#also can we make fun of byakuya’s talent more

[theamityelf]

I’ve been thinking of talent swap AUs and I was wondering if there were any talents you would like to see Makoto have? And like if that varies from ship to ship? Like way back you have that post of different Makoto soulmate AUs with different ships, so that but with talent swaps.

On the top of my head, an Ultimate Neuroscientist Makoto would be interested with Hineagi or Kamuegi. Like Makoto is a minute replacement on the Kamukura project and either encounters pre-op Hajime (and maybe tries to save Hajime’s memories along with giving him talents I don’t know) OR meets Kamukura (and it’s the classic treats Izuru as a human rather than an experiment tropes but Makoto is a scientist here)

Oooh, first of all, there's one relevant post I made a little bit ago where I said that Ultimate Rule-Breaker would be a cool fit for him, since we know he will defy the establishment to protect other people.

But your specific idea of matching it to specific ships like in my soulmate AU's post is really cool, so let's give it a try, lol! I don't want to threaten his just-a-guy-ness, but it could be cool to try to use the alternate ultimate to lean into certain particular dynamics of each ship. It really seems to come down to "Is it more fun to do opposites or to coordinate?"

Kamuegi:

Here, I really want to retain the sense of "He isn't super skilled; he's just a really decent guy." A part of me wants to go "Ultimate Therapist" or somewhere in that ballpark, specifically because it justifies Hope's Peak's scientists having arranged for them to be around each other, but I think it's a little important to me that he's not a therapist. It feels like it takes away from his Power of Friendship thing if he's a therapist. Not knocking therapy! It's just maybe not best for the ship. I think the best thing he can offer Izuru is an appreciation for the world around him, so something like "Ultimate Bird-Watcher", like in that other post, or "Ultimate Stargazer," or just something in the ballpark of "person whose skill comes from enjoying things and dedicating himself to that enjoyment". Canon Makoto seems to more have that with people, but for this AU, I think the highly social aspect of Makoto's personality can receive less emphasis. I think for now I'm going to go with "Ultimate Storm-Chaser", because that combines a few cool things. It's an enjoyment of the natural world, it's a kind of wild side that we don't usually get to see a lot from Makoto, it characterizes the whole Naegi family in a pretty fun way (like, I'm just picturing them in a station wagon or van, following storms since Makoto and Komaru were little kids), and it's a thing where Makoto's clumsiness and Izuru's protection can put them in cool situations. And Makoto can still get some heroics in, saving people who are in the path of natural disasters. (I'm picturing the standard screaming child in a disaster movie.)

Naegami:

Oh boy, where to start for this one? I'm not going to act like Ultimate Secretary didn't cross my mind first, but I think the appeal of AU's where he actually becomes Byakuya's secretary isn't usually the idea that he'll be superhumanly good at it. Next, the idea of them being placed at odds by their titles comes to mind. Like, maybe the Togami Corporation is up to some harmful practices and Makoto is the Ultimate Environmentalist, or the Ultimate Activist, and he tries to appeal to Byakuya's better nature, and also it's really funny to think "The Ultimate Environmentalist saves the planet by accidentally romancing the most influential CEO." Boy, I started this point planning to say "but instead", but now I've kind of talked myself into this one. I think I like this dynamic?? Makoto just trying to reason with him, Byakuya reading him as some wide-eyed idealist at first, but Makoto is able to parry everything he says, and they have a Vibe, and then they're dating, and Byakuya really likes him, but if he actually makes the changes that Makoto is passionate about, he's worried Makoto will leave him because a part of him has thought that Makoto was just using him the whole time.

(Also, hey, it's me from after I finished the rest of this post. Yeah, the answer I give for Naezono also applies here.)

Naegiri:

I am pretty charmed by the idea of him being something that stands at odds with Ultimate Detective, like Ultimate Accomplice (and there are a lot of ways he could be someone who deliberately or accidentally keeps people from getting in trouble while she's trying to find out the truth no matter what), but it seems more aligned with the spirit of the ship if he gets something that pairs well with detective, like "Ultimate Lip-Reader". That one would probably involve a lot of him tagging along on the field with her, offering his thoughts and insights and telling her what people are saying in silent security footage. Alternatively, any Ultimate where she's doing the field work as a detective and he's doing the office and/or people-facing side is cool, so "Ultimate Secretary" would actually be pretty great for this ship. (That one fic, Smile at the Mouth of Despair, had him doing file work and stuff, and I kind of love that; it's what I'm visualizing for this point. I like him sorting files and taking calls.)

Komaegi:

Is "Ultimate Friend" cheating? Yeah, that's cheating. I kind of like Ultimate Survivalist, maybe, where people expect him to be really strong and cool, but he's just a somewhat clumsy little guy who just happens to regularly dodge heavy projectiles and happen to have the exact thing he needs in his backpack. (This could include him knowing aikido, since we all love Aikido Makoto, lol.) The way this would intersect with Nagito is, in any given plane crash or house fire or explosion, Makoto theoretically should be safe and able to help Nagito out. I say theoretically because there is a part of me that thinks Nagito's luck would have to kill the Ultimate Survivalist. I don't always subscribe to the theory that his luck does the least likely thing (whether it's good or bad), but I do think that an Ultimate Survivalist, even if the talent works exactly like Makoto's normal luck, would be tempting fate just by being called that.

Honestly, while I said that the highly social aspect of Makoto's character didn't need to be emphasized for Izuru, I feel it definitely does for Nagito, hence the "Ultimate Friend" idea. But I'm thinking maybe a service role that Makoto can have a decidedly healthy approach to, like Ultimate Barista? Is there a word for someone who picks up litter? Because I love the idea of Makoto's Ultimate being focused on cleaning up after people, but him having an overall more generous and friendly outlook on them than Nagito. Maybe Makoto is the Ultimate Custodian, and a lot of people expect him to resent people who drop trash, but he's more, "I'm glad I can help out. Sometimes people are busy or make mistakes, and I'm glad I can keep our shared spaces clean. I meet a lot of interesting people! For example..."

A talent that positions him to know when something's off with Nagito even if he doesn't say anything, like "Ultimate Body Language Expert", would theoretically be cool, because it would allow for Makoto to comfort him when he really needs it, but that also feels a little bit like cheating, lol.

(Him being the Lucky Student, Ultimate Hope, or talentless honestly work best for Nagito, in my opinion, but these are still fun dynamics to explore.)

Naenami:

Oooh, maybe Ultimate Game-Breaker? This is kind of a fusion of bad luck and gamer, where he will reliably find the bug in any game always. Maybe too similar. I think what I'm picturing for them right now is Makoto having a YouTube channel or Twitch channel where he talks about stuff he likes. Like, maybe a CinemaWins kind of thing, but unscripted, where he's actually rambling to the camera. That way, we get a dynamic where Chiaki makes Let's Plays and Makoto makes just general positive vlog content. They try out a new game together, and Makoto is raving about how cool it is and Chiaki's like, "It's fun. The crafting mechanic is a little buggy, and they didn't really integrate it into any storyline. Yeah, it's a pretty good new release." I'm going to say he mostly vlogs, so I can call him Ultimate Positivity Vlogger instead of having to find a way word all of that in one Ultimate title, lol.

Naezono:

Ultimate Stage Hand or Light Technician could be fun. Maybe Ultimate Celebrity Interviewer, and they have one conversation that is just so incredible that she never stops thinking about it. He has a way of really making the people he interviews feel seen and cared about, and that's just so unusual in the entertainment industry that Sayaka falls head over heels. (He doesn't know he has this effect.)

Naekusaba:

Ooh, I'm feeling something in the ballpark of Ultimate Bookkeeper, or just any collection-type Ultimate. Something unassuming in the eyes of pretty much everyone. Here's why: Making him a passionate collector of [something] means we can have Mukuro often shyly gifting him one of [that thing] that she found while she was out doing soldier stuff. He gets to nervously ask, "You didn't kill someone for that, did you?" and she gets to lie, "No, I bought it," or "No, I found it." Also, it means maybe one day Mukuro knocks on his door bleeding, injured, with nowhere else to go, being followed by enemies, and Makoto hides her in his home which is full of collected things and enemy soldiers show up at his house like "Have you seen [description of Mukuro]?" and he's like, "No, I'm here alone. No one's been here." And the enemy soldiers barge in anyway to search the place, but in all his collected things, they can't find Mukuro, so they leave and he brings her some food and water and does his best to bandage her up (or she just stitches up her own wound), and she notices that he has a little bruise or scratch from when the enemy soldiers pushed him aside to search the place, and she's so sorry she brought danger to his door.

Naejunko:

I think Ultimate Hope is already perfect for that one. Alternatively, though, something like "Ultimate World Ender" or some similar thing positioning him as potentially usable to her. It would follow the same rules as "Ultimate Rule-Breaker", though, where the whole point is that he prioritizes others' wellbeing over any establishment, so it would be a situation where Junko tries to make use of his talent for destroying organizations from within (because that's the essence of his talent, here; he's really good at dismantling organizations), but it doesn't work because he's not just out there destroying things; his priority is to help people, and he was titled the way he was because those running the establishments that do harm were seeing him from their own perspectives. Junko can't get the Ultimate World Ender (or whatever else his title is) to end the world, and he's actually a pretty big inconvenience for her.

Or "Ultimate Barista" again. She's talking about her despair plans with Mukuro in some cafe, and Makoto brings them their coffee or tea, like, "Are you guys writing a book?" and casually weighs in on "plot elements" that interest or confuse him, accidentally helping Junko make her plan better. She keeps inviting him to their table for more artistic feedback, and he's having a great time talking with them. They become regulars, and he memorizes Mukuro's order and, even though Junko always orders something different, he seems to somehow intuit the kinds of flavors she enjoys and makes great recommendations. She's in love.

[le-agent-egg]

Honestly what’s even funnier is that Jin Kirigiri put the following students in the same class:

- Ultimate Biker Gang Leader (Guy who likes to commit crimes sometimes. like speeding 😦)

- Ultimate Gambler (Double whammy here: not only is gambling illegal, Celeste is also underage!)

- Ultimate uhh (checks notes) Murderous Fiend (as the abridged series put it “super duper stabby mc murder”)

- Ultimate Soldier (not *illegal* per se but. Last I checked you can’t join the military as a high schooler)

- aND THE ULTIMATE DETECTIVE???????????? THE ULTIMATE DETECTIVE WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE HIS DAUGHTER??????????? JIN BUDDY WHAT WERE YOU ON 😭😭😭

some of the talents in danganronpa make absolutely no sense what the fuck is an ultimate robot

[shsl-analyzer-guy]

I'm feeling like being controversial today. Here, take some DR character opinions. Clutch your pearls besties

17- Makoto. I feel nothing for this character, in any positive or negative direction. To me, he's only ever been the vessel for which THH takes place for the player. That's kind of it. Bro is just chilling. (Note: these opinions are exclusive to the THH game.)

16- Leon. He suffers from what I like to call chapter 1 syndrome. Not only was he killed extremely early, but he had no plot or character significance before or after the fact in-game. I think the idea of a character that hates their talent is really interesting, and his design slaps, but he just didn't have any sticking power for me.

15- Yasuhiro. He's got funny moments here and there (the ghost bit in the ch 5 trial never fails to make me laugh) but he has no story. They don't do anything with him besides 'stupid occult man' jokes, and I can't help but feel like there was wasted potential to do something with his fortune-telling talent that was only ever used as another gag of his stupidity. Disappointing as a character, but at least he was around longer than Leon.

14- Byakuya. Asshole characters are always hit-or-miss for me, and Byakuya missed by a ton. I know he *technically* got showed up during the chapter 4 trial, but getting upstaged once and acting like nothing happened afterwards isn't enough of a character arc for me to find him surviving over so many others in the cast worth it. He's also just pretty weak as an antagonist in comparison to the others in the series(not to mention there was an objectively better option for antag in this very cast). He's the type of character I'd probably like way more in like, Ace Attorney, but here I just got so sick of hearing him speak.

13- Hifumi. I can appreciate the attempt to make a subversion of the 'perverted nerd' character, but they failed the second they actually made him a perverted nerd, even if they gave him that bare minimum ideal of rape being bad. Fanon interpretations of what could've been prop him up for me a good bit, too.

12- Mukuro. Similar to Makoto, she feels like a character that exists to serve a narrative purpose, and we never really meet her as herself in-game. Unlike Makoto, we actually got FTEs playable in the post-game that allude to a greater story with her and her doubt in despair that makes her retroactively more tragic and adds both to herself and her sister.

11- Toko. They just didn't do enough with her in THH to warrant me placing her any higher than this. I think the differences between her and Genocider are interesting, and I wish they'd been given more growth in the game instead of spending the entire game post-chapter 2 pining over and stalking Byakuya. Toko gets ranked lower because she wasn't as fun to have onscreen and I got sick of her insisting people disliked her for being ugly, even though she's pretty conventionally attractive beyond having glasses.

10- Junko. She was an incredible mastermind twist and had a ton of charisma and presence in the final trial, from her sprites to the VA's performance, but they just didn't use her enough to warrant putting her any higher than the characters above.

9- Mondo. I like the characters he's attached to more than I do Mondo himself. I like the 2-sided coin of toxic masculinity they write between him and Chihiro, and I love his relationship with Taka, but I just don't care much for him outside of what he provides for those characters. He's fine.

8- Genocider. Basically everything I said with Toko, but she's way more entertaining from her cheery and violent personality and is just more expressive and fun. I got excited whenever she came onscreen because I knew I was about to have a good time.

7- I don't think you could change Kyoko's role in the story much at all without drastically altering the game as a whole. Makoto may be the POV, but Kyoko is undoubtedly the main character of THH and not only is she the most capable member of the class, but her growth as she opens up to Y/N Makoto and puts her faith not only in the absolute truth, but also hope is beautiful to watch, especially as we get to learn the mystery of who she is and where she came from. In another world, she'd be my #1, but I've never actually shed tears for her so she ends up as low as 7th.

6- I'd say from an objective standpoint, Sakura is probably the most well-written character in THH. Her internal conflict as she's forced to play the role of spy paired with her rapidly growing relationship with Hina as she finally, finally finds someone that sees her as the woman she so desperately wants to be acknowledged as, growing past her greatest weakness- her fear- to stand up to Monokuma, and having to take the role of a fighter on for a class of people that hated her to be both victim and killer, freeing her classmates from having to become either- I think I've made my point. I still wish we'd gotten that 3rd-person fighter about Sakura.

