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Saihara doodles~

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Epithets Are Not Your Friends

(Or: “Why Your Characters’ Names Aren’t Boring”)

Epithets are descriptive words used in place of a character’s name. They appear often in fanfic, and they belong in the same category as excessive fancy dialogue tags, overuse of “was” verbs, and calling eyes “orbs”­­— meaning, they weaken your prose and give readers excuses to stop paying attention. Here’s what they look like:

The green-eyed girl The shorter boy The brunette The old man

If said epithet is the only thing the reader or POV character knows about the other character (i.e. “the woman”, “the soldier”, “the barista”), then epithets aren’t a problem! But if I already know that “the green-eyed girl” is my friend Samantha, then why is it necessary to remind me what color her eyes are? If “the brunette” introduced herself several paragraphs ago, why are you still referring to her by her hair color?

The bottom line: Epithets draw attention to the feature they describe. If you don’t need readers to pay attention to that feature, you don’t need to use an epithet.

Examples:

“Try and take it back, then,” the taller of the two snickered, holding the stolen sandwich above their head. “It’s true,” says the first in line to the throne. “I’m the one who hired the assassins.” “You should try a balayage,” the blonde says. “I bet it’d look great with your caramel tones!”

Here, epithets give greater insight to the characters’ motivations, experience, personalities, and so on. They definitely don’t have to be there for the sentence to make sense, but they’re relevant to the character in that situation, so they don’t feel out of place.

“But Rov! I’m using the same names and pronouns over and over! What if people get bored?”

You’re using those names and pronouns because those are the characters’ names and pronouns. Your readers aren’t bored because they know that those are the characters they’re reading about. Use them as much as you need to make sure it’s clear who’s saying what. I promise you­— I promise you­— we don’t even notice.

“Well, what should I look out for when I’m writing?”

Some repeat offenders:

“The other male” * “The [insert hair color here]” “The short one”

If your characters are in the middle of a conversation and you keep poking me to remind me “Character A has black hair btw” “Character B has XY chromosomes” “A is shorter than B”, it pulls me out of the moment. If these things are relevant, then they’re probably the things you should show me, not tell me.

So, stop worrying so much! You’re not boring for using characters’ names. What’s important is that your readers don’t have to stop and think about what character you’re talking about, or wonder why that aspect of them is relevant to what’s going on. Strive for clarity first and foremost. Your writing will feel more focused and you’ll look and sound more confident.

 (*Also, please reserve “male” and “female” for animals, or for when sex and gender are actually relevant to the discussion. Referring to humans by their biological sex out of nowhere is weird.)

#Rov talks #Writing tips #Epithets

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More self indulgent doodles, now featuring Saihara and Ouma

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Stop Writing Abusive Pregame Saiou

I’ve been holding off on talking about this for a while— figured it just wasn’t my business— but honestly I’m so sick of it that I’m going to come out and say it now. This garbage has to stop.

This essay is addressed primarily to Saiouma fanfic writers, specifically those responsible for the frankly disgusting content that so often surrounds interpretations of V3’s pregame personalities.

(CW: discussion of abuse, rape)

I’ve been a part of this fandom for around five years now, and during that time I’ve read countless phenomenally creative stories. As a reader, it’s awe-inspiring to see the branching plot lines people come up with, the twist endings and canon divergence, and as a writer, it’s inspiring to read different stylistic choices regarding characterization, interpretations of canon interactions, alternate universes, and so on.

Saiouma is my favorite ship. I relate to and love both of the characters, and I enjoy exploring their personalities and character development in different situations. I consider the two of them to be made for each other, and I see them as perfectly balanced emotionally and intellectually. So, as you can imagine, my least favorite portrayal of Saiouma is any form of characterization involving abuse of one by the other.

I’ve spoken at length already about Saiouma’s relationship dynamic and why portraying it as abusive is incorrect, so if you’re here to argue about that, you’re in the wrong place. If that in particular isn’t why you’re here, then you’re probably about to point out that the V3 pregame personalities aren’t the same as those in-game. And actually… that might not be true.

If you look back at V3’s prologue, line by line, none of the characters are acting or speaking any differently than they usually do. Tenko’s got the same energy, Miu’s still just as foul-mouthed, Ryoma and Kiyo are both quiet and observant. As implied by the Monokubs, all that they’re missing are their Ultimate talents.

In a sense, it’s a “nature versus nurture” sort of thing: Shuichi and Kokichi’s innate natures are the ones they portray in the game, though that portrayal is heavily influenced by their surroundings and experiences. Before the game, they were still the same fundamental people— the difference is that they had the memories, upbringing, and experiences that allegedly led them to audition for Danganronpa in the first place. So, V3’s pregame characters should in actuality be seen as an AU of sorts: Shuichi is still Shuichi, and Kokichi is still Kokichi, just with different backstories.

So why is it that in so many of these pregame fics, Kokichi is suddenly a pathetic, spineless crybaby who attracts the worst kind of attention from everyone, and Shuichi is suddenly an obsessive and sadistic maniac at best or an actual rapist and serial killer at worst?

I’m sick of opening the Saiou tag on AO3 only to be greeted with yet another “what if saiou abused and tortured and raped and murdered each other” fic.

Look. On some level I get it— It’s compelling to explore characters’ dark sides, or experiment with alternate universes where one or both are evil. But you’re going about it the wrong way.

There’s a difference between writing a story— crafting a setting, seeing where the characters fit, and tying everything to a cohesive plot­— and vomiting up torture porn. Anyone can hurt a character. You don’t need any skill or experience or creativity to do so, and there’s nothing powerful about the end result. That’s why stories that can be summed up with a simple “Everyone was miserable and then died; the end” turn out so tasteless and boring.

Ask yourself: Why are you doing this? Do you enjoy seeing characters in abject misery with no way out? What is the point of what you’re writing?

