#all the while trying to stick to my roots with danganronpa | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

placidiomaxecia · 4 months ago

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𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚?

𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐃𝐄....

hello! my name’s cheyenne, and welcome to my own little slice of paradise within the world that is the web. after a solid three years of activity, i can say i’m a quotev refugee (rip messages and groups) migrating to both discord and tumblr. this blog, placidiomaxecia, was created for my friend to keep contact with me in while ALSO attempting to find fellow fandom folks who are semi-normal (trust me, it’s a struggle with some of the bands i like.) so now for the longer introduction, i guess...

𝟏. 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂 𝐅𝐄𝐖 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐏𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐃

i go by cheyenne, enzo, and kieran. all names work for me depending on whete you’re finding me from! if you’re a former quotev user, you likely know me as kieran or kirby. if you know me for my fanfic alt, then i’m enzo. and if you’re one of the rare few coming from castingcallclub or scratch, i’m cheyenne! at the end of the day, i’ll respond to any and all of those names.

some of my interests outside of being a quotev fiend are colorguard, drawing, voice acting, writing short stories, solving puzzles, stage acting, making playlists for my friends, and making the occasional fan theory or album review!

i’ll likely post about daily life, voice-acting gigs i pick up, my written theories or reviews, cool stuff i find, just journaling and ranting for the sake of my mental health, fanboying over my interests, and trying to locate other queertev losers slash quotev users.

i am a minor, which means i strongly encourage users over eighteen to leave me alone, thank you! feel free to interact with my posts and comment if we share a fandom or whatever, but don’t take it beyond a like or comment.

i identify as agender, using any and all non-neopronouns. although i may look like a she, using she makes me feel a little insecure, so i’d recommend sticking to they/he. i only put she up there because i voice act feminine characters and want to look at least somewhat female for that as it somewhat boosts my odds in casting.

a few other basic things to know...i have adhd and autism, holding professional diagnoses for both for seven and six years respectively; i mention this because i may misinterpret a social cue and ask for patience regarding that. i’m online a lot, my timezone’s cdt, and i generally use all lowercasr when typing. my discord is @.sotries, but i won’t be active there for an unseeable amount of time because of my computer being on life support. that’s it.

𝟐. 𝐀 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐒 𝐈’𝐌 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.

bolded means i rlly love it, italicized means i need friends who talk about it- tallyhall is my special interest

𝖬𝖴𝖲𝖨𝖢

tallyhall, edu, rob cantor, cojumdip, måneskin, ミラクルミュージカル, purplekiss, scene queen, mother mother, chappell roan, tri.be, ginger root, cousin simple, akmu, will wood, lemon demon, emei, minimall, ayesha, bo en, kiki rockwell, the neighbourhood, etc…

𝖬𝖴𝖲𝖨𝖢𝖠𝖫𝖲

be more chill, dear evan hansen, white collar prison, rockabye, avenue q, six, beetlejuice, heathers, anything goes, etc.

𝖵𝖨𝖣𝖤𝖮𝖦𝖠𝖬𝖤𝖲

omori, danganronpa, cooking companions, ddlc, that’s not my neighbor, class of ‘09…more to be added(?)

𝖲𝖧𝖮𝖶𝖲

total forgiveness, make some noise, game changer, dirty laundry, the mole, survivor (s20-40), the eight show, physical one hundred, ultimate beastmaster, jury duty, bee and puppycat, etc.

𝖴𝖭𝖢𝖠𝖳𝖤𝖦𝖮𝖱𝖨𝖹𝖤𝖣 𝖬𝖤𝖣𝖨𝖠

harry potter, pjo, tallyhall’s internet show (yep, separating it from tallyhall itself), commentary youtubers as a whole

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰!

#introduction #intro post #fuck you quotev admins

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zerochanges · 4 years ago

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2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games).

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3?

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones.

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki.

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry.

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops.

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it.

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either.

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience.

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me.

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games.

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this.

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series.

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with.

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already.

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun.

#video games #collection of saga final fantasy legend #SaGa #SaGa I #SaGa II #SaGa III #Raging Loop #Root Double #Snack World #Trials of Mana #Seiken Densetsu 3 #Utawarerumono #Ys #Ys IV #ys memories of celceta

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edogawatranslations · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa Kirigiri (3) - Chapter 2, Part 3

Table of Contents | Previous: Chapter 2, Part 2

As we walked, Lico once again brought up a serious topic out of nowhere.