5- When I went into THH, I fully expected Hina to be a dumb blonde character for the entire game, with no substance beyond her character design. Maybe that low expectation was what made her shoot so high up my list. She wasn't the smartest character, sure, and the game definitely focuses on her body an uncomfortable amount, but she still has an incredible arc in her relationship with Sakura. Her depiction of grief is so deeply emotional, and her sense of justice, which up until then had been alluded to but never put into her hands, became a weapon that almost took down the entire class with her tears. Not only does she lose her best friend, but she's then manipulated by Monokuma to make that pain so much worse by pinning the blame for her loss on everyone around her and herself. Her attempt of a murder-suicide of the entire class followed by the reading of Sakura's real will and her guilt and regret afterwards is one of the strongest moments of the series. I've always thought if Makoto didn't exist, Hina would've been a great choice for a protagonist for this game, since she starts with that same optimism and easygoing ability to make friends that Makoto does, but is a strong character in her dedication to her sports and fierce love of those closest to her.

4- As a trans man, Chihiro's story was a lot like looking in a mirror, especially when I was playing the game as someone who'd only just started opening the closet door. His insecurities due to his body and his attempts to forcibly feminize himself to receive acceptance and masquerade as something he wasn't was something I was intensely familiar with, and the tragedy of his finally gaining enough confidence to open up to a close friend and seek out help to try and become his true self, only to be betrayed by said friend and killed before he ever got the chance, was one of the best personal gut punches I've gotten from this series. Regardless of the transphobia and misogyny written into said storyline, he's a character I'll never not relate to. There's a ton to dive into with Chihiro's character writing, and he's one of those characters I can tear into like a raw steak and go not only into how he's treated by the show, but also by how many ways there are to write him better than the game actually did and all the different ways different corners of the fandom have treated him. (Also, to be clear, I'm not opposed to transfem Chihiros hcs, I'm using he/him bc that's what's canon.)

3- Taka. My beloved boy, underrated outside of his relationship with Mondo. I'll defend this man until the day I die, and will always believe he should've been a member of the surviving cast over Hiro. His constant uphill battle with trying to connect with and protect his classmates only to fail at every turn from his lack of understanding of social norms, going as far as to rationalize hobbies as a form of studying in his first FTE, and his pure joy in finally connecting with someone being decimated by the reality that that man went on to be a killer is so powerful. Watching him completely snap and go near comatose, only being pulled out of stasis by the news that an AI of Chihiro still exists and begging for forgiveness for not being able to prevent his death was shattering, and his fusion with his perception of Mondo pushing him over the edge only to be killed unceremoniously in the background of Celeste's plan was infuriating. This man struggled and clawed his way through the first half of the game for whatever scraps of screentime the creators would leave him, and then they tossed him out when they couldn't think of anything better to do. Justice for my man!!!

2- Celeste. Remember when I said there was a character more well-suited for the role of antagonist than Byakuya in this game? Well, this is she. Not only would she have worked as a narrative foil to the player, as Makoto and Celeste are both in the class for their luck-based talent, but she would've had a much more powerful and thematic rivalry with Kyoko, the girl who seeks out absolute truth, as the girl who wraps herself in a veil of lies. I already found her fascinating as she was, having a character that's unashamedly a bad person and follows her own ideals with no regard for the effects on the rest of the class beyond how easy it'd be to manipulate them, but her lack of regard for the class trials and refusal to cooperate could've been how she functioned as an antagonist, refusing to help the group when it didn't immediately serve her or intentionally leaving out details that put her in a bad position. Essentially, she'd function as an antagonist in a way inverse to how Kokichi functioned, which not only would've been phenomenal for THH, but for the parallel storytelling V3 later goes on to employ. That said, that's all hypothetical, but even without all of that, she's still an intriguing character that I can't stop thinking about.

1- Sayaka. I hated Sayaka when I first started playing, not because of anything she was doing, but because I didn't like how the game was seemingly gluing her to Makoto's hip. I didn't like having to slough my way through tutorial after tutorial going through her to talk to the entire rest of the class, and I didn't like being forced to burn my first FTE on her when there were other characters I wanted to learn about. I cheered when I found her body because it meant I wouldn't have to jump through hoops to speak to the other characters anymore. All that hatred dissipated as the first trial took place. Taking the cutesy sidekick girl and making her not only the first victim (something that was huge for the genre at the time) but also going on to reveal that she was actively betraying us and plotting to frame us for murder to save herself and her fellow idols was a genius move. Since then, Sayaka has become a stronger presence in my mind for this series, and her impact on the series as a whole can't be overstated. She put the first killing game into motion. She carried with her the first despair, and inspired the first hope from Makoto. Her desperation for a dream she had to fight tooth and nail for, that desire to hang onto her dream that'd kept her going for so long pushes forward everything. 11037 became a staple point for the series and the fandom, not just because of the poor western translation, but also because that was her point of regret, the guilt that stopped her from killing Leon successfully and ultimately saved everyone, her final moments being to save Makoto and the others. Every moment spent with her at the beginning is designed not just to make her seem like the desirable sidekick girl, but also to weave into your perception of her the darkness she carries on the inside, the dedication and determination to remain liked and retain her fame by any means necessary, feigning being agreeable yet still unwittingly developing genuine feelings for someone who's nothing but genuine. The money I'd pay for a prequel anime about Sayaka's rise to the title of SHSL Idol is unreasonably high.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

As soon as you said that A2-1 was very similar to who was number 10 on the list, I knew it was gonna talk about 2-1. Because both are on a tropical island, both are in a virtual world, the MCs don't know what they are (though Sora's got more severe amnesia then Hajime does) both Chapter 1s have a party that goes wrong, we have a psycho reveal and the pervert of the group ends up dying.

But of course the big difference is why SDRA2 has a good start but ends up losing a lot of its steam, Danganronpa 2 does not and keeps its foot on the gas most of the time. And the brilliant way this game makes you think you are playing a cleancut sequel only to throw curveballs in your direction is amazing.

So naturally Danganronpa 1 was made as a standalone title with no sequel in mind because you don't think these things. But the game sold decently well and Spike Chunsoft wanted more so Kodaka got to work. The main reason why we had the Ultimate Imposter is more of a personal request from Akira Ishida, as the senyu often plays as very serious minded characters but he wanted to be a joke character for once so the Ultimate Imposter was created for that purpose, especially since they decided rather then hide one of the students to get fucked over in future installments for lord knows what reason, they had all 16 at the start so Kodaka wanted to be silly. What I like about the Ultimate Imposter is due to how open ended he is as a character you can do whatever you want with him as there is no rules which askblogs have taken advantage of big time.

For example while obviously his leadership skills and trying to be arrogant are him mimicking Byakuya, but his love of food and the compassion he has for others, is something I believe the actual person behind the disguise is as a character. Since we know Byakuya is a veterian, it makes you wonder how he got so fat, with some unsavoury theories being that he ate Makoto and co, and if he's become more compassionate due to the Killing Game he was in and why he didn't mention it before? All of these are obvious things to call back on in 2-5 when we find out about who Byakuya really is but these things will keep you guessing and I think Byakuya fans would be too busy simping to ignore the signs. And then of course he dies showcasing seemly that just because you survived one Killing Game, doesn't mean you can live the next one.

Naturally this is hilarious in hindsight from how Danganronpa 3 danced around this but ultimately never came to it. Its also very refreshing to see how this chapter balances between being fresh for newcomers but also keep things interesting for veretians like the fact everyone was meant to go on a fun school trip but then Monokuma hijacks it, and does his trademark Killing Game and even has the Monobeasts to show he's not fucking around. Only for them to slink off and only be beaten up in a minigame I'm sure nobody even has played. At least the Exicels in V3 had more of a role within the game itself then the Monobeasts. He tells the Class Trial system, we have 16 students and the first motive even outright says that the students have already been to Hope's Peak but their memories have been stolen. All of this is stuff that was revealed late into Trigger Happy Havoc but Goodbye Despair reveals it right off the bat.

Nagito also at first glance seems to behave very Makoto-like as he has a similar apperance, same talent, his name is a anagram for "I am Makoto Naegi" and as such you expect him to be the boring but reliable person to help you throughout the game, he is by your side throughout all of Chapter 1, helps out with the party and when it starts of the long trend of making Danganronpa fans develop a chronic fear over parties, he assists you during your investigation and makes a few good points in the Class Trial. But then of course you start to notice some things off with him and consider the fact he might be the one to kill Imposter and when the heat turns on him, he cracks and his true psychotic personality emerages.

The reason Nagito is the single best rival character in all of Danganronpa is that while literally every other character is an archetype which has been done to death in media before, you always have your rich snob hyper competitive freaks in Byakuya, you always have Knight Templars in Kyosuke and Tsurugi, you always had chronic chaotic gremlin liars like Kokichi and you always had sleezy captailistic scum who only work when their lives at are stake like Syobai, Nagito by contrast is a purely organic original character who ONLY works in the setting of Danganronpa. His worldview is a reflection on the twisted world of Danganronpa where Hope is light and Despair is dark and Ultimates are seen as the cream of the crop. And while its a strange morality at first glance, when you really get down to it, its nothing more then good vs evil. And later on we get characters from other forms of media who are based on Nagito and his insanity. Nagito isn't made from a archetype he IS the archetype.

He also is a creditable threat and backs up his words time and time again, Kokichi isn't very threatening because his schemes ultimately blow up in his face and half the time he's fighting something he doesn't fully understand. Nagito not only kickstarts the killing game, but the only reason his plan even got so far is because not only is he a smart and resourceful character, he also uses his luck to give him an edge. While Makoto is often considered the Ultimate Lucky Student, his luck doesn't really come into play a lot of the time, so its very refreshing to see how the talent can actually play out, especially when you are on the wrong side of it. His intelligence is also where Kanade falls short as we have nuremous examples of Nagito using his wits to gain an advantage whereas with Kanade, it seems like she's been given the script. The fact most people consider A Dead End to the Ocean's Aroma to be Nagito's theme song says everything.

Its also a debate whenever his Japanese or English VA is better. Which to really sell the parallels between the two, share them with Makoto. Bryce Papenbrock does a okay performance as Nagito but I do feel it could have been done better but Megumi Ogata goes full in on Nagito and REALLY sells his character in her vocal perfomance. Also apperanetly in a similar vein to the Joker Curse, after recording Nagito's lines, Megumi got sick shortly afterwards due to how intense the character was that channelling him took a physical toll on her. Overall I say the Japanese VA wins out over the English one.

The investigation is also good because it doesn't waste the space and you get to have other characters pip in with their talents which to my knowledge doesn't normally happen. Mahiru has taken photos of everyone before the blackout and uses this to make a map where everyone was located which aids the investigation greatly. Ibuki's hypersensitive ears means during the blackout, she could recognise where everyone's voices were and who said what. Nekomaru's obsession with the toilet even has a role since he was able to tell that Peko was doing a number two for most of the event due to laxiatives. And finally Teruteru's perverted nature comes back to bite him as a major piece of evidence nailing him as the culpirt is that when the power came on, Mikan had tripped in a very embrassing way and given how lustful Teruteru was, there was no way he wouldn't comment on it if he had been in the room. Even Gundham has a role since his Dark Devas of Destruction where able to discover a hidden passageway which shows where the culprit went to kill the victim.

Most Class Trials have a few characters detailing most of what happens but 2-1 stands out by having most of the cast play important roles in piercing the mystery together and finding out the truth of what happened. This plus the fact the culprit is not captain obvious like Leon was really sells this as a very good very effective tutorial. You also get hints throughout the chapter on future arcs like Peko knowing Fuyuhiko's whereabouts at all times, hinting to their connection. Sonia being pleased about Nagito's true nature which foreshadows that she's not the sterotypical girly girl princess. And when Teruteru breaks down he devolves into a country bumpkin accent which is so thick that most of the cast cannot understand it meaning Monomi has to step in to translate for him.

There is however a few things holding it back. Firstly Improved Hangman's Gambit which is a crime against humanity as while this isn't as bad as future chapters the sheer shittness of the minigame is not a good sign for what is to come. And when you BTA with Teruteru its the first time you have to construct a sentence but because in a fail for NISA, there is two gramatically accurate ways to say Meat On The Bone, this has led to a few failed attempts.

As for Teruteru as a character yes he does have layers to him as someone who cares about his family and did have both selfish and selfless reasons to kill; to protect everyone from Nagito and save his mother. These are way better reasons to kill then whatever fuckery the Chapter 3 killers do or Mitch. However this is a case where you need to play his FTEs to explore it and sadly most will be turned off by his perverted nature. As such most won't be that sad when he gets fired up in the volcano as he is quite the obnoxious character to a first time player. Todd Haberkorn really sells some of the performance here, and its a pity he then had to play as Korekiyo Shinguji.

It is a fun opening case which is really eleveted by the shock of Nagito's true nature but while Nagito is a phemominal character, like you said he kinda overshadows the actual victim and culprit of this case as a result. Still its one heck of a hook to keep you invested and unlike with SDRA2 which flunders and wastes its hook, Goodbye Despair keeps its hook firmly on and takes you on a wild ride throughout the entire game.

And considering we still have half the game left to cover on this list, its proof this hook will pay off handsomely. 2-1 isn't the best opening case because well 3-1 exists and NOTHING can top that, its still a very, very solid opener which will make you realise this isn't like Trigger Happy Havoc and all bets are off. Goodbye Despair? Your Despair dear player has only just began.

//Yeah, I actually genuinely do think that's the key reason why I think this trial is better.

//I would argue that it's really hard to seperate 2-1 and A2-1 because they probably the most similar in terms of the kind of tension they carry, and they are by far the most solid opening cases of the bunch, but the key difference is that DR2 STARTS strong, and then REMAINS strong for the rest of the game's run, wheras most of SDRA2's trials are middling at best.

//And yes, I know that the very bottom of this list was Case 3 of this game, but again, even that case had some standout things, and had some impact that really kept the narrative going. And a third of SDRA2's trials didn't even make it on the list.

//I've already said that DR2 has the best selection of Class Trials, and the only two of them that I think COULD be improved are Case 2 and 3, which, ironically, are the two SDRA2 chapters that didn't make the list.

//Everything else in Danganronpa 2 is fucking stellar, and this case is no exception.

//Actually going into what's being said here, I have to make a statement about the idea of Akira Ishida voicing a joke character that parody's the character that he played in the first game.