Do you think writing a story people will regret reading makes you good at writing?

Good writing has to say something, even if that thing is as simple as “I like these characters.” Look at the Saiou fandom’s favorite pieces and you can see that the authors had something to add, every time, something they wanted to show you. “Reaching” asked, “What would happen if Kokichi could start over until he found a way to beat the game he was made to lose?” “Psychobabble” said, “Here’s how a greater sense of vulnerability might affect the relationship between these two.” “you've got the right to remain right here with me” said, “This is how Saiou might meet and fall in love in another universe and what unique conflicts might arise as a result.”

Look at you. What are you saying?

If the only thing you bring to the table, if the only thing your fics say is “rape, torture, murder,” your writing is bad and you should feel bad about it.

You’re glorifying and romanticizing abuse, and you’re making it clear you care more about shock value than the characters you’re writing. Stop it.

#Rov talks #Saiouma #rape mention #abuse mention #pregame personalities #pregame Saiouma

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Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           He really wishes Shuichi was here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Like a killing game.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           ….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Um… Kokichi?”

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

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

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

           “It’s about Kaito.”

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

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

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

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

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

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

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

           Was that a lie?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           “Huh…?”

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

           So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           It’s a lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           I love you.

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

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

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

           Which do you think?

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

             “How did you know?” he finally croaks.

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

           Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           But still….

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

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

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

           Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

           “I promise, Kokichi.”

…        

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

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

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

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

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

           Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

           “Trust me,” he murmurs.        

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

           Trustworthy….

           “I do trust you,” he realizes.

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

             And that’s a wrap!

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

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

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

           Until next time!

#Rov talks #Hologram #Saiouma #Oumasai #Behind the scenes #Director's cut #Fanfic review

[rovelae]

Hey I wrote a story for this awesome zine! Check it out if you're a fellow Kokichi enjoyer!

🎲 CONTRIBUTOR PREVIEW 🎲

With a heart-wrenching post-game AU, @rovelae is here to collect your tears in a jar! Maybe even several jars!

Can you find the answer, dear reader? ✨

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[rovelae]

Why Saiouma isn’t toxic

(CW: in-depth discussion of abuse, discussion of rape/noncon)

           Disclaimer(s): This is an intellectual discussion, not a screaming match. If you’re here to argue with facts and evidence, I don’t mind debating with you. If you just want to throw a tantrum because I like something you don’t, I’m going to tell you to take a Xanax and go to bed.

           I’m combining the terms “toxic” and “abusive”; though they aren’t technically the exact same, they’re similar enough for the purposes of this essay.

           This essay isn’t meant to convince you to ship Saiou. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But it’s not right to scream ‘abuse’ where none exists; it hurts fans and content creators, and it “diminishes the importance of that word and it reduces [it] to something volatile and stupid.”

           To begin with, we have to identify what makes a relationship abusive. The way I define it, an abusive relationship involves manipulation, an inherent power imbalance, and/or physical or sexual abuse. Most of the hate-posts I’ve seen paint Kokichi as the abuser and Shuichi as the hapless victim, so that will be the focus of this essay.

1. Would Kokichi manipulate Shuichi for personal gain?

           There’s no denying that Kokichi is a manipulative person. He’s a liar and he did some awful things in the game. No one’s saying he’s a morally white character. But it would be wrong to say he’s entirely evil, either.

           I’ve already covered in this post why Kokichi can’t be said to lie for personal gain, but I’ll quote a bit of it here.

           “The motivation [behind Kokichi’s lies] isn’t self-serving—he’s motivated by a desire to end a death game and stop anyone from having to go through what he and his friends have ever again. The smaller lies, though, like lying about his favorite foods? It would be annoying to be tricked like that, but it’s way too much of a stretch to label it psychological abuse.”

           We know that Kokichi’s DICE organization has a moral taboo against murder. We know he hated the killing game, to the point where he orchestrated his own suicide in order to ruin it. And almost every time Kokichi lies in the class trials, it’s either for comedic relief or to push the cast toward finding the culprit.

           “But Chapter 4!” you protest. “Kokichi manipulated Gonta into killing Miu!”

           My response is threefold:

-        Miu started it. Kokichi wouldn’t have done anything at all if his life wasn’t in danger and he wasn’t desperate.

-        It’s wrong to think that Gonta is incapable of making his own decisions. Kokichi may have influenced him in that direction, but Gonta actively made the choice to kill Miu—his own avatar confirms it at the end of the trial. (See also: Impytricky’s “Gonta Gokuhara Character Analysis: When a Genius is Treated like a Child”)

-        Kokichi felt terrible about what happened in Trial 4, to the point where he begged Monokuma to execute him along with Gonta. He didn’t need to do that, and it throws off his whole “I’m the mastermind” act just a few lines later, so we must assume he was being honest about that. It’s clear that he doesn’t enjoy hurting others.

           If that’s still not enough for you, consider: desperation, and, by extension, the killing game, brings out the worst in people. We can’t accurately judge a person’s character if all we have to go off of is the worst parts of them. Would Leon have killed Sayaka outside of the killing game? Would Hifumi have agreed to help Celestia kill Taka? Would Gundham have killed Nekomaru?

           So, would Kokichi manipulate Shuichi for personal gain? No. His whole character is motivated by a desire to help the others, and his lies are either manifestations of that motivation or harmless pranks meant to entertain.

2. Does the Saiouma ship have an inherent power imbalance?

           Shuichi is, by his own admission, weak. Kokichi has a strong personality and likes to be in charge. That doesn’t mean that Kokichi doesn’t respect Shuichi and his opinions. In fact, each class trial is packed with evidence of Kokichi listening to Shuichi’s point of view and respecting his intelligence. For instance:

-        Kokichi sided with Shuichi during scrum debates 2, 3, and 4

-        Kokichi pointed out most of Shuichi’s lies during the trials (and back routes), but in most cases, didn’t fight him on it

-        Shuichi is the only character identified as “trustworthy” by the white board in Kokichi’s room—i.e., Kokichi trusted him to at least be on the right track in the trials.

