#ALSO SAKAKURA WAS??? ACTUALLY GAY???

[metamatronic]

oh thank goodness the d1 polycule is in tact. FALSE ALARM GANG

[makedamnsvre]

dr3 liveblog sitting here like . i thought komaeda was supposed to be back from getting expelled by now ...... oh no

[makowo]

Apologies, but… what’s DR Gaiden? Is that the Killer Killer manga??? (If it is, I would like to remind everyone that towards the end a person is beheaded so cleanly that their head REATTACHES ITSELF after falling back on their neck. No, I’m not kidding.)

No. unfortunately it is NOT the Killer Killer manga. the manga is actually pretty good and i liked it when i read it, so stupid but so funny

the word "Gaiden" is used to refer to side stories to a main series however, which is why this awesome ao3 fic series that's most likely got a longer total reading time than all three games + the anime, is called DR Gaiden.

(Image ID: The AO3 statistics of DR Gaiden. It has 1,352,107 words, 216 works, is confirmed not to be completed yet, and has a total of 44 bookmarks. Across every single one of these works. End ID)

DR Gaiden is a currently ongoing series made by Wi.iF.an2.00.9 and Mo.ilo.ru, and despite its name, it follows Makoto and Kyoko throughout the entire series as they face the challenges given in the wake of The Tragedy, and forge a perfect happy ending out of it. It's a canon divergence AU, where trauma is basically nonexistent/resolved immediately after formation in one fic, and LGBTQ+ people are at BEST a background prop.

Yeah, I don't even know if Sakakura is gay in this I'm gonna be honest. it's like the most christian series ever without having any explicit christian imagery in it. There's some INSANE reaches for straight ships in this, it's really fucking obnoxious. But that is the LEAST of the problems in this, tbh.

(Image ID: An excerpt from "The Ultimate Detective and The Ultimate Hope Gaiden: Maki Moves In!" It says this: "Babe? Isn't that kinda misogynistic? Kaito thought, frowning as his brow furrowed." End ID)

Characters will say the most unrealistic shit ever. It feels like every five lines I'm going "they would not fucking say that." There's an anti-abortion message in this series, did you know that? It's revealed that Makoto almost got aborted but apparently his Ultimate Hope talent is a real, literal thing, and he stopped his own abortion by it. Uh. Manifesting? It was weird, it was really weird.

There's also some very interesting fics around. Like the one where Makoto proposes to Kyoko, but the ring won't fit over her glove, so she does the only realistic thing to do in this sort of situation; Throws her gloves into the fireplace and proclaims that she's "completely and utterly his." The backlash to this was apparently so bad that it was later rectified in a fic where Kyoko is suddenly nervous again about not having gloves.

There's some other stuff too, but I won't get too into. Just know that there is an accepted commission in this where the main fankid, an UNDERAGE CHARACTER, I believe around in her early teenage years at the time, in an. I'll just say explicit fic. You can go search for it yourself if you're curious, but I'm not talking about it here.

Then ofc, there's the infamous autism therapy fics. One is the initial diagnosis, and the second is the month of therapy thereafter. And they both suck so so so fucking bad.

There's ofc more to cover, way too much to cover tbh, but that's just. a sample of this series. This shouldn't have been this long but I have very strong feelings about this series, and it's hard to not ramble about.

[tobiasdrake]

Honestly, while we're on the subject of the DG3 anime, I've got a bone to pick with that whole Junko thing too.

The question of whether "She just did it with mind control" is a good explanation or a disappointing one has been discussed to death. Personally, I'm on the latter side. I want every aspiring writer to hear this: Mind control is the worst possible explanation you can ever give for a character's motives, in any context.

When you boil "Why did character X do Y?" down to mind control, you have made your story weaker. Always. Stop doing this.

But that's not actually my beef. I agree with that beef, but that's not my beef.

My problem with the anime's handling of Junko is that, in the process of turning everything into mind control, they also screwed up her background.

When Junko finally reveals herself in the last trials of DG 1 and 2, what we're seeing from her is very specifically Mask Off Junko. We're getting to see her true self. But it's implied that there existed, for a time, a Mask On Junko.

Junko Enoshima was able to attend Hope's Peak Academy for two years without anyone ever being the wiser about her malevolent goals and aspirations. She can't have just been strolling down the halls shoving knives in everyone's faces and ranting openly about despair.

Like. The Ultimate Fashionista had a convincing enough Mask On persona that, when things did ultimately go south, she was able to pass the interview and be selected as one of the students to be sealed into the school. Junko Enoshima was picked to be a part of the world's final, ultimate hope in the face of society's collapse.

The anime tries to explain this by having Junko blackmail Sakakura, threatening to out him as gay if he doesn't go along with her plans. Which. Uh. Gross. But, setting that particular story choice aside, it just doesn't feel like she could have been acting like this for two years without anybody ever noticing, and it especially feels wrong that she'd pass the interview with all these suspicions surrounding her in the first place.

The person who is probably a terrorist leader responsible for the end of the world but nobody has ever quite managed to prove it would not be selected to be part of the last ultimate hope. They wouldn't be able to move against her, but they also wouldn't pin all of their hopes on her like this. It's completely ridiculous to depict Junko as being Mask Off all the time.

