal he feels towards realizing she had despair but it needed more time to fester.

And his relationship with Sakakura also felt weak. In all honesty it was hard for me to feel as though they were ever friends. Sakakura is written as though he just follows Munakata like a loyal dog and Munakata just orders him around. Establish their relationship more! Why are they such good friends? Why is Sakakura important to him? And more importantly why did Munakata decide to cruelly gut Sakakura knowing he was about to confess? This is because he believed that Sakaura was despair and that his confession was more manipulation, but they didn’t show this well at ALL. Munakata just comes across as a major a-sshole who does not care. I also personally found it distasteful that when changing his heart Munakata only seemed to cry for Yukizome. I understand that was his love interest but Yukizome at the end of the day killed herself. Sakakura however was an unnecessary betrayal he took into his own hands AS HE HIMSELF KILLED HIM. He should have more guilt over that! Not just in that moment where he runs to Sakakura, but ahead of time as well! Maybe even DURING his rampage they could have shown him having moments of guilt but he is so absorbed in the idea that all despairs have to die that he doesn’t even realize he has become despair in the name of hope.

A BIG weakness on Munakata’s part comes with interacting with other characters. He is a man who should know how to take charge, lead, and doesn't know what to do when things are getting too crazy even though he THINKS he does. Munakata is heavily flawed, OBVIOUSLY flawed, but many of the interactions with him are as tho his rampage isnt a big deal. There should be reasons for this! Why do people trust Munakatas guidance so much? I dont know! All ive seen from him is that hes insane! Maybe even pieces where around others hes a lot nicer so you can understand why they follow him, even though hes ready to gut Naegi alive with a flaming katana. His interactions with others feel like the writers just wanted to see the next big evil thing they could think of, but for Munakata’s character this doesn't make sense because he was appointed a high status in the foundation for a reason. Maybe even have people say they disagree with some of his methods but at the end of the day he gets the job done!

There is another major missed opportunity here and it's why Muanakata wants Naegi dead so badly in the first place. The remnants. Hiding terrorists in the apocalypse is a PERFECTLY valid reason to want someone dead and think they're a bad guy! But I think since Naegis initial arrest was already so hostile and violent we get the sense that the FF is simply just...crazy.

And let’s think about what Munakata WANTS from Naegi. He does not just want Naegi dead he wants something worse. He wants Naegi to suffer first. He thinks that Naegi doesnt understand his own personal pain. He thinks that because Naegi protected the remnants he must also not care about the suffering the remnants caused. He wants Naegi to feel despair and then die. This is important to his corrupted hope. He thinks the suffering must be shared in order to understand who must die, but he is creating a cycle of pain. Tie this back to the broadcasting issue. He wants Naegi to break for everyone to see. I think..and this is just a concept..I think it would have been a great idea for Munkata to force Naegi to watch the despair video so that he has no choice but to understand.

AND themes are majorly important to Danganronpa. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that there are parallels between Munakata and Naegi. In fact I would say that there are aspects of the og trio in this new trio. I think it would have been really cool if they showed how our favorite trio could have ended up if they had been corrupted as well. But the parrellels dont stick strongly. I think it would have been cool to show a past where Munakata’s idealism lies more strongly than Naegis. As the student council president there was a time where he himself had to use his words to solve problems. Perhaps he learned that sometimes his words made things worse. Munakata does not have Naegi’s talent of emotional intelligence. He is a man of action over words. So he interprets this as WORDS being the problem rather than understanding he does not have these skills. Especially when the apocalypse breaks out, it becomes all action over words. So he sees Naegi who is all talk as a genuine threat who will let everyone die through his “weak ineffective” idea of hope.

Another parallel could be drawn from the fact that they both have hope based careers. Their job is too keep things hopeful. Maybe Naegi stays safe doing public broadcasted speeches, while Munakata is on the field weeding out despairs. This would cause Munakata to feel as though Naegi is doing no real work yet getting all the credit for being a savior.

Munakata constantly complains that Naegi does not know true pain. But he and we as an audience have followed Naegi through his entire process of trauma. We know he is in the wrong. But what do we as an audience know about Munakata’s suffering? We are shown almost nothing! There are some implications, but for how intense he is implications are not enough. We need to see his suffering. We should see how he has witnessed death. Yukizomes death is not nearly enough for this because he talks as though he has suffered for years. How can we as an audience understand that when we have never seen it? How can we understand Munakata when he is outright denying Naegi’s trauma that we KNOW existed with no proper justification for his reasoning?

I also believe that Munakata should have died. It actually upsets me a bit that he was PLANNED to die but didn't. He should have died protecting Naegi after all that suffering and relentless brutality he offered him. Munakata again is a man of action over word, and protecting Naegi with his last breath is the perfect way to show how in the end he changed. Especially when all he wanted initially was for Naegi to die. I find that much more satisfying than just…...walking off to who knows where.