           Kokichi is also shown to care about Shuichi’s feelings in the game, like when he told him he’d rather bring Kaede back to life in Chapter 3, because it would make Shuichi happy. To reiterate: he wants Shuichi to be happy even if it means they don’t end up together. That says a lot.

           Additionally, I already mentioned that Shuichi is weak, but it’s important to realize that he isn’t so much of a pushover that he’s entirely incapable of standing up for himself. Look at his interactions with Miu, for example: he sharply told her that “I can wear a hat if I want” when she made fun of him for it, and in her FTEs, he refuses to eat the hygienically questionable food she made for him.

           Shuichi’s kind of a simp and tends to get roped into things, yes. But he’s able to stand up for himself—especially after Chapter 6—to the point where he wouldn’t enter into a relationship unless he wanted to. If you think Kokichi would somehow be able to force Shuichi to be his boyfriend, you have no faith in Shuichi—and Chapter 6 proves you wrong.

           So, is Saiouma inherently imbalanced? No. Kokichi respects Shuichi’s feelngs, intelligence, and opinions, and Shuichi’s a stronger character than he’s given credit for.

3. Would Kokichi physically or sexually abuse Shuichi?

           One needs only to look at Kokichi’s Love Hotel event for the answer. While the Love Hotel isn’t canon to the game’s timeline, the characters are still in character— that is, Kokichi and Shuichi are acting as they normally act.

           It’s important to note that Kokichi is the only character who backed off of Shuichi after Shuichi either appeared visibly uncomfortable or told them to stop. Kaede asked for Shuichi’s consent and was given it; Angie, Himiko, Kiyo, Miu, and Tsumugi all took advantage of Shuichi in some way or another; and the rest just didn’t have sexual connotations. Kokichi made advances on Shuichi, noticed that Shuichi was uncomfortable, and immediately backed off.

           “But wait!” you cry. “Just because one character didn’t rape the other doesn’t mean they have a good relationship!”

           Of course, and that’s important to realize, too. But recall that the purpose of this essay isn’t to convince you to ship Saiouma—it’s to prove that it isn’t abusive.

           Keep in mind that this was Kokichi’s fantasy— he would have been able to do whatever he wanted to Shuichi with zero repercussions, and Shuichi probably wouldn’t even remember much when he woke up. And still, Kokichi chose to stop the moment he realized Shuichi wasn’t on board with what was happening. That says a lot.

           And what about outside the game? We know from the Salmon Mode ending that Kokichi is desperate for someone to “figure him out.” He’d be very careful not to jeopardize his relationship with someone who genuinely wants to understand him.

           And Shuichi does genuinely want to understand him:

           So, would Kokichi physically or sexually abuse Shuichi? No. It’s just not in his character.

“But what if Kokichi was lying about EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE GAME?” you yell. “There’s no way we can trust anything he’s ever said ever!”

           If every Danganronpa character was polite, kind, open, and honest, 100% of the time without fail, the game would be incredibly boring. If that’s the kind of media you’re into, I’d recommend something like Reader Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh. Danganronpa is a murder mystery, where characters hurt and betray and lie and actually kill each other. You can’t trust anyone; that’s the whole point.

           So I advise you to go back through the game with an open mind and try, actually try, to use reading comprehension skills to understand the characters. Examine their motives, think about what they might be feeling when they make the decisions they do.

           Danganronpa is not the kind of game to spoon-feed you easy-to-swallow characters. You have to pick them apart yourself.

           As for everything Kokichi has ever said possibly being a lie? Maybe. Maybe every character is lying to you. But if you hate Kokichi just because he’s dishonest, then it follows that you have to hate Rantaro, Kaede, Shuichi, Kaito, Maki, Himiko, Kiyo, Miu, Tsumugi, Kirumi, and Kiibo—which, at that point, why are you even a fan of the game?

           And if you deny everything Kokichi said just because you think it’s a lie…

 In conclusion

           You can dislike Saiouma because it’s not your thing, but it’s wrong to spread hate over abuse that doesn’t exist. Hating and attacking people for having a different opinion than you won't magically sway them to your side. If you can't articulate your points in a way that doesn't antagonize, you probably shouldn't be talking. People like what they like for a reason, and spitting on what they like won't make you any friends.

           And throwing around weighted terms like “toxic” when you just don’t like something? That makes YOU the toxic one.

#Rov talks #a lot #Saiouma #abuse mention #rape mention #character analysis #I doubt that the people who *should* read this *will* read it #so this might be more of a vent I guess #Feel free to reblog/quote/repost with credit #References: users oumakokichi; impytricky; and chibigaia-art #The first two do great meta pieces #and the last spits more fax than an office

[rovelae]

A self-important psych major appears! ✨ OP’s right about pretty much all of this but I had a couple things I wanted to tack on. /casually hijacks this post

(//gaslighting / abuse mention)

For a compulsive liar, telling the truth feels awkward and unnatural. They feel a lack of control over their own lies, and often lie as a coping mechanism for past trauma or low self-esteem. There might not be any goal or motivation behind compulsive lying; it’s more of a habit or a way of escaping confrontation than anything else.

I think it’s clear that Ouma can’t be a compulsive liar, because he’s very conscious of his own lies and clearly doesn’t struggle with self-esteem. He usually enjoys being called out on his lying, and readily admits to it. So, while lying is a habit for him, in most instances it’s his way of joking, emotionally distancing himself from others, or pranking someone.