And what really gets me is that the anime doesn't even do Mask Off Junko correctly. Mask Off Junko routinely gets bored of her own persona and invents a different one. It's one of the most psychotic things about her, and it's great. And by "routinely", I mean every few seconds or so. She switches up her personality constantly.

We see very little of this in the anime. It's there on occasion, but for the most part Anime Junko has one consistent set of mannerisms across every scene she appears in. She's dumbed down to just Generic Psycho whose only particular quirk is that she's prone to constant violence.

This all just feels wrong. It's written like she just showed up a few months before the Tragedy, started killing everybody, and nobody could stop her. And that's completely inconsistent with what we know the character's background to actually be, and her personality is completely inconsistent to what we know the character's personality to actually be.

They didn't write Junko Enoshima for this anime. They wrote Monokuma, and slapped a Junko Enoshima skin over him. But Monokuma is literally just one of the characters Junko plays.

[noxiatoxia]

no but for real both despair and future and hope arc were garbo.

completely ruined chiaki and now she's mary sue-adjacent and got rid of anything that made her interesting in sdr2 (the being a mostly emotionless ai)

retconned hajime's reasons to go into the kamukura project now to be all about chiaki.this is stupid as hell.

retconned junko's talent bc she can't just be a crazy baddie to fit dr1's absurdist theme nooo there has to be a biological reason to it

mukuro ikusaba I'm So Sorry

mikan tsumiki I'm So Sorry

^to add why did they make her act so sexually inclined she flat out admits in sdr2 she actually hates doing all that stuff she just does it bc bad attention is better than none and that's her biggest fear SHE DOESNT LIKE SEXUALIZING HERSELF SHE DOES IT BC SHE FEELS ITS HER ONLY CHOICE ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME.

how and why is nekomaru alive at the end or at least why is this not addressed

similar question for komaeda. not as pressing as nekomaru's but still not addressed ?

how and why did the sdr2 cast wake up in general. god forbid leaving things open ended

also why does the sdr2 cast post sdr2 look exactly the same for the most part. wasnt part of the reason they were scared to wake up in ch.6 was because they all mutilated their bodies. you guys should all look completely different.

why is everyone suddenly cool with komaeda now that hes awake yall hated him before he suddenly an heroed

re: god forbid leaving things open ended. why did the sdr2 cast become despair remnants ? a shitty brainwashing video. bc that is not lazy writing at all

ryota mitarai is the stupidest character in the whole series and wholly unnecessary. plot device looking ass

does not address the talented/talentless social hierarchy and just acts like chiaki is 100% in the right telling hajime "talent doesnt matter" when she is speaking from an objective point of privilege. in danganronpa universe that is the equiv of an abled person saying "you can do anything if you believe" to a disabled person

re re: god forbid leaving things open ended. izuru kamukura never killed those 13 people. because fuck you

^ALSO THAT SCENE IS THE WORST SCENE IN ALL OF DANGANRONPA 3. the room has red blood in dr1 bc it's a reference to DISTRUST (beta dr) which had red blood. also deaths in danganronpa were never meant to be super gory they were EXPLICITLY TONED DOWN. between DISTRUST and Danganronpa THH. this is what made komaeda's death so impactful. it was the intentionally most goriest death in the whole series.

^WHY IS THE BLOOD SUDDENLY RED IN FUTURE ARC.

introduces a bunch of new characters just so they die at light speed. why. why are we wasting screentime on these nobodies. this is screentime we could have used elsewhere.

so many fake out deaths and for what.

Nagito Komaeda did not wear a custom made jagged-ended jacket and double zipper shoes to SDR2 just for DR3 to say that Juzo Sakakura is gonna be the first gay in Danganronpa. Don't worry mr. komaeda. I saw your double zipper shoes.

things i liekd about dr3:

chisa is funny. matches their freak.

munakata is unintentionally hilarious. such an annoying dumb character that it ropes back into being absurd and funny.

genuinely the episode where kirigiri dies and we see how naegi reacts + his hallucination from the brainwashing tape was very very cool and a great character study on naegi that adds a lot of depth to his character. it's also a nice way to bring back how kirigiri was totally gonna get naegi killed in dr1 by instead having her give her life up for him. the only good episode in all of dr3

kamukura meeting komaeda pre on the boat in sdr2 is a retcon but i allow it because it was funny. why did komaeda cum when he got shot

did anyone actually think dr3 was well written. if so what is their home address i just need to talk

[deathcage]

So I was talking to Ash about this last night, but since I adore and write BOTH Mondo Oowada and Juzo Sakakura I wanted to talk about their similarities and differences because this really does sum it up 

The similarities are so obvious that most people who are barely into the series can usually point them out - besides the physical similarities, their characters are driven and defined by guilt complexes, enormous secrets, and a crushing sense of responsibility.  Both suffer from low self esteem.  It’s also worth mentioning that it’s pretty likely that both are gay - Juzo is canon, but Mondo is also literally a gay stereotype in Japan.  

