#revisiting drv3

[tobiasdrake]

Sometimes I wish Danganronpa had, like, full-blown false lead Truth Bullets. You know something's important because you get a Truth Bullet about it, but it'd be neat if you also got Truth Bullets that are total red herrings. Some of the bullets in your chamber are duds and you aren't gonna know which.

It would have killed if this moment was followed up by

OBTAINED TRUTH BULLET: Degenerate Gonta! "According to Tenko, Gonta's masculinity makes him biologically inclined to violence and murder."

There will never be a correct time to use this Truth Bullet but it will be there, sitting in your chamber.

[convexcave]

i’m totally doing these out of order, but have another comic page

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Dangancember 2024 - Danganronpa Top 24 Class Trials: Number 22 Danganronpa Another 2 Case 5

//Right above DRV3 Case 6 is SDRA2 Case 5, and I'm honestly kind of surprised that this one ended up getting this low on the list, because as far as I was concerned, it was a pretty decent segment of the story.

//But strangely enough, besides the big twist at the end of the trial, this chapter is honestly not very memorable. I actually kind of had to go back and rewatch it in order to make some notes for this.

//Which, to be perfectly frank, was not very enjoyable, because of all the games that are on this ranking, SDRA2 and V3 are easily the ones that I like revisiting the least.

//But don't get me wrong. From what I do remember of this trial, I do respect what was done.

//I think one of the biggest issues with this trial is that this is kind of where, for me at least, the tie-ins with the previous game really start to come in in spades. And if you hadn't played Another 1, which wasn't as commercially available as Another 2 at the time it came out, there are some things here that kind of end up being confusing.

//But what this trial was able to pull off was pretty amazing, and even though I have never been a huge fan of the way LINUJ writes his characters or his story, this chapter in particular showed the leaps that he was willing to take to tell his story that somebody like Kodaka wouldn't.

//Now obviously with Rain Code, it's clear these days that Kodaka is not afraid to mass-murder his characters. It's just not something he felt he could do with Danganronpa due to a very limited cast, especially in the latter parts of the game. And yeah, no one actually dies in this chapter besides the victim, but...We'll take this one step at a time.

//I don't feel like going as in depth about this trial as I did with the previous post, because I care more about that trial and it's failings more than I do this one. And I do understand that this is a widely popular trial, but I, personally, am just not that crazy about it besides how it ended.

//I'm personally not too keen on most of SDRA2's trials, as I've already implied, but putting myself aside, the fourth trial often stands out as a fan favorite due to its bold emotional stakes and plot twists, while the final trial delivers climactic, overarching revelations. Sandwiched between these two, the fifth trial can feel underwhelming, lacking both the emotional depth of the fourth and the high-stakes resolution of the finale.

//Which isn't an issue any of the other fifth trials have except for Game 1 Case 5.

//Also, I don't know if this is just me, but for a trial that is supposed to be incredibly climactic, the themes of betrayal and trust, while VERY pivotal leading up to this entire chapter and what should be central to the trial, feel underdeveloped or poorly executed. While previous trials build strong thematic narratives, this one struggles to create the same emotional resonance. It tries to heighten drama through character conflicts, but these moments can feel forced or out of character.

//What I mean is it really does just feel like the characters got really...dumb...? Which is a big issue I had with Game 1 Case 5 as well. It really kind of feels the cast are just playing a game of Among Us.

//No one even considered the possibility of Iroha being the acomplice instead of the murderer. Just because she did the paintings, doesn't mean she killed Teruya, and since she's a VOID she has to listen to everything Mikado says because it's against the rules to betray VOID, so her being the acomplice was just as likely as the killer, and I kind of saw the trial going in that direction and, lo and behold, I was right. But no, they didn't even consider it

//Everybody spent this entire game always casting suspicion on Mikado, despite the fact that in most of the trials, it's so obviously not him. So what, they just randomly got desensitised to suspecting him of the murder?

//If that's the case, then that's a clever move on Mikado's part. Just that I feel like that could have been explained better. Maybe it's a translation issue.

//And as is the case with quite a few of SDRA2's story beats, the pacing often feels drawn out with repetitive debates and unnecessary padding. Of course, this is NOWHERE NEAR as bad as Trial 2 and 3, but still, this trial lingers on certain points, reducing the overall tension.

//This trial is honestly very hard to review in general because of how intergral it kind of is to the story, so I will say one good thing about it is that unlike quite a few of the Chapter 5's in Danganronpa, this one actually serves as really good build-up for the finale.

//If there's one thing I can give SDRA2 credit for, while the story does feel like it's paced poorly, the plot twists that happen throughout the game are spaced pretty well. Chapter's 4 and 5 really do a damn lot to build up to the final chapter and the events that happen, even though the final chapter ends up being pure information overload anyway, but this is still an insane setup.

//So let's talk about a few things that stand out. Firstly, the victim of this case is Teruya Otori, the Ultimate Merchant, who is actually a returning character from the original Another game.

//Now, I'm not the biggest Teruya fan, at least not compared to everybody else on the internet, but what SDRA2 did with him in Chapters 4 and 5 is actually really fucking good if you're already familiar with his character in Another 1.

//Teruya has fucked up a lot in the past, but this is a very different kind of fucked up that he's become, and for a good reason: Because you can really see how much Tsurugi has influenced his actions since establishing the Kisaragi Foundation.