“The two organizations pursuing Rei Mikagami today are a Chinese intelligence agency and a scientific investigative unit of the Russian army.”

These absurd statements no longer caught me off guard; I had fully accepted that the abnormal had become our new normal.

“You’re awfully informed about all this,” I commented.

“It’s my duty to relay you detailed information.” Lico turned around and flashed an innocent smile. “Both organizations have dispatched two unarmed individuals to Japan. Neither group is much of a threat, since they don’t use weapons when active outside of their home countries. The Russians especially; they belong to a team developing supersoldiers, which means they’re more so occult researchers than fighters.”

I quickly scanned the area. From what I could tell, there wasn’t a Russian in sight. The only people around were cheerful women roaming the mall with multiple shopping bags dangling from their arms.

“The three assassins pose the bigger problem,” Lico continued. Despite the grim topic, his expression didn’t change one bit.

Assassins...

We were intruding on their work. To reach Rei Mikagami, we couldn’t simply ignore them and walk on by.

“The first assassin is a woman of unknown nationality who goes by the name of ‘Copycat.’ As you may guess, she specializes in copycat crimes. She disposes of her targets by mimicking the M.O. of a serial killer active in the corresponding country or state, allowing her and her clients to fully escape suspicion, since the victim ends up tossed into the unrelated string of cases. Because of this, her work has mostly been attributed to other killers. Fortunately, this method prevents her from haphazardly killing someone. She acts deliberately and typically refrains from taking offensive measures.”

With the steady stream of information flowing from his mouth, Lico was giving Google a run for its money. His appearance already seemed rather other-worldly, but his information processing capabilities were all the more superhuman.

We rode the escalator one floor up to another women’s clothing department.

The ludicrous conversation continued in the perfectly average location.

“The second assassin is known as ‘Night Flyer.’ He’s rumored to be a Romanian of small build, but nobody has confirmed his identity. His killing style of choice is fairly standard: he approaches and shoots his target with a pistol equipped with a silencer. He’s inclined to be hot-headed, so consider him fairly hostile. Multiple people have witnessed him in the past heading to the nearest airport after completing a hit and flying off in a private jet, hence his nickname.”

“Is he friends with the first assassin you mentioned?”

“No, all of these assassins work alone. They see each other as rivals chasing the same target, so it would be fortunate for us if they took each other out.”

“What do you know about the third?”

“He’s Japanese. He doesn’t go by a particular nickname, but he’s an alumnus of Hope’s Peak Academy: the former Ultimate Rock Climber, Tsurugi Hitomoshi. After graduating, he spent some time abroad and made a name for himself conquering treacherous cliffs. At some point, he turned his climbing into a performance art, scaling historical monuments and buildings such as the Eiffel Tower and Angkor Wat, which caused backlash and eventually led to him being exiled from the climbing community. Only the criminal underworld is aware of his current activities as an assassin; he’s known as someone who can appear anywhere and eliminate anyone with one finger. He can easily bend the barrel of a rifle with one hand. I’ve also heard that he once crushed the heart of a police officer through a bulletproof vest with his bare hands.”

An assassin trained at an elite school. This was one gathering I didn’t want to have any involvement in.

I pitied Rei Mikagami, who had to deal with all these killers chasing after him. I guess prominent detectives were always roped into political schemes or conflicts, almost like how scientists around the world were killed or abducted during World War II for their work on weapons programs.

Someday, even Kyoko might be forced to serve someone for their personal gain. Or perhaps, she already has been...

While walking down the halls, Lico continued the conversation as if casually chatting about the weather.

“By the way, before the two of you arrived, I spotted a woman who fit the description of Copycat entering this department store.”

“Wh-What?” Suddenly sensing bloodlust in the air, I braced myself for action.

Nobody around looked particularly suspicious. Ladies clad in clothes from nearby stores were bustling about, as usual.

“You gotta tell us these things sooner! What did she look like?”

“She had on a coat with a red hood, kind of like Little Red Riding Hood. Blonde hair. She was rolling a small travel suitcase behind her.”

“Sounds like an easy to spot get-up, even from a distance. If we see her, let’s stay on our guard and avoid getting too close.”

“Avoiding her won’t get us any closer to Rei Mikagami,” Kyoko said. “We should follow her. We won’t make any headway without taking risks, right?”