( I also still think Munasaka was directly capitalizing on Ishimondo’s popularity let’s be real. ) 

I usually sum up the differences as Juzo is Mondo if he had a brain and was meaner, Mondo is Juzo if he was stupid and extroverted.  BUT I don’t think that ties up all of it.  

I’m gonna get the most obvious difference out of the way first.  And that’s literally just...fun.  Mondo values fun.  Sakakura has fun, but only with like...two people.  Only doing pretty structured things.  Knocking over trash cans and hitting cars with bats and acting a hooligan isn’t anywhere near his wheelhouse.  

But that is the most surface level difference, I think.

I wrote before about how Sakakura thinks about Despair:

Despair, for them, is not an interpersonal war.  It isn’t a question of losing one person, one more person, or seeing an array of bloody deaths within the confines of a game.  You have to remember that the two of them have years of memories that Naegi does not.  They were outside the school when the world fell apart. Their perspective is inherently broader.  

Is that a good thing?  Not necessarily.  The loss of that interpersonal perspective on Despair is what drives the core conflict of DR3 between Munakata and Naegi.  But I do think there’s a lot of worth in how Munakata and Sakakura think.

Because they aren’t preventing individual deaths.  They are preventing extinction.

This perspective of willingness to steamroll absolutely anyone who “jeopardizes” what he believes is the only path to a fixed world is where he and Munakata differ from the rest.  And that is the biggest difference between Oowada and Sakakura.  What ends justify what means.  What matters more - humans as a species, or humans as individuals. 

I will give one specific example.  Hajime Hinata.  

Now, I’ve mentioned before that Sakakura does not actually believe a damn word he says to Hajime.  It is solely to keep him out of harm’s way.  But what he says, regardless of intent, is vicious.  It’s brutal.  A line is crossed.  And that is a line that Mondo wouldn’t even tiptoe near.  Because he can’t turn his empathy on mute like Sakakura can.  The end doesn’t justify the means.  

There’s also this.

Mondo Oowada is one of the most forgiving characters in the series as a whole.  In IF, he is one of the first people to give Mukuro the benefit of the doubt and help her.  Even Chihiro is like um are we sure about this.  I have absolutely no doubt that if Mondo made it to DR3, he would be unreservedly on Makoto’s side based on ethics alone, even if he wasn’t his friend prior.  It’s the principle of keeping them alive is a risk we can’t take vs no more bloodshed, if we have a chance to save them we need to take it.  Neither viewpoint is wrong.  But they are fundamentally incompatible. 

ANYWAY.  I really wish we got to see them interact.  I think they would have been really interesting foils playing off of each other.  BUT this got long as hell so I’m going to stop there <3 if you read this far ilysm

[spunderlunder]

The spunderlunder certified Human!Monokuma concept for fanfiction and all that.

So everyone has an idea for a human version of this two-toned mascot of the killing school life, here's mine

Sooo...

General Idea:

The idea of this version of Monokuma is more down the direction of a Shonen sensei, rather than a maniacal killer. He has no ties to an Enoshima and he works as the janitorial staff of Hope's Peak Academy and the teacher of one (1) student.

Backstory and Background

Monokuma Monokuma (sh) is a former Ultimate of the 74th class. However he wasn't always in the main course, he actually had to go reserve course so he could have the school on his record. Yet he worked his ass off to find one thing he was the best at.

He found about fifty.

After that he joined the 74th class as the man with fifty talents.

Most talents centered around engineering, trade school, technology, computer science, blah, blah, blah. As of now he calls himself the former Ultimate Technician.

During his school life he got into an accident that left a nasty scar over his left eye, permanently blinding him on that side.

During that time he also began his friendly-(i want to kill you)-rivalry with Kyosuke Munakata, mostly around their beliefs of talent, Ultimates, Hope, and Despair.

Beliefs

Monokuma does not believe in talent, or at least the way Hope's Peak thinks of talent.

You aren't born talented, you don't magically become talented, you learn how to be talented-or skillful.

Ultimates are the worse of this as he entirely believes that only 2-3 kids of each class are actually worthy of the title.

77th class for example; he only thinks MIkan, Gundham, and Nagito are Ultimates, with everyone else only really just being very good at something.

Though he isn't really disrespectful towards anyone because of this, he just likes to pick apart egotistical teenagers sometimes.

Ever since he weaseled his way into Hope's Peak with fifty fucking Ultimate talents he stopped believing in the gifted aspect. Rather he thinks he deserved them because he worked hard and became talented (or skillful).

Monokuma's thoughts on Hope and Despair is just yin and yang, one cannot exist without the other, that's about it. It's insane to strive for either or as only true Hope and true Despair can be achieved with their counterpart.

That's the main reason he doesn't like Munakata, and why Munakata doesn't like him.

In the Now (well Danganronpa 3 now)

Monokuma serves as the one and only janitor of Hope's Peak Academy and he has the entire placed wired.

Of course it's for mainly safety reasons (and gossip).

He also has most of the reserve course buildings wired, stopping the death of a Kuzuryuu and the revenge murder of a Sato. Sato expelled and the other one having a mean talking too for an hour.

During the time he found an injured reserve course student running from the main course building, inflicted with a couple of bruises from Juzo.

That is where he met his student, Hajime Hinata.