//In Survivor, I tend to play Tsurugi is more...chill than he is in the canon games, but as the leader of the Kisaragi Foundation, he's still very much the Malcolm X to Kyoko's Martain Luther King. He will find the truth, and he will protect the world by any means necessary, and that's what I find great about Teruya's character in this latter part of the story; because he adopts very much the same mindset.

//Teruya with a gun is intense if you've already played the first game because you know him to kind of be a fun-loving character, kind of like Hiro in the first DR game. But still, it doesn't feel out of character for him to lose it later in the game, because that happened in the original Another too, and again, his plan to stop the game and take control of things has Tsurugi's name written all over it, and I think that's fucking awesome.

//But still, it doesn't stop it from being a little overdramatic, which generally kind of gave me a negative opinion of Teruya by the time he died.

//However, all in all, him ending up the victim of this chapter was still honestly kind of shocking. Sure, they killed off Rei in the first chapter of the story, but by this point, she was revealed to be still alive outside the simulation. So it automatically gave me the indication that those who survived the first game would also survive this second one.

//And it's not like DR doesn't have a precedent set for that. Besides Ryota and Munakata, everybody who survived the Final Killing Game in Danganronpa 3 were the characters from DR1 who survived. Hina and Kyoko almost bit the bullet, but their deaths were ultimately fake-outs.

//And this twist plays into the main reason why my admiration for LINUJ peaks in this chapter, which, again, I will get to.

//Either way, the point is that not only was Teruya and already established character from DRA1, but he also seemed near integral to the plot in this latter part of the story, and it really makes you think that he might be a survivor of this plot. I mean, Tsurugi was, and his attitude in the latter part of DRA1 was very similar to Teruya's role.

//But no. We got straight up sidelined by this twist. AND that's not even mentioning that there was a fake-out literally just before this, that made you THINK Teruya was fine, and that he might have just gone missing.

//And credit where it is due, I really feel like this should have happened in Danganronpa 3. Ultimately, I'm glad it didn't, because that would have pissed me off with DR3 even more than I already was, but had DR3 been better structured, a twist where you kill off one of the main cast of the first game would have worked. And they almost did it with Kyoko before she miraculously survived.

//To me, it feels like LINUJ took that extra step that Kodaka and the DR Devs were afraid to do.

//But then there's Iroha, who is a bit of an issue.

//In general, VOID are one of my least favourite factions across the DR multiverse, because I don't really like any of their members besides Hajime M. at least not that much. I might get more into this if and when we cover SDRA2 Chapter 4, but to skip the preamble, this chapter mainly revolves around Iroha, who is the suspected, and ultimately voted for, killer.

//Unlike the rest of the VOID's, who were either revealed to be VOID in the chapter they died, or right before their execution, Iroha was revealed to be a member of VOID earlier.

//I do tend to give Iroha a lot of love for this blog, and I do like her in this blog. But she is easily among the worst characters in the original SDRA2. She was just so unforgiveably dumb.

//Iroha to me was kind of like what would happen if Yasuhiro had somehow turned out to be Junko's sidekick/the traitor instead of Sakura or Mukuro.

//And it kinda doesn't work.

//Like, I get that the VOID's are kind of just a ragtag group of abused children like the Warrior's of Hope, and this kind of bullshit can happen to basically anyone. And it isn't hard to imagine Iroha, type of character that she is, having such a depressing backstory that she could be a member of this criminal group. But that doesn't mean she's cut out for it.

//Literally any other character would have made a more interesting member for VOID than Iroha would. I feel like the only reason she IS one is because LINUJ DESPERATELY wanted to give her plot relevance.

//I'm also fairly sure that when Weeby Newz (pretty big DR streamer btw in case you haven't heard of her) found out about this plot twist, she laughed uncontrollably because of how little sense and how random it was.

//Of all the characters in this game you could have made a VOID, like Setsuka, or in an unexpected twist, Teruya. Why is it THIS fucknugget?

//Anyway, this big reveal happened in Chapter 3, so it kind of took me out of it when we started suspecting Iroha to be the killer, because we already KNEW she was working for the bad guys. So she really wasn't that interesting a killer either.

//...

//But THAT'S when it got me.

//Oh lord, THAT'S when it got me GOOD!

//Okay, so, I know I always preface this with a spoiler warning, and you really shouldn't be reading this blog or these posts if you haven't played the original game, but for me personally, there are two twists surrounding this case that are, without question, two of the most phenomenal twists this game has to offer, and the payoff, as unexpected as they were, was spectacular.

//First and foremost was the twist of Sora and Yuki's true identity.

//Again, the big issue with SDRA2 is that it was more commercially available than DRA1 was in the west, so if you haven't played the first game, the twist that Yuki is Utsuro, and Sora, more shockingly, is Akane Taira, this wouldn't mean anything to you.

//But for me personally, it's very reminiscent of the twist at the end of DR2 that Hajime is revealed to actually be Izuru Kamukura. However, even though I love that twist of the Remnants to death, I would state that Izuru's inclusion is the worst part of it.

//The reasons is that before right until this trial happens, Izuru is not an established character, and the concept of created Hope was not properly hinted at. So when it happens, it doesn't have that much weight to it, as shocking as it is, because there is so little build-up.

//Again, if you don't know who Akane Taira is, this twist means nothing, but if you DO, then this twist is FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!

//I would argue that because it gets revealed in Chapter 5, it gives the final two chapters more weight to it.

