#I was actually trying to play with Kaito a bit in my fic in which Aoi and Minoru have a lot of important

[digisurvive]

I was gonna send this ask days earlier (but then I forgot) but actually the Kaito scene I was referring to was the one in the factory. I just think it's a nice insight into Kaito, he knows he's fucking up and he's trying Really Hard Not To but it's not easy.

I really appreciate what they did with Kaito I think they could of made both of him into just...horrible irredeemable pieces of shit and not make him part of the main cast (or kill him off). But he isn't, and I like that the game doesn't write them like that.

Maybe I just care a lot about siblings in fiction but I really like Kaito because of how much he fucks up! Because he really does try, the game does Not let you brush him off as just a terrible brother.

Kaito is Hard to Talk To and is a Jerk but he's genuinely trying his best and carrying loads of baggage. You could brush him off but that won't actually...solve anything, Kaito will still be stuck where he is which is bad for both him and Miu.

Though, what I've seen Kaito is a more lukewarm character, not hated in the same way a certain glasses boy is but definitely not as liked as the rest and it's probably because 90% of the time he's Violence Protect Miu Violence ohmaybeIdocareaboutthesepeople Violence.

Though...Kaito is kinda in a situation where it's hard to write him outside of his relationship with Miu, because he as a character is just so centered around Miu and, again he is horrible at expressing his emotions which makes him seem less complex than he actually is.

Honestly like most people I wish they killed Kaito in Harmony instead of Miu. I can imagine him swooping in to protect Miu at the last second and getting dragged off, so he still gets killed by his goal to protect Miu while we get to see how Miu really really feels about his brother and, in a roundabout way, more insight into Kaito.

(I'm now also vaguely reminded of this one VN that had a character who's main flaw was not trusting anyone so they couldn't write him getting into any close moments with the other members of the cast so using ghosts (whole thing) they change the POV character in his route to him so they could keep that trait while still letting you get insights into his character.)

Oh I rambled a lot...very sorry! I Just...Kaito....ough...

Ah, I know what scene you're talking about now!! My bad for getting confused, I had recently replayed act 9 and I was like akdkdkkdkg *foaming at the mouth about the slap in the gym :[*

But I see where you're coming from, particularly in this franchise with a lot of protective older brothers, we tend to see them in right for wanting to protect them little siblings and Kaito is just.... So wrong even when you understand where he is coming from.

I don't know about how the fandom feels about him despite the fact I do check the tag (in general, I don't think there's that much fan engagement for this VN </3), so I'll only talk about my thoughts about him. I tend to go through periods where I really like him and periods where he really gets on my nerves because of the stuff you wrote in the ask. He can be difficult in the sense you wish Takuma would confront him directly (but in true Takuma fashion, he's very mindful not to overstep his boundaries most of the time), but I think the fact one of the more consisten ways to raise his affinity is to leave him alone speaks volumes about how he's used to getting by, trying to solve everything on his own and not being used to be relied on by other ppl nor relying on others. He's also a kid who's really been neglected and has had to shoulder a lot of responsibility so it makes sense for him to be more than a little neurotic 😂 I think it's a feat for the writing to still be able to portray his proclivity for violence in a way that feels unsavory when this franchise is all action and fights (Thats one thing I did wish Survive had been able to pull off better. To give you feasible alternatives that aren't fighting for some of the plot beats, but that's for another post).

He does have his nuances, like how he's aware that he can be a pain in the ass and difficult to deal with. And wrong, most importantly. I think a lot about that Wrathful dialogue he has with Aoi where she's lamenting her final defeat as Plutomon bc... She was supposed to finally have the power and agency not to make mistakes anymore! And Kaito tells her there's no such a thing as someone who doesn't make mistakes and he himself has had to rely a lot on the others to tell him he's wrong 💔 (which really reminds you of how hard Takuma works to get him to go with the group to the amusement park in pt4, how he has to very timidly set the example for him in act 6 and etc...) I honestly like him a lot in Wrathful, I think it's where you get to see a new side of him even if in a really bittersweet way.

Speaking of how he knows he's in the wrong, I do like a lot that moment in Truthful where to raise affinity with him, you have to tell him to give Miu some space while they're looking for the Northern shrine. I think it speaks volumes about how his friendship with Takuma has evolved that he's at a point where he won't see it as a stranger sticking his nose where he shouldn't. He's just such a family little man, In a US vs the world mentality, it's interesting to see him grow to consider Dracmon family too and slowly reconsider who's important to him beyond that narrow social circle.

Switching Kaito's and Miu's places would indeed be interesting (and I Def Get where People are coming from with this angle for a myriad of reasons), yeah, but I also Love Aoi and Kaito as foils so I still like what we got 😂😂

ANYWAY. thanks for the ask, I love talking about digisurvive w/ u, so ur welcome to ramble anytime

[bye-bye-firefly]

thank the dearest @reflect-re for the amazing video!!!

you will hear more about them if you decide to read the fic and the a/ns

NAMELESS

↪ SUMMARY...

After Kaede's disappearance, Shuichi is left trying to find her with no leads, until Kokichi Oma, a self-proclaimed paranormal investigator, offers his help. Sending Shuichi headfirst into the unknown, a few unwanted truths emerge and he finds himself at a crossroads.

Some of my friends (and my) favourite excerpts under the cut! It gets long, so fair warning.

(if you are wondering where the link is, the title is a hyperlink, not an underline!)

EXCERPTS

Stained windows, each holding the same picture up, let the sun gleam inside the hall even though upstairs, it was completely dark. On the ceiling, there were paintings of angels and heaven and God and Christianity but the house, unholy, seemed to stretch far, far into the distance- so far that Shuichi didn't think there was an end. This hallway had to be infinite. There was nothing to find at the end if there was an end. "But there has to be an end."

-- Chapter 1

"I am K1-B0. My friends call me Keebo." Shuichi knitted his brows, but when he looked at his neck, it became clear. Despite being dressed in normal clothes, there were still parts of his circuitry that were completely visible. This was a robot. Miu walked to Keebo's side and wrapped an arm around him and he staggered like a human would, his face turning into a natural smile. It was eerie how well he could replicate human expression, but it felt so genuine at the same time. Miu's voice boomed through the room as she yelled, "This is my proudest creation! Look at him! Isn't he fuckin' cool?! I'm a fuckin' genius!" Miu bent her knees a bit to put her face side-by-side with Keebo's, her eyes bright while Keebo's seemed to dim as he knew what was coming.

-- Chapter 6

"Are you happy you woke up to follow me?" He smiled and nodded. "I think I'll follow you anywhere."

-- Chapter 6

"Shuichi?" He perked his head up and looked at Kokichi. "I'll follow you," he said on impulse, though he didn't mean to let that out. Kokichi smiled anyway.

-- Chapter 20

"Fate line. It looks like yours breaks a lot, but it's also really deep. External forces guide your fate, but you're also controlled by it." Kokichi frowned at this, stroking it gently. "It starts at the thumb, so you get a lot of support from your family and friends." Shuichi noticed how he looked at the line and, even though he thought it was kind of silly, asked, "What's your fate line look like?" Kokichi snapped out of his moment of melancholy and showed him his palm, pointing at the fate line for him. "Mine joins the life line in the middle, which means that at some point, I have to start making sacrifices. Mine's also deep. We're both controlled by fate." He nodded and watched Kokichi's reaction to that explanation, the way his eyes stared at their fate lines as if they were completely, totally true.

-- Chapter 18

Re's Collection

"This Kokichi guy…do you trust him?" "Yeah, I do." Kaito stared at him as if he'd lost his mind, unsure of whether to say what he thought or not. Shuichi knew, though. It was so easy to tell what he was thinking. ... With a bit more conviction, he said, "I don't trust this Kokichi guy." "You keep calling him 'this Kokichi guy.' Just his name would do."

-- Chapter 2

"You're that Kokichi guy." "That's me."

-- Chapter 4

"S-Sorry. I wasn't listening. Um, what were you saying?" "I was just talking about Kaede, but I guess you were too busy thinking about that Kokichi guy."

-- Chapter 6

"Okay, this Kokichi guy has to go up. Come on, let's see it." "See what?" Shuichi could tell he was thinking if he played dumb that he could get out of this.

-- Chapter 8

they do have actual scenes they like though LMAO

His headphone fell out of his ear and loud ringing jolted his senses. His shoulders shook in a way that should have made Kaede fall off, but instead, he looked over and saw parts of her head missing, oozing more and more wax that consumed his memory. "What's that supposed to mean?" She laughed and turned to face him, those rhinestone eyes looking right through him.

-- Chapter 8

Warning: graphic description of strangulation + near death for next quote.