So lets recap some changes. Munakata needs a proper display of his past traumas and his relationship with Sakakura and Yukizome. Munakata needs a proper display of his work relationships and the respect he has earned. Munakata needs to fall into corruption at a better pace, and have geniune reasons for his illogical attacks on Naegi. Munakata needs to care more for his friends. Munakata needs to deal with the turmoil of wanting to hurt Naegi while he believes the world is watching. Munakata needs to die for Naegi

This has gotten long...and I still have things to say. There is so much to make Munakata a good character. Future had a lot of potential and is amazing for a rewrite concept. As for Sakakura and Yukizome since this has gotten long feel free to ask for another round of this individually when asks are open again! If you read all of this somehow….TYSM

#ask #danganronpa #kyosuke munakata #dr3 #dr3 spoilers #analysis #???#sorry sorry sorry ahhhhh i have so much to say fuuuuihkhuhi

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currywaifu · 4 years

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← want something else? “hello again, my lovely regular! thank you for your continuous support!” ╰──➢ my anonnie family. i love all of you very much!!!

╰──➢ links don’t work on mobile, but can be viewed thru the tags~

╰──➢ sorted by first to most recent! last update: august 07, 2020

꒰꒰ 🍀 clover ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:06 am, may 14, 2020 ⤷ note: i remember tearing up over the fact that i got my first emoji anonnie! i keep the four leaf clovers you gave me close to my heart. clover, you’re easily one of the kindest and most supportive anonnies~ thank you for supporting me and the A3! content creator community

꒰꒰ ⭐ star ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 08:35 pm, may 22, 2020 ⤷ note: i’m not sure at what point i became your mom, but you’re my child now and i love you a lot! seeing you pop in my asks always makes me smile- you seem so pure and adorable!!! makes sense, since you share a birthday with sakuya! also, a barbie stan therefore i stan star too!

꒰꒰ 🌸 sakuranon ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:15 am, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: the cheerleader aunt of our family! another very pure and sweet anonnie~ i was really touched to learn i was the first person you sent an ask to :’< i’m so proud you were able to muster up the courage to do that!

꒰꒰ 🍯 honey ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 02:18 am, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: someone i ended up choosing an emoji for! it was an unexpected but fun request! as the emoji implies, an incredibly sweet anonnie! the youngest sibling everyone dotes on in our family~ oikawa simp, very valid!

꒰꒰ 🌙 moonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 11:59 am, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: moon “i came from rou” anonnie~ our vodka aunt who’s a bit of a chaotic mess, but we love them anyway~~ a fellow sweet tooth AND barbie movie stan- absolutely iconic.

꒰꒰ ☁️ cloud-chan ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 05:00 pm, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: a hisoka stan~ thus, a cloud emoji was bestowed unto them because it’s the closest thing we have to a marshmallow~ our social media addicted sister who gives good advice! barbie, monster/ever after high, and theatre stan? actually a legend??? i love you???

꒰꒰ 🍍 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 10:11 pm, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: our troublemaker sister! honest? the fact that you like the bratz movies gives me the impression that you’re a baddie and i stan you now

꒰꒰ 🍒 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 10:16 pm, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: our playful older sister who likes to tease everyone and make lame puns! has never seen a barbie movie, but honestly still valid~ especially because they’re a fruit emoji and i love fruits~

꒰꒰ 💛 sunny anonnie ˊˎ ⤷ first visit: 10:25 pm, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: hypothesis: a cute and pure anonnie. proof: used to dance to 12 dancing princesses. very sweet, you make the darker days a lot sunnier!

꒰꒰ 🐣 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 11:54 pm, may 29, 2020 ⤷ note: whenever you call me “friend” i get very uwu soft TT when you said you got interested in editing bc of me i got even more uwu for you. i love you a lot!

꒰꒰ 🍡 dangonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 03:53 pm, may 30, 2020 ⤷ note: our so, so, so adorable and excitable middle child! the cookies you gave me and the rest of the family was absolutely delicious! thank you for always making sure every new anonnie got one!!!

꒰꒰ 🔺 sankakunnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:15 am, may 31, 2020 ⤷ note: apparently i follow them? uwu may or may not know who they are but i think they’re a funny anonnie! kins misumi and a sakyo simp? so valid omg. we platonically love each other~ also, gave everyone milk! calcium is important!!!!

꒰꒰ 🌷 tullie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 06:46 pm, june 01, 2020 ⤷ note: the one who helped me start a whole ask saga about barbie movies hehe~ also a musical stan? and a design student? i may not know a lot about their OC, but she’s a ballerina who did a Swan Lake play and I super stan that.

꒰꒰ 🐧 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 11:54 pm, june 02, 2020 ⤷ note: cute!!! uses really cute kaomojis~ don’t worry about not visiting often, you’ll always be welcome any time!