//Unlike Izuru, Taira was an established character AND established threat. And her inclusion in this game, and that Sora might BE her reincarnated body is SHOCKING, and it really explains a lot of Sora's actions throughout the game and why she's so subtly devoted to Yuki.

//Again, it feels like Izuru's, and arguably Utsuro's from the first game's, twist, but with actual meaningful build-up, and a good time to reveal it, because then that information carries on into Chapter 5's trial, and Chapter 6.

//But of course, that's not the biggest selling point for this trial. If you know the game, you know exactly what I'm going to talk about, because this trial, surprisingly, does something that not a single Danganronpa trial has done before. The closest we've gotten is Chapter 6 of V3, and Chapter 5 of DR1, which...doesn't really count for me.

//And that is, of course, that this Class Trial ends with an INCORRECT VERDICT.

//This moment is iconic, and again, I will explain why at the end of this post. I've already mentioned that this trial is dumb, from the way that the characters don't even consider that Iroha could have been an accomplice to murder instead of the actual murderer, but the fact that this still happened is shocking.

//See, what happened is everybody believed that Iroha had murdered Teruya using cyanide. But what ACTUALLY happened is Mikado applied the cyanide PRIOR to Iroha's murder scheme, and all she did was shake some salt into the water. This fooled everyone into believing Iroha, including Iroha herself, had applied the cyanide, and that results in everyone voting for the wrong killer.

//And as the rules state, if the killer is voted wrongly, everybody except them dies. And that's damn near what happened.

//I've established before that I don't like Mikado, because I think he fails to live up to the hype around the likes of Junko and even Akane from the previous game, but for me, this is his most iconic moment, and his BEST moment that really made him FEEL like a worthwhile and worthy Killing Game mastermind.

//His plan is, frankly, brilliant, and any one of the original Danganronpa characters WISHES they could have been this smart with their murder schemes. Even Junko's gambit in Chapter 5 to eliminate Kyoko, and Tsumugi's gambit to stop the killing, paled in comparison to this in my opinion, because both of those actions felt...desperate. Mikado's plan on the other hand, felt meticulous. And cunning, in a good way.

//Having Iroha set up pretty much everything in such a specific way that makes everyone, including Iroha herself, believe that she's the culprit while HE'S the accomplice in the case, really sold this case, and to an extent, Mikado, for me.

//Again, this is Mikado at his BEST. He actually FEELS like a VILLAIN in this chapter, though he spends a lot of the game acting really jovial, buddy-buddy, and dumb with everyone, to the point that he can't really be taken seriously. But these final two chapters do a lot for him, and although he's still my least favourite mastermind, these moments are standout, even for me.

//I think one simple reason why this twist and this whole sequence is so good is because...well...we've never GOTTEN the culprit wrong before. There have been several times, ironically in Chapter 5 usually, where the case just seems unsolveable, but one way or another, the heroes still manage to come out on top.

//And yeah, they do, but they WOULDN'T have if not for sheer dumb luck of Syobai pulling them out in time! But you can't convince me we all haven't ever wondered at one point "Hm...What DOES happen when we get the culprit wrong?"

//And man, LINUJ definitely SOLD that idea.

//And this is the main reason why I like this trial regardless, because yeah, it's still not my favourite, but it really symbolizes why these Fangans ARE great, despite all the issues I personally have with them.

//Trial 5 is painfully frustrating because it generally feels incredibly underwhelming and almost too easy, when it's always been established that Trial 5 in EVERY game, regardless of how good they are, tend to be extremely complex cases that shows off exactly why Danganronpa is such a good mystery series. And when Iroha was singled out as the culprit, I genuinely did not care, and being someone who did kind of suspect that Mikado was the killer, it makes me cross at how stupid everyone was kind of acting in this case.

//But again, the final twist of the wrong verdict is the prime example of what makes SDRA2 such a worthwhile game playing. Wheras DRA1 kind of played it safe with its context, clues, mysteries, and characters, SDRA2's main purpose was to do something DIFFERENT.

//As edgy as it can be, what makes this trial great is because it shows that LINUJ is not afraid to do what the canon games wont.

//Besides the island setting that was ripped from DR2, and a few other story beats, this game is LARGELY different from any Danganronpa game that preceded it, and that's why it's the most well-known and hot-topic Fangan on the market. Because it takes the original series, and sprinkles in some creative freedom; telling a similar story from a different angle by a different writer with his own beliefs.

//Some of those beliefs aren't great when it comes to LINUJ, but the point stands. The fact that this trial ends with a WRONG verdict is...awesome! It's really cool and super different, and again, that's what SDRA2 does so well. It does things that Danganronpa has never dared to do before.

//So overall, a pretty crumby trial that I didn't care much about, but definitely with the spectacular condiment of some of SDRA2's best plot twists sprinkled on the side. Enough to make it one of the most standout trials in SDRA2, but not enough to put it higher on this list.

[blepbexx]

So, seven years too late, I finished Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony today. Now, full disclosure, when the game released, I read the plot summary on wikipedia, and the ending was so goddamn awful even surmised that I didn't want to play the game at all, but given how long it had been and my urges to revisit the series, I decided "fuck it" and started playing it about a week back.

It's quite possibly one of the most awful games I've ever played.

