Out of curiosity, any thoughts on Danganronpa Despair Time since you referenced it in your Edens Garden post?
it's impressive they made something so thorough on their own and kept a digestible scope, but as someone whose background is in writing it is startlingly clear that the DTDev's background is not (iirc, they even admitted such after the release of chapter 2). if i had to pick between them, i would choose despair time, but to me it's like asking which leg i'd like broken.
it was much longer than i expected so uh, here's a break. also obvious spoilers and negative opinions inbound so if that's a sensitivity maybe scroll past this one:
ts pmo so I wrote my own response/opinion on each of the points that were made lol. If anything in my own statements are inaccurate or if y'all have a different view on the matter, I'd love to hear it bc I don't doubt that some of my points were proooobably over-defensive of DRDT since it's my personal favorite fangan <33 Long post incoming, bear with me. --
1. While I agree that Teruko's characterization in Chapter 1 Daily wasn't the most engaging or concrete, if you actually paid attention to her character arc you would know that that was the entire point of Chapter 1 Daily. This critique is blatantly ignoring all the defining aspects of Teruko's character, and confuses personal character personality preference with bad & inconsistent writing. It is not. Chapter 1 Daily was a means to build up the audience's expectations of Teruko as another bland Danganronpa protagonist, as well as give Teruko herself a false sense of security in order to immediately tear it down in front of her. Teruko is a naturally distrusting person, but tried giving Xander & Min the benefit of the doubt. It backfired, and she reverted to her old ways. Her being "edgy" is not a flaw, it is a trait. Her not receiving any repercussions for her actions is both a blatant lie, and directly explained in-universe. When she isolates herself in the start of Chapter 2, Charles calls her out for it. When she pulls out a knife on J she proceeds to be berated for it in the trial. When she breaks the rules she's about to be gunned down, but can't because she cannot die. Levi saving her wasn't an instance of "cast members protecting her and no one else," it was an instance of Levi's specific characterization in trying to act empathetically. Hu constantly defends Nico. Ace gave up postponing his death for Levi. Whit was ready to lie for both Charles AND fuckass David. All of these details are obvious to the average viewer, unless of course you're watching the series through a hate-lens and refuse to see past the perspective of an unconventional protagonist.
2. Stating the cast members are copy-pastes of standard Danganronpa tropes and then proceeding to say that they are flawed characters and therefore annoying and irredeemable is terribly hypocritical. As a fanseries (actually advertised as a fanseries too, btw) of COURSE aspects of the game and characters are going to reflect things from the original series! That's the whole point!! But where DRDT's writing differs is that the dev made an active decision to give each and every character depth by ensuring they had both endearing traits, and flaws. Even if a character isn't a deliberately terrible person like David, they shouldn't be expected to only have redeeming qualities as a victim of circumstance in the same way canon Danganronpa writes some of its cast (see: Sonia, Akane, Himiko, etc.). There is no such thing as a perfect victim, and if you believe otherwise then you simply haven't had enough life experience to understand how trauma and grief affect people for the worse. The comment on the cast brushing over the time-skip revelation is one that I actually agree with! Both the Prologue and Chapter 1 suffer from very fast pacing, and didn't take the time to address or flesh out some of the points it touched upon. I'm sure we'll return to them eventually (see: David's character break), but otherwise I 100% agree that it's a weak aspect of the writing that needs serious revision. Hell. Characters like Veronika became entirely different people between the Prologue & Chapter 1, but considering DT Dev stated they wanted to re-write both the Prologue & Chapter 1 not too long ago, I don't doubt that these exact critiques are the ones they want to fix.
3. This is once again a point made about personal writing preference that was phrased like an objective truth. If you don't like the tone of the series then that is your opinion, but stating that character moments happen "without buildup" really just goes to show how shallow your own perception of good writing is. Each character deserves to have their own motivation outside of the media you are directly consuming, and this motivation does not need to be made known immediately. For a Danganronpa fanseries especially, character backstories are HUGE motivators for specific actions and situational responses. Levi's persona cracks in the Chapter 1 trial because Ace pushed too many buttons. Ace has a character regression in Chapter 2 because the reality of death finally sank in. Arturo, Hu, and Veronika got testy in the Chapter 2 trial because tensions were high so of COURSE they're going to act up. David. Then as we addressed earlier, Teruko's moments are directly in-line with her character arc through the game, even though we have yet to fully understand the breadth of her background. All of these instances had their reasonings and were understandable emotional outbursts. I don't know where this YanSim comparison is coming from, because deadass the only characters who smiled during their break were Levi, Nico, David, and Veronika, and it didn't feel out of place in any of these moments if you understood the core of their characters or have ever had a moment of emotional "catharsis" yourself (as David so eloquently puts it).