That was when he saw a faceless version of himself. His eyes widened and he felt his grip get looser as the two stared at each other. This was wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't possible. How was this happening? How could this place harbour...whatever this was?! It took the opportunity of shock and slammed him back, now on top of him. He tried to wriggle around to fight back, but it quickly sat on top of his legs and punched his cheek, knocking his head to the right. He caught sight of a rock and started reaching for it as two fists wrapped around his throat. With one hand, he fought against its arms that felt all too similar to his own and with the other, reached for the stone. He could feel his insides burning and begging for air. Involuntarily, he squirmed and tried gasping for air, which only made the thing above him slam his head into the ground. Out of frustration, he started grabbing for anything- grass, dirt, flowers- and started hammering his fists into its side, but it didn't do anything. His head felt like it was about to pop. His body wanted to fight, but every bit of muscle in his arms and legs was on fire. His vision was stars. He wondered if Kaede could see him, wherever she was. That was the first time he ever considered she might be dead. He hoped that if he was going to die, she was dead with him. What a morbid thought, huh? He stared up at this thing that was killing him, knowing the hilarity of being strangled by himself- suicide or murder? Who knew? Who cared?- and remembered something. Shadowless noons were called Lahaina noon. Kaede told him that when she had to do a concert in Hawaii coincidentally during Lahaina noon. Time was going by so slowly. He...almost felt peace knowing he would die. Still, poor Luna would be alone. Kaito gave up the moon for Kaede and him, and they were dead. He hadn't spoken to Maki in so long. God, he hadn't thought about her in so long. How long had it been since they last spoke? How bad was she going to take his death? Fuck it. It didn't matter anyway. It was too late for him. Kokichi came over screaming and kicked the thing in the head. His throat was freed and he took in a deep breath. Like a baby taking his first breath, he started crying and writhed on the ground. He just kept gasping for air and held his throat as he watched Kokichi kick it away from him. It crawled away and then it did the strangest thing. It shed his skin, got on all fours, and trotted away like an animal.

-- Chapter 2

-- Chapter 28

[hetaari]

2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21,22 and 24 for that writing ask game :)

Fun fact it took me ten thousand years to answer this bc this ask was apparently long enough to crash the app multiple times whilst I was answering it lmao

*cracks knuckles, cracks neck, cracks spine*

2: Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Augh I want to. Hurry to get to the interesting bits of An Unconventional Sort Of Enployment quickly!!! I’m editing the chapters that were already published bc I must’ve gotten so excited to publish them that they came out rushed :/// what I’m looking forward to most is developing relationships! I plan for everything to remain non-romantic bc I’m not good at writing romance lmao but that doesn’t make it any less fulfilling! Developing platonic relationships is actually one of my favorite things to write so I’m really looking forward to it

3: What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

It’s actually a whole fic idea and also it’s vocaloid so maybe you wouldn’t find it very interesting but anyway. It’s like:

Kaito: have you ever wondered what it’s be like to be someone else

Len: ???? Are you depressed again

Kaito: no I was just thinking about it

Len: I can help you with that

So Kaito changes his name (well, barely, it’s only one letter off) and pretends to be a girl but! He’s inadvertently committing identity theft bc the lady he’s pretending to be already exists and is actually related to him but he somehow completely forgot, and all his friends know her but either they actually thought he was her or they also forgot that she exists too

5: What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

(Previously answered) Do ocs count? Madeleine wasn’t supposed to be a self-insert at all but at some point whilst I was drafting I was like “ah fuck that’s me innit” bc I realized her personality was far too similar to mine lol

6: What character do you have the most fun writing?

(Previously answered) Germany. I love making him miserable in particular. Also Japan, the way he speaks is so satisfying, same with Russia

8: Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Generally yes, but—and I don’t mean to come off as someone who doesn’t read books—why is smut in fanfiction often better written than smut in published books? Is it censorship? A stylistic choice? Published smut often feels so weird and cringe in the way it’s written and I don’t understand why…In fact, fanfiction and standard published books really hit different in general, for better or for worse

11: What do you envy in other writers?

I feel a bit like I’ve stagnated. I’m writing the same things over and over again so I see someone else has written something radical I’m like “damn why didn’t I think of that” so I should really try doing something different…and while I know that the worth of written works is not in their length, I see so many writers put so much emphasis on the length of their works and it’s a bit discouraging as someone more used to brevity

13: Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

Yeah lol. My ao3 is here lol. But yeah I’ve been playing around with an original work for a bit actually. Might consider talking about it more. Anything else I’ve kept to myself are just things that I couldn’t finish

15: Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

It depends but mainly titles. Summaries I have the least problems with because if all else fails, I can simply make the summary a phrase that’s connected to the title, but that may become a problem if I don’t have a title lmao. In the case of gore however, that’s when I struggle a bit with tags, like “this isn’t extreme to me, but would other people find it too much?” because if it is extreme, I don’t want to want to have people let their guard down, but if it isn’t extreme, I don’t want to falsely advertise

17: Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

Yeah, I believe art looks a bit different depending on the eye of the beholder, no matter how slightly. I don’t think my motivations are very surprising or complicated—they’re pretty much along the lines of “hey you know what would be interesting?”

20: Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

Okay first of all I’m sorry for talking about Welcome Back again, it’s my first completed multi chapter work so I’m a bit proud it, like it’s my firstborn child lol.

The way I went about it is actually something I want to repeat—taking a canon moment (in this case, Vene getting kicked out and later being sent back to Germany in a box) and going in a wildly different direction with it. It was supposed to remain a one shot but I suddenly decided to continue it, which is why the transition between the first and second chapter may seem a little odd.

Vene did kind of turn out to be kind of the antagonist though, not that he meant it. But it was a lose-lose situation i think, because he effectively fucked Germany up by telling him he was a country in the first place, but at the same time, it was really fucking weird that Germany would just live his life not knowing about a crucial part of his existence! Not really knowing what else to do, Vene just decided to wipe Germany’s memory just to put him out of his misery. Of course, that may not last forever—even though everyone was sworn to secrecy, somebody is bound to slip up, or Germany may become concerned as to why he hasn’t looked a day past 20 in years (though, knowing how he lived his life before, not once questioning it at all, this is kind of unlikely) but mark his words, Vene would wipe Germany’s memories as many times as he’d have to, even if it does hurt to do so

Also a big fan of how vene and Germany telling each other welcome back for different yet similar reasons—Germany when vene kept showing up at his house after being thrown out, even when he came back quite literally dead; and Vene, even though Germany didn’t technically leave, but he seemed alive again after being put back in the dark about his true nature

21: What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Probably comics? I might just be saying this since my paragraphs and dialogue don’t tend to be very long most of the time, which would fit well in a comic strip

22: Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

(Previously answered) Occasionally. Some of them still hold up, but others? I Can Tell They’re Old.

24: Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Absolutely. I’ve gained a wider vocabulary, and just the general way I structure sentences has changed a bit since I started writing seriously again two years ago. They also increased in length somewhat and are just less sloppy in general

[cleflink]

Hiya! Your Secret Santa again!!

Sorry about that first question, I didn’t mean for it to be such a loaded question, but I’m quite glad that I did. Believe it or not, I’ve never read any of those actually, though I’ve certainly heard of “A Study in Scarlet” and I am quite interested in Shadow Chase (still meaning to start that, btw, I just keep getting distracted JDHKSLFSDF). So no worries about recommending me any of those, because I probably wouldn’t have read any of them without it!

 Truth be told, I do shy a bit from Kaishin stories because a majority seem to mischaracterize certain characters, especially when concerning Kaito. But since starting Scion (which is really good, so far! I’m only less than a quarter through, but I’m enjoying it a lot!) I see your handle of the characters and so I have higher hopes for the fics.

 That all aside, I’ve begun working on your gift, and as I was brainstorming I began to wonder: What are your thoughts on Hakuba? Which, that question then lead me to wonder what your favorite KID heist might be? I’m approaching “KID and the Four Masterpieces” in my current watch-through, so he’s a bit on my mind at the moment. So yeah, questions for thought! I hope you’re having a lovely day! Take care ^^

–Your DCMKSS

P.S. I do appreciate the Doctor Who reference, it has been quite a while since I’ve read a good “Allons-y” I’m sad to say, so I must thank you for the dose of nostalgia.

Oh no, it was a great question! I just had to take a couple of days to gather my links thoughts enough to answer! ^_^; I certainly agree with you that character behaviour in fics can be rather hit or miss, which is tricky when the characters you love might not do the things you love about them. I'm very glad you are liking Scion so far, though! Trying to keep the characters in character is one of my main priorities as a fanfic writer, so I hope that they feel true to you.

I like Hakuba! His dynamic with Kaito has so much potential (not-quite enemies, but not-not friends either is such a cool dichotomy!), and I love how different it is from Kaito's dynamic with Conan/Shinichi. The constant game of 'I know you know that I know' and plausible deniability that they're constantly playing makes for a fascinating potential plot complication. I don't ship them personally, but I can see why people do for sure. I feel like Hakuba gets done a little dirty by canon (and fandom, sometimes), but he's still a good guy.

My favourite KID heist is SUCH a hard question to answer - there are so many good ones! How do you choose just one? (Kaito is my favourite, have I mentioned? I love him to a degree that is ridiculous).The more recent heists have been disappointing to me, personally, because he feels more like a plot device than an opponent, but any case that allows him to be the clever flash bastard he is is a win in my book. Do you have a favourite heist?