“Yeah, but...”

Forget the possibility that we might have to fly into the face of danger—was this risk worth taking in the first place? We weren’t even sure Rei Mikagami was waiting at the end of this rainbow. None of this was rooted in certainty; it was almost like we were actually making plans to catch a ghost in a mirror.

“Yui,” Lico said, stopping in his tracks.

“Wh-What is it? Do you see one of the assassins?”

Lico pointed at a store in front of us. “There are swimsuits for sale up ahead.”

“Way to go, kid!”

I rushed forward, dragging Kyoko behind me. But my legs suddenly froze up.

Right as I was about to enter the shop, a red hood crossed the path in front of me.

I shot a glance back at Lico to confirm. He responded with a quick nod.

There was no mistaking it; that was Copycat.

We casually started tailing her. Thankfully, we were able to do so discreetly by blending in with the flocks of customers roaming the floor.

The red-hooded figure didn’t seem to have noticed us. Her left hand, which was noticeably white, was dragging a small bag. She wasn’t particularly tall, and her body was fairly slender. Her coat resembled a poncho. Two cat ear-like protrusions stuck out of her hood. Although the hood covered her head, I could see her blonde hair swaying to and fro as she walked.

“For an assassin, she sure sticks out like a sore thumb,” I whispered to Lico. “I didn’t think she’d look so frail and slender.”

“You don’t need strength to kill someone,” Lico replied with an angelic expression on his face.

After we followed after her for a while, she turned into a narrow passageway and went through a door labeled “Employees Only.”

The three of us huddled together beside the door.

“A staircase for employees... Where is she going?” I placed one hand on the door.

“Don’t,” Kyoko said, grabbing my arm. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Do you hear the grim reaper’s footsteps again? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna chase her too far. I wanna at least figure out if she went up or down.”

I slowly pushed the door open.

All of a sudden, a slender arm shot through the doorway and grabbed onto my wrist.

“Eek!”

The arm pulled me through to the dim stair landing on the other side. Standing adjacent to the door was Copycat, who was restraining me from behind. From far beyond the door, I could hear the cold, lifeless muffle of a storewide announcement playing over the PA system.

Why didn’t I listen to Kyoko?

I felt a sharp object pressed against my throat.

While slowly raising both my hands to signal my surrender, I snuck a glance at Copycat. Her face was white, reminiscent of a stunning European lady, and she had on a pair of thick high-index prescription glasses. A thin layer of makeup covered her face, enough to possibly be covering up any freckles. Her furrowed eyebrows and troubled expression seemed to suggest that she was more of the shy, introverted type. Did she have on cat ears because of her nickname, Copycat? Or was it because she was a fan of cosplay?

She started uttering some words in a foreign language and loosened her grip on me.

It was then that Lico burst through the door.

“Yui, are you alright?”

“N-Never better...” I stammered out, giving my best effort to sound composed even as I could no longer freely move my body. “Do you have any idea what she’s saying?”

“She’s asking, ‘Who are you?’”

Lico began conversing with Copycat. I had no clue what language they were speaking, but Copycat’s voice gradually grew calmer. Lico’s disarming smile was super effective.

It was then that I noticed—Kyoko wasn’t here.

“Hey, where’s Kyoko?” I asked, trying to interrupt Lico and Copycat’s chat. However, neither of them paid my words any mind. They were engrossed in their conversation.

Even though I was the hostage here, I felt like chopped liver.

“What are you two even talking about?” I asked.

“She’s asking who my favorite manga artist is,” Lico replied. “Let’s see, I would have to say—”

“You’re really having a friendly chat at a time like this?”

Was Lico successfully persuading her to lower her guard?

No... She was an assassin. And the way things were, she could easily kill me at any moment if she desired. I’d had a run of bad luck recently, but this was my first time being taken hostage by an assassin.

What should I do?

I had no knowledge of self-defense and no weapon by my side.

I thought about praying to God, but at the last second, I changed my mind and decided to pray to Kyoko instead.

Kyoko, please save me!

—Click.

A metallic clinking sound echoed out, causing Lico and the assassin to cut short their discussion. Noticing an abnormality, Copycat turned around, but by then, it was already too late.

Clamped around Copycat’s hand—the free wrist she hadn’t used to restrain me—was one end of a pair of handcuffs. The other end was secured to the handle of her bag.