Conversely, there are motivations behind pathological lying, and they’re exclusively self-serving. Pathological lying isn’t classified as a disorder by the DSM (which is like the bible of psychological disorders) but it’s linked to personality disorders like antisocial personality disorder (hereafter ASPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (hereafter NPD)—and people with those personality disorders lie with little regard for how their lies affect others. These people gaslight or manipulate others for their own benefit, and they simply do not care how their actions impact their victims.

ASPD is marked by persistent aggression, disregard for others’ feelings (and even their basic human rights), and impulsivity/recklessness. So, in psychology, “antisocial” doesn't mean “I’m uwu shy and I don’t like big crowds”; the prefix “anti-” is given its literal meaning: “against.” If a person has ASPD, their actions go “against society” and actively harm others, mentally and physically—simply because they don’t care.

NPD is characterized by inflated self-importance and arrogance, but it goes beyond just thinking you’re better than everyone else. People with NPD tear others down to build themselves up, and become angry when they don’t have the best of everything. They can be incredibly toxic and abusive people.

Ouma doesn’t fall into any of these categories, though. He can’t be said to lie pathologically, because although there’s a core motivation behind his lies, the motivation isn’t self-serving—he’s motivated by a desire to end a death game and stop anyone from having to go through what he and his friends have ever again. The smaller lies, though, like lying about his favorite foods? They might be annoying sometimes, but it’s way too much of a stretch to label those psychological abuse.

Ouma can’t have ASPD, because as he said, “I’m always doing stuff for everyone’s sake.” He cares deeply for a group of people that he’s only just met, and genuinely wants them to survive and escape the game—even if his methods are much different than we’d expect. If he did have ASPD, he wouldn’t care about anyone else’s survival but his own. In fact, he’d probably end up one of the Blackened.*

(*This isn't to say that people with ASPD are irredeemable freaks and serial killers! ASPD is a lot more common in the population than most people think, and people whose brains work this way can still lead happy and successful lives.)

Ouma can’t have NPD, either. It’s true that he’s prideful, arrogant, and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. A lot of his personality aligns with what you’d expect of a narcissist. But the key difference is that he still recognizes others as human beings worthy of respect. He doesn’t belittle them to make himself look superior, and he recognizes the needs and feelings of others as valid and important. For example, his words to Himiko after the third trial. He didn’t have to say anything, but he knew that bottling up all her emotions would seriously hurt her in the long run, so he encouraged her to let herself grieve.

I wouldn’t use the word “narcissistic” to describe Ouma at all. Prideful, sure; manipulative and cunning, most definitely. But he’s motivated by a desire to help and protect others. He’s aware of how his lies affect them and cares enough about them as people to try and save them from the killing game. That’s not pathological lying; it’s just his (really weird) way of trying to help people.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! <3

Do you think that Ouma is a pathological or compulsive liar?

That’s a pretty interesting question that I can’t say I’ve given a lot of thought before! The definition of compulsive vs. pathological lying is more of a psychological classification, and since I’m no expert on psychology, take all of this with a grain of salt! This is just my personal opinion on the matter.

I think it’s pretty safe to say Ouma isn’t a compulsive liar whatsoever. Compulsive lying, or any compulsion at all really, is something uncontrollable that a person has no say over whatsoever. It’s the inability to stop yourself from doing something no matter how badly you want to: in this case, lying.

If there’s anything we know about Ouma and why he lies, a lot of it has to do with his own personal ideas of “free will” and choice. He establishes pretty early on that he hates the idea of only telling the truth because you “have to,” or that the “truth” is inherently better than lies when people often tell lies as a means of softening harsh or inconvenient truths. And a big part of why he lies is so people will have to consider his words for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

If he were ever forced to lie—that is, if it was a compulsive, uncontrollable habit for him, I honestly don’t think he’d enjoy it anymore. Ouma absolutely lies by choice, which means that it’s not compulsive whatsoever. And even when he has lines occasionally about wondering why he lies so much to Saihara or why he can’t seem to stop himself, it has more to do with wanting Saihara and others to somehow figure him out and understand him despite all those lies, rather than a physical or mental inability to actually stop himself from lying.

Which brings us to pathological lying. Unlike compulsive lying, pathological lying is usually done with some sort of motive in mind. The motive can be anything in particular, whether it’s admiration or attention or just internal self-gratification. So in that sense, I suppose you could say that Ouma might be something of a pathological liar, since he definitely does have motivations for lying and chooses to lie as a result of those.

The motivations for most of his biggest lies, such as pretending to be the ringleader or acting like he enjoyed getting Miu and Gonta killed when that couldn’t be further from the truth, mostly have to do with his desire to end the killing game. His strategy is to make the rest of his classmates hate him as much as possible, so he lies in order to paint himself in a suspicious light until he’s so detested by everyone else that they’ll believe him when he says he’s the ringleader. After stepping into that big, larger-than-life villain persona, he uses it as an opportunity to try and steal the killing game away from the actual ringleader by hijacking the entire killing game and saying that it’s over.

But as far as his smaller, more harmless lies go, I think you could make a case that those are mostly for attention. In his salmon mode ending, Ouma himself says that he lies in order to entertain others, and this definitely matches up what we know about him not ever wanting to be boring. Other lines, like the one about how he thinks nothing is more depressing than an “unnoticed prank,” also really show that the majority of his lies are because he really just wants attention. Personally, I very much believe that Ouma is the type of person who doesn’t mind whether people love him or hate him, as long as they’re not completely indifferent and bored by him.

However, whether the latter type of lies actually qualify Ouma as a “pathological liar,” I’m not quite sure. If you remove him from the killing game, most of his lies are pretty much harmless—not only that, they’re childish and playful, the sort of lies and pranks that a kid might think up.

