#dangan salt team /

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Reminder: it is in fact verifiable that Gonta is capable of playing dumb to put on an act (Chapter 4: asking 'if the board will break' after strangling Miu with toilet paper), and given that Kokichi's cooperation with Miu is impossible to pin down as to when it actually began, the same can be said for Kokichi and Gonta. Not only that, but Gonta's FTE confirms he was LYING about his history to Shuichi, regarding something that had NOTHING to do with Kokichi. Ergo, Gonta can and will lie of his own accord and for his own reasons.

This opens an ambiguous situation wherein we are unable to tell everything that went on with Gonta and Kokichi, and judging the nature of their relationship on its face is not so simple. You are free to interpret it as you want, but if you try to lord it over others that the pair is ''abusive'', you're overstepping your bounds. Knock it off.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

God this was a time, all right- I can't emphasise enough how in the 2k18 era, even the most 'banal' - in the sense of negligible - differences in Kokichi takes were outright ridiculed and there was this unseen 'strict guideline' to follow in order to be taken seriously. And why?? Because an analysis-theory plays with the idea he was lying about things about himself (in this case, acting to the group as if he was able to taste) that everyone else interpreted him as doing anyway?? What??

The dumbest thing is clearly if anyone was actually reading, the title and the last words indicate 'might' and 'take it as you please' thus you weren't making a 'statement of canon' and still people had a fucking problem. Like sure guys, ability to taste or lack thereof might not 'connect' meaningfully for you, but this isn't about you. Don't sweat the small stuff so much if it's so 'random' to you.

Kokichi Ouma Character Mini Analysis: Food Items (And Why He Might Actually Not Be Able to Taste Food)

 So something that immediately caught my eye when making this list was the food items Kokichi enjoyed, and how my mind immediately jumped to this bit of dialogue from the Salmon mode dates with Kokichi:

It’s an interesting line of dialogue that pops up, seemingly out of nowhere or coming from a tangent, and immediately Kokichi backpedals into the idea that this is a lie.

However… he never outright says it’s a lie at all, actually. We assume it’s a lie because he follows it up with “I like sweets and spicy food!” but both of those kinds of foods might have another element that makes them enjoyable without him being able to taste them.

After doing a lot of research, a lot of taste-related disorders are actually smell-related disorders, and finding birth defects where just the sense of taste is affected is… strangely difficult. So the most likely candidate is that Kokichi was born with very very dull taste buds, no taste buds at all, or has a hard wire problem where he has taste buds, but his brain doesn’t receive input from them. Either way, it’s still possible that he was born with this inability to taste food.

It is important to note that Kokichi never implies his sense of smell is compromised, and has made remarks on scents before, so it’s best to assume that his sense of smell is fine.

However, as per research goes, a lot of people who have this (or a similar) issue with the inability to taste food is through textures and temperature.

Spicy foods are a prime candidate to make food enjoyable without being able to taste anything, because the heat you feel from spicy food has nothing to do with your taste buds. The sensation is caused by a chemical compound called capsaicin, which is an irritant for mammals. It’s actually designed to deter animals from eating the plans that produce them, but we humans sure are dumb and eat it anyway. Anyway–because of the fact that capsaicin is causing a chemical reaction to create the sensation of “spicy” rather than it being directly related to the taste buds, Kokichi can definitely feel the heat.

Sweets is a bit more difficult to determine exactly why he would enjoy them as someone who can’t taste food–but it is possible he could simply enjoy the textures of various sweets. Chewy caramel, smooth hard candy, melting chocolate–sweets have a lot of potential textures that he probably finds enjoyable.

I’m pretty convinced after looking at the food items he enjoys that he’s not lying here–that he can’t taste food, and the food he likes mirrors his words.

The Boba tea has chewy tapioca pearls. The Non-Alcoholic Drink of Immortality does not taste good according to the item description but says it will make the drinker immortal. Bubble Gum Bomb makes explosive sounds when blown and popped. Rock Hard Ice Cream and the Fully-Automated Shaved Ice Machine both include cold elements. Sukiyaki Caramel (Caramels have fun textures as they are) is apparently made with really strong, clashing flavors hat don’t mix well. Gyoza In the Shape of a Face has a thick skin and is tough. And finally, the Astro Cake is freeze dried, meaning it’s not your typical cake–it’s crunchy and hard.

In conclusion, I actually do genuinely believe that Kokichi can’t taste food, which is why most of his liked food items feature a temperature or texture element. The only one that stands out is the Immortality drink, but if you couldn’t taste how bad it was anyway, who wouldn’t love getting a drink that might or might not give you immortality?

Kokichi’s favorite drink–anything carbonated–also makes sense if you think about it. While the fandom likes to joke around and say his favorite drink of all time is grape soda, his profile specifically states he likes carbonated drinks. Nothing specific. He would probably enjoy the bubbles and carbonation if he was unable to taste the drink normally.

Anyway, that concludes this mini analysis! Take it as you please, but I’m pretty convinced Kokichi actually can’t taste food.