꒰꒰ 🐝 bee, bb, beeb, bbee, beebee, ... ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 11:54 pm, june 02, 2020 ⤷ note: the anonnie with a multitude of bee nicknames~ very sweet and cute, remember to not stress yourself out! take a deep breath and take care of yourself, okay?

꒰꒰ 💌💐 mizunonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 02:42 pm, june 05, 2020 ⤷ note: apparently i’m the tsuzuru to your mizuno? fufufu~ another one who’s a barbie + theatre stan!!! i always enjoy seeing you~ the combi of emojis in my asks? cute~ TT i adored talking about theatre with you!!

꒰꒰ 🦊 kitsunnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:05 pm, june 07, 2020 ⤷ note: hi i have a platonic crush on you too~ i really like foxes, too!

꒰꒰ 🍞 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 01:41 pm, june 08, 2020 ⤷ note: you’re very sweet~ even if you’re not active on my blog, i look forward to when i see you next!

꒰꒰ uwu annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:00 am, june 11, 2020 ⤷ note: my first non emoji anonnie! immediately cute because of the name alone! super memorable bc of that triangle pick up line, pffft~

꒰꒰ ❄️ annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 08:31 pm, june 11, 2020 ⤷ note: gave me ice cream & chocolate, therefore i love them! very sweet, with good taste in music (looking at you, the contract)... has a dozen nicknames, and more to come. so far my personal favorites are elsa and yule log cake

꒰꒰ 🥬 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 02:35 am, june 14, 2020 ⤷ note: fufu i know who you are~ and i love and support you a lot! thank you for being there for me since almost the beginning! and thank you for lending me your braincell ehehe~

꒰꒰ 🍄 mushroomie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 09:07 pm, june 13, 2020 ⤷ note: i remember crying about your first emoji ask eye TT i just want to let you know that you brighten up my day too!

꒰꒰ 🌻 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 01:39 amm, june 14, 2020 ⤷ note: thank you for the sunflowers! i have 3 from you rn! they remind me of the sunflowers outside my high school~ sunflowers always make me happy!

꒰꒰ 🐠 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 01:12 pm, june 14, 2020 ⤷ note: we haven’t interacted much, but i hope you’re enjoying A3! so far!

꒰꒰ 🧀 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 02:34 am, june 25, 2020 ⤷ note: a quiet sleepy bb like hisoka~ i like cheese, therefore i like cheese anonnie a lot too!

꒰꒰ 🧸 teddy ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 05:17 pm, june 25, 2020 ⤷ note: i don’t know much about you yet, but you’re a fwuffy person!

꒰꒰ 🎈 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 12:52 am, july 29, 2020 ⤷ note: i think i know who you are, aND I WANT YOU TO KNOW I GOT REALLY SENTI AND UWU CRYING OVER YOU

꒰꒰ 🥭 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 10:40 pm, july 31, 2020 ⤷ note: fewwo fiwipino! (nagcrave ako ng mangga dahil sayo) ur so sweet, ur first message had me uwu-ing~!

꒰꒰ 🏐 annonie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 11:02 pm, july 31, 2020 ⤷ note: haikyuu stan! gr8 taste!!! i mean, best boyos are noya, yaku, suga, kenma, and akaashi? *chef’s kiss* we can cry about haikyuu together!

꒰꒰ OwO-chan~ ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 04:03 pm, august 03, 2020 ⤷ note: ICONIC taste like barbie? danganronpa? this is true duality and i stan so hard

꒰꒰ 🐁 anonnie ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 05:01 pm, august 04, 2020 ⤷ note: obey me writer! is slowly but surely building up intimacy points w/ me... what is mouse-chan planning to do with them, tho :O

꒰꒰ 🐏 ram-chan ˊˎ - ⤷ first visit: 05:17 pm, august 04, 2020 ⤷ note: ENABLED MY EVER AFTER HIGH SELF AND I AM SCREAMING- briar beauty stans solidarity- briar beauty sUPREMACY

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gilmesc1 · 4 years

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Do you have any thoughts on fictional portrayals of DID, like danganronpa, spl!t, and others?

Yes, I usually would take time to do research but lucky for you I already did XD

I looked into Danganronpa a while ago since we have 1 or 2 system mates from it, and in that case, prepare yourselves for a hot mess of my opinion and facts I got from a google fest.

So, to start out, I guess I might share spoilers?? So you hath been warned. Additionally I’m not going to sit here and rephrase the entire story so, honestly why am I even explaining this. Anon at least knows what’s going on XDD

So Danganronpa is a psychological mystery anime that focuses heavily on the themes of hope and despair, where in most versions of the story characters are forced into a killing game where they have to kill each other. Bet you couldn’t have figured that one out on your own XD

One thing I like about it is that the characters overall are written fairly well. Many of them are complex multi layered gems of writing with good development and story arcs. One thing that I found interesting is the semi accurate portrayals of mental illness and how it impacts the characters in this insane situation.