Monokuma is the private tutor of Hajime, trying to find him a talent so he can get into the reserve course, or a skill they can build off of so he fits the requirements. Of course Hajime is allowed into the main course building and follows after Monokuma whenever he has to fix something.

This also delays the creation of a Kamukura as they have to find a new volunteer.

And as the new 78th class rolls in he found immediate disdain in a fashionista who stares at him a bit to much.

Teacher Relations

Monokuma gets along fairly well with the faculty of Hope's Peak, with a couple stand out names.

Koichi KIzakura is his best friend, they hang out the most, tend to do paperwork at the sametime with a glass of whiskey, and he tries his hardest to get Koichi in bed with the Headmaster.

Juzo Sakakura is his second best friend. They workout together, Monokuma doubles as his therapist and does try to get Juzo through any rough patches regarding his sexuality.

Monokuma's two best friends are gay.

Chisa Yukizome is another good friend and is the teacher he talks with the most. He has a school level crush on her, but would rather stay friends. Chisa bashes him for smoking in front of kids.

He fucking hates Munakata, and vice versa. There's no shred of respect between them, even if they both recognize the respectable parts. He forgot his first name so he just calls him Hardass Muna.

Other than that he just makes fun of Jin Kirigiri and enjoys Kazuo Tengan for tea.

Family

Oh yeah and he has family.

His sister, Usami Monokuma, is the former Ultimate Teacher of the 74th class. They twins. It's classic sibling behavior, one makes fun of the other's bunny headband, the other kicks them in the shin really hard.

Sibling behavior.

Shirokuma and Kurokuma, the former Ultimate Nurse and Gambler respectively, are his cousins which he gets along with remotely well. Though they don't talk in person as the two both live in Towa City, a bit away.

Fuckin' bear thing

Oh yeah like the bear Monokuma is around too. It's an AI that pilots a high tech robot bear and is the highest security of Hope's Peak.

To make it kinda funny he amplified his more assholish traits while programming it, making it a wisecracking, uncaring, mascot.

Talks about salmon, the bear world, killing games, etcetera.

As a joke he made one of his sister and made it an absolute crybaby, gave it a magical girl design to continue to fuck with her.

Gave it to the Ultimate Therapist as a tool to communicate, to the absolute fucking hatred of Usmai.

Trivia!

His birthday is November 25th.

He smokes a lot.

His favorite anime is Assassination Classroom.

His hair is natural half black and half white, he doesn't know why it's like that.

He's pansexual.

He wants to have five kids after he's settled, he already thought of names and the corresponding colors.

He's a little terrified of Nagito Komaeda.

His favorite food is salmon.

[bokushingu]

I want to talk a little bit about Sakakura’s aggression because I kind of...see it differently than a lot of people do. Or at least its cause. 

I don’t think it’s necessarily him losing his temper.  I actually think a good 90% of the time is is very controlled and deliberate, and born more out of frustration than genuine rage.  

( I also know a common interpretation is that he does it to appear more masculine and less...gay, but that can’t be it either, because homosexuality in Japan is stereotyped as traditionally masculine. )

A good hint for what is actually happening underneath comes from the Serial Killer Gambling in Killer Killer. It’s kind of directly spelled out for us by Kenji Tsuruhashi, who murdered the Secretary of Defense in an effort to get Sakakura fired.  He revealed that the sixth branch had the highest turnover rate in the Future Foundation because Juzo “worked them like dogs.” 

So he’s a shit boss and branch six needs to unionize.  Is that important? 

Yes.  It is.  Because Sakakura thinks like Munakata. 

Despair, for them, is not an interpersonal war.  It isn’t a question of losing one person, one more person, or seeing an array of bloody deaths within the confines of a game.  You have to remember that the two of them have years of memories that Naegi does not.  They were outside the school when the world fell apart. Their perspective is inherently broader.  

Is that a good thing?  Not necessarily.  The loss of that interpersonal perspective on Despair is what drives the core conflict of DR3 between Munakata and Naegi.  But I do think there’s a lot of worth in how Munakata and Sakakura think. 

Because they aren’t preventing individual deaths.  They are preventing extinction. 

And that, I think, is what drives Sakakura to be the person he is.  He is extremely aware of the stakes of this war.  And in his mind, if you’re not giving 200% of yourself to it, you are directly putting the Earth and the continued existence of the human species at risk. 

On a smaller scale, this applies to the Hinata incident as well.  While there was no extinction threat, he was also very aware of the stakes of letting Hinata anywhere near the school.  Sakakura has an ability to set aside his own empathy for what he sincerely believes to be the greater good.  Was he kind of a dick about it?  Well yes.  But it wasn’t completely without reason. 

ANYWAY.  That’s all I had to say on this tonight <3 hope that made ANY sense at all <3 night night

[brynfelan]

...well i mean you asked for writing prompts and who am i to refuse???

Alright THROWBACK TIME

So remember the second ever ask I sent you a whiiiiiiiiile back??? Where Junko despaired Hajime bc he had so many relationships within class 77??? And Komaeda said "Ah, even a reserve course student doesn't want me, I am a BUG!"