Hmm, if I had to pick one favourite, it would probably be the Miraculous Midair Walk. KID just has so much goddamn STYLE in that one, and I love watching Conan work his way through eliminating the impossible to come to the solution. Also, it's not a heist, but I will always have a fondness for the Magic Lovers Murder Case. KID going undercover to solve mysteries! Conan and KID working together! Dramatic showdowns after all the murder stuff is dealt with! AMAZING.

Sometimes, one just has to channel the Tenth Doctor, you know how it is. I'm delighted to have given you a little shot of nostalgia! Have a lovely day, Santa! Take care of yourself as well!

[kaitoisapowerbottom1]

I once had an idea for a DCMK fic where Kaito ended up living with the Nakamoris... as KID. The idea went that during a showdown with Snake Kaito would be injured and incapacitated enough that we would be unable to escape and they as a result would barge into the confrontation just in time to see Snake threatening the Kaitou KID, THEIR thief, over a jewel and spouting all sorts of nonsense about a crime syndicate and immortality. While they were able to save KID from that situation, unfortunately Snake and his group escaped and left a far too injured to escape Kaito to provide some sort of explanation for what the fuck they just walked into. So, placed in a position where he was forced to reveal his motives, Kaito explains in the vaguest terms possible that he is the son of the former Kaitou KID who was murder eight years ago by Snake because he was attempting to keep a mythical jewel that they believed could grant immortality out of their grasp and it all goes into this conspiracy with police corruption an Kaitou KID being placed into a sort of psuedo witness protection where he end up having to live with a Task Force member all while trying to keep his identity as Kuroba Kaito safe. Part if the agreement is that he gets to choose who he lives with (due to him being insistent if he is to be placed anywhere against his will it be with someone he can actually trust which actually warns Nakamori's heart a bit to think the KID trust him) and that he gets to keep his real name and face hidden throughout his time living there, also his assistant and him both would receive full pardons at the end of this provided they continue to use their heists to assist the police force in the future. However he is not allowed to commit any form of theft, breaking and entering, or heist without Nakamori-keibu's approval. And so Kaito makes arrangements with Jii to have Kuroba Kaito go move to America to be with his mother and study magic and Las Vegas while KID moves in with the Nakamoris and it's all a bunch of Nakamori Family/Kaitou KID bonding from there and at one point there's gonna be a heist where Chikage uses a KID style post card to make the Task Force think a copycat is out to steal a jewel using KID's name (which they inevitably bring KID handcuffed to Nakamori because Kaito asked for the chance to prove he didn't send that notice) only for the target of the heist to be KID himself cuz "Dammit its *insert holiday* and I wanna spend it with my Baby Dove! You call can have him back in 24 hours!" Effectively embarrassing Kaito in front of the entire police department

Problem is I don't believe I can do this story justice so I thought I'd tell you about it

This is sooooooo cute, thank you!!!!

I love Kaito + Nakamori(s) bonding. There's litterary nothing better then Papa Nakamori.

I'm intrigued as to how they bond, do they play board games?

Nakamori freaking out because Kid is a literal child (Kaito in the background: Aehm I'm seventeen). A literal Baby!!!!!!

Nakamori going into Papa mode over Kid is such a concept

[electric-sky-cafe]

Sweet Surprise Kiss

Have a self-indulgent Kiibouma fic I whipped up. Non-despair AU!

@kotokos-cafe I know you said you were excited to see my writing, and here it is! Plus, I just want to offer you something good.

It was almost midnight at Saishuu Academy, but Kokichi, Kiibo, Shuichi, Kaede, and Maki weren't ready to go to sleep yet. They were having a sleepover, currently playing Truth or Dare. Kaede had just dared Kokichi to try and do a handstand, and now that he had, albeit to failure, it was his turn to spin the bottle.

His pale hand touched the cap, and he took a deep breath before asking, "Okay, everyone. Ready?" The response was various shouts of "just get it over with!". Kokichi jumped a bit in surprise and muttered, "Okay, okay, geez..." under his breath. With a forceful swipe, he spun the bottle, and it landed on...

Kiibo.

"Haha, yes! This'll be fun!" Kokichi yelled with a fist-pump, to a shushing from Kirumi nearby. Kiibo put a hand on his forehead. This was just their luck, wasn't it? Let's just get this over with, he supposed, sighing as Kokichi pointed to him and said with a mischievous pep in his voice, "Alllllllright, Kiiboy! Truth or dare?"

"...Dare. I don't wish to be regarded as cowardly."

A resounding gasp echoed throughout the group. They were really expecting Kiibo to choose truth. Kokichi took a little bit of time to think about it, before smirking and saying, "Okay then, Kiiboy! I dare you to kiss your crush!"

Kiibo's cheeks dusted blue. Kokichi might have been saying this all in good fun, but here was the thing: he was actually Kiibo's crush! Trembling a bit, Kiibo crawled towards Kokichi, minding the bottle in the center of the circle. They let out a shaky sigh, fidgeting with their platinum hair, and stuttered out, "K-kokichi, are you s-sure it's okay?"

"I'm the one who dared you to do it, am I not?"

"B-but, Kokichi, y-you don't unde-"

"KIIBO! I promise you, I'll support you no matter who you like."

"...okay. Let's just get this over with."

Kiibo sighed and brought his hands up to cup Kokichi's cheeks, leaning towards him for the kiss. Their face lit up sky blue across the bridge of their nose, and they were increasingly nervous but tried not to focus too much on that.

"K-kiiboy-? What are you-!?"

Before Kokichi could finish that sentence, Kiibo's lips made contact with his, causing both to blush intensely. His stomach started to ache with butterflies as the robot leaned in closer. However, he didn't push away. He just sort of allowed the kiss to happen until he finally decided to pull away.

Both sat there, silent and still. Kiibo hid their face in their collar, hiding their blush as they waited for it to calm. Meanwhile, Kokichi was still processing what just happened. It took a few minutes to make sense of it, but when he did manage to...

"Y-YOU LIKE ME!?!"

"Sh-sh-sh, not so loud! But yeah."

"Wow...I can't believe how oblivious I've been," Kokichi muttered. "All I can say is that..." He stood up and gave Kiibo a kiss on the forehead, which only stood to make him blush even more. "You can consider your feelings reciprocated!"

"W-wait, really!?"

"Mhm! And that's no lie!"

Kiibo leapt onto Kokichi in a hug, and how could they not when they were so happy! He jumped back a little, but hugged back regardless with a small giggle. They both just loved each other so much. "So, are you going to spin, Kiibo?" Maki suddenly piped up, breaking the mood.

"Wow, wait to ruin the romantic mood, Maki Roll," Kiibo said, rolling his eyes. Despite that, and Maki's ranting about how only Kaito was allowed to call her Maki Roll, they returned to their spot in the circle, in a better mood now that they had some reassurance.

[rovelae]

Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           He really wishes Shuichi was here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Like a killing game.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           ….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Um… Kokichi?”

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

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

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

           “It’s about Kaito.”

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

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

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

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

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

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

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

           Was that a lie?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Huh…?”

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

           So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           It’s a lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           I love you.

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

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

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

           Which do you think?

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

             “How did you know?” he finally croaks.

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

           Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           But still….

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

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

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

           Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

           “I promise, Kokichi.”

…        

           “Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

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

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

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

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

           Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

           “Trust me,” he murmurs.        

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

           Trustworthy….

           “I do trust you,” he realizes.

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

             And that’s a wrap!

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

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

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

           Until next time!

[takaraphoenix]

X for the ask game uvu

Thanks for playing! ^o^

X. Excitement - Which of your fics seems to generate the most excitement?

Excitement as me as the writer? Right now, quite genuinely, The White Collar Phantom Thief. I've never actually written a multi-chapter KaiShin fic before, which seems absolutely insane considering I've been writing for this ship for an actual literal decade.

I've also never really tackled the "what is Pandora and how do I solve the Pandora Problem?" question in a fic. Most of my fics take place prior to Kaito finding Pandora, or I just went with "it's a gem. he smashes the gem. the end", because Pandora's never been overly important to my stories before. This time, I have an actual, coherent plan for that and I'm liking it.

I also usually go into KaiShin with "yeah no those two idiots are absolutely both already in love with each other because look at canon", but this time I'm going with Shinichi being... not yet in love with Kaito, crushing a bit but oblivious to that. So I can actually slow burn it.

And I can actually have them grow closer while working on the same case!

AND due to this being a multi-chapter fic, I get to involve platonic dynamics in a greater manner!!! I try to fit like my favorite ones into longer oneshots, but for most there is just... not enough room, especially not in the short 2k Magic Monday fics.

I AM FINALLY GETTING TO WRITE ALL MY FOUR DETECTIVE GEEKS WORKING WITH EACH OTHER! Saguru-Shinichi friendship!!! Sera-Shinichi friendship!!! The Sera-Saguru friendship that I once upon a time decided needed to be a thing!!! Overprotective but teasing best friend Heiji who is also super annoyed by Shinichi's friendship with Saguru!!!

I get to write the Akai-Shinichi and the Rei-Shinichi dynamics and develop what kind of relationship I want them to have. (And I get to write Kaito being jealous of both of them because I can ;D)

This fic is going to be so much fun because it's going to be so morally gray on what Shinichi is actually willing to do to stop Kaito's BO from killing innocent people.