If we ignore the oversexualization of minors (okay, there's no canonical age for any of them but let's be real, if you think Himiko is adult-coded, you're looking for excuses), and we ignore the... incestuous robot bears (seriously, edge for the sake of edge? what is this, 2012?), and we ignore the fact that the plot twist ruins the first two games... I mean, it still sucks because it's really not that fun to play in the slightest. The PC port has had broken controls for seven goddamn years, making minigames like Debate Scrum and Argument Armament a literal goddamn nightmare to play (that last AA against [redacted] really hammered in how much I wanted to be playing ANY other game)

And then there's the ending. [SPOILERS FROM HERE ON] So, it's pretty clear from the writing that whoever the mastermind (pun intended) behind Danganronpa V3 was, they very clearly didn't want to make a third entry in the series at all, with the game's writing overtly chastising the player (by way of chastising the "audience" of the show) for wanting to see more Danganronpa, which is hilarious to me because at the time of playing, I hadn't wanted a new Danganronpa at all, and now I've finished it, I think if there's another Danganronpa game I might just become the Ultimate Hater and work to destroy Spike Chunsoft with my own hands. I'm not even that upset that it retcons the first two games to be fiction, either, because honestly V3 was so bad, it kinda soured my views on the first two games too. When you see a game go through the motions as much as DRV3 did, it really makes those same motions in earlier games have much less luster behind them. They lack luster now. I'm sad I never followed through with my idea of not bothering to play V3, and it worries me now because I'm now saying I won't play a prospective Danganronpa 4, but if one IS released, I might be too stupid to remember how shit DRV3 was. That being said, I would die for Gonta and if lore ever comes out to reveal his old personality sucked too, I might just fall into despair myself.

[doodles-by-noodles]

Pardon me for asking: but do you ever intend to return to that Post-Death DRV3 AU? Or has the interest in it worn out? It's a bit of a shame, since Post-Death Ghost Characters are very interesting.

For the foreseeable future I don't think I, or mod prom, will revisit the Post-Death au.

I had a lot more passion for it when I had more recently finished the game, but it's been years, and I don't have the time or energy I used to when it comes to art, ESPECIALLY posting it and maintaining a social media account for it.

[windcarvedlyre]

While I'm talking about DR3 and its handling of themes, does anyone else feel like danganronpa's ideas of 'hope' and 'despair' became a bit flanderised sometimes?

I could be reaching- the series has always been incredibly hammy in how it uses the terms- but in DR1 they still felt somewhat grounded in the words' actual definitions and in DR2 Komaeda fixating on an abstracted conflict between 'hope' and 'despair' was presented as a bad thing. Thinking 'hope' is synonymous with 'talent' was part of the problem, but even without that he'd feel like an intentional twisted parody of Naegi. He takes the thematic conflict between hope and despair too literally; to him the concepts were less states of mind, more grand causes, and so no amount of suffering became unacceptable to him if it made for a more interesting narrative in the end.

But sometimes later additions to the series... kind of sound like him? Maybe I should revisit DR3 and give it more of a chance, but I felt like the entire narrative approached 'hope' and 'despair' in some of the ways Komaeda does. Like it kept throwing those words at me as a substitute for actual depth, because hey, it's Danganronpa, right? That's what you're here for, right? Especially considering how little interest the writers showed in non-Ultimates besides Hinata as people, making 'hope' feel genuinely associated with talent to some degree.

Similarly, in DRV3, what did it mean for the survivors to reject both hope and despair? Stripped of those words, their choice was to break out of the narrative's control, not let their reality being potentially fake get to them, and face the unknown together. Is that not 'hope'? Is that not emotionally identical to both previous games' endings? Does that not make the game's use of 'hope' completely divorced from its meaning?

If the themes were handled more coherently I could see that being done intentionally- exploring whether the series started with a good message and lost its way, and/or asking whether 'hope' is hollow if your struggles, your eventual triumph over them, everything was contrived for others' entertainment- but I feel like if that was the case the DRV3 characters should reclaim hope and reject false definitions or exploitation of it instead of rejecting hope itself. Because again, with feeling, what does that mean???

[worldismyne]

which fanfic of yours are you most proud off?

Omg, this is such a tough question @_@

There are a few I'm proud of for different reasons.

Daughter of Madness (Soul Eater) is by far the longest fic I've written at 109,829 words. I have tended to it frequently over the years, going back to edit for grammar and such as I learn, but it is definitely a time capsule of the person I was in high school. While I still recommend it to anyone curious or a fan of Kirona, I would not say it's best reflective of how I write now. It is one of the fics I have hand bound.

Crest of the Dragon (Xiaolin Showdown) is another that I've hand bound. It's a fan envisioned 4th season, and I hit massive writer's block right before the end. It was on hiatus for a good 6 years, but I didn't give up on it, and I managed to give it an ending I'm really proud of. Liked with DoM, this one is kind of a time capsule of where I was at in college. It is also the first and last time I tried doing episodic writing.

Before, getting a fic over 60K was a miracle, and the only requirement for me to print and hand bind. Since I've returned to the SE fandom I've been on a real hot streak, managing to get several fics to novel length and no forced hiatus's, which is a first for me. Been at if for a year now, so there's a lot of stuff posted and in the drafts that I like for different reasons. It's a little too soon to tell which I'd point to as the best example of my work now.

At the moment it's a tie between two fics.

Where Do All the Good Kids Go? Is now my second longest fic at 91,075 words. It is both the sequel to DoM that people had been asking for, for over a decade and the spark of the MaStar hot streak I'm on. It's definitely been the blueprint for how I write Maka and Black Star in fics moving forward. I have handbound this one as well, but I'm saving up to purchase a cover for it.