That still cracks me up everytime i think of it rip Nagito

Yeah imagine that scenario (Izuru is Hajime's talented twin and KuzuKomaHina are gay af for each other again) but THIS TIME Hajime's able to get his shit together and not be despaired. He's not Junko's slave, yaaaaaaaay

Except not yay because now he's trying to fight Junko's despair tactics all on his own. Keep her away from the Reserve Course AND class 77. By himself. Doesn't tell his friends, brother, and boyfriends anything. Hajime just tries to not think about everything Junko did to him WHILE keeping his loved ones from her despair games.

Because he's Hinata "I'm a dumbass" Hajime. It's in his blood. He's a dumbass.

Someone save him from his dumbassery that i put him through he deserves better 🤣

hajime “what the fuck’s an octagon” hinata trying to beat junko the fuck up while also like... stopping the people he loves from ending up high on despair crack? incredible

he’s gotta be in like a thousand places at once and definitely at some point is spotted sprinting between the buildings with a baseball bat just in case something goes awry since she’s an ultimate

obviously doing this alone is absolutely unsustainable, so he has to recruit somebody - but he doesn’t wanna worry anybody he loves. his solution? juzo sakakura, ultimate boxer, and also the guy that is security for the main course building. this happens because he’s running towards the main course building with a baseball bat (which juzo is not having) and then has to actually fucking explain himself. so, these two boys who have absolutely had enough are running a constant sting operation together. with walkie talkies. hajime doesn’t ask where juzo gets em

it becomes this whole thing where they’re constantly updating each other and coming up with plans, hajime occasionally tells izuru he “had a weird dream” about something related - like, he had a weird dream that there was this girl that was trying to brainwash everybody and he doesn’t know what to do about it and gets weird hypothetical advice that way?

point is, juzo and hajime end up being an absolute well-oiled machine, and do eventually find junko’s hiding spot under the statue. they can’t just kill her obviously because that would be incredibly difficult to explain even with hajime’s  connections to the yakuza through his boyfriend and bad bitch best friend, but they do apprehend her pretty fuckin swiftly. if only because junko gets real bummed out about losing before she’s really begun around the time they’ve got her pinned down and being handcuffed lol just like

“i lost? wow, and i never even got to the best part. that sucks”

the aftermath though is rough because suddenly hajime has to explain why he’s appearing in court to fight a kidnapping and torture case out of nowhere to his absolutely enraged boyfriends and brother, trying to calm them all down isn’t fun in the slightest. oddly enough, after telling fuyuhiko and eventually natsumi, mukuro disappears off the face of the earth. nobody knows what happened to her. funny that innit

anyway i have now thought way too hard and i am going to bed, for anybody else that would like to send a HC/scenario i’ll likely get to it after i’ve slept for at least 4 hours lol

[uten4]

I think the charts really speak for themselves but I want to write an unnecessarily long explanation of them just for fun <3

Akise is as poor of a little meow meow as I've ever had. <3 He's done some unsavory things and I've never discounted that but at the end of the day he's just a kid and my sympathy for him is as endless as the sea. Also sometimes I think Yuki doesn't deserve him, hence "I could make him worse."

Sakakura is really really awful sometimes but I think he got a lot better towards the end and I also have a lot of gay sympathy for him. I don't want to fix him but the narrative fixed him a bit and I like it (I mean through choosing less violence, not through making sacrifices).

I feel really bad for Joshua a lot but also just 💜 He kinda sucks, you know? But he had development and still has so much potential!

Khun is honestly to my memory not as bad as a lot of these guys but he's a bit of a sly jerk and right now my gay sympathy for him is not high because I'm bitter about the lack of canonicity with regard to his gayness.

I have a ton of sympathy for Teruhashi :( She's not great sometimes but most of her crimes are just committed inside her head lol and I find it all extremely entertaining. In fact she could even stand to be a little worse if she wanted 💙

Rachel has clearly done bad things but honestly she seems slightly misunderstood or has her nuance and motivations discounted a lot. And basically the fandom bashes her 25/8 so I don't care she's my meow meow now. She doesn't have to be redeemed or anything but I think it'd be fun to see the reaction if she was. I think SIU likes her so tbh I can't wait to see him bring out more aspects of her character!

YUNOOOOO. You may think she's in the middle but actually she's both so terrible and so miserable that they just cancelled each other out and put her there. I want her to get therapy so bad 💖

I'm not into Overwatch lore at all so I don't know what Moira did but it seems like it's pretty bad LOL. I'm different though I could fix her 😌

I'm not well-versed in Canaan lore either but Alphard sucks.

Asha........................................ so terrible. I don't really want to fix her but I want her to be fixed more than anything <3

[crazynekochan]

I know that during the Tragedy, there wasn't any Internet and even if there was people probably have better things to do like not dying, but like,,, what if there were in-universe fandoms for the Ultimate Despair and Future Foundation. With memes, fan art, fan fics, etc. It's not out of the realm of possibility!

I would be surprised if they weren’t people actually building a fandom around them. I mean we have a serial killer fandom so..