And because I can, I also squeezed in an "and they were roommates" (because little fugitive phantom thieves need to hide somewhere v_V) and a Fake Relationship trope that'd be too spoilery to explain now. ;D

But yeah I have so much excitement for this fic and for what I have planned for it, it's going to be so much fun.

Fanfic Ask Game

[kaitosimp]

I have some Kaito childhood headcanons:

- Kaito had always loved space, even as a child, and he has a lot of space themed toys and plushes. (He still goes back and plays with them every now and then, even when he’s older.) He even has a bunch of models of rockets and planets and other space themed gifts from his grandparents and some of his friends.

- Kaito was always the hero in any story he came up with or in any game he played with his friends.

- He made his own space themed cape to go with his hero persona thing. However, he wasn’t skilled at crafting things at that time, so it ended up being a little bit lopsided and more oriented toward his right shoulder (similar to how his jacket looks in-game, minus the sleeves)

- He would always stick up for his friends, no matter what. Even if it meant getting involved in fights, he’d do his best to stop his friends’ bullies.

- If any of his friends were feeling down, he’d definitely try to cheer them up. He’d do anything to see his friend(s) smile.

- Kaito always got high grades, despite most of his peers thinking that he couldn’t achieve them. To which he’d reply: “Hey! The impossible is possible! All you gotta do is make it so!”

- He doodled quick drawings of the galaxy and stuff in his notes, but if he had enough time, he could draw out a really detailed solar system.

- Well wouldn’t you know, his favorite subject was science, and his favorite science topic was space. He’d always get extremely excited during those lessons, and he’d blurt out random facts about space (which would sometimes lead him to trouble for interrupting the teacher too much). “Bouncing off the walls” almost wasn’t an expression during those lessons.

- Space themed stickers. He loved space stickers. Actually, he still loves space stickers.

- Kaito convinced his grandparents to get a telescope so they could look at the night sky together, and he would show them how he could name every constellation, alphabetically. He might have even thrown in the constellations’ backstories if he knew them (which he almost always knew all of them by heart).

- Of course his room was space themed (it still is). He had a rocket ship bed. His walls looked like a galaxy. Saturn rug. (Saturn looks the coolest.) Planet themed bean bag in the corner. Search up “space themed bedroom”, and you’ll find some good ideas for what it could look like. Also, feel free to add on.

- Space themed clothes and pajamas. (Shirts, pants, jackets, hoodies- you name it, he has it.)

Bonus headcanon (unrelated to the childhood headcanons):

Kaito has some kind of (space themed) pajama robe and when he wears it, he wears it exactly the same way he does with his jacket. Space pajamas underneath his open pajama robe, with only one of the robe’s sleeves on. (I also thought it would be kind of funny if he wore tennis shoes or sandals around his house when it’s night/bedtime to parallel the fact that he wears slippers, even during the day. But let’s be honest, he’d never abandon his space slippers, day or night.)

I feel like some of these headcanons can be expanded past his childhood though (space room, doodles, stickers, etc.). Oh well. This post could have been a bit longer, but I’ll save some of those headcanons for another day.

*slaps table aggresively* THESE ARE THE ABSOLUTE CUTEST AND I LOVE THEM ALL 🥺😭💜💜💜

I loveeee the cape one, cause I hc that he wears his jacket the way he does to imitate a cape due to him wearing capes as a kid too and the habit never went away 😭💞 And yesss I agree so hard on the grades thing, Kaito was a smart kiddo in my book and he a smart af teenager too, we don't believe in the "kaito is dumb" idea in this house 🤚🏽 And yesss he would so defend his friends as much as he could, he'd do anything to keep them safe and he'd also always be the hero in any story/games for sure 🥺 The stickers one 😭 I just imagine him putting stickers on every surface he can including in his room, like on his dresser and stuff (like i did when i was a kid lmao projection much) bUT PLEASE THESE ARE ALL SO ADORABLE, THE ONE WITH HIM CONVINCING HIS GRANDPARENTS TO BUY A TELESCOPE AND THEM STARGAZING TOGETHER IS SO WHOLESOME 🥺

But omg okay about the space themed room, i have so many hcs for that due to me being an uncreative fuck with the setting when i write oumota/saimota fic, all of them are obvi for teen Kaito but just to mention a few for kiddo Kaito's room: glow in the dark stars everywhere, an absolute must! He'd also have a space mobile with different planets that he made himself in class hung up somewhere, on the walls there would be a bunch of space doodles and drawings he's made, he'd totally have a rocket shaped bookshelf for his books 🥺🤚🏽 And not to mention the endless space trinkets, like a star shaped nightlight, a spaceman figure, a moon lamp, a star projector- *continues rambling about my kaito hcs into the void*

But ahhhh the unrelated hcs, I love the robe one sm and i think thats how he would fr wear it too 😂 BUT OMG AJAJAJAJAJAJA I FIND THE IDEA OF HIM WEARING SNEAKERS OR CLOSED SHOES AT NIGHT SO FUNNY, I LOVE IT 😭😭😂🤚🏽 But absolutely, i think a lot of these stuck with him and never left, like drawing space doodles, the space themed room, the stickers, science being his fave class (and math), the cape, always being the hero, so on so on 🥺💞💞💞 Thank you for sharing these hcs, I love them all so much!! 😭���💜 And sorry for writing so much asdfghjlk like always i went overboard 💀

[catgrump]

Hi! :) Your writing is great! I saw you have requests open, so are you okay with writing oumota with the dialog prompt "take a guess"? Thanks a lot

Hey there! I watched you going through my fics in my notifications all day the day you found me lmao I’m glad you like my work enough to send in a request!

This is some sort of College AU but it isn’t connected to the other Oumota College AU I’ve done

Also TW for smoking! Please don’t smoke; I just used it as a plot device!

🌻🌻🌻

Kaito took another drag of his cigarette. He watched as the smoke drifted away in the chill of the October night.

He was alone on the balcony that overlooked nothing. Just an endless field of trees that separated the apartment building from the cul-de-sac on the other side.

He leaned back against the wall beside him and sighed, trying to block out the pounding music on the other side of the bricks. Why do I bother coming to these things? He thought

He put the cigarette back to his lips as the balcony’s glass door slid open. He quirked an eyebrow, surprised someone else wanted to escape.

A shorter guy dressed in all black and white burst through, and he looked like he was trying to catch his breath.

“Hey, you okay, man?” Kaito asked, tapping loose ashes over the railing

The guy looked surprised to see another person. It was blink and you’ll miss it: his face changed from scared and confused to cocky and... attempting to be alluring. “Better now that I know you’re out here, handsome,” he smirked

Kaito rolled his eyes. This guy isn’t necessarily his type on paper, as far as he can tell. He reached into his pocket to try and change the subject as he retrieved a small lighter, “You need a light or?”

“Take a guess,” the guy crossed his arms across his chest and tilted his head. This coy act is... not what Kaito was expecting when he decided to take a smoke break.

“How should I know?” Kaito bluntly asked

“Nope! I don’t smoke!” And he paused, then started batting his eyes, “Or do I???”

That somehow got a smile out of Kaito. He shook his head and leaned forward on the railing, feeling the cool of the metal through the fabric of his jacket. “I don’t know,” he started playing along, “DO you?”

“What do you think from just looking at me?” He asked

Kaito looked him up and down as the guy got closer. He has a flourish whenever he moves, but Kaito saw the guy’s fingers shaking. Interesting. “I think if you DO smoke, you need one right now,” Kaito told him before bringing his cigarette to his lips again

Kaito deliberately watched the guy stare at him as he took a drag. Oh, this is fun, Kaito thought, He’s into me, isn’t he?

To test the theory, as soon as he blew the smoke out toward the trees, Kaito looked back at the guy, made eye contact, and bounced his eyebrows. The guy smiled. Well, he hit on me basically as soon as he saw me, and he’s definitely been staring. Two strikes, Kaito thought

“You sure you’re good?” Kaito asked as the guy sat in one of the balcony‘s patio chairs and rested his head in his hands, “The only time I’m ever on a balcony during a party is to smoke, have a private conversation, get some air, or make out with someone, so—“

“I’d be down for the latter,” he practically sighed

“Dude,” Kaito couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy.

“What?”

“First of all, you’re avoiding the subject. Second of all, I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh so you’d be interested if you knew my name?” Alright, that’s strike three. He may not be Kaito’s type on paper, but he’s interested... and he’s kind of cute in an oddly charming way.

“Potentially,” Kaito almost scolded, “You gonna tell me your name?”

“What if I don’t have one?” He’s definitely teasing now

“Make one up,” Two can play at this game.

“It’s Kokichi.”

“Is it?”

“That’s the truth, I promise,” ‘Kokichi’ crossed his fingers over his heart as he said that

“So if I call you that, you won’t forget the fake name you gave me, right?” Kaito took another drag through a smile

“I won’t forget because it’s my real name,” alright, Kokichi it is, “Besides, I wanna hear what it sounds like coming from you.”