Mortal Sins of Meisters and Weapons is the other. It's the only other long fic I've written that's not romance specific. I did a lot of research on the seven deadly sins in order to flesh out the Book of Eibon. There were tons of opportunities to flesh out other characters I rarely use. Pretty much all my TsuLiz works stem from this one. I like it so much, I wish I could retcon and wedge it in as canon for the DoM series, but I have made a solemn oath to not make anymore major edits/rewrites to that fic. Eventually I'll get around to hand binding it as well, but I need to pop a cover on WGKG first.

That all said... The current long fic I'm working on might take their spot if I can really stick the landing on it. I have learned a lot this year about writing that I'm applying to it. People have responded well to the concept and snippets I've leaked. So far the draft is at 52K and I'd say about 2/3 done. So, it may creep past WGKG in length.

Honorable mentions go to Good Intent (Warrior U), which was read by the creator of the web series >///< and the Trival Untruth series (DRV3). Whenever I hyper fixate on DR again I'll revisit it.

Thanks of asking anon!

[jimintomystery]

Naegiri/anti-Naegiri reaction

The Game Grumps Danganronpa V3 playthrough is heating up this weekend, as they approach the end of Chapter 5. I'm on the edge of my seat, and tempted to look up spoilers. Which is kinda cool, since I hadn't expected to get so invested in the third game.

I think the fifth trial is making me realize why DRV3 is reeling me in like DR1, whereas DR2 didn't so much. TL;DR: The grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one.

[Above: omg the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one]

What made Trigger Happy Havoc click for me in the first place was Kyoko Kirigiri. The Prisoner's Dilemma concept was intriguing, but the aesthetic was so bonkers and the characters were so dumb that I wouldn't have stuck around if not for this one serious girl getting down to business. The game made me care about her, even as it made sure I understood that no one is safe and anybody could die tomorrow. I didn't realize I was falling into a trap until Chapter 5 teased her as the murder victim. The thought of continuing the story without her--with dumb ol' Byakuya replacing her as the deuteragonist--was intolerable, but I had to keep going to see if she was actually dead. This made Makoto's feelings about the case--all the grief, confusion, and self-doubt--more palpable, which sucked me in further. By the time the story hinted at Kyoko's feelings about what she's put Makoto through, I was all in.

Goodbye Despair couldn't recapture that vibe with me, and I've finally decided that's because it just doesn't have an analogue to Kyoko. To be clear, it was sensible not to rehash the characters from the first game. But Kyoko as a character is optimized for Danganronpa as a ludonarrative, and vice-versa--doing a sequel with one but not the other was a tall order. Because DR2 isn't about rescuing a tsundere girl from her own cynicism, it had to be about something else, and I felt it struggled in that area.

Killing Harmony seems to find a balance, revisiting what worked with Kyoko without simply copying it. Maki is not Kyoko, and Kaito isn't Makoto. Setting them both up as deuteragonists for Shuichi, each with their own secrets withheld from the player, helps set them apart. But they have a similar story arc, where Kaito reaches out to Maki for no real reason except his stubborn optimism, and Maki can't easily express how much that means to her. And, just like DR1, Chapter 5 blows that up, making us watch as one of them apparently discovers the other has been murdered. Except in V3, it's the grumpy one who has to find a way to move forward without the sunshine one. I really like that change.

Maki's dialogue (and Erica Mendez's performance) is really firing on all cylinders for me in Chapter 5. There are times when I'm not sure she personally cares if she lives or dies, but then she'll make it clear that she's not going to lay down and give up. (I can't tell if that's just because of Kaito or something deeper in her character.) So the worst part about discovering Kaito's body is knowing she's devastated, even when she can't really express that. When Shuichi holds out hope Kaito isn't the victim, and Maki can't, it's so sad. When the kids finally conclude Kaito must be the victim, it's like losing him all over again, and you see the blue despair stuff over her face and it's just...ugh. The Exisal pretending to be Kaito calls her "Maki Roll" and she loses her cool about it, and I just wish she could get a hug, but she'd only take it from one person, and barring a miracle he's just gone, man. It's heavy.

I suspect if I was watching DRV3 cold, all of this wouldn't hit me so hard. But thinking about Kyoko for four years has me thinking about these scenes in terms of what Maki doesn't say, how she doesn't react, and what's going on in her head that she won't share. She's going through a lot more than she's letting on, except unlike Kyoko in DR1, the other kids can kinda tell, even if they don't understand. (Shout-out to Dorothy Elias-Fahn for the way she read "Th-There's now way she is [the culprit]! 'Cause...why would she kill Kaito!?")

The toughest part is that I never expected Maki and Kaito to have a happy ending in the first place. I knew, very early in the story, that it would be too easy to have them bond and then both of them live all the way to the end, because we got that with Makoto and Kyoko. I thought I was fine with that--I already got Naegiri, so doing a more doomed version, an anti-Naegiri, was cool. I figured one of them would kill the other, or one would make a noble sacrifice for the other, and it wouldn't bug me. But now that it's happening, I find myself wondering if Maki will live (because that's what Kaito would want) or die (because how can she go on without him?) and I'm really worried I won't like the answer to that. I just want somebody in this story to make sure she's okay, and I don't know if it'll happen. Just like the first game, they've lured me right into the trap...

[tobiasdrake]

Oh, also, along the lines of my last ask about v3 memories and the show- are they being constantly livestreamed? Like, legitimately? Or does it turn off at night? How do they hide the mysteries from the audience if they can see everyone?