As if having appeared out of nowhere, standing one step below the landing we were on was Kyoko. She was focused intently on pulling the bag down the stairs.

Copycat let out a yelp and rushed forward in an attempt to grab her bag, and as she reached out towards it, she released her grip on me.

The next moment, the bag began tumbling down the stairs. Copycat, linked to it by the handcuffs, plunged down along with it. The bag must’ve been much heavier than it looked, as the slender and light Little Red Riding Hood with cat ears was swiftly pulled down to the lower landing.

Piercing shrieks filled the air as she fell, but before long, her body slammed against the wall of the landing one floor down. She squirmed on the ground and feebly groaned.

“Yui, are you okay?” Kyoko ran up to where I was standing.

“Y-Yeah, I think so. How did you get over there?”

“I took a different staircase down and made my way up from below.” Kyoko puffed out her chest and placed her hands on her hips to make a sort of superhero pose.

Her quick thinking saved me again. Without her by my side, I would’ve met my demise many times over.

A fountain pen rolled up to my feet. That must’ve been the object Copycat held against my throat.

The three of us regrouped, made our way down the flight of stairs, and surrounded Copycat. She hadn’t lost consciousness, but since her whole body took a beating, she was lying down, unable to move.

I unzipped her bag. Inside were a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about serial killers, a few publications detailing cold cases, and a mountain of Japanese manga and doujinshi. No wonder her bag was so heavy. There were also a couple of passports stuffed inside. I couldn’t tell which one was real, but then again, all of them may have been forged.

There was nothing that resembled a weapon among her possessions. The fountain pen was probably the most dangerous item she had with her.

“She’s the kind of assassin to kill her target only after having conceived of a detailed plan,” Lico explained. “Her goal today was likely only to scout out her mark, so she wasn’t at the final phase of carrying out the hit yet.”

“Thank god she’s type A,” I sighed in relief.

“Would you like me to finish her off?”

“N-No, that’s okay.” I laughed nervously. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Are you sure? As long as she lives, innocent people will continue to die. Don’t forget, she’s an assassin.”

“That has nothing to do with why we came here today. We’re here to track down Rei Mikagami, and nothing more.”

Lico stared at me for a few seconds, but didn’t press the issue any further.

“I can’t find anything about Rei Mikagami in her things,” Kyoko reported, standing next to Copycat’s bag.

“Lico, did you get any information out of her?” I asked.

“She apparently doesn’t know anything about Rei Mikagami’s identity. The reason she came here was because she was informed her mark would appear on the rooftop plaza of this department store at four in the afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you say that sooner?! That’s exactly what we needed to know!”

Rei Mikagami will appear at four!

I checked the clock on my phone.

3:55 PM.

“Shoot, it’s almost time.”

“Shall we head up?” Lico suggested, still magically calm.

The rooftop plaza was located above the ninth floor. I imagined the struggle running up all those stairs, but we’d arrive with time to spare.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I replied. “Kyoko, come on.”

“Give me one second.”

Kyoko crouched down next to Copycat’s body and unfastened the handcuffs.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Retrieving these handcuffs. They’re kind of a memento.”

“Oh, from back then...”

Kyoko stuffed the handcuffs into the pocket of her uniform. So that was where she’d been hiding them all this time.

We abandoned Copycat on the landing and started rushing up the stairs.

Next: Chapter 2, Part 4

#dr kirigiri #danganronpa #kirigiri #danganronpa kirigiri #light novel #novel #translation

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checkeredliar-blog · 7 years ago

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((So after a lot of thinking, I think I’m finally happy with my idea of a pregame verse for Ouma. It doesn’t entirely match up with most of the art I’ve seen of Ouma’s pregame self, so if you agree 100% with that concept...uh, sorry. Let’s agree to disagree on that, okay? I’ll be sticking with “Kokichi Ouma” for a name, just for the sake of convenience and what feels natural. If Kodaka ever reveals anything that gives pregame Ouma a different name, I’ll switch to it when I know it. Under a readmore for the length.))