So, let’s break into that. I focused on the portrayals of NPD and DID specifically, and I could go back and look into others, but we’ll focus on those for this post. And just going to throw this out now, I think it’s interesting and also kind of a bold move to tackle those kinds of things in an anime.

So let’s look at the DID portrayal. The character’s name is Toko Fukawa, and she is a fucking wreck. Confirmed emotional abuse gives a lot into her character, and we see her as this timid, deflective, honestly broken shell. Later in the series we are introduced to her alternate personality, I know, exciting.

However it’s a literal serial killer. So like. Yeah.

I don’t love that part. I mean, out of all of the portrayals for this alter, you had to go with serial killer? And not only that, but a really famous, generally acknowledged as insane serial killer. Thaaaanks writer.

To recap what a lot of tumblr says, this kind of portrayal is dangerous because the majority of DID portrayals are of crazy violent stereotypes. It was quite honestly disappointing, and I wish that the writers hadn’t used this as their big reveal.

But hey, neutral standing here, let’s look at why he did do that from a different perspective. Since the theme of the game/anime is killing, it does make sense plot wise to have a serial killer. Additionally, it’s a clever way to get said serial killer into the game in the first place. Plot wise and with a few things I’ll mention in a second, it does make sense in a twisted way.

But let’s get the bad out of the way first. One thing I really don’t love is her appearance. It’s like someone took the original character design of fukawa, took some drugs, and then drew a nightmare creature. Seriously, there’s crazy eyes, hair flying everywhere, and this freaky inhuman tongue that the alter has out no matter what she’s doing. Like whaaaaaat the fuck.

Firstly this spreads misinformation that we can change appearance at will. Like don’t get me wrong, I wish I could, but the best I got is changing clothes if I have the time. Also the tongue I really hate because it gives the impression of the alter being this inhuman monster. Also again with the impression that we can morph stuff when we switch. I mean, if I had that, I’d be having a lot more fun in my day to day life than I do now.

Do what you will with that information.

Additionally we do see Fukawa’s tongue, and it’s not a weird demogorgon kind of thing, so, yeah, the tongue thing is weird.

Finally her name. It’s Genocider Syo/Jack/Jill. Not a normal name, no the only name we have for her is her serial killer name which I feel serves to continue to show her as this inhuman thing where we all go, Oh god oh fuck time to be afraaaaid.

But hey, let’s look at what they did right.

The backstory of how genocider came to be is really accurate to how it works. Fukawa has a history of abuse at a young age, and genocider eventually comes into the picture to protect her.

Let me explain: So this is a theory on my part (Check out Weeby Newz’s youtube video, that’s where I got this) but Fukawa was revealed to have suffered massive emotional abuse at the hands of a boy who she had romantic interest in. Since he was moving away, she decided to confess her love to him in a letter before this happened. Turns out the boy pinned the letter in her classroom so everyone would make fun of her. Dick move.

I think genocider formed after this specific event, firstly because this is a huge defining experience for Fukawa. Additionally, the way genocider acts serves to prove this. Her target victims are boys, and her first victim was the boy who hurt Fukawa. I mean yeah, killing was waaaay extreme, but bear with me on this next part:

I’d say that genocider is a protector. A lot of her initial actions were to protect Fukawa from getting hurt in the same way, and protectors do have a history of going to the extreme to protect their hosts and systems. Even though she seems like a persecutor, I don’t think any of her actions have been directed at herself and Fukawa, they actually seem to have a decent relationship, and to end this theory that is completely non canon and just me pretending I’m smart, I’d call her a protector.

Next, looking at the relationship they have. Genocider at one point tells the protagonist that they have a “non disclosure policy” when they switch when the other is in the middle of something. (like murder??) And I personally really liked this, as it was a kind of realistic DID humor in my eyes. Take it or leave it, that’s my opinion.

And that’s really all I have on that behalf. Genocider really isn’t shown as a “normal person” often, which I guess is the point but also leaves me with nothing to evaluate. (Side note, this is only V1 of the series and I’m aware she changes but dear god go easy on me)

Finally, here are a few things that I find a little weird tbh.

At first glance when they switch, it’s a touch accurate, if over dramatic. Losing consciousness and coming to as a different alter is possible so I do like that, however they also have her constantly switching when sneezing, which is a little out there.

I mean, I think I’ve done that before, but for it to be a consistent theme, idk. Maybe overdramatized again.

Secondly, there is a voice change, which is accurate, but it really just serves to fit the crazy image, so I’m conflicted on that.

So that is really all I can say on that specifically, to end things I’m going to talk about one other character Fukawa has interactions with, Togami. (He has a first name but I can’t spell/remember it.)

So I gravitated towards him while watching the series because he reminds me of me, hence me saying that he seems to be a dead ringer for npd. Let me explain.

He’s very cold and distant from others and obviously feels superior, additionally he is willing to fight tooth and nail to consistently be on top and win in any situation, leading to him doing some fucked up things.