Ouma can be manipulative, and that manipulative, cold streak is absolutely one of his worst flaws, don’t get me wrong… but again, it’s something that really only comes out specifically because of the killing game itself, and because of his complete inability to open up to or trust anyone else once the murders begin. His other, more common lies, such as lying about what kind of food he likes, or pretending to be mad when you give him one of his favorite gifts before enthusiastically taking it, are pretty much just his way of messing around.

So again, I think that you could technically classify Ouma as a pathological liar by definition, but mostly within the killing game itself, since many of his lies within the game are often told out of the motivation to either provoke his classmates to get a reaction out of them, or else in order to set himself up as the ringleader and try to snatch the game away. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a pathological liar outside of these circumstances, since to be fair, it’s not like the killing game really brings out anyone’s best qualities in Danganronpa, and almost all of the characters in ndrv3 especially tend to lie at one point or another.

Anyway, this was definitely an interesting question to consider, since I hadn’t thought of it before! I hope I was able to give a pretty good answer, anon!

#Rov talks #a lot #Kokichi Ouma #psychology #abuse mention

[rovelae]

HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY

We’re giving away one free full bundle for the holidays! Reblog this post by December 22nd to enter. You can share our giveaway posts on twitter and instagram, as well tag a friend on this post, for extra entries into the raffle! One winner will be chosen on December 23rd.

(If you already placed an order, you can still enter the giveaway! If you win we’ll refund you.)

Promo art by mondobutts on twitter!

[rovelae]

An Open Letter to AO3

This has been on my mind for a while, so I sent them this via their “contact support” messaging system. I doubt anything will come of it, but it’d be cool if it did, huh?

CW: discussion of child pornography, rape, real-person fiction, abuse

Hello.

My name's Rovelae, and I've been using AO3 for about 3 years now. I'm a fan of the user-friendly interface, the bookmarking system, and how easy it is to post my art and enjoy other fans' art, too.

But something I'm having trouble with-- and I'm sure many others have brought this up to you by now-- is the Archive's allowance of real-person fiction and child porn.

Let me make it clear, though-- I realize the Archive's original purpose is to be a place for art where people don't have to worry about being censored or reported for what they post. Unlike other media platforms, you allow essentially anything from anyone. I think that's admirable, I really do. Because if I wanted to post pictures of Michelangelo's "David" on Tumblr or Twitter, I'd be flagged for nudity, even though I see beauty in the way it's portrayed. That's what I think can be considered censorship.

But there's a difference between censoring someone's artistic vision and stopping what should be considered a crime. In contrast to my previous hypothetical scenario, if I were to livestream the rape of a child on YouTube, no matter my "artistic" intentions, I'd get my account suspended and be reported to the police.

This is where the Archive's policy is flawed. By allowing anything and everything onto the Archive, you also leave room for the most depraved and repulsive pieces that users can post without consequence, be that real-person fiction or child pornography. And that is pornography, by the way; if child porn is written instead of depicted in traditional art or photography, it is no less damaging to readers. I realize there's a tagging system for this, but that isn't good enough, because by allowing it on the Archive, you're effectively excusing, even supporting, its existence. Allowing real-person fiction and child pornography normalizes it in everyday life, which quite literally puts real people in danger of harassment, objectification, and abuse.

I understand that it's your policy to disregard messages like this because the Archive was created to allow anything and everything. But that's exactly what I'm getting at-- the "anything goes" policy is inherently flawed and allows for grievous misuse.

With this in mind, I'd like to propose a re-vote of sorts. Let's see what registered users think about revising the policy-- not in a way that censors their art, but to stop child pornography and abusive real-person fiction. There's no beauty or art in glorifying the abuse of children or real people.

So, how about this. Create a poll of sorts, where registered users can answer simple yes-or-no questions such as "should graphic depictions of child rape be allowed on the Archive?". Please listen to your users on this; it's a different way of handling this issue than any other media platform has used, so I'm sure users would appreciate having their opinions heard.

I realize, also, that the Archive is run largely by volunteers or people who aren't compensated much, if at all, for the work they do. I'd like to remind you that for every donation week I've seen so far, fans have always exceeded your donation goals and will likely continue to do so. We love the Archive, and we appreciate your work. I firmly believe that a policy readjustment like this, especially if it results in preventing abusive real-person fiction and child porn, would only garner more support for the Archive, both financial and otherwise. I, for one, would feel a lot more comfortable donating to and supporting people who actively prevent harmful content without censoring art.

Thanks for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Rovelae

#Rov talks #AO3 #CW for abuse and other nasty topics #Wouldn't it be cool if they listened to me?

[rovelae]

Welcome back!!! I’m not sure if you’re taking any requests regarding analyses/meta, but if you’re looking for any ideas/when you have the time, do you mind doing a character analysis on Shuichi Saihara? I understand that he’s the main character but there is a lack of analyses about him. Although there are few, most explore his role as a protagonist/relationships with the others rather than digging deep into his character/personality. I just feel like there is more to him.

Hi anon, thank you so much! I’d be happy to write a character analysis for Saihara. I’m pretty sure I wrote some pieces specifically about his character back in the day, but those are all pretty old by now, and there’s definitely so much to talk about with his character.

Obviously discussing Saihara in-depth will cover spoilers for the entire game, so be careful when reading!

It’s interesting that you bring up the fact that Saihara tends to lack more character analyses, because I feel like this is kind of the result of a few different factors. First of all, there’s the fact that he was never originally advertised as the game’s protagonist. I know that the bait-and-switch with Kaede left many people conflicted; even years later, I see a lot of people saying that while they like Saihara a lot, they would’ve preferred for Kaede to live, or that they still don’t know quite how to feel about his role as a protagonist as a result.