Like, it has to be livestreamed cus of Keeboy but wouldn't that just look. Shit?

I'm so curious what this show looks like, is there 8 hours of radio silence? Can they get close ups of characters faces at crucial moments? Or like? What?

Since they're being filmed by Nanokumas, I imagine they've probably got angles on everything that happens.

But, yeah, there are probably eight hours of just nothing happening at night.

[nezumiva]

Hey, you know in the final chapter of DRV3 when Shirogane revealed that all of the students were fans of Danganronpa who sacrificed themselves and their identities to participate in the game? Well, if you revisit the prologue, you can see some inconsistencies, like how Akamatsu and Saihara introduced themselves as... well... Akamatsu and Saihara, and how no one else seem to recognize Amami, the survivor of the 52nd killing game. Plus, no one seemed happy to be here instead of what was shown in chapter six, either that, or they're apparently really good actors. And also, according to a tweet by Kodaka, he said for the players to go back to the prologue after finishing the game. Just wanted to point things out here from your video on DRV3.

I'm aware of that, yes. I didn't go much into it in the video itself, though. Personally I find it less interesting/compelling from a story and thematic perspective than if it were all true. It's one of several attempts to keep loose threads open that I'm pretty sour on, with V3. But that's just my two cents, of course.

[silicon-tmblr]

"Belief. Be-lie-f. Can't have belief without a little lie.

Kokichi Oma has survived the fifth murder, but at what cost?

Placed at a crossroads between truth and lies, skirting the line, he comes to realize that he isn't the only liar in this academy.

He's not the only one distorting the truth into something unrecognizable, and planning killings and killers like that's the true aim of the game.

Far from it."

Finally, the sister fic to Bloodied Hands... I posted it

It's nice to revisit my older works and see how my concepts of DRV3 characters have changed. It's like revisiting the actual in-game dialogue to make sure I don't bounce around in an echo chamber of my own making while I'm trying to create something that, I feel, can be called "genuinely Danganronpa".

Back then, three years ago, my writing for Resolute Rebellion was punctuated often with reviewing how each character actually spoke in-game, checking that I was using vocabulary and contractions and such appropriately.

Nowadays, though, I either have a much better grasp of the characters' voices... or I'm just lazier and more arrogant haha

[bye-bye-firefly]

Helloo! So, I’ve been wondering, how do you like to take notes? Like, what’s your note taking style in general? And how do you like to write your character and language study stuff? I’ve been kinda curious about it for a bit since you mention that you have these things and stuff sort of often. Like I think it’s been in the back of my mind since that time you mentioned in your notes that you write character studies in a journal. My mind kinda just latched onto that specific detail, most likely because I think physically writing stuff down is really cool and I could never.

(Hopefully this doesn’t sound too awkward? I’m really sleepy and my mind has been very jumpy today but I tried to sound normal, not sure if I succeeded)

no its so totally chill so basically i have like. MADNESS. im cutting this post up because i basically did a brain dump and its so long.

its pure and utter madness in this fucking journal there are clear notes and bullets and i mostly just dedicate pages upon pages depending on the length of the media, the complexity of the character, the amount of change throughout the series like. okay. for example. in my succession character study i have it set up so every character has 5 pages because theyre all pretty static and dont require a lot of notetaking because what i can observe from them is almost always set in stone, a base reaction from the character. drv3 however each character got 10 pages because 1) drv3 is long and its a lot of fucking text to go through 2) characters, even past their death, are referenced and spoken about and have things revealed about them a lot AND 3) the characters are REALLY dynamic and lots of events happen that change the characters in either slight or big ways that i need to note down and explain to myself WHAT EXACTLY caused this change and what the change was. other than these big moments i like to put down moments that i think are interesting or stand out to me upon revisiting the piece of media so when i first go through something it might not stand out because i dont have the knowledge that something is going to happen but upon rewatch or replay im like Wait a second. and this is why i never go into something and immediately start doing analysis because if i did that i would never notice the things that im meant to notice when doing a deep dive into a character

but on length again it really depends what im going into right. if youre going into a text-based 100+ hour game then you probably want to dedicate a lot of pages and time to understanding the characters than if it was like. a 5 season show with 10-14 episodes that are each an hour long. of course this also depends because breaking bad and succession are a similar length but breaking bad has way more dynamic characters than succession. in fact breaking bad is ALL moving parts so making a character study about breaking bad i would probably put all the characters down and dedicate like 8-10 pages per character and that might be overdoing it for some.