[bukojuiice]

TEARS OF THEMIS REMINDED ME A BIT OF DANGANRONPA 😭😭 and i also can choose between Artem or Marius being my favourite, daddy issues or cocky boy? 😮‍💨

OMG YES BC SAME!!! i know for a fact that the game is heavily inspired by dangan ronpa + ace attorney!! i wish dangan ronpa had an actual mechanic where you could romance the characters tho 😔 (and not just flirt with them,,, LMAO)

i honestly felt dumb at first bc i thought even the debate minigame was like the school trials in dangan ronpa where you had to aim and shoot at all the loopholes and contradicting statements of the opposing team 😭 WKWKWK HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE JUST GONNA USE THE CARDS

it seems to me that you can romance all four of them if you'd like without interfering in canon?? (maybe you can only become official with them thru their personal stories??) but we're so early into the game so take my stupid theory with a grain of salt !!

LUKE AND ARTEM MY BELOVED— BUT MARIUS TOOO AAAA CHAPTER 4 HAS GOT ME SIMPING FOR HIM SO HARD !!! i only have ONE SR card of him and its unfair 😔 (can i trade my abundance of vyn cards for him? 🙃) ALSO YOU GOT ME HOLLERING WITH DADDY ISSUES AND COCKY BOY 'NONNIE 😭✊

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Hi. Lemme set the record straight right quick:

Yes Kokichi is prone to making seemingly dumb errors in trials. Yes he is also capable of plotting out an entire trial in a book. Yes these facts can coexist, and it doesn't mean he is 'an evil piece of shit who doesn't care' (an incredibly boring take), because a shit tonne of neuroses can get in the way of being the most effective with his smarts.

What you do with that information is up to you, as it - and a whole lot of Kokichi’s character - is in fact:

✨️ Up to interpretation ✨️

[jacksmusesdrv3]

ngl folks

if it ever comes out that Kokichi was - very much Doylistly along with my ''Watsonian nonsense'' - a whole 'New World Order' conspiracy-scapegoat allegory baked into the fabric of V3 itself?

I don't know what I'm gonna feel first: relieved at the vindication, or totally fucking enraged at being denied vindication all these years

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I know I've twisted myself into a goddamn pretzel the past five or so years trying not to be 'too much' and backing off when I am

but

A good deal of why I started the #dr literacy tag is precisely because of this- I am beyond tired and fed up, with the kinds of things that people have ignored and left on my back- whether it's to do with Kokichi, or V3 overall. It's easy to deflect and call me 'delusional', and five years later never even consider the implications of having called me that over what I've been trying to grapple with, much less apologise to me sincerely and genuinely try to understand where I'm coming from and why it's so hard to discuss in the first place- not to mention why it's so easy to make mistakes not least because the way Kodaka plays with themes can be decidedly insensitive (and I was clearly out of my depth with that when I started this blog)

This isn't about all of you. A good number of people here have been wonderful about this, even if they don't understand all too well. But frankly such people are the exception rather than the rule, and the rule is that people don't bother to interrogate their own biases about Kokichi, or really grapple with the way him and V3's narrative might be constructed with bias. And this unwillingness to accept ambiguity and nuance results in some genuinely hurtful behaviour towards people who try to point out that, maybe, not everything was even his fault, or that his character and situation is far more layered than it appears on a first run of the game. Or even a second, or third.

So I'm gonna need people in that camp to swear that you'll do better about this going forward. No really. This situation I've been in didn't come out of nowhere, and while I've beaten the proverbial horse to death that I haven't always been fair or reasonable either, that does not mean I should just back myself into a wall and take the status quo that is 'Tsumugi is telling the truth and Kokichi is just a clown' as a 'fact of canon'. Because there's a very good chance that that might not even be true, and that there's even more tangled messes Kodaka left in the text to unpack that you never even thought of, and that really NEED extra care and nuance to fully understand.

I know you're probably sick of hearing this from me by now. But this is an issue that can never be helped until it's faced head on, and the effect of basically being pathologised over it (due to *checks notes* autism), is seriously damaging- the inability of people to address things as serious issues and themes rather than 'just the pet theory that came out of my nutty head', is something I cannot, on principle, force myself to accept. So please just think about the way you're approaching issues in the future. I will try to do the same.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Ngl I am still a tad salty that I was happily in my drafts flow and got up to the topic of Kokichi's act in trials as well as Shuichi's thing as well, and some inane vague comment I did not expect, threw me right out of it for several days if not longer. Throwback to when I talked about Kokichi 'maybe knowing Kiibo's hardiness' when he had him thrown at the tank and someone in the tags went like 'uhhh he's not Kirigiri'

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Oh no no no FUCK THAT.

'Abusive relationship'?? 'Abuse apologists', 'denying abuse', not just having an alternate view of behind-the-scenes but prostrating it as 'truth' that everyone must swallow (nevermind that nothing in canon shows Kokichi to be 'faking his bug breakdown' but okay lmao), lest they are 'morally defunct'?? Wow.