Kaito studied Kokichi again after releasing his smoke. He’s confident as all hell— especially for someone his size— but Kaito saw Kokichi’s foot tapping under the patio table. Is he confident or not? Or is he just trying to recover from whatever went on inside?

“You still haven’t answered my first question,” Kaito redirected the conversation, “You SURE you’re okay?”

“Oh, I was taught not to talk to strangers,” Kokichi was playing coy again, but Kaito was quickly learning how to throw it back at him.

“That’s funny; you’ve been doing a hell of a lot of talking so far, Kokichi,” he made sure to make eye contact when he said his name.

Kokichi’s head fell back as he groaned with satisfaction, then he fell right back into his palms, leaning forward and kicking his legs back and forth, “OH, that does sound nice—“

“What’s that?” Kaito was having fun toying with him now

“My name coming out of your mouth,” he smirked. Legs were still kicking, “I wonder if it would sound any different in my bedroom.”

“Alright, easy, Tiger,” Kaito rolled his eyes with a smile, “You don’t even know MY name.”

Kaito had to admit: that was a damn good line. ‘I wonder if it’ll sound different in my bedroom’. And he has to admit he was becoming more and more intrigued the more he talked with him. He’s learning so much and yet so little about this guy.

“There’s something about kissing a stranger that’s a bit more... passionate; wouldn’t you agree?” How was Kokichi so good at this?

“Oh so kissing strangers is fine, but talking to strangers is where you draw the line?” Kaito asked as he left the railing, and leaned a hand on the patio table, looking down at Kokichi just about a foot from his face

“I never said I did what I was told,” Kokichi whispered with an irresistible smug smile

Alright, this is suddenly hot. It was fun to flirt with this guy and mess with him but now, things are sexy. Kokichi was batting his eyes and Kaito bit his lip. Am I actually...? He thought, glancing down at Kokichi’s lips briefly, then chuckling to himself

“You can tell me your name, if you want—“ Kokichi started to speak again, but Kaito made his decision

He snuffed out the cigarette and stepped closer, then brought the hand that was still warm from the cig to Kokichi’s face, which made Kokichi instantly stand up.

Kaito heard fingers tapping on the table, and glanced down to see that Kokichi was tapping out sporadic rhythms on the glass. He put his own hand on Kokichi’s to make it calm down as he slowly leaned down to kiss him.

He was right. There IS something more passionate about kissing a stranger. There’s something about just giving in to carnal desire with someone you have no specific attachment to that’s incredibly hot. It was easier to move forward quickly when you aren’t worried about what this person thinks of you, because you already know they’re attracted to you and that’s all that matters right now.

As Kaito bit Kokichi’s lower lip, Kokichi let out a soft moan disguised as disgust, “You taste like nicotine.”

“You love it; don’t lie to me,” Kaito whispered in a low voice against Kokichi’s ear, feeling him shudder in his arms

Kokichi responded by moving Kaito’s face back to him so they could continue to kiss with aggression and determination.

Their hands moved all across each other’s chests, necks, waists, hips, backs, gripping fabric in their fists and breathing grunts against each other

As much as Kaito wanted more, he thought of a better way he could leave an impression.

He broke away, pulled a loose receipt and a pen out of his pocket, wrote down his phone number and said, “It’s Kaito, by the way,” before going back inside.

If you like my work, please consider leaving a tip on Ko-Fi if you’re able! 💛

Prompt from This List

[elyvorg]

It’s Shadow Maki’s berserk form, in the same vein as the Shadow Kaito design I once did!

In short, this is a concept from Persona 4 in which a person’s suppressed thoughts and feelings manifest into an abstract, symbolic representation of their issues. I’ve made a couple of posts mentioning vague, general ideas about Maki’s Shadow before, but now that I’ve finally managed to piece together enough ideas for her berserk form in my head, I couldn’t not draw it.

Since I’m not going to be writing a fic about this like I did with Shadow Kaito (there’s no need; Maki effectively already faces her shadow in canon thanks to Kaito’s encouragement and support), I’m instead going to just talk about all of the symbolism involved right here.

The Shadow initially manifests as just a giant box without any holes, upright and closed, thudding and rattling like something inside is trying to get out. As it tips over and falls open, the Maki doll clambers out from under a huge pile of weapons. The hands appear before she can leave the box itself, their strings piercing through it to take hold of the weapons and stab them into Shadow Maki, keeping her trapped in there under their control.

A significant part of this design was based around the fact that I’d already decided that Maki’s Persona would be Pandora. Pandora got associated with all the bad things that escaped when she opened her box, but that shouldn’t be considered her fault – it’s the fault of the asshole gods who filled the box with those things and gave it to her in the first place, knowing she’d open it.

So that’s why there’s a box filled with weapons, and why one pair of shadowy hands is holding it. The hands represent the members of Maki’s cult who trained her, or perhaps also the rich assholes who hire her to kill people, so the box with all those horrible things inside really originated from them.

The imagery of the box also fits very well with Maki’s tendency to cope through compartmentalisation – she’s become very good at just shutting away the things she doesn’t want to think about so that she can do what she needs to do. In fact, Pandora’s myth also works really well here, because after letting out all the bad things, Pandora shut the box in such a hurry that she left Hope, the one good thing, trapped inside. That’s basically exactly what Maki did with her own hope – her wishes that one day she could escape this hell and have a normal life – in order to cope. Shadow Maki starts out trapped inside a box because she’s been firmly sealed away inside a metaphorical box by the surface part of Maki for a long, long time.

(This compartmentalisation idea also works for the weapons being sealed inside the box to start with, since Maki also tries to shut away and avoid thinking about all the horrible things she’s been through and done whenever it’s possible for her to do so.)

I am aware that actually in the original myths, Pandora had a jar, and it’s a modern(ish) mistranslation that made it a box. However, while the original correct version of Atlas worked way better for Kaito (he carried all of space, not just the Earth!), this time the misinterpreted version happens to fit a lot better for Maki – because toy boxes are a thing. Except oh god those aren’t toys those should not be anywhere near children.

That was the other main idea I had in mind for this, before I’d even figured out Pandora and knew a box ought to be involved: this sort of imagery that’d disturbingly juxtapose Maki’s child caregiver and assassin talents, because it is horrifying and heartbreaking that she was put through all this and turned into a killing machine as a child.

So it was a pretty neat bonus that Pandora’s box could also be presented as Pandora’s toy box. There’s some more symbolism in the idea of the Maki doll having been alone and forgotten at the bottom of the toy box, because Maki on the surface hasn’t allowed herself to think about her normal, happy life as a child in a long time. Meanwhile, the weapons piled on top of her get taken out of that box and “played with” by surface-Maki a lot more often.

Even if anyone did pick up the doll and try to play with it again, it’s broken and mutilated and can never be the same any more. Maki’s traumatic experiences have messed her up enough that she can never have that normal life back now in quite the same way.

And even if she did try to be free anyway and live her own life despite being broken, she still can’t actually escape that box that she’s shut herself in, because she’s being controlled like a puppet by evil outside forces beyond her reach. That puppet imagery was another thing I knew I had to do with this – fitting neatly with the child-caregiving image of the doll – because a lot of the tragedy of Maki’s story is the fact that she never had a choice. Everything she’s been through has all been her being controlled and manipulated by people who don’t give a damn about her.

The box also helps here in that she can’t even see the hands puppeteering her, because Maki doesn’t actually see her situation as herself being controlled and feels like she deserves to bear every single bit of the blame and responsibility for her actions herself. (And the owners of the hands can’t see her in there suffering either, because like hell any of those assholes care about that.)

I had the strings be attached to the Maki doll via weapons impaling her partly just as an efficient way to combine the toy mutilation and puppeteering motifs into one, but also because that control and manipulation is precisely one of the main things that’s been hurting her and messing her up so much. She’s technically holding those knives in her hands and could use them to kill someone like this, but doing so is hurting her just as much. And trying to break free of it would only hurt her more – so it’s easier for her to just stop struggling and give up.

[tsukikoayanosuke]

Behind the Fic: Canon and Beyond - The Trappola Family

I'm still working on my college assignment, but I decided to take a small free time before my afternoon class. I'm currently trying to build the Heartslabyul boys' family member, so far only Deuce left.

This note is for our Ace Trapolla. Remember, this is borderline Canon-Divergence.

The Trappola family is a high class family. However they are not the same level as Rosehearts-almost-noble-family. They are just rich

The Trappola family is based around playing-cards, more specifically the heart-royal flush in Poker.

A personal nickname for the family is "Heartbreaker", which is an alternative name for flush-heart in poker. Mostly because nearly every member of this family had done something out-of-place

The royal flush consist of five cards: ten, jack, queen, king, and ace. So, Ace's family has five members: a father, a mother, two sons, and a grandmother.

All of the Trapolla family names is related to a playing-card nickname.

Father: Charlemagne Trappola

Charlemagne Trappola, or just "Charles", is Ace's father. 

He is a well-known author. However, his works are a bit controversial. Within the wackiness of Rose Kingdom, Charles' work centered around suicide, sex, and many depressing theme. Now, he works as a translator.