It would also be possible that some places still had things like internet, considering that Towa City was untouched of the tragedy for almost 3-4 whole years, despite being very close to the town where Hope’s Peak was located. There had to be more places who were still safe from the Remnants of Despair, but knew about what was going on in the world since it was on the news almost constantly and Junko even broadcasted her killing game worldwide on every screen there was one 1 year after the tragedy began and 2-3 years before the events at Towa City

So all in all, there were probably a lot of fans of either the Future Foundation or of the Ultimate Despair, as both sides were probably the most well-known people on the planet. Though the identity of the Remnants was probably more secret as they were believed to be dead and the FF probably kept their identities hidden as much as they could to make their mission easier

Also imagine Juzo I’m-totally-not-gay-for-my-best-friend Sakakura happens to find fics and fanart of him and Munakata and just looses it x)

[jinjojess]

I honestly don't know how you, as a bi woman, can enjoy DR 100% with the way its gay characters are treated. Komaeda, gay, has a super gruesome death meant as a suicide; Mikan, bi, is the most sexualized character ever; Tenko, lesbian, is killed by an incest freak; Teruteru, bi, is a literal rapist; Ouma, gay, is crushed alive (also meant as suicide); Chihiro is a transphobic charicature and is murdered by a gay-coded man; meanwhile kaito, hetty, dies in piece before he can actually be executed.

First, I don’t enjoy DR 100%, which I assumed would be obvious given my constant bitching.

Second, the only 100% confirmed queer characters in the series are Sakakura and Nanamura (from DRK). Like it or not, everyone else is arguable in the same way that any of the “straight” characters’ sexualities are arguable. There’s certainly hints you could take from canon one way or another–for instance, there’s a lot of evidence that Komeada is romantically interested in Hinata, or that Chabashira is romantically interested in Yumeno, but I wouldn’t call their sexuality canon in the same way I wouldn’t call Momota being straight canon. re: Fujisaki, I don’t particularly like the way his storyline was handled, but as both myself and other people have mentioned before, there’s a strong possibility that his arc wasn’t attempting to talk about trans people to begin with anyway. Tsumiki’s treatment makes me pretty uncomfortable, even despite how blase I tend to be regarding fanservice, but that would be the case regardless of gender or sexuality.

Also, what about all the characters who are hinted to be queer who are awesome, and conveniently are left out of this ask? Sakakura was one of the few characters designed to have an arc in DR3, and a sympathetic one at that. I consider Junko pan, and not everyone has to, but if you’re gonna call Tsumiki bi, then that makes Junko bi or pan, and she’s one of the flagship characters and a goddamn BAMF. Momota, one of the Good Guys in V3, gets ship-teased with Saihara the entire game, and Saihara himself, main character of V3, is “proven” bi by nature of the love hotel and post-game dating sim. Kiibo is textually nonbinary and is portrayed as honorable and good by the narrative. Ishimaru is like a fucking gay icon here in Japan and his worst trait is considered to be that he dies too early. Sakura! Komaru is the hero of DR:AE and you could read that entire game as being about her and Fukawa falling in love and becoming better people for it. Sakura!!!

Third, characters dying is exactly what I like in DR, so having queer characters die has never bothered me. It will never bother me. I am a queer woman who likes tragedy, and so I’m more invested if my favorites die in horrible, pathos-riddled ways. If being queer gave a character plot armor, I’d be pretty bored and kind of insulted, actually.

Fourth, queer people are people. We aren’t some magical unicorns that have to be held to a higher standard–we’re fucking shitty ass people like everyone else on the planet, and therefore some of us are, in reality, rapists or murderers or tax evaders. I see nothing wrong with that being reflected in fiction. I realize that there is a segment of the population that disagrees, but hey, that’s their business and I won’t belittle them for not wanting to partake in fiction like that. However, I won’t stand by and be told that I’m not allowed to like it either or I’m a Bad Gay.

Finally, I’m fucking old. Back in my day, having your gay ship canonized was a dream of a dream, finding fic or fanart for what you liked was a terrible, constant scavenger hunt, and if you created your own fanwork, you got hounded by people furious that you’d deviate from the canon het pairing and dirty their precious faves with your filthy, gay feels.

So I guess like, it bothers me less? When it comes to queer rep I don’t really expect much, especially in Japanese media that isn’t part of niche stuff specifically aimed at queer people. I grew up having to fill in what I wanted from canon myself rather than realistically expect that I’d get it from the creators. So when it comes to questionable queer rep in media from a society that’s still coming around to accepting queer people, my reaction is less outrage and more “well no shit.”

I don’t want to say you kids are spoiled these days, but basically, you kids are spoiled these days. 