Combine that with the fact that Saihara is simply so different in his role in the game than either Naegi or Hinata were, and I think this leaves a lot of people either uninterested in analyzing him as an individual character or unclear of where to start. Ndrv3’s themes as a whole are such a drastic departure from the Hope’s Peak arc of the first two games that Saihara himself sometimes tends to get overlooked, despite the fact that I firmly believe no one would have worked better as the protagonist of the game precisely because of these very different themes.

This itself is an interesting proposal, because at the same time, I also believe that ndrv3’s cast had the biggest potential for every single character to be the “protagonist” of their own narrative. Not only is this just straight-up alluded to with the reveal that Kiibo was actually the audience proxy, and therefore the “protagonist” through which most of the audience were experiencing the killing game in chapter 6, but we even get brief playable moments with both Maki and Himiko, further driving home the narrative that these characters all had the potential to be the main character. You could even argue that the abundance of ahoges in the ndrv3 cast is a tongue-in-cheek joke about how many people must have had “protagonist syndrome” when auditioning for the show.

But having a cast full of potential main characters still doesn’t negate the fact that Saihara was simply the best choice possible for the protagonist of ndrv3 specifically. I don’t believe we would’ve had nearly the same experience without viewing most of the events through the lens of his inner narration and character growth, and that his specific role in the story as the detective was the perfect way to encapsulate the game’s themes of truth and lies.

Let’s begin by discussing Saihara’s actual personality: he’s timid, riddled with anxiety, and incredibly prone to doubting himself and his own abilities. These traits are at the core of his arc of character development throughout the story, as he constantly struggles with his own feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-worth despite being the most vital contributor to everyone’s survival in the class trials.

Even before he’s revealed to be the true protagonist of the game, these traits are incredibly easy to see from an outside lens. By playing as Kaede, however briefly, we nonetheless get a good look at what Saihara is like even in chapter 1; his lack of self-esteem and debilitating issues with anxiety and doubt are, if anything, even more noticeable when put into such stark contrast with Kaede’s optimism, self-confidence, and attempts to bolster the group into working together and believing in one another.

In fact, it’s through Kaede that we first get a glimpse of Saihara’s backstory, and slowly come to understand that his timidity and anxiety are largely shaped by his past trauma. Saihara feels personally responsible for ruining a man’s life after accidentally uncovering the truth of the man’s crimes, then later learning that he was attempting to get revenge on the person who murdered his entire family. The knowledge that he not only ruined this man’s attempts at revenge, but that this person actively hates him with a passion, has left Saihara emotionally scarred and deeply afraid of even maintaining eye contact with others.

As simple as this little bit of backstory is, I really love it in all of its presentation, because even in chapter 1, it begins to paint a much clearer picture of what Saihara is like. His inability to say no to people and attempts to please everyone begin to make a lot more sense knowing that he is incredibly afraid of being hated or blamed by other people. His reluctance to come into his own as a detective or acknowledge his obvious talent makes perfect sense knowing that he can never fully “bring justice” to a number of crimes, and that his job is by definition one that sometimes makes other people miserable by shedding a light on the truth—even when, sometimes, it might be better to leave the truth covered up.

This established backstory also immediately sets Saihara apart from previous protagonists like Naegi and Hinata, by first shaping him into a separate character who we get to know in chapter 1, and only later re-introducing him as the actual protagonist of the game. This isn’t to say that Naegi and Hinata don’t have established character flaws, or that we don’t know anything about their life prior to the killing game. But these two are very clearly set up to be more of the “everyman” protagonist than Saihara ever was: characters who the reader can insert themselves into by some degree, and whose primary traits tend to revolve around feeling “average” or “mundane” in a way that your typical reader will usually relate to much more quickly.

This makes sense for the Hope’s Peak arc shared by both dr1 and sdr2. These games in particular are centered around the narrative of a “talent-driven society” where only the most talented, elite in their field are rewarded with entry into the “best school in the country”—a narrative that is no doubt supposed to be commentary on Japan’s extremely competitive academic system and society in real life.

With Naegi, we see perhaps the best example of a truly average, normal person thrust into a group of these whacky elites. We trust Naegi almost instantly as a protagonist, specifically because his lack of any particular superpower-like talent makes him more relatable to the reader. And his contributions to the trials and eventual friendships with the other students are meaningful precisely because they prove that you don’t need these incredible talents or make outstanding contributions to society in order to be a fundamentally good person who helps others and forges real, genuine bonds with people.

Hinata’s narrative takes this idea of averageness among “the elite” and takes it a step further in terms of narrative complexity: not only does Hinata lack any sort of talent or trait that would make him stand out, but specifically because of this, he desperately craves a talent of his own. Hinata is incredibly easy for readers to relate to as someone who, in a competitive society where talent is everything, feels useless and meaningless without an elite-level talent of his own. This struggle with identity and self-worth in a talent-driven society is something that most readers will also have experienced on some level, and so makes Hinata instantly relatable and likable for most people.

Which takes us back to Saihara—again, I want to stress how different the setup for his backstory and even his personality are from our previous two protagonists. Saihara isn’t meant to be a self-insert for the reader, or instantly identified with the same way Naegi and Hinata were.

Even other bits and pieces of his backstory and home life, which we learn from his FTEs with Kaede in chapter 1, as well as portions of their salmon mode together, show how incredibly eccentric Saihara is compared to the other two. Saihara doesn’t come from what one might call a “typical home life.” He’s estranged from his wealthy, celebrity parents, and lives with his uncle, who is also a detective. His FTEs reveal that he’s spent his time wrestling alligators and, to put it nicely, being a huge weirdo for most of his life. He’s not our “everyman protagonist” by any means; he’s yet another whacky Danganronpa character who happened to be thrust into the protagonist spotlight through his role as a detective.