But like I feel for him. It’s like watching me XD

His past was a very competitive cuthroat environment, where he was taught that losing is worse than death. Additionally he was almost groomed to be this untouchable figure so it’s no surprise that he believes that. I might make a second post about him because there’s a lot more I can say, but I’m going to double back to Fukawa now.

So Fukawa gains a very unhealthy obsession with Togami, despite him wanting literally nothing to do with her. He’s verbally abusive to her and does go out of his way to attack her, but she thinks it’s a sign of love. Poor Fukawa.

This also kind of fits with NPD, because we can have some pretty gravitating personalities. I think the attraction has a lot to do with Fukawa’s mental state, but I just found it interesting that the emotional abuse victim gravitates to Togami of all people.

So I brought him up for that above thought I had, and also to compare this last point. So Fukawa was confirmed to have DID, like it was specifically stated. To my knowledge it was never stated that Togami has NPD, but I strongly assume that he does. (key word assume, I could be wrong.)

So I found it interesting that Togami has this very accurate portrayal of NPD without ever confirming that he has NPD, while Fukawa is specifically confirmed to have DID while having a semi accurate portrayal. I think the writer really wanted to include mental illness in his story line and I doubt he intended anything to be intentionally harmful.

Writing mental illness into a story is very very very tricky, and it’s practically impossible to satisfy everyone, but the fact that he did do it is in my opinion, very bold.

He made good and less good choices, but overall he did make very compelling characters. Genocider admittedly fits better in this plotline as a crazy killer than she would as a realistic alter, but this is fiction.

So final statements: Toko Fukawa is not a bad character. I like a lot about her and overall I think she is very well written. Genocider is very less developed and more of a surprise plot twist than a character, which is unrealistic. The writer made some very awkward choices from a realistic standpoint despite it fitting well with his story.

So overall, she really isn’t a good portrayal of DID. You can enjoy her character like I did, but the main takeaway here is to not take her as a realistic portrayal. I know it seems obvious but this is the kind of thing that forms unhealthy ideas in viewers.

I’m not hating on Danganronpa or Toko, I actually really loved both. I’ve tried to stop ranting about fictional works that I hate. I used to be a loose fucking canon but I realized that I had been bashing a few autistic friend’s special interests, so now I try to be hyper aware that a fictional work might mean everything to someone even if I personally disliked it.

But that isn’t the case here because again I loved Danganronpa XD

So friends, that about does it for me. I liked doing this kind of analysis so if you want me to do more, send them my way XD

My next post will probably be the syscourse analysis if I can get that done before I get an easier topic. So thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, thank you for the ask anon.

And I’m now out of words. You all should be happy. XD

#did #did tag #dissociative identity disorder #actuallydid #actuallymultiple #actuallydissociative #actuallytraumagenic #danganronpa #toko fuwaka

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scoutception · 5 years

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Ranking the 5 animes I’ve recently watched

Long story short, I’ve been taking a break and watching anime, something that I’ve only really experienced in small doses before, though in general I don’t really watch a lot of stuff nowadays (to my memory, the only anime I’ve watched in full is Danganronpa 3, so I’ll go ahead and say it gave me an aversion to it all). As the title says, I’ve gone through 5 so far, so I’ve decided to just type up my personal rankings and thoughts. If I had to say anything important before starting, it’s that 1. everything I list here is a very enjoyable and worthwhile watch, and I would definitely recommend giving any of them a try, and 2. this is just a personal ranking, and so it’s very biased. I might, for example, think whatever is number 5 is technically better than whatever is number 4, but still prefer number 4 for any number of reasons. I’m at least going to try to point out when that’s the case, but it’s still something to keep in mind. I’ll also be including information like number of episodes, what streaming platforms they’re on, which I’ll admit mostly comes down to Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll, and whether or not English dubs are available, or only subtitles. Other than that, let the rankings begin. 5. Little Witch Academia