//For those who want context, Akira Ishida is the Japanese Voice Actor for Byakuya in the original game, and he's one of the most well-known Japanese Seiyuu's in the world. He's the voice of Gaara in Naruto, Cavendish in One Piece, Makoto Yuki in Persona 3 and its spinoffs, Akaza in Demon Slayer, Zeref in Fairy Tail, Kamisato Ayato in Genshin Impact, Luocha in Honkai: Star Rail, and Kotaro Katsuya in Gintama to name a couple.

//But my question is...does the Ultimate Imposter really COUNT as a gag character?

//Literally, the only thing about him that I can think of as being a gag is the fact that when we first meet him in Danganronpa 2, we immediately think that he's Byakuya, but he just got really fat for some reason. And in his later appearances he disguises himself as people, and somehow, everybody falls for it despite the fact that he's just so much larger than the original person.

//But besides that, Imposter is actually an insanely down to earth character, and I would even go so far as to say that one of the few good things that Danganronpa 3 did was expand upon him as a character. Sure, we never actually get the truth behind him, but his friendship/brothership with Ryota was very important for me when I first watched the show.

//He's also one of the only characters, from what I've seen, that everyone I've come across generally likes a lot. Like, people are indifferent towards Imposter at best, but no one outright DISLIKES him.

//Also, to be honest, as cool as the Monobeasts are, I...don't really care that they didn't get a lot of screentime. They kind of existed as a plot device to begin with, so having them be taken out offscreen/in Usami's minigame did not bother me.

//And it makes sense for them to reveal the fact that everyone's memories have been erased right off the bat with this game because most people HAVE played DR1 before DR2, so that revelation would lose some serious impact if it was revealed in the last trial. I like the fact that it's revealed here that their memories are gone, but it's in the later game that it's revealed what actually HAPPENED in those erased memories, and how fucked up it is.

//Also, fun fact, the stuff about Nagito Komaeda being an anagram of "Naegi Makoto da" is apparently a complete coincidence. At least as far as I checked.

//And yeah, you simply summed up why Nagito is probably the best antagonist in the series. And I'm sorry if this sounds really cheap as a response, but I'm not going to go into a character analysis on Nagito like so many have done before me.

//But I think I speak for most people when I say that throughout all the games we've played, and all the media we've consumed, we have never come across a character that is quite like him.

//Even if there are characters in later media, including some Fangans, that try to replicate the nature of Nagito, he really is the symbol of how Danganronpa is so substantial as a series, because he's never compared to people. People compare other people to HIM.

//But I think what makes him so great is how he takes the very straightforward moral issue of Hope Vs Despair, and blurs the lines so it's not straightforwardly Good Vs Evil. Because he's an extremist, in the same vein as Junko, but for the idea that Makoto advocated against Junko, and that's what makes him so interesting from the get go.

//Also, as much as I do love the English cast of this game, and as much as I do love that Bryce Papenbrook to this day still likes to appearse Nagito's fanbase from time to time, I actually will concede with you on the voice acting point.

//Not only did Ogata voice Makoto in Game 1, Nagito in Game 2, but she voices Pochi in World End Club, Doctor in Akudama Drive, and is apparently lined up to voice one of the main characters of The Hundred Line as well. It's honestly surprising that she's not in Rain Code as well.

//And that's without mentioning that, as a result of voicing both Makoto and Nagito, she voices in literally EVERY iteration of the main Danganronpa series, and even sings the ending music for the games.

//The woman is a legend.

//As for the trial itself, yeah, something I never actually mention with Danganronpa 2 is that the way Trial 1 portrays its characters, one thing that immediately makes it stand out from the first game is that every character does what they can to pitch in. And everyone has something important to say at one point when it comes to solving the mystery.

//That even goes for some of the more non-serious/dumb characters like Akane and Ibuki. Even though Akane doesn't fully understand what's going on, and Ibuki doesn't take anything seriously despite the circumstances, at least once, both of them do come up with some important suggestions as to how the crime happened.

//Which is more than I can say for Trial 1 of DR where characters like Toko are so quick to point the finger at Makoto, and just remain unrelenting for no reason without considering the alternatives. I swear to god, in the first trial of that game, Kyoko felt like the only person who actually gave a shit.

//And yeah, I would say that while I do hate "Improved" Hangman's Gambit with a fiery passion, it doesn't get THAT bad until Chapter 3 earliest, and even then, it's basically the only bad minigame in this game, and it doesn't show up THAT much anyway.

//Something else that I think is funny is that before I even got into Danganronpa 2, I saw the character designs for the cast, and for some reason, I looked at Teruteru, and immediately thought that Todd Haberkorn was gonna voice him. It just felt to me like the type of character he would excel at.

//I really do feel bad for Haberkorn because he voices two of the most universally despised and perverse characters in the series, yet he delivers their lines with such passion. To be honest, I do dislike Kiyo, but his actions in Trial 3 and his motive are, honestly speaking, the only two things about him that I DO dislike. Everything else about him is fantastic, especially Haberkorns portrayal of him.

//And honestly, I would argue that, yeah, okay, V3-1 is a better trial for me, but that's purely because of the narrative. I do generally think that if we were basing this ranking on mystery and investigation ALONE, then this trial, followed closely by A2-1, takes the cake as the best opener.

-Mod

[dragondemoness]

Hiiii! Can I request (separate) Toko, Genocide Jill/Jack, and Byakuya having a blind s/o who is the ultimate observer?

Toko Fukawa and Byakuya Togami x Blind!Ultimate Observer Reader

Toko Fukawa/Genocide Jill

Toko is hella confused

How can you be blind and be the Ultimate Observer??

Has made some rude comments about your blindness

"Th-There's a t-table there... Y'know, the one y-you j-just ran into... hehe."

"Th-This is a pretty g-good book... T-Too bad you'll n-never know."

Pretty shocked when she finds out that your talent had prevented killings!

Turns out, you have the senses of a strong predator

You didn't need your eyes to see

Toko feels really bad about acting like such a bitch-

Makes it up to you by offering to read to you

Then she develops a fondness for you

And that fondness turned into a crush

When she confesses, she apologizes for the way she acted

"H-Hey, I-I'm really s-sorry about being r-rude to you. I a-actually r-really love your talent! C-Can we st-start over... As lovers...?"

Even though you know your way around Hope's Peak by now, she still makes sure you don't run into anything

She will also tell off anyone who makes fun of you

She doesn't tolerate that bullshit

Toko loves to read to you

And because you're blind, it doesn't bother you that Toko sleeps with the light on

As for Genocide Jill, she tried to sneak up on you, but you sensed her

Annoyed, but tries to sneak up on you several more times

They always fail-

Even though she's irritated, she's impressed that you sensed her without seeing her!

And naturally, she developed a crush on you as well

When you trip on something or run into something, she'll laugh, then help you up

Teases you by saying stuff like:

"There's a door there. KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Hey Jill, I tripped on the carpet-"

"Well, what did you do that for? KYHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

She doesn't mean anything by it though, she always helps you up when you fall

If her teasing bothers you, she'll stop

Overall, a very loving relationship

Either Toko or Genocider are with you 24/7

They're not letting anything hurt you, whether that be a classmate, or a terrible fall down the stairs

They'll also tend to whatever scratches or bruises you get

Toko calls you a dummy sometimes but dw she doesn't mean it-

Byakuya Togami

Doesn't know how your talent works, nor does he care

Also makes rude comments about your blindness and your talent

"Watch where you're going, plebeian."

"Hmph. The Ultimate Observer seems too good a talent to gift to someone as useless as you."

Until he sees your talent in action

You have prevented killings with your strong senses

You even prevented Aoi from slapping him

"Aoi, please. Don't let your anger get the better of you. That's what the mastermind wants, and it would be wise not to submit to them."

Aoi was still pissed at Byakuya, but she knew that you were right, and stood down

Least to say, Byakuya was impressed

When you were alone, he confronted you

"Tell me plebeian, how does a blind person like yourself use the talent of the Ultimate Observer?"

He was curious now

You told him that you have strong hearing abilities, and you pay close attention to how the 'atmosphere' feels and how you can sense movements by listening to the motions in the air

He doesn't understand it, but he's interested

He pays close attention to how you use your talent

No matter how hard he watches, he still doesn't understand it

He asks you to teach him

Still doesn't understand

But you did manage to teach him to navigate around Hope's Peak with his eyes closed

Irritated that he can't do it the same way you can, but he supposed that because of your blindness, you're used to it, and you learned how to sense small things like the atmosphere or how to sense motions in the air

Which is something he can never understand

Then he feels bad for the way he treated you

"I apologize, (Name). I imagine that being blind isn't very easy for you."

You shrugged

"It's not ideal, but I'm grateful that I can sense the smaller things, and be helpful to everyone here, even though I'm blind."

Then you smile at him

"And that includes you, Byakuya."

He's surprised, but even though you couldn't see it, he smiled back

Then he walks towards you and gives you a kiss

You're shocked, but you accept his silent confession

Like Toko, he'll make sure you don't trip or run into anything

And he'll shut down anyone who makes fun of you

Also tends to whatever wounds you get from tripping or falling

Never letting you out of his sight, he ain't risking someone taking advantage of your blindness and killing you

10/10, protective and attentive

[aj28gaming]

Nagito's diagnosis?

Okay hear me out, what if the only mental illness Nagito has is extreme paranoia or Nagito is just really paranoid about death?

Now listen

Listen

I get that this is gonna be laughed at a lot and probably treated as a joke

but hear me out

So, regarding Nagito's dementia, I already made these posts https://aj28gaming.tumblr.com/post/650577508025155585/danganronpa-messing-up-nagitos-character-cuz

https://aj28gaming.tumblr.com/post/650633399392944128/nagitos-dementia-and-misuse-of-information

But to be sure, I basically explain how and why Nagito has almost none of the symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia, he might still have it tho, just not the symptoms

But think about this, the only time Nagito has actually acted "crazy" was when the killing game starts. Before that, all we get is a paranoid, self-deprecating boy used to trauma due to his abusive luck cycle. A boy who also has flawed beliefs in the talented and untalented due to the society of Danganronpa. A boy who fears murder and the death of others more than most.

Now, remember, he only gets crazy (I AM ONLY GONNA TALK ABOUT SDR2 BECAUSE THE LATER ITERATIONS AND GAMES AND ANIME ADAPTATIONS THAT PORTRAY NAGITO PORTRAY HIM INCREDIBLY WRONG) when the killing game starts

A killing game

A game of murder and death

And what does Nagito fear the most throughout the first chapter of SDR2 and throughout Island mode? What does he keep making sure doesn't happen? What does he keep asking Usami about while being extremely scared and paranoid about it?

WHAT DOES NAGITO FEAR THE MOST?

MURDER

HE HATES MURDER

HE CONSTANTLY TRIES TO GET HIMSELF DEAD OR KILLED TO ENSURE NO ONE ELSE DIES

Now imagine having a person who hates murder, who fears the possibility of death surrounding him and is constantly paranoid about it

Now put that person in a killing game, you know, A GAME FULL OF MURDER AND DEATH

So you get someone who fears having death and murder around him, and you put him in a place that is full of that, a killing game

YOU GET THIS

THIS

THIS (also keep in mind, NAGITO SAID IN ISLAND HE LAUGHS WHEN HE GETS SURPRISED, NOT BECAUSE HE IS HAPPY OR HAVING FUN)

See the pattern now

If you trap someone in a place full of everything they hate and fear for their entire life

They go crazy

Now remember the links I sent at the start? In them, I explain how his extreme paranoia causes a lot of his actions to happen

One, his coping mechanism

His coping mechanism is hope

He is constantly in denial about his mental state, about the people dying around him

Not saying he doesn't believe people are dying, I mean he struggles to accept that people around him are dying

He needs to find a reason for all of this despair

For why everyone has to experience despair

Nagito is a person who finds reason for everything, basically constantly tries to find order in his chaotic world

Makes sense since literally and figuratively due to his luck cycle, Nagito lacks control in his chaotic and traumatizing life

So he tries to find a reason for everything despairful that happens to him

Basically, "There has to be a reason for my suffering, right? RIGHT?"

So what does he do? He clings to hope

HOPE /hōp/

noun 1. a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. "he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information" Similar: aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, plan, dream, daydream, pipe dream, longing, yearning, craving, hankering 2. a feeling of trust. "our private friendship, upon hope and affiance whereof, I presume to be your petitioner" verb want something to happen or be the case.

KEEP THOSE DEFINITIONS IN MIND, TRUST ME WHEN I SAY NAGITO IS TALKING ABOUT THE ACTUAL MEANING OF HOPE, NOT SOME SUPERFICIAL VERSION HE CREATED HIMSELF

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So this makes sense right? A person is in a stressful situation which is basically their personal hell, so they cling to hope

Literally

And we get this a lot of the time in real life and in tv shows and movies where people in stressful times cling to hope

So it really isn't a surprise that Nagito does this

So, Nagito isn't worshipping Hope like it's a god, he is clinging to an ideology. He is clinging to positivity, a bright light amidst all the darkness

He is quite literally clinging to hope in a despairful situation, which a lot of people do and most likely the same with you and me.

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And again, no, his views on hope aren't due to his own personal opinion of what hope is. The hope he believes in is the literal definition of hope.

Hope as in light amidst all the darkness

He truly does have heroic and good intentions and truly does understand the hopes and despairs of others

He knew Teruteru wanted to continue the culinary legacy and help his mom, that's his hope

He knew Imposter would want to protect everyone no matter what, that's his hope

He knew Mikan killed for Despair, that despair being Junko Enoshima

He knew Fuyuhiko's hope is Peko and that both of them care about each other very much

He knew how similar he and Hajime are and how they are both bystanders and lovers of Hope, for Hajime that Hope being Hope's Peak academy itself and/or having talent

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That's why he wants to help everyone's hope. He doesn't want them to escape to "spread their hope to the world," he wants to help them because that is generally everyone's hope in the killing game, to escape and end the killing game. That's why he is also fine with helping the blackened because if he knows all the blackened wants to do is escape

All Nagito wants is for him to be the victim instead of anyone else so no one else has to die if someone must commit murder.