In short, Saihara is not what most people would expect from a protagonist in any story, let alone a DR game. He’s certainly not the “everyman,” between his established backstory and somewhat eccentric home life. And he doesn’t have the usual set of traits most people would expect from a protagonist, either. Unlike Naegi and Kaede, who are by and large optimistic, cooperative, and somewhat confident in themselves, or Hinata, who is assertive and forward-thinking, Saihara is… extremely pessimistic, anxious, and lacks any confidence in himself whatsoever.

And yet, in spite of all this, I think many people can and do relate to Saihara. I know I certainly do. Having a character who explicitly struggles with issues like anxiety and depression, not only as the result of the killing game itself (which would understandably fuck anyone’s mental health up irreparably), but even before entering the game, is something I absolutely love about ndrv3. Saihara is hardly the only character to struggle with these issues within the DR franchise, or hell, even just within ndrv3 itself, but it’s hard to ignore how textually canon his depression is when he spends multiple scenes in chapter 5 lying in bed and thinking, “there’s no reason to live, there’s no reason to live” over and over again.

Saihara’s specific set of character traits may set him apart from the “average” reader, but for people who struggle themselves with mental health and self-worth, I think his character hits close to home in a very different way. Over and over again, throughout the narrative, Saihara is called “weak”—by the people around him and even by himself. This “weakness” is a fundamental part of his character that simply wasn’t there with Naegi or Hinata; while the two of them were certainly considered “average” in one way or another, they were never described as “weak” or “lacking what it takes to survive” the way Saihara consistently is.

And it’s true, on some level, that Saihara is what most people might consider “weak.” At the very least, he’s dependent: quick to latch on to anyone who shows him even the slightest sign of affirmation or support, reluctant to admit to his own talent or take credit for his own accomplishments, and unsure of whether he can actually meet other people’s expectations without some kind of helping hand or support.

We see him immediately grow attached first to Kaede, then later to Momota, constantly seeking out a larger, more charismatic personality to hide behind. He’s so unsure of himself that he would rather let other people who he sees as “more likable” or “more crucial” to the group get all the attention and the spotlight; we see this lampshaded somewhat in chapter 4, when everyone nonetheless begins to single him out as the main reason they’re still alive, and he’s clearly baffled and uncertain as to how to reply to the praise and recognition.

Even what little we see of his pregame self from his audition video fits within this framework. Despite a lot of fan portrayals of pregame Saihara (often called “Inchara” or “Kagehara” in a lot of Japanese fanworks) as someone undeniably “evil” or “irredeemable” for actively wanting to participate in a killing game… in the end, all we really know about him is that he is desperate to die. He talks about wanting to kill people, yes, but the emphasis is placed on how much thought and effort he put into his own execution. Even before entering the killing game at all, we can clearly see that Saihara went in with the specific intention of dying.

He wants to play a detective if at all possible, but it’s clear that he’s desperate, nearly feverish, at the idea of “being a part of the world of Danganronpa” at all, in any capacity. This obsession itself feels like a form of unhealthy attachment, and is a clear sign that he (and most of the participants, if we’re reading between the lines) is so damaged and downright suicidal that he views getting 15 minutes of fame on his favorite TV show as the absolute best way to go out. In a word, he’s still “weak,” long before becoming the fictional character version of “Shuuichi Saihara,” and it’s this weakness that Tsumugi herself says she wanted to encapsulate in the show, by making him “weaker than anyone else.”

It’s this “weakness” that I honestly love best about Saihara’s entire character. Because while a large part of his character arc is certainly about becoming stronger and more confident in himself, it’s also a fact that his “weakness” never explicitly goes away. His depression isn’t just magically cured by the end of the story, and he doesn’t wake up one day deciding that his struggle with suicidal thoughts or feelings of worthlessness are over. If anything, chapter 6 ends with a huge subversion of this “magically cured” trope in most fiction, by having Saihara embrace his own weakness as something that actually helps him arrive at a third option when presented with the seemingly black-or-white choice of “hope vs. despair.”

Saihara is, as he admits himself, “weak.” He’s unable to choose the forward-facing optimism that “hope” represents in the killing game—moreso if that “hope” only contributes to the cycle of the killing game itself, enticing people into wanting to see more and more of it. But he doesn’t pick “despair” either, exactly. His inability to choose between this forced dilemma is specifically because he realizes how sick and cruel it really is, and empathizes all the more deeply with the suffering he and his classmates went through. It’s this “weakness” of his that allows him to really put into words how much pain they all went through, and how their pain matters, regardless of whether they’re fictional or not.

It’s an incredible moment in the game, and probably the point at which he became my favorite protagonist in the DR franchise, as well as one of my favorite characters in the series overall. Saihara’s character arc, unlike Naegi and Hinata, was never about “moving forward” or “choosing hope.” He says himself that he’s not the kind of person who can simply make a choice like that. Rather, his arc is about toeing the grey line between “truth” and “lies.”

As we mentioned earlier, Saihara is a detective. In any mystery novel, a detective’s role is to seek out the truth and expose it, no matter how tragic or upsetting the outcome might be. So it’s interesting, then, that by the end of the game, Saihara ultimately comes to understand and even value the concept of “lies.” For someone who knows exactly how painful the truth can be, and who is unable to simply live life optimistically in spite of that truth, the recognition of “gentle lies” told for the sake of helping someone cope, of finding meaning in an otherwise meaningless or cruel life, is incredibly important.

Unlike the Hope’s Peak arc, which sort of placed “hope vs. despair” as some very black-or-white battle with a clear winner (even when some aspects of the series, like dr3, also sort of suggest the idea that it’s an ongoing cycle that keeps repeating itself), there is no real battle or winner between the concept of “truth and lies.” In the end, both are equally important. Saihara both embraces his role as a detective and acknowledges the power that the truth has on people, while simultaneously acknowledging that lies (and therefore fiction) also has power and can be used to influence people and even inspire the world.