Number of episodes: 25. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix. Little Witch Academia originated as a short film released in 2013 as part of a training program for animators. It was only about half an hour long, but the fun cast and beautiful animation gave it a lot of charm, and enough popularity to spawn a second short film in 2015, the Enchanted Parade, which lasted for closer to an hour. Then, in 2017, it got a full series on Netflix, produced by Studio Trigger, which did away with any continuity from the short films, but kept the general concept. Little Witch Academia follows Atsuko “Akko” Kagari, who, after witnessing a magical show hosted by the witch known as Shiny Chariot, dedicated her life to becoming a witch, despite not coming from a family with magic in its bloodline. Despite managing to enroll in the academy of Luna Nova, dedicated to training witches, Akko finds the reality of it isn’t anywhere near what she expected; Chariot is ostracized by most of the magical community for portraying magic in a flashy, illusionist manner considered embarrassing, Luna Nova’s education is much more focused on tedious, small scale magic than what Akko had come to expect, the world at large considers Luna Nova and its magic to be weak relics of the past, something even its staff can’t argue well against, and worst of all, Akko is incompetent at magic to a downright abnormal degree, even for her normal origins, incapable of so much as riding a broom. Despite the constant demoralization, Akko receives help from one of the academy’s professors, Ursula, who puts Akko on the path to unlock the secrets of the Shiny Rod, Chariot’s personal wand, found by Akko on her way to Luna Nova. This isn’t exactly the most original series out there, and if you’ve watched pretty much anything involving non evil witches and magic schools, you’re not going to be too surprised. The main strength, writing wise, is the fun cast. Akko herself is a pretty entertaining main character, being very excitable and passionate, enough to keep likeable even with her many, many missteps throughout the series, but the rest of the cast is pretty good too. Characters like Sucy, Akko’s roommate obsessed with poison, mushrooms, and picking on Akko, the delinquent Amanda O’Neil, the mute technological genius Constanze, and Akko’s alleged rival, Diana Cavendish, who, though very haughty, has a lot more depth to her than you might expect, help hold the series together very well. Most of the series is pretty goofy and lighthearted, which helps keep it from feeling too cliche. Starting with the second half of the series, though, it gets much more story based, which might be a bit jarring for some people, but still manages some surprisingly sad moments. This is all helped by the great animation, as Trigger can always be counted on to provide, and the dub is good overall, with Erica Mendez especially perfectly capturing Akko. Overall, this is a fun watch, but it’s really not much special, so I can’t really put it anywhere other than dead last. If you want a fun, lighthearted romp that isn’t stuck to only 13 episodes, this is a good one to try. 4. The Pet Girl of Sakurasou/Sakura Hall

