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KarmicBacklash
Shipping Trash
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2015
- Location
- Canada
I'm not much of a visual novel girl, but there are two notable exceptions (okay, it's technically one because I consumed the first one through other media, namely the anime, but let's not get hung up on the details), those being Fate Stay Night and Danganronpa, and the latter is what this thread is for.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't play these visual novels myself; instead, I watch playthroughs by other people and, if I feel so inclined - and I generally do - look up the lore and such that those people missed once their playthrough is finished. I'm currently watching a certain channel's run of V3, and unfortunately they only upload two episodes a week, but they're nearing the end of Trial 5, which is more than enough for me to have gotten to know the characters very well. I've also had a few things spoiled for me, so I'm already aware of the huge plot twist, the identity of the mastermind, and Kokichi's zero approval gambit, though I don't know the reason behind it yet.
With that out of the way, let's get to the point. I've had a Danganronpa AU idea bouncing around in my head for months and I'd like to actually do something with it if I can find a suitable partner. It would be considered a "non-despair" AU in technicality, in that The Tragedy doesn't happen and the killing games aren't a thing, but there's still a death game of sorts, or rather, a game in which deaths are possible and even likely, and intended by the person/people behind it.
For clarity's sake, Class A is the cast of Trigger Happy Havoc, class B is the cast of Goodbye Despair, and Class C is the cast of V3.
Imagine, if you will, three second or third year classes at Hope's Peak academy heading out on their respective summer break school trips. On the way to their various destinations, the bus carrying each class is intercepted by any unknown party (or parties, as the case may be); the method may vary amongst classes - for example, Class A's bus might crash, Class B's driver might be in on the plot, Class C's bus just so happens to inconveniently run out of fuel, etcetera - and all three classes are rendered unconscious by some manner of knockout gas. When they awake, they find themselves in rooms eerily similar to their dormitory rooms back at Hope's Peak, and outside their doors is a hallway that leads to a common area resembling a a large rec room. There are chairs, couches, a few tables, and an extra-large flatscreen television built into the wall, and a bit of exploring reveals that this place is equipped with a fully stocked kitchen, laundry facilities, small library, and infirmary, complete with surgical tools and medical supplies that one would expect to find in a hospital. Some of these rooms do have windows, but the glass is extremely thick and heavily reinforced, and they do not open. Despite being on a floor that is dizzyingly high up, there are no visible landmarks outside, and all that can be seen for miles around is a dense forest of extremely tall trees. Furthermore, their bus driver and chaperone teacher are nowhere to be found.
Back in the common area, there is a closed set of double doors with a key sticking out of the lock. When the class opens it and steps out, they find themselves in a hall not unlike those seen in a luxury hotel, and after trying a number of doors and finding they are all locked, as well as the elevator being out of order, they can only return to the room from before to try to work out where they are and what is happening. The very moment the last student takes a seat, the TV screen in the wall suddenly turns on by itself, displaying the image of a grinning black and white bear with a high-pitched voice and a sinister laugh, who introduces himself as Monokuma. He tells his captives that he has created a brand new game and they have all been chosen to play, and, ignoring any objections, he begins to explain...
The students learn that they have been brought to 'Hotel Monokuma,' a building with X number of floors (undecided as yet, but it will be at least twenty) full of locked rooms. Every room contains a challenge to complete or a puzzle to solve, and nearly all of them are life-threateningly dangerous. Upon clearing a room, they will be given a key that can be used to open another door, but the key may only be used once; when turned in the lock, it will break, rendering the door permanently unlocked. Almost all the locks are the same, so once they have a key in hand they may use it to open any ordinary door. Some doors, however, will require special keys that will not be easily obtained. In order to progress the game, all rooms opened with an ordinary key must be cleared. The elevator will not activate until all of the top floor's challenges have been completed, and at that point, it will only take them to the next floor down. The object of the game is to clear every floor, with the difficulty increasing the lower they go, and once the very last room on the first floor has been cleared, the hotel's front door will open and they will be permitted to leave.
However, the students are not the only ones here. Each floor below the one they occupy now houses numerous violent criminals taken from prisons all over Japan - and a few who were, until recently, still at large - who have been told that if they can kill every one of the Hope's Peak Academy students, they will be released back into society with a substantial amount of money and resources to allow them to resume their criminal activities.
There is a way to bypass all of a floor's dangers, but the price is steep. If they are willing to sacrifice a classmate, Monokuma will consider the most recently opened floor completely clear and open all the doors, and as a bonus, he promises that he will even deactivate any traps or hazards in every room on that floor. However, the sacrifice will only be carried out with a majority vote, and should there not be enough votes to carry the motion, they might find that the resentment of the classmate they wanted to kill might prove more dangerous than any trap or criminal in the hotel. Oh, and did he mention that the whole thing is televised, being broadcast all across Japan on every channel, so the country can't look away even if it wants to?