And tbh Nagito has only done 2 things,

One was when he orchestrated his own death so no one else dies during the first trial, but this fails due to his luck cycle

He knew someone would die eventually, and if he didn't do this then either Teruteru would've still murdered someone else or Fuyuhiko would've murdered Mahiru with Peko like in trial 2 due to the next motive

Someone would've died regardless, Nagito just wanted to be the victim to save everyone else. And he needed to make sure only HE BECOMES THE VICTIM which is why he orchestrated it

But alas, his luck screwed it up and Byakuya dies instead.

Second thing Nagito did was try to get everyone killed when he found out everyone were a bunch of terrorists and remnants of despairs. Do I seriously need to explain why anyone would've done this? Especially someone as paranoid as Nagito?

Hell, Hajime almost did way worse because he almost did the complete opposite, he almost pressed graduate so Junko can take over the dead bodies of their classmates and spread despair AGAIN

HOW THE HELL IS NAGITO WORSE THAN THE OTHERS?

HAJIME ALMOST CAUSED DESPAIR ONTO THE ENTIRE WORLD AGAIN AND EVERY OTHER MURDERER MURDERED FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH MOTIVES LIKE TO ESCAPE OR GET REVENGE

NAGITO SERIOUSLY JUST WANTED TO BE THE VICTIM SO NO ONE ELSE DIES AND WANTS TO ELIMINATE DESPAIR

HOW THE HELL IS HE THE CRAZY ONE?

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So now I explained how Nagito's paranoia of murder caused him to have a desperate belief in Hope as a coping mechanism in a very despairful situation

Now let's see how extreme his way of coping became. Seeing that he is in his actual personal hell, I would expect it to be pretty extreme.

And it is, a lot of the time.

Even to the point that he uses it to explain the deaths of his classmates and how to cope

Knowing Nagito, he has a habit of trying to find a reason for everything, like a prophecy or reason for his despair like I said before

And how exactly does he do that with the dead bodies of his classmates? He goes and treats them like stepping stones for hope

Basically saying, "Yes, our classmates are dead. But we shouldn't give up, because these deaths, this despair, it's all a stepping stone for an upcoming hope. A future good ending waiting to come, RIGHT?"

I added the right at the end because throughout the game, Nagito doesn't really seem like he only believes in hope. It's almost like he desperately needs and clings to hope.

So no matter what, he has to believe in hope

Because then, what is there left of him to believe in

He is trapped in his personal hell, forced to see classmates getting killed left and right, already experiences and fears the possibility of death and trauma on his normal day to day life, and what's worse is he constantly blames himself due to his luck cycle

He clings to hope, the possibility of a good ending happening in the end

Because what else can he believe in, what else can he live for at this point?

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You seriously don't need dementia to explain his actions

All you need to do is remember that all of them are in a killing game

So of course people will go crazy

And knowing Nagito and how paranoid he gets, no wonder he reacts way worse

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.

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Nagito isn't crazy, he isn't a lunatic. He is just a paranoid kid who hates and fears murder and despair more than anyone else but is constantly forced to witness it and be subjected to it due to his luck cycle

And to be honest, anyone would've reacted the same way he does, and Hajime is proof of that

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Also stop calling him the Joker wtf

[hopeymchope]

If we're talking Danganronpa assholes, what do you think about Togami and his placement on that scale? I kind of feel like they failed to make him sympathetic outside of his FTEs, and even some of those didn't shine a good light on him. I know people who love him, which, no judgment, but I can't really understand why. I get Kokichi's, Natsumi's, Juzo's, and even Hiyoko's appeal, even though a lot of their actions are abhorrent, they do have sympathetic or humanizing qualities. Hiyoko has her friendship with Mahiru that humanized her, Natsumi has her insecurities, Kokichi ultimately wanted to help people (even if he couldn't let go of his pride and paranoia to do so), Juzo has a lot of Internalized issues around being gay—they have sympathetic reasons for how awful they are, whether they do make you feel sympathetic or not, and/or relationships that humanize them. Togami kind of has that, but it's all in bonus content so he doesn't leave a good first impression even just finishing the game if you don't finish those. I guess he has his pride, but does that really humanize him? I, personally, dislike arrogant people. I think a lot of people do. I guess his backstory about his family is sad, but it just seems so out there I could never personally empathize with it. I mean, I can't really empathize with a lot of the people I named, but I still feel like I theoretically could. I never had much trouble accepting I was gay, but I do understand how someone could. I never lashed out due to insecurities, but I have felt insecurities and can empathize with at least the feelings if not the actions. I've never had a friend murdered, but I have lost friends before. I've never done what Kokichi did, or been in his situation, but I have been paranoid in the past (due to hypomanic episodes), and I would want to help people in that situation (even if I wouldn't go about it the same way and think how he did it in a lot of cases to be dumb). But I don't really have anything to latch onto like that for Togami. He genuinely thought the game was fun and was fine with people dying... it wasn't an act at all. I don't know, what do you think? To be, I personally like him the least, though he might not be objectively the worst out of them (it's kind of hard to say which one has the worst behavior, since they all behave so poorly).

Togami's certainly a dick for more than half of DR1... and across the entire franchise, he never loses the arrogance. And although I don't care for arrogance either, I'll always take that over being an overt bully to people. (Which, in fairness... he kind of is a bully to Naegi in some of their FTEs, albeit on a less intense scale than somebody like Hiyoko and or Natsumi. I guess what he has in common with Natsumi is his entitlement; both of them are convinced that the nature of their births rightly grants them anything they should desire.)

I was also pissed off with him for a long time over Chapter 2 of DR1. Disrespecting Fujisaki's corpse like that, fucking with the crime scene just to mislead the group for no real reason? What a fucking asshole. That's still beyond the pale. And even in chapters 5-6, after he learned a valuable lesson about actually considering/accounting for the feelings of others, I never felt like I really got to know Byakuya in a terribly sympathetic light. I guess he at least shows SOME concern for Naegi when Naegi is tossed into the garbage and eventually returns, and we get to see him actually shook by Enoshima's words in the last trial. But... that's the extent of it in DR1, I'd say.

The reason I find Togami more tolerable than those other characters is because of the other stuff he appears in. In the AUs of Ultimate Talent Development Plan and Danganronpa S, he's still crabby and arrogant but nevertheless manages to much less of a dick to people than Saionji or Kokichi are. And in Danganronpa Togami, he manages to lord himself over everyone he meets while still showing a surprising amount of care for poor Shinobu. For all the faults that series of light novels has, it at least helped his image in my eyes.

IMO his best showing is in Danganronpa 3. Without ever losing his trademark arrogance, he manages to make it clear that he's come to have affection for his fellow DR1 survivors and even thinks pretty highly of them now. Sure, he smack-talks Hagakure a little, but then he smiles fondly at him immediately afterwards. He gives such a pep talk to Naegi that both Makoto and Asahina feel the need to comment on how he's really changed his behavior.

In regard to your last few sentences, though, I don't know if I agree that he sincerely enjoyed the killing game. He certainly put on that front, and he may have really tried his best to embrace it once he could conceive of no way out, but I doubt he really was having a good time dancing to somebody's else tune. That's just not in his nature. And yet... I DO agree that he was fine with shrugging off the deaths of all these people around him, clearly. During the game, he talks a bit about what we'd come to know as "the Biggest, Worst Incident in the History of the Togami Family," and I think we're meant to infer that living through that experience taught him to harden himself to the suffering of anyone else and prioritize his own life above all other concerns. Whether that's understandable.... well, your mileage may vary.

[littleeyesofpallas]

I was going to do these at random but then i got it in my head to stage these as an alternative first round of fights like in the manga, even though we really didn't get to see most of those play out...

To start i feel like the most obvious match up that we missed out on would've been Zaraki fighting Driscoll: For one Zaraki works around the bankai theft by not having one, and his whole made for battle/blood knight character type plays directly with The Overkill. Kind of like in his fight with Nnoitra, it'd make for a great emphasis on what Zaraki's actual strengths are; not that he simply fights and kills people, but that his supposed infinite potential comes from being pushed to his limits and learning to adapt and overcome new opponents. By contrast Overkill only gives Driscoll more power based on killcount, even if the people he slaughters are weak and he doesn't learn anything from fighting them.

So, the fight could start with the two of them both hacking their way through waves of faceless low rank goons to draw a parallel, but in the fight itself Zaraki's emphasis would be on drawing on meaningful fighting experience even with no bankai, while Driscoll would rely on a stolen bankai and a superficial killcount. There could be a fun moment where in a fit of desperation Driscoll tries to boost his power by squeezing in extra kills, targeting more weaklings, and lashes out at Yachiru, but she deflects his attack all on her own, he's shocked and confused, and in the moment of hesitation Zaraki lands the finishing blow.

Much less thematic, but I feel like Bambietta, with The Explode, would've made for a better counter measure to Byakuya's Senbonzakura. She could've opened the fight with her projectiles and Byakuya would got through his usual routine of fighting at a distance and being dodgy and precise with his blocks and counters, until suddenly he'd realize there were less petals than before, and Bambi could explain how every time he "blocked" her Explode projectiles they turned some of his thousands of blades into bombs and blew up. And she'd taunt him about how many blades does he have left and how long can he keep up defending himself while sacrificing his petals. He'd smugly use his bankai to summon up its crazy number of petals and ask if her explosions can keep up with so many petals, but then we'd get the reveal and she'd seal it away. Then Byakuya would have the moment of stark realization where he has zero petals to fight with. And then he'd get blown to hell and back before ending up in basically the same situation he was in with As Nodt in the actual manga shoved into the back of a bloody crater.

Similarly I don't think there's too much thematic resonance in this match up but I like some of the kind of obtuse dynamic they could have. it's never properly addressed, but we do know that Candice is technically one of the newer Sternritter, as she's said to have less control over her Vollstandig when hers is involuntarily prompted. Giving her lightning theme I like the idea that maybe she's something of a prodigy herself. Obviously not as young as Hitsugaya, proportionally speaking, but a fast learner and someone who rocketed up the ranks of the Wandenreich as a genius technician of Quincy skills. Hitsugaya could have a little back and forth about what it means to be a genius, and the difference between instantaneous intuition and carefully practiced talent. It would prompt his bankai and how real power comes from sober self reflection and not self aggrandizement, but then she'd take advantage of his weather gathering, like he used with Tier, and use it to amplify her lightning, get one good hit in, Hitsugaya would brush it off and ready a counter attack, and she'd seal his bankai.

Also room for some kind of banter with Rangiku, I'm sure. Probably with her calling Rangiku old and starting a whole cliche back and forth over that.

Meninas deserved more love, and screen time, and a real fight to herself. I feel like the best way to really illustrate her schift as The Power would've been to have her, and not the early unrevealed PePe, be the one to fight Jidanbou. Not that the gate guardians even make much sense being involved when the Quincy didn't invade through the four gates, but still... I'd love to see little Mini just arm wrestle Jidanbou and/or the other gigantic gate guardians into submission effortlessly. Have Komamura show up with his bankai as the one thing even bigger than the gate guardians. And then Mini steals it, instead of Bambietta, and gets into a raw strength beatdown with Komamura himself as the biggest of the captains.

I'm still mad she never hulked out properly. We only ever got the one panel of her with a buff arm going after Liltotto when she got lovestruck. Unrelated to this iteration of alternate fights, but it also would've been neat to see her fight Kira; he'd try and utilize his shikai the usual way, but Meninas would just get bulkier the heavier Wabisuke made her to carry the additional weight. And then Kira would end up baffled and terrified in the shadow of a fully hulked out Meninas.

Maybe a little too obvious, but I feel like a proper wushu fight between Sui-Feng and Cang Du was stolen from us. It also would've been a perfect set up for the bankai theft because Sui-Feng could go full assassin but immediately run into the problem that if Cang Du's Iron skin can't be pierced, then she can't leave any marks to hit twice. So obviously that makes her only option the bankai, and he can swipe it from there. I feel like unlike most of the other captains Sui-Feng would get to have a cool moment where she still fights Cang Du to a standstill even without her bankai, but then of course he just sinks back into the shadows at the end of the first raid.

This one feels like a stretch, but for all the weirdness of PePe and the creative choices that went into him, I liked the little bit of his explanation of his powers where it wasn't just a romantic or erotic kind of Love that his power controlled, but that he compared it to the instinctive need to protect an innocent baby. And with Jizo being the patron deity of dead children, it would have been really cool to see him have some thematic play with Mayuri. I know it's not how his powers worked in canon, but I actually would've really liked if his power wasn't as directly focused on himself. So that he could provoke people to act on their strong desires to the detriment of logic, but without a lot of direct control over it. So he'd hit Mayuri, and Mayuri would shrug it off because he doesn't care about anyone and then without warning Nemu would be put in danger in the course of the fight and Mayuri would be compelled to protect her. And he wouldn't know what happened as he threw himself in the way of an attack. Then like everyone else he'd pull bankai and PePe could steal it, so that weird creepy cupid man could have a giant creepy baby. but more importantly Mayuri could quietly and furiously ruminate on his feelings during the interim training arc

I know Mayuri didn't actually lose his bankai with the rest during the first attack in the manga, but it felt like he should have since his was part of that batch of SS arc bankai we saw earliest and got kind of accustomed to throughout the rest of the Arrancar arc. (more so than Sui-Feng's at least) Actually in regards to that same sentiment, I feel like renji should have lost his bankai too, even though his ostensibly posed less of a threat than some of the more well honed captains'. It's a shame that so many of the lieutenants just kinda got lost in the background of this arc. It would've been really cool to see the gotei compensate the loss of their bankai by doing more tagteams and group fights

[kendelias]

i demand all the details on the danganronpa ocs i am about to go fERAL

PLSSSS I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WERE GONNA SEE THEM SLNDKSANFLNK OKAY LETS GO!!! i’ll try to keep this short-ish but if you ever want more lore trust me there is a Well and im more than willing to talk about it

shizuko nagamine

the main character of the red women series, shizuko is in class 78 along with naegi and the gang in treacherous

she’s a byakuya togami oc (unfortunately, bc i see a blonde man with glasses who is an asshole and feel the compulsive need to fix him. what else did we expect from me. i literally have tsukishima kei tattooed on my leg. self-fulfilling prophecy.), but in her humble opinion she is Beyond love interests (she says, as if she is not fully in love with him) and is just her own character at this point

her title is the ultimate engineer, a power she uses mostly for evil. her family’s pretty poor, so she uses her talents to pick locks, charge people to do their math homework for them, and just generally get herself into trouble or do anything that could make her a quick buck. luckily she got into hopes peak on a scholarship so here she is babey!!