Number of episodes: 24. Language options: subs only. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll, Hidive. Firstly, don’t let the very questionable title give too many bad impressions. Sakura Hall, as I’ll be calling it, was originally a series of light novels by Hajime Kamoshida, with 10 main novels being released. The anime, produced by JC Staff, actually only adapts the first 6, though it ends rather conclusively regardless. This is also probably the most obscure anime on this list. Sorata Kanda is a rather unremarkable high school student attending the Suimei University of the Arts High School, forced to live in the very abnormal mixed gender dorm of Sakura Hall. Sakura Hall’s other residents consist of Misaki Kamiigusa, an extremely talented, and extremely weird and energetic, animator capable of creating anime almost entirely on her own, Jin Mitaka, the scriptwriter and childhood friend of Misaki, who is cool, mature, and has an almost chronic playboy streak, Ryunosuke Akasaka, the extremely reclusive, but talented computer programmer who mostly communicates through texts, and Chihiro Sengouka, Sakura Hall’s extremely irresponsible supervisor who prefers to leave the students to fend for themselves, outside of the occasional words of advice. Sorata is only stuck in Sakura Hall due to his refusal to abandon a stray cat he rescued, and intends on escaping Sakura Hall however he can to escape his roommates and return to normalcy, a plan that’s certainly not impacted by him picking up 6 more stray cats along the way. One day, a new resident moves into Sakura Hall: Mashiro Shiina, a relative of Chihiro and extremely talented artist, on a level only Misaki and Ryunosuke can match, who is also very unemotive and almost completely incapable of caring for herself, not helped by some rather odd thought processes (she’s almost certainly autistic, but they never actually clarify that). Sorata and some of the other Sakura Hall residents thusly become Mashiro’s caretakers, and are soon additionally joined by Sorata’s friend, the workaholic aspiring voice actress Nanami Aoyama. Sorata’s previously tedious life becomes defined by his struggles to find a direction to his life, his attempts at caring for and understanding Mashiro, and the various problems of the rest of the Sakura Hall residents. The main writing strength, is, again, the cast of characters. The characters are all very enjoyable, even the designated average guy, Sorata, and they all have their share of struggles, hidden depths, and development. The first half of the series is, for the most part, plain wacky, and while it does delve into serious moments more than a few times, it’s also prone to plain breaking the mood, either by starting them suddenly, or just as suddenly interrupting them with a gag. It’s enjoyable on its own, but it can be a bit hard to get into. The second half of the series is a big change of pace, becoming much, much more focused and serious, and for the better. Bitter topics like resentment against those who can outperform others simply through natural talent, and the risks of overworking, and the slippery slope mentality against accepting help that it can generate, are frequently brought up, and it does not shy away from how brutal reality can be. It’s never dark to the point of creating apathy, though, and it overall captures a very bittersweet portrayal of nearing the end of one’s teenage years, and preparing to become an adult. The animation is pretty good, and the voice actors all give memorable performances. Overall, this was probably the hardest series for me to get into at first, but sticking with it is very worthwhile. I can’t really say much about it, if only because I don’t want to risk getting into spoilers, but it genuinely is great. I was even considering placing it higher than number 4, but the next three things were stiff competition. 3. Gurren Lagann/Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Number of episodes: 27. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation. Here’s what I would bet is the second most popular anime on this list, and was more or less one of the grand finales to the golden age of Studio Gainax, directed by one of the co-founders of Studio Trigger, and is perhaps most memorably one of the series where Gainax didn’t completely mess up the budget by the end. Simon (pronunced see-moan) and his self appointed big brother Kamina live in an underground village, with Simon living a monotonous life digging tunnels so the village can expand, in hopes of finding artifacts and being awarded better dinners, while Kamina constantly causes trouble in his attempts to breach the underground and reach the surface. Simon is insecure and self deprecating, thinking he’s only capable of the job he already has while Kamina is extremely boisterous, charismatic, and capable of seeing the potential within Simon. The way to the surface is finally opened for the pair by the appearance of a giant mecha called a Gunmen, which are piloted by the beastmen, who control the surface and are out to exterminate any humans they come across. Simon and Kamina are saved by the appearance of Yoko, a human who lives on the surface, and a miniature Gunmen discovered by Simon, which Kamina dubs Lagann. Making their way to the surface and capturing an enemy Gunmen Kamina names Gurren, Kamina decides to take the fight to the beastmen themselves, and drags Simon and Yoko with him, starting what can only really be described as a rollcoaster ride of giant mechas, drills, and general insanity. The series honestly starts only about average, but starting about episode 7, the scale just starts going up and up, and doesn’t tend to slow down. It goes for bigger and bigger heights, making for some amazing action scenes, and doesn’t get desensitizing like some things would. The cast of characters is great, between characters like Kamina, being lovably boisterous and encouraging, Simon, who gets some fantastic character development, Yoko, the sniper who despite seeming just like designated fanservice has some great development herself, Viral, the recurring beastman commander who just can’t keep up, and Lordgenome, the absurdly manly leader of the beastmen, and that’s just listing a few. The animation is great, the soundtrack is very memorable, the dub is one of the best out there, especially with Kyle Herbert as Kamina, and the writing, despite just seeming like big fun robot show, makes a surprisingly great story. I unfortunately can’t go much more indepth without definitely wading into spoilers, but it doesn’t take too long to start paying off. Overall, if I had to try to rank without bias, this would actually be number 2 on this list. It’s a great ride, and one I can recommend pretty much without question. 2. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Number of episodes: 64. Language options: dub and subs available: Streaming availability: Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation. Here’s what’s certainly the most popular anime on this list, and what would be my number 1 without bias. There’s actually two Fullmetal Alchemist animes, with the original 2003 one going very off track from the manga and becoming its own thing, while Brotherhood, made in 2009, stays faithful to the manga. Fullmetal Alchemist follows the Elric brothers, Edward and Alphonse, in a world where the art of alchemy allows its users to transmute materials for purposes such as reshaping them into new forms, and operates on a principle of equivalent exchange, with every transmutation made relying on something being taken away. After being abandoned by their father, Van Hohenheim, and losing their mother to a plague, Ed and Al attempted the forbidden practice of human transmutation in an attempt to bring her back to life, only to fail, with Ed losing his left leg and right arm, and Al losing his entire body, forcing Ed to affix Al’s soul to a suit of armor. His missing limbs replaced with automail, a type of prosthetic, Ed becomes a government employed alchemist for the nation of Amestris, ruled over by Fuhrer Bradley, in hopes that he and Al can find a Philosopher’s Stone, an artifact said to be capable of eliminating the equivalent exchange requirement of alchemy, in hopes they can reacquire their natural bodies. Since things can’t ever go so smoothly, they end up involved in a massive conspiracy led by one known as Father, who commands Homunculi, artificial humans, who are themed after the seven deadly sins. By far the longest anime on this list, it’s also easily one of the richest. Almost every episode does something to move the plot along, and introduces a lot of important plot points fairly quickly, which helps keep the story interesting. There are many storylines going on, but all of them are both interesting and relevant, helped by the downright amazing cast Fullmetal Alchemist has to offer. From colonel Roy Mustang, out to become Furher to help atone for Amestris’ crimes, to Ling Yao and May Chang from the country of Xing searching for the secret of immortality, to the Ishvalan named Scar, out to avenge his people, who were the victims of a war of extermination waged by Amestris. As for characters closer to the main plot, Ed and Al are both great protagonists, with plenty of development between the two, and their interactions with Winry Rockbell, their childhood friend and mechanic, make for some great scenes. The antagonists are also great, with quite a few defying how one note themed villain groups like them can be, like the shadowy abomination Pride, the sadistic rat that is Envy, the independent Greed, and especially the extremely intimidating Wrath. The animation by Studio Bones is great, as is the soundtrack, and the dub is fantastic, helped by almost all of the cast from the 2003 anime reprising their roles. Voices like Travis Willingham as Roy Mustang, Christopher Sabat as Alex Louis Armstrong, Chris Patton as Greed, and Ed Blaylock as Fuhrer Bradley especially are fantastic. Overall, this is one of the best shows I’ve watched, period. I recommend it very highly, and almost wish I could confidently declare it number 1. 1. Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