What the students don't know is that Hotel Monokuma is split into three sections, and each class occupying one does not know about the other two. There will come a time when the classes will meet, and while there is strength in numbers, more people will surely cause more complications, and with them, more conflict.
This is the basic outline, but not all the details are set in stone. Certain things will need to be agreed on by both my partner and myself, the following being but a few:
⌖ Is Junko still batshit crazy and involved in creating this twisted game?
⌖ Are there any masterminds at all among the students, or are they all just unfortunate victims?
⌖ If the former, who is it/are they?
⌖ Does anyone, (excluding our chosen main cast, they have plot armour; I don't do bad ends) actually die?
⌖ If so, who and how?
These are just the questions I can think of off the top of my head; there are undoubtedly other similar decisions to make, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Super High School Level talents will be pretty much the same across the board, but there may need to be some adjustments discussed for a select few. We'll see.
With such a massive cast, I obviously have no intention of trying to pair them all off because that would be nuts. I have only two must-have pairs, those being Naegi Makoto x Kirigiri Kyoko and Momota Kaito x Harukawa Maki. Anything else is open for discussion. I'd ideally love to have Fukawa Touko x Togami Byakuya too, but they're not a necessity. You can ask for an MxM pair, but if it's not Hinata Hajime x Komaeda Nagito or Owada Mondo x Ishimaru Kiyotaka, my answer will probably be no. Same deal with FxF pairs that aren't Asahina Aoi x Ogami Sakura. I'm very particular about my queer pairings, so while they aren't completely off the table, I'm not at all likely to agree to them outside of a select few.
Some general important information can be found in the About Me link in my signature, so please do read that. It's not very long and outlines what I'm looking for in a partner, which should give you some idea of whether or not we're compatible. As you can see, my F-list is also linked in my signature, please take a look at that, too.
I say this in my About Me thread, but I've had people either miss or ignore it before and not found out that they didn't meet the requirement until their turn to post came around, so I'm saying it here, too: Advanced literate writers only. Please don't waste my time or yours if you aren't advanced lit. I will not write with you if you aren't. If your initial approach makes me think we might be a good match, I will be asking for a writing sample. If I like what you show me, I'll share a sample of my own work, you can decide how you feel about the possibility of writing with me, and we'll go from there.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't play these visual novels myself; instead, I watch playthroughs by other people and, if I feel so inclined - and I generally do - look up the lore and such that those people missed once their playthrough is finished. I'm currently watching a certain channel's run of V3, and unfortunately they only upload two episodes a week, but they're nearing the end of Trial 5, which is more than enough for me to have gotten to know the characters very well. I've also had a few things spoiled for me, so I'm already aware of the huge plot twist, the identity of the mastermind, and Kokichi's zero approval gambit, though I don't know the reason behind it yet.
With that out of the way, let's get to the point. I've had a Danganronpa AU idea bouncing around in my head for months and I'd like to actually do something with it if I can find a suitable partner. It would be considered a "non-despair" AU in technicality, in that The Tragedy doesn't happen and the killing games aren't a thing, but there's still a death game of sorts, or rather, a game in which deaths are possible and even likely, and intended by the person/people behind it.
For clarity's sake, Class A is the cast of Trigger Happy Havoc, class B is the cast of Goodbye Despair, and Class C is the cast of V3.
Imagine, if you will, three second or third year classes at Hope's Peak academy heading out on their respective summer break school trips. On the way to their various destinations, the bus carrying each class is intercepted by any unknown party (or parties, as the case may be); the method may vary amongst classes - for example, Class A's bus might crash, Class B's driver might be in on the plot, Class C's bus just so happens to inconveniently run out of fuel, etcetera - and all three classes are rendered unconscious by some manner of knockout gas. When they awake, they find themselves in rooms eerily similar to their dormitory rooms back at Hope's Peak, and outside their doors is a hallway that leads to a common area resembling a a large rec room. There are chairs, couches, a few tables, and an extra-large flatscreen television built into the wall, and a bit of exploring reveals that this place is equipped with a fully stocked kitchen, laundry facilities, small library, and infirmary, complete with surgical tools and medical supplies that one would expect to find in a hospital. Some of these rooms do have windows, but the glass is extremely thick and heavily reinforced, and they do not open. Despite being on a floor that is dizzyingly high up, there are no visible landmarks outside, and all that can be seen for miles around is a dense forest of extremely tall trees. Furthermore, their bus driver and chaperone teacher are nowhere to be found.