[k2-b0]

do all of those asks you stupid bitch

ok ugly i cant believe youre making me do this ... when did you get in the fandom? early 2015! i saw the anime and instantly fell in love! i wanted more content and took to YouTube, where i was confused for a month before figuring out danganronpa is a game T_TDid you have any experience with the fandom prior to joining it? What opinion did you have then?yes! in 2014 i had seen a lot of things about komaeda and junko that seemed interesting, but i was 10/11 & didn’t know much. I thought it was a Grown Up thing to be into Did being in the fandom make you realise some important things about life? Which?i realized that life isn’t all about internet discourse and fighting. sometimes you’ve just gotta let things go. also i realized that i thought junko was hot and became gayDid you get any content spoilers from the fandom?for dr1, no. sdr2 i was spoiled about chiaki in the nicob comment section/accidentally read the wiki on mikan, and ndrv3... well, i sort of intentionally sought out spoilers as soon as (and before) the game was released. i watched the banned streams and everything Bought any merch?yep! my sakakura figurine is at my moms house!Nicest thing someone from the fandom has done to you?someone drew me some art after i requested it once! it was really nice of them ^^Meanest thing someone from the fandom has done to you?nothing really mean has been done to i think? the people i interact with are really nice! although once i got linked to a suicide hotline and was called insensitive after saying kms in an ask :(Did you ever have a crush on someone from the fandom?ajagshjshJAKHSSJJD pass. i cant remember their nameDo you find anyone in the fandom inspiring?all of the writers and artists and editors are very inspiring to me. this fandom pushed me to create more myselfHas fandom made you want to create original content?yes! read my fucking fics *cocks gun*Have you traveled because of the fandom events?no im poorDid you try any new foods influenced by the fandom?what would there be to try? butter? Cosplay? Yes, no?if i could, yes! but ive never actually cosplayed :(Any special songs from or which you relate to the fandom?i relate pretty little psycho to the fandom (bc of the edgelords) & also set it off bc i found out about the name of the anime through some nightcore song. the whole soundtrack rocks thoughDid you make any good friends within the fandom? kshsjsnanjs uh. Uh. UH. fuck idk if they actually like me as a friend but here’s the criteria: if you’ve got my discord? i consider u a good friend. if we’re mutuals i consider you a friend with potential to become Good friends (if we’re mutuals and you would like to have my discord, dm me!)Does this fandom remind you of any old fandoms you’ve been in?corpse party for the games content, hetalia for the stupid shitty annoying discourse. ofc it’s not as bad as hetalia, though (fuck hetalia lives)What would you suggest to the new fans?don’t let people police your experience & make your stay in the fandom shitty. ive been around for a while and trust me, you can say you kin komaeda, you can call ouma a cinnamon roll, you can headcanon characters as gay or trans or Alive, you can ship or like that “cringy” thing that’s been condemned. ppl don’t need to have a say on what makes you happy! live and let live, as long as you’re being kind & not nasty. Also, Avoid The Piss Fic :)thank you for the ask you ugly dumbass

[kiichu]

Juzo Sakakura?

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: Well the first thing I noticed/liked about him was that he was a jerk. And I love me some jerks. But beyond that, he’s an incredibly loyal and amazing character. He loves Munakata with all his heart, and god… he’s just so wonderful.least favorite thing about them: I wish he’d care about himself more. Like, I want him to believe he’s worthy of love, and that him being gay or being in love with Munakata or whatever isn’t a bad thing. Junko manipulated him, and he isn’t at fault for the end of the world. If he’d have let Munakata know about her, she would’ve manipulated others and still gotten her way. Juzo isn’t to blame.favorite line: “Even if you abandoned me… I still… want you to live…” brOTP: If Munakata can’t be his boyfriend, then I’ll brOTP them. But also, Juzo/Chisa brOTP! OTP: MunaSaka ♥nOTP: Juzo/Junko? Is that a thing? It shouldn’t ever be a thing. No.random headcanon: His parents weren’t very warm people, and hardly paid attention to him. He took to hanging out with Munakata and Chisa more throughout high school, and they became his found family. song i associate with them: I actually found a new one recently! Killer in the Mirror by Set It Off.favorite picture of them: I have a lot of fave pics of him, but here is one of them:

I like how he’s sitting like a puppy by Munakata.

[alexis-royce]

How about Danganronpa? For least favourite character thing :>

Hehehe, I’ll go through all of them. Spoilers for the whole damn series under the cut.

DR1-

Least Favorite: Hagakure. For most of the DR1 cast, I was surprised by the amount of loyalty and friendship I felt upon learning their real motivations. He's climbed in my esteem since End of Kibogamine, but finishing his route really took me by surprise. That he didn't really view Naegi/Me as a friend, but was trying to exhort money from me, even after everything that had happened. It goes to show how deeply DR1 got me to buy in, that something like that felt like it was in such bad taste.

Favorite: Fukawa. What a joy, what a treat, the best character in the franchise. Approach-avoidance has never been written so well. Her self-loathing is both pitable and wholly loathsome; she spends all her time writing about her thirst but never actually interacting with anyone. I immediately mainlined her social link. And when talk of Genocider Syo started to get tossed around, I knew. Before the game even started hinting, I KNEW. Fukawa was the only member of the cast with the right psychology to have another one up in there. It was clear as day.

I like Syo all right too; she’s a monster but I admit to giving her the benefit of comic relief. But Fukawa is awesome.

DR2-

Least Favorite: Koizumi. Man-hater characters are one of my least favorite tropes. I wrote two whole paragraphs on it before realizing that my opinion here is a mite too nuanced and way off-topic. Her backstory also feels a little empty, though I like the thing about photographing smiling people. That's nice.

Favorite: Komaeda- Look, if you’ve only come into contact with this character as a meme, let me tell you right now why he’s awesome.