but other than characters its also important to recognise that the characters are in a setting. so what causes them to behave the way they do in this setting and do i know what best replicates it. drv3, theyre in a killing game. kokichi ouma would not act the way he does if he wasnt in a killing game and this is extremely important to recognise. kokichi mostly acts like he does because hes in a life-or-death situation and the way he behaves is him coping and keeping himself safe from other people. however, its also him hiding what hes planning so that things can go off without a hitch and without anyone stopping him because ultimately, he wants to end the killing game. he thinks that working with people is way too much effort and its way too complicated and it makes things harder and worse but most importantly, its just not for him. like hes ultimately fine with other people working together, but fuck the notion that he should work with anyone. hes boy genius and also thats so much work ON TOP OF doing the amount of work he was already doing. but outside of the killing game, this whole thing would just drop like theres nothing to work towards anymore. sure hes going to keep lying but maybe not be so cagey or brattish or rile people up as much as he does or as HORRIBLY as he does because theres no point to it. hes not in a life-or-death situation anymore so that act should just crumble. it would take a bit of work but yeah that facade should fall away and leave this joking prankster teenage boy. and a lot of people who dont like kokichi (not most not all just a lot) did not pay attention to the game and took everything at face value much like shuichi and i dont BLAME them i mean its kind of hard to read kokichi and figure out what the fuck hes talking about or what he means by the things he says like it took me a LONG FUCKING TIME to TRULY get kokichi. i had to do my character study before i actually truly understood him and now hes just in my head forever. like i will never let go of him. hes the best and i love him. but yeah you have to think about these things like why is this character like this and what IN THE SETTING causes this or AMPLIFIES this. likeeeee this is kind of a spoiler but tom is super into acting big and macho and very masculine right? at work he acts like The Man and he very clearly wants to play archetypal 1950s husband to his housewife, shiv, but shiv is never going to BE that. he knows this but he doesnt WANT to recognise this so he seeks this elsewhere through his work with greg. thus the tomgreggers win BUT ALSO we get to see two sides of tom: tom when he is sensitive and emotional and tom when he is playing up his machismo because he cannot stand NOT DOING THAT. thats like tom's THING. he is a midwestern boy who is in his 40s who grew up on this dream that he was the man of the house and therefor he was the most specialest man in the whole wide world to this wife that would make him dinner and fuck him and do whatever he pleased but he DIDNT get that and he is NOT THAT GUY. tom is INCREDIBLY sensitive and you can visibly see when he is anguished or excited to see someone (mostly greg) or depressed. he wouldnt be this way if he wasnt in this setting (running a right-wing news network that THRIVES on these values) or with the people he was with (most notably, a father in law who he wants to show respect to and receive respect from for the ENTIRETY of the show)

okay so character and setting and its impact. other than that WHAT ELSE. so a lot of the other stuff that i then look through is like. extra tidbits that i notice. my current succession character study has a list of chapters. so i have each character and their pages listed out for quick navigation (yes this means i number the pages) i have a 2 page tidbits section and then i have an INFINITE AMOUNT of researching pages. because nothing ever just stops at The Character Study no no no. i have researched:

shakespeare and what makes something shakespearean (took like. a few days? really wasn't that hard it was a well researched topic)

succession speak (i did this while i watched the show so i did some multitasking while doing character studies. updating kendall's page while also talking about his usage of buzzwords)

cops (fic specific dont worry its all bad as expected)

for drv3 i researched a lot of mental disorders, i did research into trauma, specifically for nameless (because that was ALWAYS what i was gearing up for) i originally did a lot of research into fbi and catching murderers so a lot of reading but then i pivoted and did research into non-euclidean structures, the language of horror (meaning i just read a lot of horror and took notes), and then i did The Action Plan.

The Action Plan brings everything together and is specific to me this is not necessarily essential for understanding the characters nor is the extra studying that has nothing to do with the piece of media. like succession requires that i research shakespeare and how they talk but it doesnt require me to know how the police work or what they think of themselves. the action plan is mostly for me to figure out what the hell i actually want to do. the action plan is also the place where i put down a final answer as to how i want to end the BIG FIC that im planning. for the drv3 character study, i do in fact have nameless' planned ending written down and it has surprisingly not really changed all that much aside from the weird bullshit that i wanted to throw in on top of the weird bullshit that is already going on in nameless. a lot of the time the action plan contains what i want the fic to end on.

right here im going to delve into writing advice because i love this shit and i know that people struggle with this okay If you. DON'T. Want to go into a story blind and want to plan it through and want to start with the ending (always what i recommend). Do NOT. Write the ending in the abstract. what i mean by this is like an ending to a story is almost always an arc. like. everything everywhere all at once the ending is a very drawn-out sequence taking place across a bunch of universes but ultimately are leading to the same thing: evelyn keeping joy around, and this means two things: keeping her in her life or alive at all. this is not an abstract ending. this is set in stone and pans out beautifully with the mixture of universes all in play. the ending is that evelyn gets to keep her daughter, joy, around in her life and saves every single world in existence. a different more abstract way to view the movie is that it begins with evelyn filing taxes in a stressful environment, extremely bitter and feeling alone on her father's birthday. it ends with evelyn doing taxes with her family. I may not remember this right so dont correct me this is what i remember BUT!!!! thats not the point the point is that its an incredibly abstract way to view the movie when thats not what the point of it all IS. the point of the whole movie is for evelyn to realise she fucked up A LOT and that doesnt make her a horrible person but it does mean she has to apologise and that joy DOES deserve an apology and joy DESERVES to live and she has to save her because she is her mother and she loves her and she is willing to be better if it means that joy gets to live or stay in her life. THATS the point but you miss the point when you frame it in that abstract way so endings always have to be very set in stone and multiple events, an entire ARC because that determines how you're going to write THE ENTIRE THING and what things you choose to include or remove. like if nameless ends with kaede killing everyone and the world exploding theres no reason for me to include these really hopeful messages and send the reader off course or to include symbols of love and immortality because that doesnt make sense when it ends the way that it does. even if it DID make sense it sends a WHOLE other message. even through hope, it is hopeless <- not the message i intended but because i wrote the ending the way i did, people are going to interpret it this way. this is also why im not a fan of my older work, propaganda, having like. multiple endings. because there really truly honestly is no reason why i decided to make it have 3 different endings other than I couldn't decide on one because I didn't plan the ending out before I started writing the story.