Back in the common area, there is a closed set of double doors with a key sticking out of the lock. When the class opens it and steps out, they find themselves in a hall not unlike those seen in a luxury hotel, and after trying a number of doors and finding they are all locked, as well as the elevator being out of order, they can only return to the room from before to try to work out where they are and what is happening. The very moment the last student takes a seat, the TV screen in the wall suddenly turns on by itself, displaying the image of a grinning black and white bear with a high-pitched voice and a sinister laugh, who introduces himself as Monokuma. He tells his captives that he has created a brand new game and they have all been chosen to play, and, ignoring any objections, he begins to explain...
The students learn that they have been brought to 'Hotel Monokuma,' a building with X number of floors (undecided as yet, but it will be at least twenty) full of locked rooms. Every room contains a challenge to complete or a puzzle to solve, and nearly all of them are life-threateningly dangerous. Upon clearing a room, they will be given a key that can be used to open another door, but the key may only be used once; when turned in the lock, it will break, rendering the door permanently unlocked. Almost all the locks are the same, so once they have a key in hand they may use it to open any ordinary door. Some doors, however, will require special keys that will not be easily obtained. In order to progress the game, all rooms opened with an ordinary key must be cleared. The elevator will not activate until all of the top floor's challenges have been completed, and at that point, it will only take them to the next floor down. The object of the game is to clear every floor, with the difficulty increasing the lower they go, and once the very last room on the first floor has been cleared, the hotel's front door will open and they will be permitted to leave.
However, the students are not the only ones here. Each floor below the one they occupy now houses numerous violent criminals taken from prisons all over Japan - and a few who were, until recently, still at large - who have been told that if they can kill every one of the Hope's Peak Academy students, they will be released back into society with a substantial amount of money and resources to allow them to resume their criminal activities.
There is a way to bypass all of a floor's dangers, but the price is steep. If they are willing to sacrifice a classmate, Monokuma will consider the most recently opened floor completely clear and open all the doors, and as a bonus, he promises that he will even deactivate any traps or hazards in every room on that floor. However, the sacrifice will only be carried out with a majority vote, and should there not be enough votes to carry the motion, they might find that the resentment of the classmate they wanted to kill might prove more dangerous than any trap or criminal in the hotel. Oh, and did he mention that the whole thing is televised, being broadcast all across Japan on every channel, so the country can't look away even if it wants to?
What the students don't know is that Hotel Monokuma is split into three sections, and each class occupying one does not know about the other two. There will come a time when the classes will meet, and while there is strength in numbers, more people will surely cause more complications, and with them, more conflict.
This is the basic outline, but not all the details are set in stone. Certain things will need to be agreed on by both my partner and myself, the following being but a few:
⌖ Is Junko still batshit crazy and involved in creating this twisted game?
⌖ Are there any masterminds at all among the students, or are they all just unfortunate victims?
⌖ If the former, who is it/are they?
⌖ Does anyone, (excluding our chosen main cast, they have plot armour; I don't do bad ends) actually die?
⌖ If so, who and how?
These are just the questions I can think of off the top of my head; there are undoubtedly other similar decisions to make, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Super High School Level talents will be pretty much the same across the board, but there may need to be some adjustments discussed for a select few. We'll see.
With such a massive cast, I obviously have no intention of trying to pair them all off because that would be nuts. I have only two must-have pairs, those being Naegi Makoto x Kirigiri Kyoko and Momota Kaito x Harukawa Maki. Anything else is open for discussion. I'd ideally love to have Fukawa Touko x Togami Byakuya too, but they're not a necessity. You can ask for an MxM pair, but if it's not Hinata Hajime x Komaeda Nagito or Owada Mondo x Ishimaru Kiyotaka, my answer will probably be no. Same deal with FxF pairs that aren't Asahina Aoi x Ogami Sakura. I'm very particular about my queer pairings, so while they aren't completely off the table, I'm not at all likely to agree to them outside of a select few.
Some general important information can be found in the About Me link in my signature, so please do read that. It's not very long and outlines what I'm looking for in a partner, which should give you some idea of whether or not we're compatible. As you can see, my F-list is also linked in my signature, please take a look at that, too.
I say this in my About Me thread, but I've had people either miss or ignore it before and not found out that they didn't meet the requirement until their turn to post came around, so I'm saying it here, too: Advanced literate writers only. Please don't waste my time or yours if you aren't advanced lit. I will not write with you if you aren't. If your initial approach makes me think we might be a good match, I will be asking for a writing sample. If I like what you show me, I'll share a sample of my own work, you can decide how you feel about the possibility of writing with me, and we'll go from there.
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