The name "Charlemagne" and "Charles" are alternative names for "King of Heart".

In addition, for his many suicidal stories, Charles gained the nickname "Suicide King"

I imagine his mannerships are similar to Bungou Stray Dogs' Dazai Osamu

Mother: Judith Trappola

Judith Trappola (nee Troy), in Ace's mother.

She's often known as a beautiful woman. Though, underneath that mask, is a wicked witch.

During her youth, she was kind of a black widow, breaking so many hearts with her charms and looks, and leaving so many ‘pigs’ after a one night stand. But she always got away with it, acting so innocent, sometimes even tricking that she was the victim.

Judith is actually quite good at sewing. 

She works as a boutique, making beautiful dress. Said boutique is the royal family's favorite.

The name "Judith" is an alternative name for "Queen of Heart". 

Her last name 'Troy' is from "Helen of Troy", which is also an alternative name for "Queen of Heart". 

First Son: Hook Trappola

Hook Trappola is Ace's older brother

Hook, during his years in Night Raven College, became the vice prefect, and later the prefect of Heartslabyul

The boy is charismatic and has a handsome face, able to charms many women and men

He's probably a theater kid too

He's also quite a genius, able to stay in the top five rank of all students.  The only thing slowing him down is his loves for card tricks.

Hook teaches Ace everything he knew about card tricks and magic tricks. He's able to point out the secret behind each tricks and what spell they uses.

If you ask him what he want to do, he might say that he wants to be an actor.

But, in reality, he already has a job

He's a freelancer, gentleman theif by the nickname "La Hire". If you need something to steal, just call him and he'll hold a grand heist that not even the Rose Kingdom's knight can catch him

The name "Hook" and "La Hire" are alternative names for "Jack of Heart".

The main inspiration for Hook is Kaito Kid/Kaito Kuroba

Second Son: Ace Trappola

Mostly around Ace, we already know from canon.

He once had a girlfriend, but broke up. Though they still have good relationship as friends.

Ace wants to be a royal detective when he graduates, mostly because he’s quite good in analyzing magic and tricks, thanks to the private teaching from Hook

He already knows about Hook’s other persona and declare himself as his big brother’s ultimate rival: the detective and the thief (a reference to Shinichi Kudou/Conan Edogawa and Kaito Kid/Kaito Kuroba’s dynamic) 

He’s pointed by as the Heartslabyul Vice Prefect when Trey steps down in his forth year.

Later, Riddle steps down in his forth year and hands the role as prefect to Ace in his third year. Ace later points Deuce as the vice prefect

It’s all depend on what will happen in canon, whether he will Overblot or not. However, he can overblot, however the reasoning is still unknown.

Maybe the Ace Trappola we know and love is all just a facade...

Grandmother: Dime Trappola

Dime Trappola is a 100 years-old-lady and Ace's grandmother

A tarot reader, he can see one's part, present or future. Whether you want to believe or not, it's up to you.

A lovely lady, but a bit harsh with young kids. Anytime some bunch of kids running pass their house when she's on the terrace, she would glare at them, scaring them off. Even Ace was scared of her when he was a child

The name "Dime" is an alternative name for "Ten". 

.

Note that both Dime and Ace are the only members whose name doesn't technically related to a heart-card

Also, compare to Charles, Judith, and Hook, Ace and Dime seemed to be the most innocent of the members.

[dancer-cotillion]

The Hanger

I wrote this a long while ago as the first chapter of a VR AU Oumota fic. I wrote 5 and a half chapters before I drifted away for reasons I can't remember. But I looked over it again recently purely on a whim and I actually really like most of what I had so I'm considering going back and finishing it. I can't promise anything though so we'll see. But since I like what I wrote and because this first chapter can easily stand on its own as a sad one shot, I decided to go ahead and upload it.

~

The hydraulic press hummed loudly as it lowered. It took all of Kaito’s self-control to lie still and keep his eyes closed. What if Kokichi passed out from the poison and couldn’t stop it in time? What if the emergency stop button didn’t work?

But just when it seemed he could feel it above him, weighing down on him without even touching him, it stopped. Heavy silence filled the air as he let out a long breath.

“’Kay, you can… move now.” Kokichi voice was strained, possibly even more than it had been before Kaito had gotten under the press.

Kaito slid out from underneath the press, careful not to move the jacket beneath him too much lest the little bit of it visible in the video jumped places and gave away their trick. He didn’t dare open his eyes until he was all the way out and straightening.

Kokichi was just stepping down from the control platform. He was pale and sweating, his face drawn with anguish.

“You okay?” Kaito asked and immediately wanted to kick himself. He’d asked a lot of dumb questions in his day but that had to be dumbest.

“Oh, I’m doing just fine, thank you,” Kokichi replied with a good facsimile of a smile that would’ve fooled Kaito under different circumstances. How many of his prior smiles had been false too? Considering what he’d said upon Kaito questioning the reason for his plan about how it’d had all been act, he actually hated the killing the game, it was very possible that almost every smile of his had been false.

“Sorry.” No amount of ‘sorry’ would ever make any of this okay. Kokichi was dying, if Kaito didn’t kill him with the press, the poison would. He’d had the antidote but he’d given it to Kaito, dooming himself. Would Kaito have been able to do the same in his position? Sacrifice himself to save someone who’d considered him an enemy even for a plan like this. He… didn’t know. One thing he did know for sure though was… “I’m sorry for how all this turned out and… for how awful I treated you.”

“Don’t be, I set myself up as your enemy on purpose. You and all the others were supposed to hate me otherwise none of this would’ve worked.” And at the end of this plan of his, he was going to die a gruesome death. The others would all hate him even more for it too. Could anything be more tragic?

“I don’t hate you, I never did.” Kaito didn’t have it in him to hate someone. He’d just… let the stress of everything get to him. That was no excuse, he was supposed to encourage everybody and get them all to work as a team but it was all so much. So… he’d played favourites and only helped a small number of people. He didn’t regret how much time he’d spent with them but… he should’ve done more for the others, Kokichi included even if he did often go out of his way to be antagonistic. It was too late now though, Kokichi was dying and Kaito didn’t have much longer left himself; the taste of blood in his mouth now seemed permanent.

One last thing he did have time for though was… “I’d like to consider you a friend if that’s okay?” He held out a hand.

Kokichi stared at it before looking up to meet his eyes. “Getting all sappy because I’m dying, huh? But all right, sure, we can be friends. No reason not to, I’m choosing to trust you with my plan after all.” His hand was hot and sweaty in Kaito’s as they shook, sealing the deal. And it might’ve just been Kaito’s imagination it also seemed to be shaking a little. Pain, fear, or both? It was hard to guess.

“Now,” Kokichi said as they let go, “can… can I have one last request?”

“Uh… sure.” There wasn’t much Kaito could do for him but as long as it was within his ability to do, he’d gladly do it.

“Regardless of how our plan turns out, whether it fails or succeeds, once you step out of the Exisal and reveal it to them could you… remind everyone that I’m a liar?”

“Why?”

“Because I… want them to remember me as a liar and a sneak, not some poor little misunderstood sad boy to be pitied because I died a tragic death trying to save everyone.” He scowled at the thought as if being pitied was far worse than being hated. … Which well, made sense. Kaito wasn’t sure if he shared that sentiment but he understood it so…

“Sure, I’ll make sure to remind everyone you’re a liar.” In his heart he’d known the truth though and would never forget it.

“Thanks,” Kokichi whispered as he turned back towards the press. He got under it silently and carefully.

With a grimace, Kaito turned towards the control platform. He only got a single step before a soft sob behind him froze him in his tracks. He turned back towards the press and knelt down bedside it so he could see Kokichi better. His brave mask had finally broken as he stared down his impending death inches above him. Tears leaked from his eyes as he shook.

Kaito took his hand, gently squeezing it. What words could he possibly offer in comfort? They were high school students for fuck’s sake, death was not something people as young as them should be facing, especially death like this. It was wrong and unjust on so many levels and there was nothing Kaito could do about it.

“I… don’t want to die,” Kokichi choked out in a whisper, squeezing Kaito’s hand.

“I know.” Kaito didn’t want to die either. At least he still had some time left… not much though. “You’re not alone though, I’m here.” It was the only comfort he could offer.

There was long moment of silence, broken only by another soft sob, before Kokichi answered with a whisper. “T-thank you.”

“You… you want to… let the poison do it.” It wouldn’t make a difference if he was… crushed after he died, right? No one would be able to tell the difference. And that way Kaito could stay by his side until the very end.

Kokichi let out another soft sob. “Can’t… risk it. We’ve already taken so much time… discussing everything and setting it all up. We don’t know how… long before the electro-bomb wears off.”

“You sure?”

“Yes and… i-it’ll be over faster.” That… didn’t sound like it truly appealed to him. On the brink of death even his ability to lie was crumbling. “Just… promise you won’t let my death be for nothing, please.”

“I promise.”

They were silent for a few minutes while Kokichi steeled himself again. Or tried to, he wasn’t doing a great job at it and who could blame him for that? He as slowly dying of poison, about to get crushed to death, Kaito wouldn’t have been able to pretend to be okay with that for even a few seconds let alone how long Kokichi had been keeping up the act for.