Kokichi had always been smart. In school, his grades were perfect, and he was said to be several years ahead of his classmates in terms of intelligence. Unfortunately for him, he was born with a slim, petite stature that made him look younger than his actual age, making him the perfect target for brutish bullies. He always put on a brave face in front of them, telling himself he could handle it, and he was right—he could. He knew they only wanted to hurt him and drag him down, and for a while, keeping that knowledge in the back of his mind was all he needed to get through each day, no matter what happened. There was just one problem. He couldn’t ever fight back hard enough, and the bullying gradually started to wear him down over time.

Since sports obviously weren’t a strong suit for him, he joined his school’s drama club instead as a means of escape. It gave him a chance to be someone else who wasn’t so bullied all the time, and while many of his classmates were playing video games or hanging out together after school, he would pour over his lines and practice his mannerisms for skits and school plays with determination that would do a professional actor proud. He was even beginning to consider making a career of it one day...but even then, the bullying continued. It seemed like no matter what he did, they always kept coming back, beating him down over and over again. One had the audacity to admit that they wanted to see him break. Revenge hadn’t ever been his style, but for the first time, a real desire to make the bullies pay crossed his mind

A few weeks after that, the performance of a play he’d been practicing for was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, and he went home feeling horribly dejected, his hard work all for nothing. Too upset to start on his homework right away, he turned on the t.v. instead on a whim—and it was all downhill from there. As luck would have it, the latest episode of Danganronpa was airing. He recognized the name of the show from overhearing his classmates talk about it all the time, and since he didn’t feel like doing anything else, he didn’t change the channel and decided to give watching it a try.

By the end of the episode, he’d gotten sucked in. It was so...different. It challenged him to think and question his morals; to keep up with the blackened’s method of murder and the investigation that followed. He spotted so many flaws in the way the culprit handled things, and it made him wonder—could he have gotten away with it instead, if he were the killer? He’d always believed that violence wasn’t the answer, but in watching the way the blackened carried out their murder, then the investigation that followed...he couldn’t stop wondering ‘what if...?’ He’d never thought about doing something so morally wrong before, but if he could get away with it and make it look like he didn’t do it...his bullies wouldn’t be around any longer.

He stopped his train of thought right then and there, ashamed of himself for even considering such a thing. Danganronpa was a fictional show, and his bullies were real people. No matter how horrible they were, he couldn’t...he shouldn’t. But by then, the idea had already managed to take root, and he continued to watch Danganronpa every day after that, living vicariously through the blackened, mentally correcting their mistakes, rooting for their success, and scoffing at their failures.

If bullies bothered him, he imagined himself planning an elaborate scheme to rid them from his life, and each time he did so, he began to feel progressively less and less guilty for wishing for someone else’s death. It got to the point that the only things really holding him back were laws and his morals that he couldn’t quite shake, and whenever he heard that Team Danganronpa was holding auditions for their next killing game, he went in to audition without any hesitation. After all, it was only a fictional show; it wouldn’t actually be real, right? He already knew how to act, so he would make the perfect contestant. Surely he would be able to get his hands dirty without feeling any guilt, and then he would win.

#ooc; || ♔ out of lies #v; || ♔ drop the act #if I think of a better tag for my pregame verse I'll change it #but that's it for now sldfkj

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pyropsychiccollector · 7 years ago

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Note: Fair word of warning - there's angst ahead here. I really got into it. :P This was rolling around in the back of my head for a while, but now since I'm writing Danganronpa stuff, too... well....

~*~

Sayaka honestly felt conflicted as she headed to the cafeteria the next morning. Part of her felt immense guilt for what she had attempted to do. She knew that it would stay with her for the rest of her life, and that she’d never be able to apologize enough to Naegi. Sayaka… knew she was a terrible person, and that she didn’t deserve his forgiveness. But as she thought about it, it was largely because of his influence that she felt… relieved that nothing happened last night. Whether Leon was too scared or paranoid, or if he was just playing it safe, Sayaka didn’t care. Whatever the case, Sayaka didn’t kill anyone, and… and she’d be spending the foreseeable future throwing herself at Naegi’s feet, his mercy, hoping he could someday see her as a friend again… Because he meant so much to her.

The longer she lied in wait last night and Leon didn’t come, the more she realized what a fool she was. Murdering Leon would’ve gotten her out of this hellhole, but she would’ve just been using Naegi just like how she stepped on so many others to get to where she was as a Pop Idol. The Ultimate Pop Idol. Naegi really wasn’t like everyone else… No matter how much she tried to kill her heart and muster up the courage to take a life, there was always that niggling doubt in the back of her head. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, and she wonders if she would’ve been able to go through with it, had Leon shown up.