This is why the action plan exists. my osomatsu san character analysis is lacking this action plan most likely because i kept it somewhere else probably online but it doesnt matter because i dont REMEMBER it existing so it probably DIDNT exist. i can remember my nameless action plan that was 2 years ago (yes i went and checked to make sure) i didnt even remember i wrote other drv3 fics other than the multichapters out now and a good song never dies SO WHAT IS GOING ON THERE. if i am not referring to the action plan then im clearly not going to have a good grasp on what the hell is going on in there

of course those that may know me are reading this like "you dont plan. your stories" And they're right. I don't. the action plan section is solidifying how i view the characters, what i think should happen with them because i LOVE juggling plot lines, but most importantly, the ending. a solid REAL ending not an abstract version of it or an idea i mean like REAL SOLID FOUNDATION. as an example for the nameless ending IM NOT ABOUT TO TEL LYOU HOW NAMELESS ENDS DONT WORRY i have it set up so that i have the setting, the major event that happens, the effect of this, the aftermath with all the characters, and then if i want a key detail in there that i think is important. this comes FIRST. ALWAYS. i can only ever start with the ending when im planning a story because otherwise i have no idea what to do with all the other moving parts and i add too many variants and then i end up with 3 different endings and i cant choose because im indecisive and ive put out TOO MANY SIGNS there are TOO MANY WAYS this could end for the readers.

but yeah. i mean i make it sound way more complicated than it is but i mean this so seriously doing character studies are so fun. i love immersing myself in a piece of media. this is a real fucking story i got so deep into drv3 character study that i started laughing like kokichi. and that lasted for a few weeks or something i dont remember. but really doing character studies is all up to how YOU do it. its important to note that when im going through a piece of media for analysis, i first comb through the parts that are most important for me to understand a character. so drv3 the character hangouts, their chapters where they shine the most, important scenes that i can remember off the top of my head, and then i go through the whole thing over again. im doing this with succession right now though its kind of hard because succession is a very all killer no filler show so choosing the MOST IMPORTANT episodes is based entirely on who is important and what important moment happens and if that affects EVERYONE. i will have to watch through succession again and i will have to see what i missed, if i missed anything, which is likely a no. you can do whatever notetaking style you want, whatever works for you, but i love doing brain dumps and then going back and highlighting what is important to me for quick reference. im just not a very organised person and im not ever going to become one so i might as well embrace it and work around it right if plans bore me i might as well do things on the seat of my pants because thats the only way to keep me engaged

VERY sorry this was so long but i love talking about this stuff and i love dumping my brain out. this is very therapeutic for me i think

[hopeymchope]

You can read it — here's at least one translation of the demo manga, although in both the demo itself AND the magna, they never get anywhere near as far as actually identifying the culprit. But yes, there's evidence supporting that it was Hifumi.

Of course, they would later revisit this in the DRV3 demo, where Hagakure is again the victim of the murder. Poor bastard can't stop getting demo-killed. :P In that base, Makoto is clearly implied be the culprit... but at the end of the demo, it's made clear that Hagakure was just playing along and this was all an act anyway.

I love the idea of exploring a sort of "Demo AU" for the first game, though. What would be the motive for Hifumi killing Hagakure??? How does that affect Monokuma's given motives going forward? LOVE that idea.

I know it's only a short manga, but I'm very tempted in wanting to read it.

It's not just any manga based on Danganronpa, it's a manga that's based on the Danganronpa 1 demo. As you know, the demo has Yasuhiro as the 1st victim in Sayaka's place.

The demo ends without revealing the culprit, but this manga apparently has Hifumi as the culprit in Leon's place.

As far as I know, the manga and demo aren't as detailed as the final version of the game. Makoto wakes up to find Yasuhiro dead in his bathroom, but why? How would Hifumi kill Yasuhiro like that? And what reason would Hifumi have for killing Yasuhiro and framing Makoto? And what would keep Sayaka from watching the video of her pop group suffering from despair? But maybe I'll get to the point on what I'm talking about.

This manga is the closest thing to Danganronpa having an alternate story where the character death order is different!

I'm very tempted by the idea, because it makes you wonder... How would this affect the rest of the story? What would the game look like if Sayaka, Mukuro and Leon were still alive after Chapter 1? And with Hifumi dead, how would this affect Chapter 3? Celeste would need to find another assistant to do her tea serving, and perhaps find someone else to help her kill Kiyotaka. And would Hifumi's death mean that Taka would have Alter Ego all to himself?

It's too bad such a story doesn't exist. And as I said, it's a short manga that only came out as a bundle for the original Japan-only PSP release of Danganronpa 1, so the plot isn't that detailed.

But I would love it if someone could make a better version of this manga. As in, Yasuhiro should've died somewhere else. And in terms of the Chapter 1 motive, Hifumi would need something like that in order to give him a good reason to kill Yasuhiro.

I really don't know how else I can explain this, so I'll end it here.

[rysktchy]

My full piece for the danganronpa dance of despair prom zine!

✨Preorder a physical copy for a chance to win the Komaeda anniversary figure: https://dodpromzine.bigcartel.com/

✨Free digital download available here: https://enderslime.itch.io/dance-of-despair

[solarscribbles]

@oumaevents​ [Ouma Month Day 1 – Endings]

A happier ending for Ouma where his friends are waiting for him at the finish line and he doesn't have to be alone :,) he ran such a long way, maybe now he can rest.

[toadstooltruth]

kattar kaede returns!!