The notes on having a panic attack or discussing gender identity are a bit more nuanced. While I don't believe it's fair to compare Charles' mental shutdown to the Puss in Boots panic attack because those are two very separate emotional reactions (I mean I can, but I won't for the sake of response length and relevancy), I do agree that the degree to which some of the characters psychoanalyze each other can be a bit much. Instead of just saying that "Charles had a mental shutdown after seeing blood," the cast (namely Veronika & Whit) proceeded to discuss potential reasons why (past trauma, triggers, etc.) directly in front of Charles himself. I don't think that this was done unintentionally however. Considering the main perpetrators were Veronika and Whit, both of whom have talents directly related to studying human nature and who have both been openly introspective in other moments of the series, I can understand why it happened. Ace goes out of his way at the end of the Chapter 2 trial to make a dig at everyone trying to psychoanalyze him, which indicates that the cast in-universe is just very focused on examining people's psyches. These are more than likely purposeful/in-character writing choices; not a flaw on part of DT Dev's writing.
Similarly, instead of just saying "Nico is nyanbinary :3c" Hu took a moment to fully explain what the term meant and why it was important enough to Nico to warrant being their motive secret. While the modern and progressive era of youth pretty much already know what non-binary means and are able to readily accept it, this exploration of gender could be new to someone who comes from a different era or a different society. We don't actually know what year DRDT takes place in, nor do we know what the progressive political state of DRDT's worldbuilding has led it to be. While it does take place somewhere in the 21st century (based on Min's Bonus Episode), we also know that their history is incredibly different to ours. This could easily be a case of political stagnation in the face of a disaster, which would push the mindset of the DRDT cast's generation back a few decades in comparison to where they would stand in the real-world modern age. So yes, while I agree that the manner in which these ideas were addressed would feel out-of-place in the real world, the in-universe state of the game allows me to give it the benefit of the doubt.
4. OP either doesn't understand the fundamentals of what makes a Chekhov's gun, or is refusing to acknowledge the instances where DRDT makes direct use of it within the example of Ace's neck wound. Ace received the neck wound because of Nico's murder attempt, and proceeded to re-use the murder method himself. Ace's attempted murder as a whole IS a Chekhov's gun, and it DID fire during the trial. The wound occurred for a reason, and that reason served its purpose in the grand scheme of things. The decision to make it a neck wound in specific isn't relevant, and doesn't require special symbolism when it was a direct result of a character's in-universe actions. Not to mention, saying Ace's injury didn't factor into his trial behavior is a BLATANT lie when he specifically received new trial sprites reaching for his neck in-show of how the wound is a physical manifestation of his fear of death. OP is also ignoring the fact that the wound occurred because Nico had been trying to saw Ace's neck with a wire. Like yeah no shit it didn't cut him deeply enough to kill him, it wasn't done with a sharp object.
5. This next point is just straight up fucking insane. Do you not think Teruko's name translating to "Superior Child" was intentional? Do you not think that Hu's name being spelled in correct Chinese order was on purpose when she has an entire conversation about how she stopped changing her name to be more accessible to English-speakers? Did you know that Min can actually in fact be a single-syllable given first name in Korean and doesn't exclusively have to be a name part? Did you know the surnames "Cuevas" and "Rosales" are incredibly fucking common in Latin America and that I have personally known MULTIPLE individuals with these surnames as a person of Hispanic descent myself?? Did you know that a lot of American immigrants actually changed their legal surnames in order to fit-in with different communities and not ostracize themselves/risk expulsion due to association with one specific ethnic group, because that's EXACTLY what MY family did when they immigrated and is in fact how immigrant names work??? Fuck off, actually.
6. In a post-Tetro era of fangans you cannot in good conscience call DRDT misogynistic LMAO. Saying that the entire female cast of DRDT is the "nurturing type" when it's literally only limited to Hu and Eden who are DELIBERATELY nice characters and whose CHARACTER FLAW is that they are overly-kind is in and of itself a misogynistic statement. Teruko, Veronika and Arei are absolute assholes, while J, Rose and Min are much too focused on themselves to be selfless enough to consider a quote "nurturing type". And NO the men are not being rewarded any more than the women have had to face the brunt of their own actions, because Xander and Ace fucking died, everyone hates David and Arturo, and Levi is literally riddled with holes. Charles is the exception here because he has actually developed as a character and has begun to work more actively with the group, so of course he's going to be properly rewarded for that (for now, at least. the ever ominous "Charles Cuevas found dead at 3" looms ahead...). Also saying that the executions have been unfairly brutal in a gender-based comparison is pure sample bias and Nyx knows it. Not to mention the fact that saying Min's "SAW trap" execution (like canon DR executions aren't infinitely more brutal) is worse than Ace's when he was literally forced through multiple near-death experiences one right after the other and only DIED because the stress of it caught up to him is once again an act of ignorance in order to inaccurately bolster an opinion.