This character development is just absolutely fantastic to see, after watching Saihara struggle with so much pain and grief over the course of the game. Seeing a character actually acknowledge the importance of “lies” and “fiction” precisely because of how important of a motivator it can be to depressed, broken people is incredibly satisfying, and not something we often get in most stories. The fact that Saihara is so undeniably “weak,” that he isn’t the type of character you would usually expect to live to the end given how suicidal and deeply traumatized he is, makes his survival at the very end all the more of an uplifting message.

You don’t need to be “cured” to find a reason to live. You don’t have to magically wake up with the most positive, forward-facing outlook in life. You can be “weak” and depressed and hurting inside, and in the end, you still deserve to live, and have the opportunity to find meaning in your own life, whether it’s through truth or fiction.

This has gotten pretty long by now, but I hope I could make it clear exactly why I love Saihara so much. I understand people’s dissatisfaction with the protagonist-swap, and while I perfectly understand that he isn’t for everyone, he’s still a fantastically written character in my opinion, with a wonderful and meaningful arc of development that really resonated with me, as someone who also has struggled with similar mental health issues. I think the decision to do something extremely different from Naegi and Hinata was an excellent decision, and while I still love both of them as characters in their own right, Saihara is just so compelling both as an individual character and the protagonist of ndrv3.

Thank you for the question anon, and thank you to those of you who read to the end! I hope I could offer a decent character analysis!

[rovelae]

Throwback to the time my younger sister drew me some Kokichis for my birthday! Which was really sweet of her and I love them, but....

She obviously drew what she saw on Google Images, right? It’s cute! It’s cool of her, especially as she isn’t even a fan. But. Of course.

Of-freaking-course she’d end up finding THAT sprite edit.

My sister is. Very innocent. And I try to keep her that way as much as possible. But keep in mind that the family tradition is to open presents in front of everyone. Including my parents, who know nothing about DR or that I write gay fanfic of it on the internet. (The only reason my sister knows about DR is that we have an agreement that I get to rant about it to her as long as I listen to her talk about her favorite Kpop bands.)

So I’m simultaneously panicking and laughing about how my sister drew me Ahegao Face Ouma without realizing it, but I also have to be appropriately impressed and pleased at her gift, and I also have to try and hope my parents don’t recognize the implications of That Particular Facial Expression while also explaining “Ah, he’s-- he’s a character from a video game, and, uh-- Wow, I love the glitch-y shading! That’s a super cool stylistic choice!”

So yeah. Good times.

#Rov talks #Kokichi Ouma #nonsense #kinda NSFW i guess

[rovelae]

Me, staring enraged at a blank document: I hate everything. My writing is trash. I’m the worst person ever. I’m not Good At Things. All of the Cool People hate me. I should just quit and run away to live in the woods and

Single AO3 comment: This was cool, thanks for writing it :)

Me:

Me: I am a GOD

#Rov talks #nonsense

[rovelae]

♡🃏♡

[rovelae]

Me thinking way too hard about unseeliekey’s “therefore you and me” so I ask my sister about it since she’s studying medical anatomy

CW: spoilers for the aforementioned fic, in-depth discussion of anatomy n’ such

This isn’t really going to be a funny post but it’s informative so there you go

And apparently, yes they are! Your body’s separated into several different sections; it’s not just a bag of guts and meat. Which, um. Makes a lot of sense now that I’m thinking about it.

So that’s maybe what happens when you get a lung taken out. Poor Shuichi.

Hope you enjoyed this impromptu anatomy lecture. Anyway I love that fic and I’m really excited for the last couple of chapters!

#therefore you and me #not gonna tag this as saiou bc it isn't really #also if unseeliekey ever sees this I apologize #Rov talks #nonsense

[rovelae]

Fix Teruteru Hanamura.

Primary issues:

-        Hypersexualized. Miu has this problem, too, but she’s easily cowed/reprimanded and therefore not threatening to the rest of the cast. Teruteru doesn’t back off; he’s just gross. He’s a stereotypical douchebag, the kind of guy who makes people deeply uncomfortable in all the ways that aren’t funny. -        Gross misrepresentation of bi/pan people. Teruteru is portrayed as someone who will have sex with anything that moves (including Monokuma; read the manga anthology if you don’t believe me). It’s tactless and poorly executed. There are so many better ways to indicate a character’s sexuality than having them constantly propositioning everyone. -        His death didn’t feel like a loss. The trial was interesting and a good start to the game, but as soon as the pieces fit together and I realized Teruteru was the culprit, I felt more relieved than anything else. Like, “Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with THAT the entire game.” The memory scene where he talks about his mom was the most interesting part of his character and I wanted more of it.

New and improved version:

Pansexual but really shy and awkward. Easily flustered, has no idea how to flirt. Just … not hyperfocused on sex.

Talks about cooking way more. Offers to cook for the other characters, or teach them how. Just the thought of people enjoying his food makes him really happy.

Total mama’s boy. Attributes his success to her. Talks a lot about “old family recipes” and cooking “homestyle food” “just like Mama used to make.”

Get rid of the pompadour. He can still have a weird hairstyle, though; maybe something like that pumpkin salesman from Legend of Zelda.

When in the kitchen, his personality shifts to like Gordon Ramsey-level severity. He takes his cooking perhaps too seriously sometimes, and everything he makes has to be perfect.

I’d be much more invested in a character like this.

#Rov talks #teruteru hanamura #danganronpa

[rovelae]

Um, hello! I read your work "Hologram", and would like to know if I can translate your work? I'm a translator, eng isn't my first language. Your story really made me sob and my heart was beating like crazy, I like sharing fanfics that I like by translating them. Of course I give a proper credit with a link, so you don't need to worry about that. Love from Russia <3

Hello, thanks for reaching out! I'm really flattered that you liked my fic enough to want to translate it! You're welcome to do so with proper credit :) Thanks again! ❤