she’s a Menace and spends most of her days fighting/making out with byakuya, gently bullying naegi as a sign of affection, being above everything with celestia, and trying to solve murders

she also appears in both of the other books in the series, as well as (almost) every game and piece of anime, unfortunately. annoying of her! but why she’s the main character. well that and she came first and is ultimately in control of my brain worms lmao

post-trigger happy havoc, shizuko is a member of the future foundation, usually running around wherever byakuya is, arguing with him, and following kirigiri’s every word bc what is she gonna do question her. she’s an icon.

fun facts: she will just watch gears turn for hours and loves putting gear patterns together (a trait she stole from me xxxxx), she has a rabid love of coca-cola, and she wears a lot of fingerless gloves

as a bonus, all the red women have color palettes assigned them to follow the theme - so shizuko embodies scarlet, the color of passion, love, and wrath. and she carries the red with her in her red hair!

hiina akanabe

hiina is in class 77b of the despair arc/goodbye despair, and featured in the book nothing new.

she’s a gundham tanaka oc and im not accepting criticism at this time <3 hes big and handsome and good with animals AND a feminist? sign me the fuck up we can get married today sir. so hiina exists <3

she’s the ultimate doll maker! i was gonna make her smth normal (my first draft was ultimate roller skater) but i made the mistake of re-watching all of his lines from the anime And the game and i was like “oh wait ma’am you can’t be normal” so she stole this title and ran with it

hiina was bullied as a kid for her talent (people thought her dolls were creepy and she has the face of a haunted victorian doll so they made fun of her :[ ) so she’s very quiet when she first enters 77b, and though she’s still pretty demure by. well. the time things go to shit, she really finds people who appreciate her and her talent at hope’s peak!! however, she’s also a fucking weirdo, bc. i think you have to be to kiss gundham.

hiina appears in pretty much all of the media gundham appears in SLKNDKNFS so goodbye despair, despair arc, and future arc. this includes the third book, begin again.

post-despair arc, hiina is a remnant of despair, notably utilizing her dolls as bombs. after goodbye despair, hiina helps the future foundation with her classmates, and joins her classmates on the boat that sails them away!

fun facts: she is obsessed with build a bear, she dresses exclusively like a haunted victorian doll, and she loves venetian masks and includes them in most of her doll designs (and wears a cracked one when she’s a remnant)

hiina’s color is pink - for innocence, peace, and youth. she has red in her surname, which means “red feathers”, a nod both to the series and to her boyfriend’s love of animals <3

akemi kurata [tw for mentions of stalking]

hoo boy... okay so im trying to go light on the content here. but there is so much lore to akemi, the protagonist of begin again. she’s in class 77a - in fact, she’s the class representative!

she’s a makoto naegi love interest bc. i am nothing but a protagonist love bot. before this however she is involved with nagito komaeda. :) am i even a nagito stan? not really. but what was i gonna do, see a naegi parallel and NOT mess with it?? she was also invented to be shizuko’s childhood friend (long story but plot necessary) which is the real reason she exists bc what shizuko says goes xxx.

her title is the ultimate archivist; she has a photographic memory, and a special interest in history, especially recording it. she has logs of her entire life in diaries, and can and will overshare about world history if you ask about it

basically she’s the gifted burnout child we all know we are. she overworks herself, collapses into a heap, has a mental breakdown. rinse repeat. the only ones there to remind her to chill are shizuko, nanami, and... nagito.

so. akemi is. complicated. bc her story is undoubtedly the longest. the prelude of her story is set in the despair arc, where she’s kind of on the outside looking in at class 77b. while she and nanami work really hard to bring their two classes together, she can tell there’s something about 77b that’s different. no one confirms that better than nagito, who just comes up to her and starts talking to her one day. she finds his lowkey airhead nature super charming and they start dating - much to her chagrin later on. when her peers are brainwashed and the tragedy of hope’s peak happens, akemi is saved by nagito’s luck, to her own misfortune.

her story actually begins in the game despair girls, while she’s in towa city - where nagito drove her to. as a remnant of despair, nagito decides to keep her as a pet project, bc despair is never sweeter than when it’s from someone you love. so he stalks her, drives her out of every place she feels safe. she spends all the time between the tragedy and despair girls moving from city to city, never staying in one place for more than a month. and the things he does during that time... i’ll spare you the details lmao. but it’s in towa city that akemi meets komaru naegi! after the game, she’s rescued by the future foundation - more specifically by makoto. he takes her in to work for them as their own archivist, which is great! until the future arc when she’s trapped in the final killing game. even she couldn’t escape a killing game bc. you know. the show.

fun facts (bc this summary needs to be lightened up KDNLKNF): she loved white roses until they were lowkey ruined for her and now her favorite flower is a daisy, her hair is naturally dark purple (anime magic <3) but by despair girls it’s dyed black, and she has glasses but wears contacts most of the time

finally, akemi’s story is represented by maroon - nobility, beauty, and eventually, relaxation. akemi’s red is in her first name, because though it translates to brightness and brilliance, it also can mean vermillion.

their pinterest boards are a wip currently, but they should be open soon, and for some reason all their summaries are done here!

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

So I did the random word generator, and I got paper. And that made me think of paper airplanes. So, how about reader making a paper airplane and throwing it through the SDR2 Boys window, and inside the paper airplane is a love letter confessing reader’s feelings toward them.

T h a n k you for this bc I gotta practice writing the bois. I absolutely love writing these types of scenarios owo

..........

Teruteru

“Oh? What could this be~?” The chef noticed the paper airplane that appeared on the floor of his cottage, picking it up. 

It was only then he noticed his partially opened window and chuckled. For him, it was easy to put two-and-two together.

“Ah, how cliche. Do I have a secret admirer on this island? Perhaps they wanna share all their secrets with me~?” The thoughts running through his mind almost made his nose bleed, though he managed to control himself as he unfolded the plane to read its contents.

And it turned out to be a simple love letter from you--short, sweet, and innocent. You even marked it with a heart at the bottom of the page.

Teruteru’s face became tomato-red as he clutched the letter to his chest, before hurrying out of his cottage and to the hotel restaurant, unable to contain his excitement any longer.

“I’m on my way, my new beloved~!!” He trilled, knowing you’d be waiting for him there.

...............

Gundham

“Huh..so this is what the mighty winds have carried into my domain.” Gundham mused as he looked at the paper airplane that somehow landed on his bed. He looked outside for a moment, wondering who could have sent it--but there was no one.

“A mysterious messenger, hm..what do you think, Cham-P?” He glanced at the large golden hamster on his shoulder, seeing his nod of approval. “Fuhaha! Then it’s decided! Now..let us see what this message entails.”

With a hum, he unfolded the note and read it thoroughly, gawking about halfway through it. 

“...wh-what...this...is this...a-a proclamation of love?!” He tugged his scarf over his blushing face. “But..who could love such a....ah..” Then he reached the bottom of the note and saw it was none other than-

“[Y/n], but of course. There’s...a certain aura to them that..I can’t help but feel enchanted by,” he muttered to himself. “But I shall harden my heart until I know this proclamation is true, lest I turn out to be a blind fool..”

With that declaration, he got up and summoned the Dark Devas to his side, before venturing out of his cottage, clutching the note tightly.

............

Kazuichi

“AH!! I’VE BEEN AMBUSHED!!”

The scream made you stop in your tracks as you looked back, seeing the door fly open and a certain mechanic come rushing out. 

“[Y/n]! Thank god you’re here!” His hands flew onto your shoulders. “I got hit by an object!! I-I think someone was tryna kill me!!”

‘Oh boy..’ You thought, realizing that your plan didn’t go accordingly. “Well, did you see what the object was?”

“N-No...but...what does it matter?!!”

“.....wouldn’t it help to find out what it was if you’re convinced it was attempted murder?”

“..that’s true. C’mon. I don’t wanna go back alone.” Kazuichi dragged you into his cottage, making sure he locked the door once inside. “It came through that window, hitting me in the back of the head....damn it. I just wanted fresh air and I can’t even get that!” Then he shut the window with a huff.

“Was it this?”

Looking back, he saw the paper airplane in your hand. “Yeah-!! Wait...a paper airplane? Seriously? That’s what attacked me?”

“I sent this.”

“...so YOU attacked me?!”

“I didn’t mean to!” You snapped, causing him to fall silent, before you unfolded it and handed it to him. “It’s a letter...for you. It’s got nothing to do with murder, I promise.”

He cautiously took the paper and read it, mumbling to himself. By the time he was done, his face became red. “[Y/n]...is this true?” He looked up at you with a toothy grin and stars in his eyes. “You like me??!!”

“Yeah..” You smiled back. “Though I was hesitant to send it since, y’know....you had eyes on Sonia-”

“Oh! Don’t worry, I only admire Miss Sonia from afar!” He explained. “As the princess she is, I only wanna respect and defend her. Nothing more! I-I’ve honestly...liked you for a while too. My bad for not reading this sooner.”

“It’s okay,” you chuckled. “At least I have my answer.” 

...............

Fuyuhiko

“Sheesh, try not to poke my other eye out next time, okay?”

“Wh-Wha..” You spun around to see the Ultimate Yakuza, realizing he was clutching the note--that was once a paper airplane--in his hand. “Sorry, Fuyu..I had no idea where it would land so I uh...booked it. Kinda. How did you know-?”

“Saw you taking off before this even got into my room,” he explained. “I still got one good eye to keep a lookout for things.”

“..ah, I see..” You rubbed your neck awkwardly. “So um...you must’ve read it.”

“It’s laughably cliche, but...I...uh...d-do feel the same way as you..” Fuyuhiko mumbled the last part, but you could hear his confession clear as day, and your eyes lit up.

“R-Really? I mean...I...I wasn’t sure, since I know you’re still trying to move on from-”

“It’s okay.” He sighed, looking back at you. “It..hasn’t been easy, but..you were the first to forgive me after that trial. Even though...I acted like a total shithead to you when we first got here. Still feel kinda bad about it..”

Your racing heart eventually calmed itself, as you smiled gently and approached him. “It’s okay. If..you wanna make up for it, maybe we can..uh..hang out at the movie theater sometime today?”

“Tch, like a first date?” He chuckled. “Alright. I’m in.”

............

Nekomaru

“[Y/N]!!”

The booming voice made you nearly slam the mailbox door on your hand. You had a habit of checking it mornings and nights.

You whirled around to see Nekomaru rush over to you, a wide grin on his face as he clutched a certain note in his large hand. “I have received your confession letter and accept it wholeheartedly!!”

“R-Really?” You gawked. “Just like that..?”

“Of course!” He laughed. “Your method of delivery is unique! Very old-school. And clearly you’ve put all of your heart and soul into this letter. If I were to ever reject that hard work, my name wouldn’t be-!!”

“Nekomaru Nidai?” You chuckled, feeling calmer now that he was serious.

“See? You already know me better than I know myself!” The Ultimate Team Manager grinned as he hugged you to his chest. “Can you hear that? My heart is beating with great spirit and love!!”

“Yeah, I definitely hear it loud and clear.” Smiling, you hugged him back, happier than ever.

...............

Twogami

When Byakuya found a paper airplane on his desk, he didn’t know what to think at first.

This was childish at best--sneakily throwing it through the window and then taking off? If one of the others wanted to talk to him about something, then they should’ve just rang the doorbell. 

Surely he wasn’t that intimidating of a leader...even if some didn’t like it.

But curiosity eventually won over everything else, and so he took the paper, realizing there was a message on it. “Hmm, very strange..” He hummed, opening it to read what it said.

And he swore his heart stopped, realizing this was a confession and the sender was....you?

Did you really think of him that way? Even though..he hasn’t fully told you the truth about his Ultimate?

And if he did, would you still send him something like this?

.............

Hajime

Hajime didn’t know why he woke up earlier before the morning announcement--until he noticed something right next to his face. “Huh..? What’s this?”

Sitting upright, he picked up the object. “Oh, a paper airplane. Haven’t seen one of these in forever.”

With a small chuckle, he unfolded it, having noticed letters on the inside of it--and also a red heart, oddly enough. He read the message written and...his heart began racing as he realized this was a love letter.

Even though he had his suspicions, he couldn’t believe someone on this island would love a talent-less person like himself.

Why?

As he read the sender’s name, Hajime jumped as he heard a knock on his door. He quickly stuffed the note under his pillow before going to answer it--seeing you on the other side.

“A-Ah..[y/n]..hi. Thank you for knocking..” He tried to play it cool, tugging on his shirt collar awkwardly, though you just smiled.

“I take it you read it already?”

“What? Oh! Uh..yeah..” The poor boy’s face grew redder by the second.

“I thought the paper airplane idea was too childish, so...I figured I’d come here and confess myself. But...seems I’m a little too late for that.” You chuckled nervously. “So....?”

“I-I don’t know what to say..” He admitted. “Why me? I’m the most ordinary out of everyone here.”

“Oh. Hajime.” With a small laugh, you took his hand into yours. “Because it’s you that I feel happiest around..all those times we’ve spent together..meant a lot. I had fun and I’d like to do more of them with you.”

“A-As..your boyfriend you mean?” Hajime gulped, smiling as he tried retaining his composure. “Sure. I’d..love to do that.”

............

Nagito

“Heh..I never would’ve guessed a nobody like me was at the center of someone’s heart..”

“Uh, I’m right here, Nagito.”

“Oh I know.” The white-haired male chuckled as he spun around on his heel, facing you. He looked down at the love letter you had cleverly disguised as a paper airplane. “But..come to think of it..Mikan’s words had me a bit...crushed..”

You tilted your head, remembering the third trial. “You mean, when she said-?”

“That I had nobody who loved me? Well, it seems she was wrong about that.” His smile seemed to stretch wider as he put the letter in his pocket. “I guess I can’t call myself a stepping stone anymore..now that I have a new purpose--one that fills me with a much greater hope!” He wheezed out a small laugh.

While his laughter usually unnerved the other students, you could only smile and feel your heart grow warmer whenever you heard it.

“Yes, yes..perhaps this was the love she was talking about.” Nagito put a hand to his chest. “But this love wasn’t born from despair.”

“Nah, that’s just a twisted sense of love.” You reached out to take his other hand into yours, bringing him slightly closer to you. “This is real, genuine love.” 

His face became a bit flushed, though it wasn’t from the despair disease, but from the simple realization that..

He was lucky enough to be loved.

..........

Izuru

“So, instead of talking to me, you sent this.”