But he eventually let go of Kaito’s hand. “Do it. Don’t hesitate. And don’t forget the camera.” His voice was firmer than it had any right to be even if the look on his face and tears leaking from his eyes betrayed it.

“All right uh…” Kaito straightened. “Good bye.” People in movies and books always seemed to regret not having wished their friends or family farewell before they died so he’d at least have that, right? Not that he’d have long to be haunted by this – a small mercy that came with his own impending death via terminal illness – but he had to say something.

“Good bye,” Kokichi replied, his voice nearly inaudible, a few seconds later as Kaito headed up the control platform. He almost turned back towards him but… there was nothing more that could be said or done. It was best to just get it over with, end his suffering and pack everything up before the electro-bomb’s effects wore off.

At the top of the control platform, Kaito felt almost sick as he looked at the controls and camera. Was he really about to press a single button and… end Kokichi’s life? That just wasn’t right. Things weren’t supposed to work like that. How could he possibly…

“Don’t hesitate,” he whispered to himself as he put one hand on the record button on the camera, the other over the button that would send the press down. With a deep breath, he pressed them both at the same time.

The press’ hum resumed, much quieter from up here but still filling the heavy silence and thankfully drowning out any further sounds of sobbing Kokichi might’ve made. Kaito didn’t want to watch but… at the same time he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t see Kokichi from this angle, the press was too low, but… this was the closest thing he could get to being there for him in his final moments, right?

So, he watched the press, already so low, lower further. It settled home with a sound somewhere between a wet pop and a crunch followed a half second later by the clang of metal meeting metal. Blood sprayed out from under it like a large water balloon filled with red paint had burst. And just like that, Kokichi Ouma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader, was no more. All that was left of him was smooshed flat as pancake under the press and the splash of blood that had escaped it.

Hands and face numb, Kaito stopped the recording and packed up the camera and its tripod. Then he set about, preparing the rest of the crime scene; cutting the cord to the control platform and double check to make sure nothing remained that’d give hint to what they’d done.

The tears didn’t hit until he was hidden safely away in the Exisal. He hunched in on himself as he let out a shaky sob that turned into a painful cough. He wanted to curl up in a ball but the pilot seat didn’t allow for it. So he sat there and cried into the spare jacket Kokichi brought for him way earlier that day – felt like a lifetime ago – that he’d grabbed before entering the Exisal without even thinking about it.

Eventually his tears petered out, leaving him feeling empty and hollow. He’d have to get his act together for the trial tomorrow but that was hours away. And he was alone so he could allow himself to feel miserable for not just having killed Kokichi but everything that had happened since the start of this killing game. All the suffering and heartache they’d all been through for… what purpose? … None, right? There was no good reason for any of this… and yet so many of them had died for it… and Kaito had killed someone because of it. No more though, this was the end. It had to be.

[toxicpineapple]

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his “talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about.

[justphilia]

There’s a definite chance I might not be writing this BUT

I had a detroit become human idea for a Mob Psycho fic, it’s pretty loose considering I had the idea while sitting in the back of a car and standing under the shower head.

There’s probably a chance I would be writing it but it’s kinda leaning to a “Nah, probably not”.

With that being said, I kinda don’t want to trash the idea as a whole without it meeting the light of day, so I’m gonna spill my ideas here so I can look back and think; “Wow. That’s shit.”

To add, this whole thing will sound more like babbling than an actual summary, so excuse me lmao.

Tsubomi doesn’t have any friends. But coming from a wealthy family, her parents decides to buy her a friend. Cue Shigeo/Mob. 

I had a funny model name for all the child androids ‘ESP(insert number, for Shigeo it’s 100)’ despite this being a no powers AU. Then I realized it probably wouldn’t fit because I am low key planning for all the espers to be androids and realized ‘Wow, ha ha, that’s a lot of androids’ so now SOME of the espers are androids.

Okay so fast forward and Tsubomi’s parents are thinking, “We should replace Shigeo, he’s kinda old fashioned now.”

“Mom we only had him for 4 years.”

“Exactly.”

But Tsubomi’s really attached to Mob because he’s her best friend, and doesn’t tell him he might be replaced until he finds out himself. He goes bat shit crazy and tries to kill himself and Tsubomi. Cue Serizawa, a cop android.

Serizawa calms my boy down and Shigeo’s like, “You’re right, I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m so--” bang. Tsubomi low key gets traumatized, Shigeo is bleeding blue on the floor.

We shift to the next scene where Shigeo wakes up on like a bed except it’s actually a table. Cue Reigen, he works at Cyberlife as a child therapist/repair worker. Actually, my man was suppose to be just a repair worker but he got promoted to child therapist for calming down a raging Teru.

“Kid, you remember anything?”

“I- Sorta? Where am I, am I gonna be killed?”

Reigen’s like sweating because he isn’t sure himself, Shigeo’s the first kid who tried to commit murder. But as they talked, Reigen’s kinda surprised to realize that Shigeo’s actually a really really sweet kid.

Shigeo asks how Tsubomi is doing and if she hates him. Reigen tells him she’s fine and she misses him. Which is the truth, but he doesn’t mention that Tsubomi did end up getting a replacement in fear of ticking Shigeo off. Cue Ritsu, the replacement android best friend.

There’s a sort of cell holding all the ‘defect’ child androids, like a little playroom but also an actual cell, and inside there’s: Gou, Rei, Takeshi, Daichi, Kaito and Teru.

Cue Teru, who is the only one who has a similar case to Shigeo; he punched a kid in the nose and sent him to the hospital, which made his mom very very pissed and sent him for repairs. Because of this, he’s enraged further and the staff can’t send him back unless his attitude changes to the “ideal son”.

Teru thinks being an android is a gift, he can’t die and he’s pretty much flawlessly shaped. When he meets Shigeo, he asks why he looks so plain, and it’s revealed it’s because Tsubomi didn’t want anything flashy.

And mostly because Shigeo’s an older model.

Each kid (except for Teru) had an actual defect to their system. Gou has somehow obtained a built in lighter function, which isn’t suppose to be there. Rei has the reconstruct and construct feature for unknown reasons. Takeshi is basically a walking magnet, except he doesn’t really know when it’s turned on or off (when it’s turned on, it’s strong enough to accidentally pull all the others towards him and it gets pretty annoying). Daichi and Kaito’s memory cloud keeps syncing with one another, which disrupts them from being able to remember the right things correctly (i.e Daichi gets Kaito’s memories and believes they are his own and vice versa).

The only reason they’re still stuck here is because they come from middle class families (except for Teru), so they’re way behind on the waiting list to get repaired.

Shigeo, on the other hand, came from a rich family, so he’d be out in no time. This makes Teru very mad, he states it isn’t fair that Shigeo gets to be let out sooner than them even though he just got here.

He tries to attack, but unfortunately for him, they’ve installed a software that prevents Teru from being able to kick and punch. Like a parental lock sorta? The same has been done to Shigeo.

Shigeo only makes Teru even more mad when he says he wishes he was human. If he wasn’t human, none of this would’ve happened, “Teru, if you were human, you wouldn’t be right here y’know? Your mom wouldn’t need to send a real human boy for repairs.”

And Teru is pissed because he knows Shigeo’s right. 

But being the cunning bitch he is, he smiles and pretends to accept Shigeo’s opinion, and he asks for a hug. Shigeo happily agrees and let’s Teru wrap an arm around him.

Then Teru squeezes.

“Teru, I can’t, you’re crushing- I can’t--”

“Oh, I know. If I break you enough, you’ll have to stay here with us even longer.”

Shigeo tries to retaliate, but due to the software, he’s unable to kick himself free. The rest tries to intervene, but Teru threatens them to stay back or he’ll squeeze harder.

“Can a human do this? Shigeo? Can they?”

Shigeo manages to break through the system and finally breaks free, he’s back in his aggressive mode and actually starts attacking.

He takes it too far when he rips Teru heart out.

Everyone is screaming at this point and Reigen’s rushing towards the cell like mad. Serizawa is there too, because he wanted to visit Shigeo to see how he’s doing.

“Why are you running?”

“Something bad is happening, I need to be there- Woah there buddy!” Serizawa picks Reigen up and surprises him. Then the android fucking bolts.

When Reigen finally reaches the cell and enters, he finds Shigeo on the ground, bleeding out once again, and Teru staring motionlessly at Shigeo.

“He...gave me his heart.”

Shigeo is sent to be repaired again and this time, he’s kept in a separate cell, because no one knows how he managed to break through their system. It’s almost impossible for a child -and not to mention an OLD- model to be able to do that.

While Reigen’s thinking in his office, cue Mitsuura, who says it’d be a shame for all those child models to lose their cool abilities. He jokes about just creating a child model meant to possess those abilities, like a tiny cop or something.

Cue Suzuki, no no, the other Suzuki. Mommy Suzuki. Except she’s a single lady who surrounds herself with Touichirou, the first ever android model made. That’s right, she’s head of Cyberlife.