… But as much as Sayaka was immensely relieved nothing happened, part of her was… confused. She wouldn’t be able to know if Leon had caught on to her murder attempt, or if another tragedy took place. Everyone had been upset when they watched the videos, and if she had been desperate enough to commit murder…

It was for that reason that Sayaka almost went to check on Makoto before coming to the cafeteria. She was concerned for her friend – her unwitting savior – though in the end, she decided to not draw suspicion to herself as she saw Kiyotaka wandering the hall, attempting to start awakening the late-risers. In the end, she just went directly to the cafeteria and waited for their morning meeting, anxious all the while to see Naegi.

Time passed, and the other students slowly trickled in. Fujisaki, Aoi, Sakura… Mondo, Junko, Yamada… Kirigiri, Celes, Leon, Touko, and Yasuhiro… The only ones missing were Kiyotaka, Togami, and Naegi. Sayaka had a feeling Kiyotaka was just trying to get Togami to come to breakfast, but Naegi…

The pop sensation bit her lower lip and tried to hide her worry. Naegi was usually one of the “early risers”, like her. If he overslept, that was okay… But after what she attempted to do last night, a seed of doubt and worry was sown into her heart.

At last, Kiyotaka marched in with an irritated-looking Togami. Unfortunately, there appeared to be no sign of Naegi with them.

“Yo, Togami! You seen Naegi around?” Mondo asked the heir, rather than the prefect who had been making sure they all get to breakfast.

“Like I’d know where he is.” Togami scoffed. He nudged his head toward the prefect. “I came directly here with this idiot.”

Kiyotaka frowned and his brow furrowed, crossing his arms.

“It is unlike Makoto to not be here yet… From what I’ve seen, he has practiced good study habits, arriving on time for our morning meetings!”

Junko rolled her eyes.

“Weren’t you the one chewing him out for being late to the entrance hall on our first day.” The model examined her nails dully.

“… I admit I should not have judged a book by its cover!” Kiyotaka calmly confessed.

Yamada rubbed his chin.

“Has he forgotten… our breakfast oath?”

Kirigiri muttered something, but Sayaka didn’t quite hear her. The seed of apprehension that took root in her heart… had begun to sprout. There was no resisting it anymore – Sayaka had to know if he was okay. Suspicions be damned, last night was far from “normal”, and she knew it.

“I… I’m gonna go check on him. I-I��m his assistant, after all!” Sayaka chirped with false cheer before darting out of the dining hall, not waiting for anyone’s consent. If anyone protested, she didn’t hear them either. Right now, her heart was thundering in her ears as she ran down the hall – sliding to a stop as she finally noticed something.

The nameplates. They were on their correct doors. Sayaka knew for a fact that she had switched them. So why…?

Desperately dismissing the question as soon as it had entered her mind, Sayaka sprang for her door and twisted the handle, finding it to be unlocked. She threw open the door and rushed into the room.

“Naegi?!” The idol looked around frantically. No one was on the bed. The room was still as tidy as she had left it… There was one minor difference, though.

The bathroom door was ajar.

Sayaka didn’t hesitate, fear and trepidation having completely taken over her heart. Naegi should have heard her if he was in there, and the only way he wouldn’t have heard her was if he was knocked out… or…

A lump formed in her throat. The idol squeezed her eyes shut tight, opened the door so she could peer inside… and opened her eyes.

She should have known… from the moment she didn’t see him in the hall when she got up, to all that time waiting in the cafeteria…

There was no hope. Not anymore.

Hot, fat tears spilled from her eyes, and Sayaka sank to her knees, unable to tear her eyes away. Lying there propped up against the wall in a pool of blood, his own blood, a knife sticking out of his chest, his pupils dilated, and his skin hideously pale… was Makoto Naegi. There was no point in checking for a pulse. His chest wasn’t rising and falling – the boy’s whole body was deathly still, and his face had gone slack…

Makoto Naegi was dead. The boy who unwittingly changed her mind about committing murder… the young man who had wanted to do nothing but help people… help her… He was gone. And right away, Sayaka knew that Naegi didn’t end his life with his own two hands. Naegi… wasn’t… like that…

Sayaka choked back a sob before wailing loudly. So loud, that she unintentionally alerted the others to the situation, having left her bedroom door wide open. Part of her didn’t really care, though… She’d lost all feeling. She was hurting. She felt more pain than she had in her entire life… Even after watching that video with something happening to her friends… This was somehow still worse. With the video, she didn’t know if her friends were dead, or if they were just badly hurt. Here, in this moment… there was no room for doubt. No room to hope that she could apply CPR. Naegi had lost too much blood, and who knew just how long it’d been since he’d passed on?