“Oh!” You turned around to see the “Ultimate Hope” standing before. There was an open note in his hand that you tried to deliver to his room in the form of a paper airplane.

The keyword is “tried”, as he was quick to call out to you before you had the chance to run away. So you felt embarrassed, especially as he skimmed over your letter.

After a long and awkward silence, Izuru finally looked up at you. His face remained blank, though you could tell he was curious about your message.

“Yep, that’s my uh..confession.” With a sigh, you approached him calmly. “I know..love is something foreign to you, but...I figured I’d take my chances. Even if the world’s gone to shit, I had to at least get this off my chest. And before you ask...no, it’s not because of your talents.”

“....I see.” He muttered, his gaze returning to the letter. “You understand what I am and what I’ve done, and yet...huh...?” Then he put a hand to his chest, stunned for a moment as he felt his heartbeat slightly quicken.

Wait..

His heart?

What was happening to him? 

What is this?

“Huh, they might’ve suppressed your old feelings. But..not all of them, it seems.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that exactly.

This was something he definitely couldn’t have predicted.

[save-the-spiral]

PLS PLS LIST THE SWAPS!! TELL ME ABOUT THE SIBLINGS AND ALSO HIFUMI BECAUSE I LOVE HIM (IF YOU WANT!) I will also send more questions in the morning too, excited to see what you’ve been working on!!

OK OK OK !!!!! AHH! So, before assigning talents, I swapped the pools, so for the first game, I use the talents from the second game, and vis versa! For some i listed gender, sexuality, or neurodivergencies, though this isn’t all of them, and I haven’t developed them all to the same level!

This is SO long. I didn’t even bother mentioning things like my plans for the killing games. (I have DR1 planned out in full, but only parts of DR2 and the v3 anime)

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK MY HEART SKIPPED A BEAT IN HAPPINESS WHEN I SAW I HAD NEW ASK NOTIFS!!

LIST:

Trigger Happy Havoc (first game)

Kyoko Kirigiri- Ultimate Luckster- Mastermind (: Sometimes lesbians can be evil okay! was trained as a detective like everyone in her family and didn’t get the ultimate :) she’s definitely not mad about that :) her luck cycle depends on how far she plans things ahead. her good luck is when she’s spontaneous! She hates when ‘normal’ people are accepted by ultimates.

Makoto Naegi- Photographer (Mostly wildlife and nature photography, with Sayaka helping him for some animal photography (: trans and bi <3 One of sayaka’s birds nests in his hair like all the time)

Kiyotaka Ishimaru- Ultimate Swordsman (AUTISTIC ICON, has trained in kendo since he was a kid, then was essentially given away to the Fujisaki clan by his very stressed dad. Semiverbal, rarely speaks.)

Chihiro Fujisaki- Ultimate Yakuza (Taka is her bodyguard! His family is in debt to hers, the Fujisaki clan is the most powerful in Japan. trans icon, of course, dates Sayaka! Very direct, though she’s far more delicate and polite when talking to taka, her best friend)

Sakura Oogami- Ultimate Nurse (Works as an EMT- her clan still is in martial arts, so she’s still very buff, she assists in injuries at the family dojo. Autistic Icon)

Asahina Aoi- Ultimate Gamer (ULTIMATE ADHD. streams and has a ton of fun, will ramble while breaking records, demigirl who loves her girlfriend sakura :)

Mukuro Ikusaba- Ultimate Chef (Works best with ‘cheap’ food, and making them taste good. a byproduct of growing up on the streets with junko, and junko being bored of the same old food they dug out of the trash. now works closely with junko for her teams’ nutritional needs! autistic and sapphic.)

Junko Enoshima- Ultimate Team Manager (there are SO many sports she can never get bored, and the professional scene is always changing! prefers coaching womens’ teams, because being an ultimate brings them more publicity and usually higher pay :)

Mondo Oowada- Ultimate Prince (OH MY BOY. trans adhd icon. now the crown prince of Novoselic, with a reagent in his place until he comes of age. His service dog Chuck is a maltese and an absolute sweetheart. Chihiro takes him under her wing to teach leadership. also dates taka later OF COURSE, though they’re poly and I may add more ppl to their relationship later.)

Celestia Ludenburg- Ultimate Musician (specializes in violin, most strings, though she can play any instrument. grew up poor, dedicated herself to an instrument and persona to cope)

Byakuya Togami- Ultimate Musician (Yep. two musicians. two catty trans gay icons about to throw down. they HATE each other and grew up as rivals. specialize in classical, they literally tore a professional orchestra full of grown adults apart trying to make them side with who was the best musician. they’re so good that they’re matched, and Hope’s Peak accepts them as one student and combined ultimate. they room together. they fight. Literally if one of them gets expelled, the other does too, so they’re STUCK. eventually they become literally inseparable and insufferable together like the WORST siblings. I love them.)

Sayaka Maizono- Breeder (animal handler) (Specializes in birds!!!!!! has songbirds on her shoulders all the time. will give unsettling animal facts without realizing they’re unsettling. sends her songbirds to serenade chihiro when they start dating <3)

Yasuhiro Hagakure- Gymnast (you see this tall goof who acts like an older brother to everyone and wonder HOW he’s a gymnast. he’s completely different in competitions, though still lighthearted. becomes a big brother figure to mukuro and junko especially <3 also trans bc i say so.)

Leon Kuwata- Traditional Dancer (he just. kinda hates it. it takes SO much work and effort but he takes to it naturally. his cousin kanon is NOT like in canon, instead she’s helpful. he’d literally rather be doing anything else. doesn’t know how to do anything like... basic either. can’t cook. cant do his own laundry. everything was dedicated to traditional japanese dancing before he attended HPA.)

Toko Fukawa- Engineer (writes schematics and is very good at it. gets VERY upset when her plans go wrong. her notes are orderly and perfect. host for their system!)

Syo- Mechanic (a factive of genocider syo, NOT an actual killer. she’s a protector mainly, and also is more adept at hands on skills when it comes to fixing things, her hands are less shaky. Her notes are a disaster and she does it to spite Toko.)

Hifumi Yamada- (???) (reserve course) Protagonist! My BOY. HIFUMI IS GOOD OKAY. He’s autistic and loves anime and gaming! he’s not particularly ultimate-leveled at them, or anything else! Attending Hope’s Peak as a reserve course student! At one point he joins the student council as a reserve course representative even if he’s only a freshman :) He’s also a moderator in Hina’s livestream chat, under the username of JusticeHammer, fastest ban hammer this side of the internet. He's internet friends with hina and sakura, and doesn’t realize Oh We Go To the same SCHOOL until he bumps into them. and realizes hina doesnt know what he looks like. but sakura does. its hilarious. he’s aroace, and during the year they’re locked in HPA, is in a queer platonic partnership with Hina and Sakura, while they’re dating each other. it’s great.)

Goodbye Despair! (second game)

Peko Pekoyama- Lucky student (ohohoh. her luck relies on her conviction. if she has doubts her bad luck strikes HARD. trans!, was taken in by Fuyuhiko’s family when she was a baby, grew up as just another kid in the family. They all expected Fuyu to go off to HPA on his own and then BOOM acceptance letter)

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu- Programmer (He. gets so angry while coding. He has an array of rubber ducks to talk to and work through his coding issues with. trans of course. Very protective of Peko when people say she doesn’t have a ‘real’ ultimate. ADHD and Autistic)

Sonia Nevermind- Writer (Literary Girl) (Her family immigrated to Japan when she was young! She writes a lot of serial killer novels, murder mysteries and horror and all that! Trans and bi :)

Gundham Tanaka- Detective (YEAH my guy is a detective. still talks Like That. Trans and bi and he and Sonia were kinda-dating (t4t autistic power couple in the making) when things started happening. He spends some time with his cool older sister who he looks up to a LOT. He and Sonia talk through things together a lot, they both have those red string walls, one for murder cases, another for a fictional plot lmao.)

Mahiru Koizumi- Moral Compass (my GIRL. autistic. Her morals rely a lot on people taking responsibility and being reliable, and she ends up having to work through some biases she didn’t realize she had when she arrived at HPA. Is still protective of Hiyoko, though that protectiveness is spread a bit thinner to extend to the rest of the class.)

Hiyoko Saionji- Clairvoyant!!! (HI YES I COULD TALK ABOUT HER FOR DAYS. Has actual visions in dreams and when she suddenly faints, but doesn’t really realize they’re uhh Real Visions for a WHILE. uses her status as an ultimate clairvoyant to trick and bully kids when in school for a LONG time, though her homelife wasn’t great with her grandmother trying to find ways to make her visions more consistent. SHES ALSO 12 WHEN SHE JOINS THE 77TH CLASS. she’s just so advanced in academics and her ultimate is so interesting hope’s peak cant HELP but scout her early. she has SO many issues guys no one appreciates hiyoko enough, autistic gifted kid hiyoko my beloved.)

Akane Owari- Gambler (started gambling to help out her family and Got Good at it. is very very conscious of money and food like all the time. Runs the hope’s peak betting pools once she arrives. these ultimates bet on a lot of things. she ALWAYS wins. until she doesnt!!!)

Mikan Tsumiki- Martial Artist (ohhhh Mikan. Still anxious and clumsy (though not like THAT in canon) and literally no one looks at her and thinks Oh The ULTIMATE martial artist?? it isn’t until you see her in the ring that you understand. She started learning self defense as a kid because her (bad) parents essentially said she had to rely on and protect herself and no one else would help.)

Kazuichi Souda- Pop Idol (OH TRANS ICON? he’s nervous and paranoid about Everything still, though now it’s like. oh the entire world is always watching my every move this is Okay (: has the brightest neon album eras. he literally keeps up a like. weird chad persona when interacting with people because he’s masking how hard he’s constantly just internally screaming.)

Nagito Komaeda- Soldier (AHAHAH my mans got issues problems disorder he’s a messssss, this trans guy, this absolute gay. this boy leveled a city of thousands of people with his own hands and some bombs. Still has medical issues, but most of his like. treatments and medicine is hold hostage as long as he stays in line. believes the ends justify the means and anyone who dies to him is obviously weak, because look at him! he’s weak, but that doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have to be the strongest, he just has to be stronger than the weakest scum.)

Chiaki Nanami- Heir (OOF. Agender, uses any pronouns. Doesn’t really. enjoy being the heir. grew up with Byakuya in the same circles. she treats the economy and stock market and stuff like games. enjoys gaming but isn’t good at them. collects so many things. has halls full of collections. Her parents stopped controlling her once she was able to prove she had more money than them and could literally bankrupt them if she wanted.)

Hajime Hinata- Baseball Star (Chiaki’s best friend, his family was upper middle class until he hit it BIG as a baseball star. wants to do BIG things and wants to attend hope’s peak more than anything!! Doesn’t really think of baseball as his THING, just a means to an end! trans :)

Teruteru Hanamura- Biker Gang Leader (started with shaking down some jerks who didn’t pay their food and drink tabs at his mama’s restaurant. now he RUNS their tiny town. His siblings are essentially gang mascots, he works hard to keep them out of trouble (while bringing them to like. meetings where he ends up beating a dude almost to death. its fine). most of what he does it to get more money to keep the restaurant afloat and care for his mama with her health conditions.)

Nekomaru Nidai- Fashionista (the drama. the CHAOS. most people are like ohhh we can never understand this artistic genius when he’s literally just. vibing and has ADHD and a love for coffee. Works a lot on accessible clothing lines for disabled people! Also he and Kazuichi work together sometimes, Nekomaru is good at calming Kaz down and seeing like, the root of whatever problem and making it better. ALSO A TRANS ICON and just flaunts it.)

Imposter- In the hope’s peak days they are impersonating Ryota Mitarai, as a part of the 77th class. In the Killing Game they impersonate Mondo Oowada as the Ultimate Prince. They’re doin’ their best.

Ibuki Mioda- (???) (Izuru Kamakura) Protagonist! Gundham Tanaka’s older sister (though they’re in the same school year). Nonbinary and using just. an array of pronouns alongside she/her, and jokingly fights with gundham for neopronouns like MOM said it’s MY TURN on the rawrself pronouns. She attends the reserve course to stay at her brother’s side. She dresses loudly and acts even louder because !!! she wants to stand out!! in the middle of this drab reserve course hell!!  but when things go down, she wants to be someone, to be worthy of being her amazing brother’s big sister. so she accepts some offers.

NON-KILLING GAME:

Ryota Mitarai- Ultimate Analyst (stays in his room. He’s terrified of the outside world but fascinated by it. watches hope’s peak academy through security feeds, picking up on little details. he just wants to understand things but never looks at the big picture.)

Chisa Yukizome- Ultimate Boxer (Homeroom teacher!! She’s working really hard and believes in everyone! Some are intimidated by talent, but she’s never hurt anyone outside of the ring! Dating Kyosuke)

Juzo Sakakura- Ultimate Student Council President (Has anger issues, though his work at reigning them in assisted in becoming an Ultimate. Was responsible for security and the Hope’s Peak student council. Dating Kyosuke)

Kyosuke Munakata- Ultimate Housekeeper (Meticulous, works himself to the BONE even if he’s good enough to not have to do that. Is working on establishing another Hope’s Peak! Dating Chisa and Jozu!!!)

Seiko Kimura- Ultimate Blacksmith (GIVE MY GIRL KNIVES!! She’s an anxious gal, always wearing a facemask that filters the air in her forge because she has some respiratory problems. she prefers making more decorative pieces like an artist, but sometimes can create utilitarian pieces or tools to fit specific needs. Still a doormat)

Ruruka Ando- Ultimate Pharmacist (She constantly asks Seiko for new tools for her developments in medicine, saying its all for the advancement of humanity, so Seiko denying any request is SELFISH, though she never thinks to make anything for seiko’s health issues. Dating Izayoi. Specializes in medicine for mental health. Not Doing Great :)

Sonosuke Izayoi- Ultimate Confectioner (He loves sweets. LOVES them. Creates things that look plain, ordinary. but taste so GOOD you CRY and maybe ascend for a little bit. sometimes Ando makes cool new drugs to put in the sweets, who knows! It’s a mystery! He always has like. a huge refrigerated case of fresh cakes, and constantly has a lollipop in his own specialty recipe in his mouth.)

[psychiccupid]

“Two Teru’s”

@danganrarepairweek2021 Day One: Flowers, Festival, Fireworks!