Have you ever felt scared to be happy? Have you ever had something good happen to you, and found yourself unable to enjoy that good fortune? Have you ever kept yourself from being happy, because you knew it would hurt so much more when you lost it?

Komaeda is the embodiment of what it is like to wrestle with that fear. And a chilling look at the psychology of the player.

Playing through the start of DR2, my wife would ask me “why do you play this creepy game? The first one made you cry!” And I would tell them, “This is how fiction works. If you endure pain, and risk an unhappy ending, the happy conclusion is so much stronger! And there’s nothing creepy about that.”

And then Komaeda arrived. Calling my argument. An elegant, timely rebuttal.

Ultra Despair Girls:

Least Favorite: Shirokuma. When he was on screen, I knew the gameplay was going to be awful. He's also only time Junko has fulfilled her role as a present mastermind character. Dis bear fulla despair.

Favorite: FUKAWA. This isn’t cheating. The shoots of growth from the first game blossomed into strong branches. She’s learning to trust, learning how to support others, and she and Komaru make a hell of a team. I love her. This game was a gift.(Runners up are either literal ray of sunshine Komaru, or dumb child Nagisa. Why do they keep making young long-blue-haired child characters whose abusive mothers treat them as stat-grind games instead of children? And why do they keep naming them Nagisa? Stop this.)

End of Kibogamine:

Least Favorite: Sakakura. He was an adult guard who beat up kids. That should really be enough, right there. He's an asshole in Killer Killer too. He talked a big game about being tough, but betrayed his post and beloved to the Ultimate Despair just to hide his sexuality. And in beating up Hajime, he pushed him over the edge to become Izuru. A lot of people seemed to forgive him as soon as he was confirmed Canon Gay.

Uhm.

I, too, was a closeted Canon Gay, and any frustration from that does not give me the right to be shitty to other people. Sorry Mr. Boxer, but there ain't enough woobie in the world to soften those mistakes.

Favorite: Hajime/Izuru. I'm darn proud of that boy for striking that balance, and achieving the impossible. Luff you.

V3

Least Favorite: Tenko. Welcome back, man-hater characterization! And how about we double up on it by having her be a sexually predatory "lesbian but not really?" I guess she at least had a better motivation for the man hating than Koizumi. But the predatory lesbian stuff just doesn't strike me as funny or endearing. Especially when the object of her affections is coded as a younger person who consistently rebuffs her.

Maybe I'm being harsh? I don't know. But I feel like joke predatory lesbian characters in anime are worse than no representation. Taken from one angle, they stereotype lebians as dangerous to the women around them, and at another, make a joke out of the idea that lesbians could be dangerous at all. And yeah. It doesn't matter what your gender is, you can totally abuse your partner.

Still, it's not exactly a problem limited to Danganronpa. It's an anime stock character, which is why it bothers me. I don't feel like this element of her character is questioned or explored. I don't mind flawed or evil characters. It's "problematic." Which doesn't make her wretched or worthy to be burned. Just not the best, and gets the side-eye from me.

Favorite: Kokichi. Yuuuup. I'm gonna double down. Picking Komaeda and Kokichi for the favs list. No apologies. The fandom, and teen girls as a whole, have better taste than anyone gives them credit for. I'm kinda sad that the writers put their thesis statement so bluntly, when they'd already done such a magnificent job with Kokichi. He's a living lie. He's the axle on which the entire game's theme turns.

I'm a GM. And I write and draw fiction for a living. I love lies the way I love sweets and alcoholic drinks. They are intoxicating, fun to make and even more fun to share. But they can also hurt people. Both of them can poison. Both of them can be used with pinpoint precision to kill.

Kokichi is so easy to hate, and so easy to love. He's a lot of fun, but he's also intensely infuriating. He betrays your trust over and over and leaves you on shaky ground. But he also makes moves to try to keep hope alive, and he's the most Danganronpa-psycho-pop/cool-stylish of the entire cast.

But beneath all the lies, there are a few character traits of which we can be sure:

-Kokichi deeply wants to connect with others

-But Kokichi would rather die than be thought of as boring, so he has to act up,

-Since he lies all the time, he can never trust others when they say they do care about him.

-So he can only connect through others by trying to be interesting, and by being his infuriating liar self.

As a metaphor and as a real flesh and blood person, Kokichi is marvelously written.

And also let's be honest here phantom thieves have been my jaaam ever since I was young reading Saint Tail and the Arsene Lupin stories; so his mess is just marvelous.

[prompt-master]

so far my list is def queer : nekomaru, mikan, sakakura, nagito, kokichi, tenko, shuichi, kiibo & korekiyo. then implied/context reading: taka, mondo, hina, sakura, kaede (all her interactions w the girls omg) twogami, arguably hajime in island mode, maybe rantaro...? that’s what i’ve got but what r ur thoughts

Twogami and Akamatsu are not arguably queer. Akamatsu straight up called a girl sexy KDKXKDK and twogami's gender is listed as "???" You also forgot mioda for definently queer. Amami is only "coded" because of some like gay jokes Shirogane made, but i dont remember him showing any actual evidence of being queer?

Also if you count anthology as evidence id bump asahina to canon