Misery, despair, guilt… all of it gnawed away at her, and Sayaka subconsciously crawled forward and took ahold of Naegi’s blood-soaked hoodie in her hands. She didn’t know what she was doing by this point, and she wasn’t able to register that the others had come to check on her, and were caught up in their own shock and horror.

“Come back… Naegi… Please…” The Pop Idol cried barely above a whisper. He had to… He needed to come back…! There was so many things left unsaid. She didn’t care how her clothes were getting blood all over them. She only started caring when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the brunet. “L-Let me go…!”

“I’m sorry, Sayaka… But it’s too late.” Sakura Oogami grimaced as she quite easily resisted Sayaka’s attempts to escape her grip. She was just as distraught as the rest of them, but she wasn’t the Ultimate Fighter for nothing. Grimly, she reaffirmed, “We can’t bring him back.”

That got the idol’s tear-stained eyes to snap up at her. She glared in hostility before thrashing about even harder.

“We can…! We have to! Naegi wasn’t supposed to die!”

There was a harsh slap that cut through everyone’s horrified reactions. Sayaka blinked back even more tears as she glared at the model that had been brazen enough to do it. There was something different about Junko’s presence, though. Gone was that chipper, almost lazy supermodel. In her place was a scowling, seething, absolutely furious woman that was glaring at Sayaka, daring her to utter another word.

Needless to say, the idol didn’t take the model up on her “challenge”.

“That’s enough!” Junko barked. “Just think for a damn moment, would ya? Do you seriously think Naegi would want you to be mourning mindlessly like this?! No way in hell. I might not have known him for long, but he seemed like a really standup guy. And standup guys like him don’t leave you to wallow in misery!”

Sayaka hung her head, looking away from Junko. She hated admitting Junko was even remotely right… When she fled after watching her video, it was him who went running after her. And again, it was him who tried so hard to encourage everybody to get along.

Naegi… wouldn’t want her kneeling in his own blood, nonsensically yelling for him to come back when he couldn’t… Naegi would want her to pick herself up and keep going – because he believed in her.

And yet… She wasn’t ready to “move on”. Sayaka wouldn’t, couldn’t acknowledge the horrible truth that Naegi was dead… That she would never see him move again. Never see him smile, or laugh, or get flustered…

In the end, though, Sayaka slumped in Sakura’s ironclad grip. She didn’t fight anymore, but she didn’t move to stand up with the rest of them. How could she? Naegi would never be able to stand up again. He’d never get to do… so many things. Tears were still cascading down her face, but she didn’t move or do anything else. She just sat there and sobbed.

~*~

Apparently, it wasn’t enough that Makoto died. That damn bear taunted them and told them they would have no choice but to investigate Naegi’s death and decide who was the killer. If they managed to guess correctly, only the murderer would be executed. But if they guessed wrong… the rest of them would die, and the killer would walk free.

Sayaka was numb, and pretty unresponsive even as a good number of the students suspected that she killed Naegi, since he was in her room. Part of her wanted them to just guess that it was her, be wrong, and all get executed for even entertaining the notion that she would kill Naegi… In a sense, though, she had. It was her fault they had exchanged rooms. Her attempted murder plot that put Naegi in a situation where he could be killed as well. She hadn’t known he had switched the nameplates back, but that was no excuse. Maybe he was just scared that if he attempted to confront her, she would kill him… He would have had every right to be scared of her…

But still… why change the plates back? If he knew what she was planning to do, why endanger himself? Why put himself in an awkward position where her potential “victim” would be forced to talk to him instead? Just what had transpired? If he hadn’t answered the door like he promised, then they both would be alive right now. And yet… she didn’t feel like blaming him. Not when she herself had been planning to murder a man.