She comes in, because she can’t sit still, and says, “Not a bad idea, man.”

Mitsuura has a fit and thanks the woman.

“So, about that old model that broke my parental control lock?” She turns to Reigen and he huffs, shrugging.

“I really don’t know, ma’am.”

She hums, definitely interested. Unlike the OG DBH, in this AU, they’re more lenient in the deviancy of androids because Suzuki believes they can have rights too. Except they don’t need to get paid, unless they want to? Honestly my idea for that aspect is low key fuzzy.

So anyways, Suzuki remembers Mitsuura’s idea and basically starts sketching out the draft. Cue Shou, who doesn’t exist yet but he’s in the making.

“Can you take the extra components of those child androids and keep them somewhere for later use? I’ll be needing them.”

“Ma’am, those androids are at the back of the waiting list, we can’t just--”

“Just do it.”

Cue Roshuuto, who seriously believes they should just kill Shigeo. “He’s too dangerous” blah blah blah SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Anyways, Reigen doesn’t want to do that because a) android or not, that’s a kid and b) You can’t make that decision and neither can I. Only Suzuki can.

Roshuuto sorta frowns, because everyone knows Suzuki plays favorites; and that favorite is Reigen. He’s the reason why Touichi now has a bit of sentience, before that android was pretty ruthless.

So if Reigen personally doesn’t want to get rid of Shigeo, then Suzuki would say the same too.

Meanwhile, Teru has been showing signs of positive improvement in attitude, there’s a speculation it might’ve been because Teru now has Shigeo’s heart, but that’s just dumb. That kid believes he just killed another android and he’s not sure how he feels about it, so he decides the least thing he could do was to be a better android.

Since Shigeo doesn’t share the same cell as them and nobody told them Shigeo survived, everyone in the playroom thinks Shigeo is dead.

Teru gets sent back after that, and the rest of the kids got their needed repairs.

Meanwhile, Shigeo and Reigen has daily consultation sessions, where they try to find the source of Shigeo’s issues. It takes about a month and Reigen hands Shigeo his cellphone number, saying if Shigeo ever needed him, Reigen would be there.

Shigeo gets sent back to the Takane’s family, because if he doesn’t, Tsubomi will throw a fit. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does, it’s ugly. It’s not like she’s spoiled, but when she strongly and firmly wants something, she’s determined enough to get it.

Originally, Ritsu was meant to be a direct replacement of Shigeo. He even had the bowl cut and everything, but Tsubomi’s intelligent and manages to figure out Ritsu’s a fake. She doesn’t get mad at him though, he doesn’t deserve it, instead she just befriends him too. Ritsu becomes a whole new person he wants to be, even mussed up his hair to look different.

So Shigeo meets Ritsu for the first time, and he’s sorta confused and upset, but Tsubomi got attached to Ritsu as well and refuses to leave him. Ritsu says he’s glad to finally meet Shigeo, because he has heard so much about him, and Shigeo decides he could like Ritsu.

I kinda stop making ideas from here, but I had a rough idea what happens next. Teru and Shigeo do meet again at some point, and Ritsu does meet Shou at some point too.

There will be background Serirei, and Shigeo does eventually grow a crush on Tsubomi and confession and oh no it went wrong. I think that’s when Shou makes his first appearance?

Because they think a child can calm another child down. It doesn’t work.

Nobody realizes Reigen’s probably the only thing that can help until the very very last minute.

So anyways, that’s the end of it. I don’t know what to do with this idea because now that I’ve spilled them all on the table, I kinda feel like writing it now. Though I already have two other projects planned, one being Nap’s birthday gift fic and another being a secret project that features Ritshou and amnesia, so it might be delayed to maybe June :(

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Something isn’t Right

(alt. “Atua said bye, bitches!) [ok, so. I intended to make it a whole game re-write, but stopped on the first chapter and the alternative title is actually the chapter title]

Summary:

 It all begins when Yonaga Angie pushes Momota Kaito down the stairs. Wait... what?

Words: 936 but I talk more about the AU at the end

The annoying music started playing. Meaning the time limit is almost up.

Kaede yells in righteous anger, but I focus on the noise from the outside of the classroom we're in.

Saihara Shuichi... the protagonist?

- I hear people talking... in the hallway...

- Huh? People talking?

Yes, that's what I said.

- Kaito, Gonta, Maki...

Great, she's saying their names now, I can see myself who's there. I swear, Kaede is amazing and all, it's just that... she seems to be out of it sometimes. And I don't really blame her, given the situation we were put in, but what if they heard her? One of them might be the mastermind.

- Tenko, Angie, Himiko and... Rantaro, too?

The seven continued to walk down the stairs, thankfully without noticing us.

But then something unexpected happened. Something unbelievable. Of the sort that feels like it wasn't suppoused to happen.

Angie rushed forward to the front of the group where Kaito was... and then... she pushed him with more force than one would suspect she could muster.

The terrible sounds followed. Neck snapping. People screaming. Body Discovery Annoucement playing.

Momota Kaito... the first? victim???

Everyone gathered and Monokuma showed up.

Yonaga Angie, the culprit who used the First Blood Perk.

Before leaving with Monokuma Angie wanted to say goodbye... or admonition.

Firstly, she walked up to Kaede, who was standing next to me still close to the door of the classroom we were before in. Reaching out to her with both hands she said:

- Angie already took it in her own hands, you can hand over your burden to Atua's care and be forgiven.

- What? Angie, I don't-

- In your backpack.

Angie's face darkens, she still smiles calmly, yet looks threateningly and considering she just killed a man... Kaede isn't the only one who feels affected by this.

Hesitating, she slowly pulls down her backpack and opens it to reveal... a shot put ball?!

Shot put ball lands in Yonaga Angie's hands.

I take in the features of Kaede's anxious face, trying to understand. Why? What was she planning to do with it?

In the meantime Angie walked over to Rantaro and had him bend down, so she could pat his head, while talking.

- Atua says everything feels heavier the longer you carry it. You should weight your deeds and your blessings, ceiling might fall on your head if you won't keep them in balance. Take your blessings, take them by the hands, they will lead you out of the dark. Your own effort will get you nowhere... Ah!

She leaves the ball in his hands and suddenly yells and turns to... Kokichi? She points her finger at him, almost touching his nose.

- Hey, get your murdery hands off me!

... or maybe actually doing so.

- The one with eyes.

- Literally everybody here has eyes.

- ... Ah yes, mom once told Angie. You should not let men think too high of himself, even tell him to his face "You're not that special" or he will make a ruin out of himself while trying to become something bigger than he can contain, because men's nature is like a baloon...

She looked in the direction of the dead body and then back at him.

- But that's not what this is is about. Atua says that neither Heart can lead anywhere, but to the undepending doom of the soul or Legs know where to go.

She gestures respectively to Kaede, Tenko and at him again.

- You know what you're capable of, but look at them. Hands are eager to work and Mind is slower than you, but comes to clearer conclusions. How do you suppouse Eyes could work without using Mind's help.

She's running around the cramped space, looking as if she was possesed. While mentioning hands she grabs Gonta's hand for a second and then she's off again. This time approaching me. I don't dare breath when she puts her hand on my cheek, but in a moment she's back in front of Kokichi.

- You can save those who can follow, but don't look back at the doomed in the dark.

She takes off her necklace and shoves it into his hands.

- Look, there's not one, but many on the string, keeping each other in place. Atua wants you to have it, deformis rat puerum. It saddens Atua that he can't help you more, but you're a stubborn one.

Next she goes to Tsumugi and forces her thumb in terrified girl's mouth, pulling her mouth open.

- God knows your lies and truths. Not all can be forgiven.

She steps away and seems to be lost in thought for a minute. Nobody is saying anything, the stage is hers only. We just wait for what she's going to do next. Ah, she's moving again, searching for something?... someone.

-Here you are, Ryoma! Atua has something important to tell you.

She found him leaning on one of the walls and kneeled down to look him in the eyes with one hand on his shoulder  speaking cheerfully like all of the dark and serious atmosphere she created was never there.

- Happiness is coming your way and the resistance is futile. Tough Shoulder, don't shrug it off, you're important to the whole body. Let Eyes see yourself, he'll know what to do.

Ouma Kokichi -Eyes. The blind. Saihara Shuichi - Mind. The stupid. Amami Rantaro - Skull. The carefree. Akamatsu Kaede - Heart. The heartless. Chabashira Tenko - Legs. The weak. Gokuhara Gonta - Hands. The slippery. Shirogane Tsumugi - Mouth. The quiet. Hoshi Ryoma - Shoulder. The soft. The chosen ones and what can make them or break them.

Yonaga Angie graduated. Count down: 14

[I have to admit I had fun with this fic, but I cringe at some bits, especially the attempted use of latin. I really wanted to use this fic to explore how characters can influence each other and try my hand at writing diffrent ships than saiouma, which is why there’s set up for ouhoshi and amasaimatsu with still strong but platonic saiouma undertones, but I’d have to write more murders to be able to do it and I just can’t do that to myself, I don’t mean the angst, I mean the creative process, I am brain dead.]