Someone posted an essay hating on Kokichi on ao3 which like yeah you’re allowed to do that but also I’m losing my shit

I’m almost tempted to go through it and rip it to shreds but it’s 3 am and I actually like my mental health

Also it’s so funny that they assert Kodaka didn’t mean them to be friends when they LITERALLY GOT PAIRED TOGETHER ON A BOTTLE OF WINE WITH THE OTHER COMBOS BEONG KAITO AND MAKI OR SHUICHI AND KAEDE LIKE KODAKA IS NOT SUBTLE ABOUT HOW MUCH HE ENJOYS THE TWO

[jacksmusesdrv3]

So anyway Kokichi isn't 'canonically paranoid', his reactions can be perfectly reasonable in the context of the world he's living in. And if you disagree then that simply means that you interpret that world differently, it doesn't mean you're 'objectively correct'- you know, because no one knows what's up with the world by the end, and how it affects others, it's almost as if that was the game's entire point!

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Anyway

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Anyway. If anyone can help me regarding this mess I've been screaming about for years then by all means!! Because I can't stand being on perpetual thin ice regarding sensitive topics that virtually no one gives a fuck about anyway that I fell into the first year I did a deep dive into this game and flailed about like a trapped seal. But if not, then I'm gonna have to shelve it to preserve my sanity. Thank you for understanding.

*added one of the replies for clarification: the thing is, this part (the linked) isn't about the theory construction. It's about the social-issues stuff behind the text, which I need to get out there to people who will be more understanding of said issues than me in order to confirm or help me adjust things (well, commentary on that) as needed- as crass as I put it just now in my frustration, this is how it's been on that front, sorry if I was unclear

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I would like to also remind that this expression finds its way into the Salmon mode of all things. The Salmon mode. It just baffles me when people bold-face deny that he even could have any kind of trauma, let alone something severe, when he reacts to bugs very much not well (though we do not see the aftermath) and gets meek after strangulation while seemingly handling the first one ‘fine’ 

Like what the hell? At minimum, the boy has been through some shit. Even for the ‘base level’ view that he’s ‘paranoid’, the experiences in his life obviously fuel that. He outright says that his background and Kaito’s have a disparity that inform their worldviews differently. It’s made a rather large point during a trial. And if he’s reacting like this, even in peaceful modes, that says an awful lot.

Confession: For me the most disturbing Kokichi sprite was not the ‘spooky evil’ ones but the one where his eyes are shadowed. I don’t know why, maybe because it seems to imply severe trauma and at first I thought he might do something if he snapped but after finishing the game it’s just worrying.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

'Ouma said he's enjoying being bullied (to Monokuma in Chapter 2)- that's all just a part of his mastermind plan, so it makes no sense at all that he'd complain about bullying in Chapter 4's trial.'

Well. First thing is first: he lies, rather often, so using words out of context to 'prove' he 'wants bullying all the time' is just... backwards. Especially since he's sarcastic at times- and what's more, he is so in that same scene, when he turns around to be like 'oh did you hear that? I'm just talking to myself' after saying something about not cooperating in plain sight (go figure why he'd have things made that remove security cameras). And it turns out... he had said what is important to the group's survival. Of course he wants to maintain enough distance with his mask in order to put on his mastermind-y airs, but he also wants to communicate things and be taken seriously.

Second, you'll know by Chapter 5 that he does this shit as a means to an end, but this behaviour also goes hand-in-hand with the childish way he acts in other modes, too. He maintains a similar kind of neurosis, not letting people in on himself, holding back on his emotions, et cetera. Hence, why it's necessary to point out that in fact, he may have been hated even outside of the game, and that this tendency carries over into the main game. Where it becomes apparent, that from the time he announces himself as a 'liar' and 'Supreme Leader' (whatever reasons he has for doing that, that's up in the air), people have been biased against him even when he's serious. This is something we can see play out as early as the Death Road of Despair- he's visibly very upset at Kaede forcing the group over and over, but Tenko tells him he's being 'selfish'.

Also... funny expression to make when you're totally unserious, huh.

So in point of fact, there is a reasonable amount of ambiguity as to how much of 'he wants bullying(tm)' plays into his plan. Sure, he might 'use himself as a target' to change the mood - like in the dining hall in Chapter 1 - but it's reasonable to suggest he prefers when that's on his terms, and that he doesn't want it all the time. That's a fairly simple conclusion, and doesn't take away his motives either.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Yo just a wee thing I gotta ask, just a leetle courtesy:

If you're gonna call a character 'overrated', maybe don't put that in the character's tag? Thanks, have a swell day!

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Anyways anyone caught being weird about my theory posts from now on - in the tags, replies, whatever - will be blocked from this blog. You can't be interacting with and reblogging said theory posts from me and then go surprised-Pikachu face when I actually want to challenge the status quo of ''correct'' Kokichi and V3 takes and open up possibilities of interpretability. My posts are not for you, and you are exactly who I'm talking about when I say this fandom has a problem. If you don't want to reckon with that, that's your own lookout, but don't you dare make that my problem when I've done so much to meet halfway on the matter and correct my own mistakes. I'm done. Goodbye.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

When anyone talks about 'incontrovertible truths' in V3 regarding literally unverifiable things from now on, I will picture this in my head:

✨️ Everyone wins! ✨️