Number of episodes: 13. Language options: subs only. Streaming availability: Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation. Firstly, again, this is not something to judge based on the name. Secondly, yes, this is where all the bias on this list comes from. This is anime is actually only about a year old, so it’s surprisingly recent, and is also by far the shortest of all the series I’ve listed here. Rascal is based off a series of light novels by the same author as Sakura Hall, Hajime Kamoshida, and was produced by CloverWorks. Like Sakura Hall, the anime doesn’t completely adapt, only going through 5 of the 9 novels currently released, with a movie, of all things, adapting the 6th. You may or may not have heard of this anime while it was airing, but regardless, I’m here to spread the word of it, cause it’s a special place for me. One day, while browsing a library, high school student Sakuta Azusagawa notices a girl wearing a bunny suit walking around, not being acknowledged by anyone other than himself. The girl turns out to be Mai Sakurajima, an actress on hiatus that attends his high school, who has found she’s recently become invisible to an unknown number of people outside of their school. Sakuta identifies it as “Adolescence Syndrome”, a mysterious phenomenon that occurs due to the unstable psyches of adolescences, which causes physical effects on the world based on their biggest causes of stress. Sakuta has seen the effects of Adolescence Syndrome himself, with it causing physical harm to his sister, Kaede, and causing her to become a recluse, and somehow causing Sakuta to be scarred as well. Hoping to learn more about the phenomenon, as well as just hoping to spare Mai from a similar fate, Sakuta decides to solve the mystery of her syndrome, as well as those of other girls in each story arc after. The premise is pretty unique by itself, and it uses its potential very well, thanks to the grounded writing and great cast of characters. Sakuta is not your typical protagonist: he’s blunt, blatantly perverted, and more than willing to verbally pick on people with little to no provocation. He’s not even close to a bad person, though; he treats the friends he already has at the start of the series, and everyone else he proceeds to grow closer to, much more respectfully, and when the chips come down, he’ll do crazy things for other people with no hesitation. He’s one of the most refreshing protagonists I’ve seen in a long time, and has most of the best lines in the series. The rest of the cast is also great, especially Mai, the other main lead. In fact, the main focus of the series besides the Adolescence Syndrome cases is Sakuta and Mai’s relationship, which is very well written, to the point of being my favorite part of the series. It avoids so many stumbles a lot of other series can run into: the relationship is started up early, nobody manages to threaten their feelings, and any misunderstandings, current or even just potential, they take steps to work though. Even when she’s willing to jab at and mess with Sakuta, Mai is always affectionate and transparent with her feelings, and becomes progressively even more so as it goes on. It’s also just, a refreshing change of pace compared to most relationships in anime. The other main focus, the Adolescence Syndrome cases, are just as well written. Despite exaggerated situations like becoming invisible to people, or even causing a time loop, there are few times they’re played for laughs. The series takes it all very seriously, mostly because of the kind of factors that lead to the syndrome appearing. Things like an oppressive school atmosphere, where standing out causes scrutiny, and most decide to just follow the leader to avoid consequences, or the fear of your only friendships being damaged over minor reasons. While more positive than Sakura Hall, it takes the same care to show just how damaging issues like this can be. Even Sakuta isn’t above it: he’s rumored to have send some of his classmates to the hospital once, and despite being completely false, it’s ostracized him to the point that he considers himself lucky to have 2 whole friends, and he’s just accepted the mindset that fighting against such an atmosphere is pointless. There a lot of emotional moments throughout the series, especially the last three episodes, and it earns them all. It even shies away from fanservice most of the time, even despite the very title of the show (the bunny girl part was actually only the title of the first light novel, but the series just kept it for the whole thing) The animation isn’t too wacky due to the tone and grounded writing, but it has an appealing artstyle, and the voice actors do a great job as well. Overall, this is an anime that’s genuinely very good by itself. Even so, what is it that makes me so biased towards it? For one thing, it just hits some emotional soft spots a lot of other stuff doesn’t personally manage, through stuff like, once again, Sakuta and Mai’s relationship. The very interesting premise and general grounded nature also wins it a lot of points. But, ultimately, it’s not something I can really put into words. Might be because I watched it on a very weird day. Regardless, this is one I would definitely want everyone to give a chance, and here’s hoping the movie gets a DVD release soon. And with that, there’s to end to my rambling. Again, I would recommend everything I’ve put here to most people, but especially the top 2. I’m planning on watching some more anime, so I may make another ranking like this soon. Otherwise, till next time. -Scout

#anime #bunny girl senpai #the pet girl of sakurasou #fullmetal alchimist brotherhood #gurren lagann #little witch academia

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