Ship: Ultimate Impostor x Teruteru Hanamura (TwoTeru)

Fic Tags: HPA AU, Fluff, Pure Fluff, It’s been years so Teru’s NOT LIKE THAT™, Probably OOC but this is how I see them in the future, Semi-Original Character (for Impostor), Festival, Fireworks, Teru’s mom, brother, and sister are here!!

While they were both prepared, the sheer volume of people at the Hanamura’s festival stand was… overwhelming to say the least. Especially considering that both of Teruteru’s younger siblings wanted to go off and get some time to actually enjoy the evening - which was understandable. It’s certainly not every day such a huge party was happening.

However, this left only two people running the booth. The Ultimate Chef could easily handle this all on his own, no sweat, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful for his partner impostoring him. Looking in the other’s direction, he was currently handing a young, excited girl a bowl of what most assuredly would be the best curry she’d ever taste. The thought made Teruteru smile widely - truly, what would he do without him? 

The moment the first guest had tried a bite of the Double Teru Cooking Combo™, they spread their outstanding review around the entire festival, and people had not stopped coming for seconds, thirds, fourths since! The stand had been set up four hours ago, but now, it was getting late into the night, with his family yet to return. He knew they wanted to have fun! And he was happy that he had the skills to let that happen but…

He had a very special moment prepared. Missing it was out of the question.

Ever since they met at Hope’s Peak, Teru had found comfort in serving food to -at the time- Byakuya Togami. It was unexpected, for the heir to be so… compliment-y… but with every praise, the cook found himself falling more and more. His raunchy jokes slowed down until they were gone completely and his demeanor shaped up and became more serious; all because he’d found ‘the one’ - the person he wanted to keep making food for. 

As he handed an older gentleman a rice bowl, he couldn’t help thinking about their history together. The sweet romantic dinner where Teruteru had finally asked him out, the first time he ever taught the other how to cook something exquisite for himself… and especially the late night where, out in a park underneath the stars, he learned they weren’t really Byakuya Togami. Though, at that point - he already knew and very much accepted them. The trust that it took to admit that wouldn’t go unappreciated, and so the chef had opened up about his siblings talents, his jealousy, and how he worried about his mom constantly. 

“Well, you’re already teaching me how to cook. Perhaps we can make an arrangement?” The impostor had told them that night, and now, looking at his own face like a reflection, he found nothing but love in his heart that he’d accepted. 

Still - he was absolutely ecstatic when his mom returned, tuckered out, and said that she’d be happy to take over so they could escape. His sister rounded the corner and practically shoved him out cooing, “Yeah, tell your doppelganger to go change and go kiss already! We’ve been back for five seconds and the tension is unreal. Shoo! Go!” His brother teasing the Impostor to the same degree. Heck, even some of the people around the booth hollered at them, embarrassingly, to get out for a little bit - but it was all in good fun!

So, giddily, they rounded the corner and the taller Teruteru chuckled, “Anyone in particular you’d like to spend your evening with?” It was mostly in appearance - despite the lack of a name, gender, or identity, Teru would know his partner anywhere, through any disguise at this point. They may change faces, but underneath it was always just…

“Tonight is special. So… can I ask you to be Imp for a little while?” A secret nickname, a character the two of them created together. Imp was The Ultimate Impostor, or, what they wanted to be. A masculine face with slicked back black hair and brown eyes, hosting a deeper voice but all of it being… them. And that was Teruteru’s absolute favorite: Them.

After a few moments, Imp had changed into, well, Imp. But also into more-appropriate festival attire. The shorter man had done the same - and now they both sported some stylish jinbei, happily walking hand-in-hand to inspect all of the booths excitedly.

The first hour was spent inspecting every single food stand they could find, buying one thing to split between them, and would gush happily about all the parts of it they liked! Then, they stopped at knickknack stalls, watched performances, and simply enjoyed the other’s company. 

But the big event was in the second hour, as the sun was finally set, and eleven o’clock rolled around. Teruteru had been planning this for weeks alongside their festival station, and now stood with his true love at the top of a hill, overlooking a large water canal. Pointedly, he looked to the sky, and, being as breathtakingly intelligent as he was, Imp knew to do the same - already guessing what the surprise would be. 

In no time at all, a wide array of colors and blasts lit up the dark background as firework after firework shot off - exploding into sparkles and smoke. They were stunning, radiant, and both onlookers found themselves happily gawking at the display, wonderfully basking in the other’s presence for the evening. 

As the finale started, with what seemed to be a never ending supply of ammo, Imp leaned over and gave Teruteru the lightest kiss on the cheek - never being the overly physically affectionate type. But, through the years, it was a silent message that the other was allowed to be affectionate, and so, underneath the ever changing lights, he turned towards his darling and stood on his tiptoes to give them a passionate kiss - just one - that conveyed all the love he could possibly have for the other.

Ending the night in a soft, “Thank you for trusting me.” Leaving his lips.

And a warm, “Thank you for seeing me.” To follow.

[insomniac-jay]

How I Would Rewrite DR If I Was In Charge: Trigger Happy Havoc

I’m pretty sure we all know that K/daka is a fucking piece of shit asshole and that he shouldn’t be allowed to have DR, so I, a plus sized pansexual questioning teenage girl of color (something K/daka hates), will rewrite Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc to spite him and save our souls.

The Setting

Let’s start by changing the setting from a high school to a private university because Mukuro was a child soldier??? And that’s gross and insensitive to those who have/had relatives who are child soldiers. So yeah, Hope’s Peak is the top private college in Japan and possibly the world or a faculty and they take students from age 19-20. But if I do want to keep the whole high school aesthetic of it, then I’ll probably change Mukuro’s talent to something like Ultimate Hunter or something. 

Supernatural Elements Added To The Lore

When I first got into DR, I thought there were gonna be some supernatural elements to it. There was not, and I am here to fix that. Gods, demons, and magic do exist in my rewritten DR world and Monokuma is one example of it. Monokuma is a demon and servant to the God of Despair Izuru Kamukura while Monomi/Usami is a servant to the Goddess of Hope. There’s also a legend around the two. 

It would’ve been really cool if Hagakure could talk to spirits and actually predict certain events, and if Sayaka was actually a psychic so I would incorporate that if I were in charge of remaking Trigger Happy Havoc.

Diversity

When it comes to diversity, DR is not the best with it. So I decided to change that. There are a few characters that are mixed but are still Japanese by blood. The mixed characters are Byakuya (French-Japanese), Mondo (South African-Japanese), Sakura (Samoan-Japanese/African-American), Aoi (Black-Polynesian/Japanese), Toko (Chinese-Japanese), Leon (Scottish-Irish/Japanese) and Junko & Mukuro (African-American/Japanese). I also want diversity when it comes to sexualities and genders and you can look at them here for reference. I don’t just want diversity when it comes to racial backgrounds, sexualities, or genders, I also want diversity among body types. I think Aoi, Toko, Chihiro, and Celestia should be chubby. I think Makoto, Kiyotaka, and Leon should be too and not leave Hifumi in solidarity. 

The Designs

The designs of the characters get on my nerves. Like, why are they so BAD?! You got me out here doing redesigns for free and a professional artist can even design the characters to be decent? That’s how you know you’re not good at your job.

If you want to see my redesigns and some of my remastered redesigns (which I will have to remaster AGAIN), here and here and here. Go have fun looking at those. I want the characters to look like their talents or certain aspects of their character. For example, I want Celestia to look like both royalty and a gambler. 

Another thing: Why are the characters wearing the same thing every day? Please get them a wardrobe and new clothes. 

Character Development 

So many characters with wasted potential for character development. I want to give characters better development than in the games. Kyoko becomes more and more emotional over the course of the game, Toko comes out of her shell, Mondo becomes less and less aggressive, Chihiro learns that strength doesn’t affect femininity, etc. I want good and meaningful character moments, I want good development.

Interesting Plot Twists

I did like a few of the plot twists in THH but I think it could’ve been better. Like, one plot twist could be that Celestia is Kiyotaka’s long lost twin sister and he begs Monokuma not to kill her bc he needs to bring her back to her family along with finding the rest of his siblings. I want good shit like that.

Junko Being More Active

I would make Junko a hiding in plain sight kind of character. Like she’s the mastermind but does a good job at playing a character that no one suspects it. I also want Junko to be a master manipulator, causing distrust among the group every little chance she can.

As For The Deaths & Who Survives

Here’s how I would make the death order go:

Chapter 1: Junko fakes its death at the hands of Makoto Naegi and he’s executed, giving the characters some early development. While I did like the Leon and Sayaka thing, I feel as though Junko and Makoto could definitely work for a great chapter 1 death and trial.

Chapter 2: Motivated by the threat of a scandal leaking to the public, Byakuya kills Leon in order to keep his family secret safe. He enlists the help of Toko to help him frame it like it was Sayaka who murdered him. In the end, it fails and Byakuya is executed while Toko is not.

Chapter 3: Hifumi kills Hagakure and Celestia kills Hifumi. During the class trial, the Celestia is Kiyotaka’s twin sister plot twist comes in and it shocks everyone. Celestia is executed despite Kiyotaka and Kyoko’s pleas for Monokuma to not kill her. The death of her lover leads to Kyoko breaking and becoming depressed.

Chapter 4: Both Mukuro and Mondo are revealed to be the traitors and Mondo kills Mukuro in a fake out to make Junko believe she won. Just as Mondo is about to be executed, both Alter Ego and Mukuro come in and saves him, pissing off both Monokuma and Junko. That gives them the hint at who the mastermind is.

Chapter 5: A memorial is held for the deceased characters and everyone starts trying to piece together the past so they can find out what led up the killing game and they eventually find some old tapes and photos of their school life before the Tragedy and the killing game. Mukuro disappears during this chapter for “unknown” reasons and doesn’t come back until chapter 6. During that chapter, Kyoko talks to the Goddess of Hope and learns that Junko is actually her former classmate Ryoko Otonashi and that the God of Despair is using her as a vessel.

Chapter 6: The confrontation between the survivors and the mastermind. Monokuma possesses Junko and Kyoko channels the powers of the Goddess of Hope and purges the evil spirits from Junko and Junko becomes Ryoko Otonashi again. With Ryoko saved, both it and Mukuro plan on serving time for their part in the destruction of the world and Kyoko promises to get them a pardon. Kiyotaka asks the Goddess if there’s anyway she can revive the others. She hits him with sad news that that is beyond her power but to rest assured that their fallen classmates will be watched over by her and her servants.

With despair defeated, the others pack their clothes and food and begin the long journey to rebuilding.

The initial survivors are Kyoko, Sayaka, Mukuro, Chihiro, Mondo, Kiyotaka, Toko, Sakura, and Aoi. 

Shoutout to @kyoanime3 for the death ideas. I love you/p

[dangan-imaginess]

Hi, I'm sorry for bothering you. How would Byakuya, Nagito, Gundam, Kokichi, and Gonta react to a s/o who has autism, and makes animal noises when happy? And one day they're out in public and someone makes fun of them so much they start crying? This recently happened to me. Thank you for your time

I know it's been a long while since this request was submitted, but I'm sorry that happened to you, that sucks. Since I'm autistic too and I like making goat noises as a vocal stim, I figured I should write this. I'm not the best at writing Byakuya, so that part might be a little weak, but I hope you like it!

~ Mod Tenko

+++

Byakuya Togami:

- Byakuya has a hard time getting across what he means sometimes, especially in terms of emotion, so he relates to a lot of your communication issues (even if he doesn't like to admit it).

- He was surprised by the animal noises at first, and wondered why you were making them, but once he found out it was a sign of happiness he accepted it.

- He won't admit it, but he finds your noises amusing and cute sometimes.

- But one day, while the two of you are reading in the library, some jerk started making fun of you for getting excited about your favorite part. Byakuya made sure to make his displeasure about that known.

- "How dare a plebian like you make fun of someone I, Byakuya Togami, love. Even if you weren't a common peasant you'd be scum, insulting someone for something so innocent."

- He makes sure to bring you away from the situation, and once word gets around that the jerk was on the wrong side of Byakuya, their reputation went down a lot – and fast.

- Byakuya let you know he will make sure no one gets away with making fun of you while he's around, and all was well.

Nagito Komaeda:

- He loves your noises! He also loves being able to take turns talking for long times about the things you two like; him with hope and talent, and you with your special interests.

- He even bought himself a stim toy, once he found out what they were through you, and to his surprise it's been rather calming.

- You suggested one day you two go watch a movie you were both looking forward too, and he readily agreed.

- As you're waiting for the movie to start, he's whispering to you as you occasionally make a noise in excitement.

- That was when the asshole behind you two made some loud commentary about your noises to the person next to him, and when Nagito heard your sniffles he immediately turned to the guy who was gossiping.

- "Pardon me, but I believe that someone as low as you should shut up and stop talking about those who don't concern you. It really is pathetic that you feel the need to try and snuff out the light of other, lovely people, you know."

- As soon as he finished speaking, Nagito led you to a different seat on the other side of the theatre.

- The rest of the movie was uneventful, and Nagito's luck even caused you to accidentally get a bunch of candy from a broken vending machine later, as payment for him seeing you sad.

Gundham Tanaka:

- He thought you were imitating the Four Dark Devas as first with your squeaks. But then he found your noises were simply noises of joy, and was amused that mortals, too, can make the noises of beasts to express emotions.

- He finds it fun to interpret your squeaks and tell you if you manage to accidentally say something in a certain animal tongue. Most of what you say is just occasional words in hamster or guinea pig, but you'll never forget the time Gundham fell out his seat in shock and laughter when you somehow said, "The broccoli is on the roof; we ride at midnight."

- It was during a grooming session where you got to brush a bunny's very soft fur that an asshole from one of the other classes popped in to see what was going on.

- "Wow, is little y/n whining again? Do you want to – ack!"

- They didn't even get a chance to finish what they were saying before Gundham was standing before them with an intimidating glare.

- "A mortal such as yourself would not be able to comprehend the abilities of one used to speaking in a beast's tongue. Now, I demand you leave or I shall banish you from my presence with the power of a thousand demons!"

- They left, understandably, and Gundham blushed when you thanked him for standing up for you.

- "I-it was nothing, my Darkness... Foolish mortals typically spread hate when faced with a might they cannot comprehend..."

Kokichi Ouma:

- Kokichi was the type to make fun of you at first, but he quickly got over that long before the two of you started dating.

- When he found out you made goat bleats when excited, he was all too happy to join in.