It hurt Sayaka to have so many questions fly through her mind a mile a minute. Part of her wanted to investigate and find out if it had been Leon that committed the deed, but she was just so drained. The only people not outright accusing or doubting her were Junko, Sakura… and Kirigiri. The former two didn’t doubt or accuse her because of the scene she made, and how close she had apparently been to Naegi. Sakura confessed she was going to be open-minded about it, and vote if there was sufficient evidence it was her, but she had calmly explained that she highly doubted Sayaka had killed Naegi. Junko had told her point-blank to stay out of the way and let her investigate; the whole reason she seemed to be investigating was for Naegi, since Sayaka was too drained to do anything, and she “obviously” wasn’t the culprit, like everyone else said.

And Kirigiri… actually seemed to piece together her attempted murder plot. She didn’t say as such in so many words, but Sayaka could guess from the questions Kyoko was asking that she was piecing it together. And at the end, she simply assured Sayaka that she was pretty sure the culprit wasn’t her. Sayaka wasn’t sure if they would find enough evidence to pin down the real culprit, but there was a small part of her that held out hope that they would… Because they couldn’t let Naegi’s killer walk free, and Sayaka would never forgive them. Sayaka’s main suspect was Leon, and she didn’t care if she was being biased in her suspicions.

Sayaka just felt… empty. She couldn’t do much investigating in her state. When Naegi died, he took a part of her heart with her. Some assistant. Naegi was dead, and it was her fault. That’s how it was supposed to be.

“I don’t know if it will be any consolation…” Kirigiri paused as she dug some folded note from her pocket. “… But he did leave this for you. Hopefully, you can gain some peace from it.”

Sayaka wiped at her eyes as she numbly accepted the note from the lavender-head.

“B-But where…? How…?”

“In the drawer, under the sewing kit. He put it in a place the killer wasn’t very likely to look. I would’ve missed it myself, had I not been looking everywhere,” Kyoko confessed.

Sayaka said nothing, and opened up the note. New tears fell down her face, the more she read.

“I guess I’m just being paranoid, but I wanted to be safer than sorry.. I’m so sorry if you’re reading this, Maizono. I just wanted… to help you. I broke my promise and checked out the hallway, to see if I could find your… attacker. That’s when I found out about the nameplates.

I really wanted to check in on you. But… I have a feeling you were planning to kill someone, and that you were probably planning to blame me in order to get out… If I confronted you tonight, we both would get hurt.

So… I switched back the plates. Maybe you’re wondering what my plan was… To tell the truth, I just wanted to resolve things between you two, rather than let a murder happen. If you’re reading this, though… that didn’t work out. I know they wouldn’t be happy if they found out you wanted to kill them, so I’m gonna tell them a half-truth, I guess. That you did call them, but you had me take your place ‘cause it was just a prank.

I wanna talk to you again, tomorrow. I’m writing this in case I can’t. I… Despite the evidence, I still believe in you, Maizono. Whatever was on your video, you were so scared by it that you were inconsolable. If that video drove you to murder, or to try it, I wanted to stop you. I promised I’d get you out of here, but killing someone isn’t the way to do it. There’s no way I can tell you that right now and make you believe me.

Maybe you’re really sad and feeling betrayed… but you’re my friend, Maizono! Above all else, I want you to know that! I want everyone to get out. And right now, the only thing I can do is get in the way of this murder, and talk to you tomorrow. I promise, I haven’t told anyone else about what you did. I promise, I haven’t gone back on my word that I would get you out of here. There just has to be another way!

If you hate me, I totally understand. I’d probably be angry, too, if I was in your shoes… But I’m not gonna let Monokuma make you something you’re not. You’re the kindest, smartest, bravest, most beautiful woman I know! And you’re the best assistant ever! I guess I am the Ultimate Luckster, huh? I’m so glad I got to know you! If you ever feel guilty about all this, don’t be. I took it upon myself to protect you, so it’s on my head.

If it’s not too much… Please, try and get everyone outta there. Keep everyone together! Don’t let Monokuma win!

With love,

Makoto Naegi”

Sayaka’s back and shoulders wracked with sobs as she clutched the note to her chest. Makoto said, thought, and felt all these things… Of course she was going to keep everyone together now, because that’s what he wanted. He believed in her, despite how she betrayed him. He was so optimistic… so she would be optimistic.

Sayaka just wished… she could have told him how she felt…

#Danganronpa #Sayaka Maizono #Makoto Naegi #Makoto x Sayaka #Naegi x Sayaka #Aaangst...#T^T

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