- Now, whenever you let out a bleat, you can hear him do the same from down the hall. Sometimes you bleat back and forth for fun!

- One day, though, someone just had to make a comment after you let out a quiet bleat while playing your favorite video game.

- "Oh my god, why are you –"

- They didn't make it any further than that before Kokichi let out a very loud bleat of his own and dumped a bottle of Panta over their head.

- They stomped off to clean themself, and Kokichi joked about how pathetic they were, staying with you to watch you play and bleat some more with you.

- No one bothered you after that show of protectiveness.

Gonta Gokuhara:

- Like Gundham, he's able to understand you if you say something in animal language. The difference is that he didn't even think you were imitating an animal, he just thought you spoke in it sometimes!

- It took him a while to understand. But once he got it, he got it!

- He also has trouble connecting to people, and he's been embarrassed on more than one occasion when someone's tone or body language flew over him. So he understands your struggles when it comes to understanding others!

- When someone made fun of you in class when you made a noise after getting a tough question right, Gonta wasn't even angry, just really sad and confused.

- "Um, excuse Gonta, but... You shouldn't make fun of people for expressing themselves. That's not very nice. Also, plenty of animals make noise for no reason other than expressing emotion! So it is understandable for humans to do this too, because humans are also animals! ... Ah, Gonta apologizes if he's not making sense."

- The girl tried to just brush off what Gonta was saying, but the teacher told her to knock it off.

- After class, you got to tell Gonta how much you appreciated what he did.

- "Gonta just wanted to make sure y/n was happy and safe! People who make fun of others aren't very gentleman-like, and Gonta thought it best to tell her that she wasn't being very nice."

- You smiled and told him you appreciated it.

[skopostheorie]

Uhhhuhhhhh uhhhh how do u think it would go down if Imposter revealed his true face and his talent maybe perhaps <3? With ishimposter

CONGRATULATIONS YOUVE UNLOCKED MY AUTISM.

so here’s what i think. it appears from this line that ishimaru has an idea that imposter is not togami.

“to...togami-kun... no, i... whether that is the way to address you, i don’t know, but it doesn’t matter!”

my Pure Headcanon; what if this was not because of the way he looks (like we all know people aren’t able to tell them apart by looking) and rather because of the way he acted! because ishimaru says this right after imposter gives his dialogue about the baton right? which is why ishimaru got so emotional because it was so honourable (which i’ll GET to) . so basically ishimaru starts to realise over the course of the school year (before this festival) that sometimes when he talks to togami it isn’t actually togami. he spots imposter from a distance sometimes doing his Leadership Thing with his class and he’s like “huh. the real togami would never” and then he’s like “look at him leading his peers! it’s so admirable!! i love that!” and stuff. so he slowly starts to distinguish them and gains a huge respect for imposter. by the time this canon baton interaction occured it was like.... ishimaru had already Seen Imposter Around and thought he wss just so good and so when imposter addresses him he gets very emotional andbdfjghfjdfjdfgh. i promise this is going somewhere

SO BASICALLY AFTER THIS they actually become friends and stuff and idk how that friendship goes because when i daydream about it i may or may not just skip to the kissing. but they jsUT!! feel very similar because no one else really understands why they care so much about leadership and ensuring the safety of the group. but they DO ans it’s like woah!!! i feel seen for the first time!!! can we make out?? but they dont say that last part bcos tgheyr dumb. i PROMISE THIS IS GOING SOMEWHERE

but imposter feels HHHHHHHH! because when ishimaru is ranting about god knows what he always brings up something like honesty and staying true to one self. because the THING IS. THE THING IS. ishimaru is so EARNEST he is a little too honest. he sees someone walk past them and he’s like “do they know their outfit doesn’t match” and imposters like laughing inside because oh my god ishimaru don’t say that out loud. and when ishimaru says that no matter what anyone says you should not falter in who you are and your passions

it Hits imposter because. ah. Ah(tm). he like. sticks around ishimaru cuz it’s refreshing and he says things he knows he needs to hear but the longer it goes on the more he’s like? oh god i’m lying to this person. this person is the literal embodiment of honesty and im lying. To Him. ishimaru technically knows what imposters deal is and he just finds it kind of funny and assumes hes pretending to be togami for fun or something but imposters like This Is Bad. he’s nervouse. but in a way he starts feeling like he can tell ishimaru soon BECAUSE

ishimaru is v genuine and so he’s constantly talking abt HOW AMAZING AND MANLY IMPOSTER IS !!! LIKE WOAH!!!!! and yes that is trans rights also but thats not the point rifght now. like that baton thing? tip of the iceberg. imposter will be like “i tidied the gym” and ishimaru’s like YOU DID??? :’DDDDDDDDD CAN WE MAKE OUT except he doesnt say that last part because hes still dumb.

and imposter knows ishimaru means the truth but the thing is he KNOWS. togami isn’t known for being manly or one who looks out for his friends or anything that ishimaru goes on about. the thing is (hc time) imspoter chose togami of all people because he wanted to be admired. he’s never got to so much as live before but as togami byakuya he’s like!!!! the KING of sex! so rich and awesome! wow! and of course everyone at school is like “omg. youre the fuckign togami. so rich and powerful we love your fat cock”. and imposters like niiiiiice! except NO not nice because while the temporary validation makes him happy he feels empty! because he feels it cant compare to the real him! and ishimaru values him for things that are ACTUALLY who imposter is and what his real qualities are!

and so imposter has this new feeling that maybe he’s worth something?????? like hell ishimaru couldn’t lie if he tried so that’s pretty epic. and so while he kinda feels like hell for lying to ishimaru because they’re pining at this point . but he’s kinda like?? excited in a way? like i finally feel like maybe my real self is worth something! as me! and he’s hoping that maybe ishimaru will like that person too??? oogoohohoh wow segsy.

so one day theyre like. idk. studying maybe . because they’re still pining and it’s actually a date like look at this dialogue you KNWO this is romantic asfuck

“ILL MAKE AN EXCEPTION TO DO IT WITH YOU” BRO WHAT ???????? /CRYING

and imposters like you Know what. Fine. and he tells ishimaru his life story. ishimaru is unsuprised at the premise because he’s a Clever Cookie >:) and knew it wasn’t togami but he’s jsut. so touched by imposters story. because oh my god. no one should feel worthles s there is no reasson especaily someone as beautiful and sexy as imposter????? he doesnt say the sexy part

like this for example. ishimaru FREAKS IT LIKE wow!!!!!! anti corruption king!!! and imposters like haha yeah i hate money and such B) ishimarus  liieke oh ym god youre even sexieer now.

and then they kiss or somethign idk im not a fag bye.

[recurring-polynya]

What are your thoughts on Bazz-B? He and Renji seemed to have developed a good rapport and I feel that they would’ve been good frenemies had be survived. I can imagine them exchanging fashion tips which would have interesting results!

I imagine that in another universe, they could have been friends, but I feel like the fact that Bazz grievously injured/ambiguously killed one of Renji’s best friends would put a big damper on that.

I really, really, really do not like the Sternritters. I don’t even like them as villains. Out of them, Bazz is probably the least objectionable, but I still don’t like him.

Here are a few thoughts on why, but I’m gonna put them under a cut, because that’s my policy when I say critical things about characters. If you like the Sternritters, I’m glad for you and please feel free to skip the rest of this post!

One of the major themes of Bleach has always been about moral ambiguity, that people are rarely pure heroes or villains. In the earliest episodes, Rukia warns Ichigo to kill Hollows from behind, to never try to glimpse the person they once were, advice that Ichigo roundly rejects as he’s constant turns enemies into friends/allies. This works really well at the beginning of the series and... less well each time we got through this.

My understanding is that Kubo’s original plan for Bleach ended after the Soul Society Arc, and that makes sense to me, because it seems so well plotted out to me, and then the subsequent arcs just seems to try to be recapturing the magic. The thing that is coolest to me about this arc is that the shinigami characters have real depth, and that our initial impressions of them are insufficient. The Gotei is going through an existential crisis, where an injustice (Rukia’s execution) is being prosecuted, and in addition, Aizen has laid a groundwork of mistrust and misinformation. You have characters like Renji, Kira, and Hinamori, who are torn between their orders and deep personal feelings. You have bystanders like Hisagi and Komamura, who don’t really have skin in the game, but feel a sense of unease about the way things are going. You have characters who seem sympathetic-- when Aizen comforts Hinamori that Renji won’t be fired, and the fact that Tousen seems to be someone who would be on the side of justice if only he had the full story, that turn out to be disingenuous. Then you have characters like Kenpachi, who, at least in the second half of the arc, is on Ichigo’s side, but not really for any noble reason, just because he likes Ichigo and also he wants an excuse to fight other captains. There’s Kurotsuchi, who is nominally on the side of the good guys, but is not, in fact, a good person. By the end of the arc, I feel like Kubo has done a really good job of presenting a diverse group of people who live in a flawed system and who were played by someone who took advantage of that. I have no objection at all to the idea that Ichigo considers many of the shinigami his friends afterward, including a very strong friendship with Renji, who is presented as a villain initially.

The Arrancar arc, is more of a mixed bag for me. I still think it mostly works. Arrancar are not humans. They follow Aizen, but in some ways, they are also his victims-- post-Arc, I don’t find myself begrudging any of the surviving Espada for having gone along with him. They are Hollows, and they come from a life of violence and anger and brutality. They have risen above that, which means different things to the various Espada. Harribel, Starkk and Nel are all sympathetic, even tragic characters. Nnoitra and Szyalapollo are monstrous, but in the way that terrible humans are monstrous. Grimmjow is an interesting character, because he falls somewhere in the middle.

I read a fair amount of GrimmIchi fic, because a) it often features Renruki as a side ship and b) there are a lot of really, really talented GrimmIchi writers, but I do not love the ship for it’s own sake, and it’s mainly for one reason: Grimmjow purposely hurt Ichigo’s friends in front of him, and I do not think that’s a thing Ichigo would take lightly. Now, one of the things that make GrimmIchi writers so good is that they are often willing to do the heavy lifting of examining Grimmjow’s brutality, and way Ichigo views the Hollow within himself (for some people, this is even one of the attractions of the pairing). We get a lot of canon scenes with Grimmjow in various situations-- when he backtalks Aizen, when he “rescues” Orihime from Loly and Menoly, when he tries to get her to heal Ichigo just so he can fight him again, when we see him willing to fight his fellow Espada. He’s a meaty character and there’s a lot to dig into. I would still, someday, like to see Ichigo say, “Hey Grimmjow, y’know, you badly hurt my friend Rukia and it messed me up a bunch and I am having trouble getting over it,” and for Grimmjow to have to deal with that. (Polynya, you say, didn’t Rukia kill one of Grimmjow’s Fraccion like 5 minutes earlier? Yes, she did, and whether Grimmjow would respond with “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and it hurt my feelings too!” vs. “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and you don’t see me crying about it!” are both really interesting ways you could take this)

ANYWAY, getting back to the Quincy. From our earliest introduction to Uryuu in the series, we know that Quincy ought to have a legitimate beef with Soul Society. For starters, there is their underlying philosophical difference: Quincy don’t think that the shinigami do enough to protect the Living World, and they have taken matters into their own hands. They want to see Hollows annihilated, rather than purified. Then, on top of that, the shinigami eradicated their people, and treated them like lab rats. You could spin a lot of gold out of this, but instead, we got the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

The Quincy are, basically humans with powers, and yet they are extremely bloodthirsty and cruel. We see Bambietta killing people to blow off steam, they take glee in killing lesser opponents (both Hollow and shinigami), As Nodt tortures Byakuya rather than just killing him cleanly, Giselle takes over Bambietta’s body in a horrifying way. Yhwach chastises Yamamoto for having “gone soft”, and says “you used to be cooler when you were a murderer.” The Vandenreich isn’t about justice or improving the system, it’s just about revenge and power and proving racial superiority. Are y’all ready for the hottest take I have ever had? Here it is: The Bount Arc, which is bad and should feel bad, provided a more well-characterized and relatable set of villains than the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

I mentioned earlier that out of all the Sternritter, Bazz is the best of a bad lot. He gets some good flashbacks and his story evokes both Renji and Rukia’s childhood relationship as well as Gin and Rangiku’s. He's shown hating Yhwach in his youth, but then it’s never really followed up on. Nothing about this works to make me like Bazz, though, it just makes me feel like Yhwach is terrible, a person who ruins lives in both big and small ways.

I honestly hate the scenes where Bazz and Renji banter. Up until this point of the story arc, we have been slammed over and over with how much worse the Quincy are than previous villains. They cause massive destruction, they maim and kill beloved characters. Then, halfway through the arc, Kubo suddenly tries to start walking this back. Byakuya and Kenpachi were supposed to never fight again, but, uhhhh, Byakuya got healed in the Royal Realm and Kenpachi... got better? Look, we fixed Kira! Mayuri brings everyone back as zombies, that’s cool? Let’s have some banter, ha ha, the Quincy are fun! I don’t want to blame Kubo on this because he wasn’t feeling well and also, all of this smacks of editorial pressure, but it doesn’t sit well with me. It seems out of character to me for Renji to joke with someone who has hurt his friends and destroyed his home, and I sometimes justify it in my mind by saying that Renji probably doesn’t know that Bazz was the one who hurt Kira, but in some ways that makes things worse.

To be honest, a much better way to humanize the Quincy would have been to do so through Uryuu. One of the huge flaws of this arc is that there is so little focus on him, the character who ought to tie all this together. Uryuu has been harping for years that shinigami are his enemy and that he’s proud of his heritage. This is literally exactly what he has always says he wanted, and the fact that I, the reader, never believed for a microsecond that his loyalties were divided speaks to how awful the Quincy must be. How did Yhwach first approach Uryuu? It would have been cool to be introduced to the Vandenreich via the narrative device of Uryuu’s introduction. Was anyone nice to him? Do the Quincy have any redeeming value? What if there had been a scene where Bazz-B is goofing around, maybe training with someone, and Uryuu says to himself, “He reminds me of Renji and I hate all of the feelings that are currently in my body”? That would make a cool fanfic, actually, and anyone who wants can have that idea because I will never, ever write fanfic about the Sternritter.

Finally, on a note about fashion, the Sternritter uniforms (along with all their other symbolism) skirts way too close to “Nazi” for my tastes, and one more thing I hate about them is that they have retroactively ruined Uryuu’s aesthetic for me.