[Discussion] Pre-Games As Pathethic Losers (/Affectionate/Pos)

[abyssal_sylph]

So, some of you who read AO3 fics might get confused by the title, maybe? idk. But I've found that on AO3 at least the only pre-games that really get attention is Shuichi, Kokichi & Kaito which, fine I guess. But I think what gets on my nerves the most is fanon pre-game Shuichi. By which I mean they write him as creepy &/or basically a yandere.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people have to stop writing him like that. "Do What You Want Forever"/Cring Culture Is Dead shouldn't be conditional afterall. But I guess I just, prefer to think of pre-game Shuichi as an autistic shut-in. Not evil, just suckered in by TDR. A pathethic loser. And that's how I would prefer the pre-games in general? Just people who are pathethic or are treated as such (yes, even pre-game Tsumugi. I like to think of her as overworked & underpaid).

I guess it's because how I just, view them as tragic figuers? I won't go into it in this post, but TDR sucks ass already, why wouldn't they go after the vunerable?

Comments

[usononikki]

I see your point! Fanon seems to have taken on a pretty rigid fixation on the interpretation of the more popular pregame personalities. I like your take on them as victims of the Danganronpa social machine.I try to do that with my interpretations, too.

My Saihara tends to dip toes into the fanon's view of him, but honestly I'm not the biggest fan of their stereotypical yandere caricature. Kid's got issues, as does everybody I imagine, and while my base interpretation involves stalker tendencies and overall unhealthy behavior, it's less about the yandere gimmick and more about his infatuation with Danganronpa as a concept.

As for Ouma, most commonly I see him portrayed as a bullied waif, and while that's fair I suppose, I don't really like how much agency is taken from him. People go a bit too hard into defining the pregames as the theological opposite of their game counterparts because that's what Shirogane seemed to allude to doing. However, I imagine there has to be some kind of base something in them that their in-game selves grew from, and that they're a lot more alike than people like to make them out to be.

In that sense—and this might just be me heavily projecting as Ouma himself—I like to imagine that Ouma still had very distinct resolve in his beliefs, and the main difference is that he focuses his energy on himself rather than others. He keeps his head down, but is deeply offended by the injustice of it all, if only because it makes his life harder. I wouldn't say he's bullied so much as a wallflower, but sometimes he wishes bad things upon himself just so he'd have a socially acceptable excuse to feel as rotten on the inside as he does. Obviously I have a bias, so my thoughts on him are a lot more fleshed out than any other character.

I do have some thoughts on Amami, though, to deviate from the main three! My partner and I like to headcanon him with ASPD overall, and that extends to his pregame self. It's a rough disorder to have, and his jaded views of people and chronic boredom combined with the inherent stigma and isolation that comes with being a "sociopath" definitely wears on him. He hates what he is and he hates that he can't just be normal and he joined Danganronpa because 1) that's just the sort of place a sociopath belongs, isn't it? and 2) maybe if they can change my personality, they can cut this horrible rotten part of me out and then I can finally be normal (they can't, and even if they could, sociopathy sells so why would they).

[abyssal_sylph]

My version of pre-game Shuichi can lean pretty heavily into the waif territory ngl. Partly because its projection of my worse mental health episodes made into a character. But in general I try to imagine him as struggling with life, in many senses of that word, and throws himself into DanganRonpa to fill the void in his life. I actually headcanon regular(? in-game?) Shuichi to have BPD, so I can see his pre-game self also having it and only making him more vuneralble to TDR.

(to clarify I don't think I have BPD ._. though I do think I'm risk for it)

Your interpetation also makes sense though! Sometimes people don't get "common sense" when they haven't been taught anything healthier.

Hard agree that the pre-game are likely not hard reversals of the in-games. I personally tend to think of them as au-versions of themselves, the same people if things whent diffrent. For example my pre-game Kaede started out pretty similar to her in-game self in her youth. But she then became a YouTuber in the hopes of bringing some joy into the lives of her dystopic society. Years of bullying, drama & doxxing later & she's left more jaded.

Your Kokichi makes a lot of sense! One of my fav pre-game versions of him from that description ^_^ I have my own version, but its so au/context dependend it's not really worth elebrating here.

Amami with ASPD :0 haven't thought of it before! I'm curious on what made you headcanon him as such (I'm not the most informed on that disorder). But I can totally follow his logic & I feel bad for him :( for all the pre-games tbh, forever & always ngl.

[luck4hope]

HI I HAVE THE AMAMI ASPD HEADCANON! it was born of me kind of seeing his ingame self and going huh... he's really calm in this situation... almost a little TOO calm? and yeah "he's been in another killing game etc etc" but he doesnt rememebr that, i.e. the calmness is just him being Like That. and also his scary sprites like.... it just made me think that something is just a little bit up with him

and the more i looked at him, the more it seemed like the cordiality is... well its not fake per se, but it IS a very carefully manicured mask. i cant really describe it but theres this veneer of artificiality and insincerity that punctuates everything he says and does, it's really fascinating. i also think his having aspd is how tsumugi killed him-- show him the full map so theres nothing left to explore, so he's piss bored, and then give him breadcrumbs so he does some impulsive irrational shit because thats What He Does. like i think its just really tragic to think he had a mental illness that was exploited for television (in 52) then used against him to kill him (in 53.) it very much echoes real life sentiment around pwaspd and how their disorders will be sensationalized to hell and back for any justification anyone gets, then used to vilify them to shut them up

in my hc, both pregame and ingame amami have aspd, its just that ingame amami is a lot better at masking it. like maybe pregame amami was more violent and impulsive and had those scary sprite moments more often, yk? and that yeah he joined danganronpa mainly due to stigma, or hell even the boredom getting really really bad (and also i hc thats where the exploring came from-- the traveling was something he did to deal with his chronic boredom and over time he got known for it)

also that necklace is a coke vial i will die by this

[abyssal_sylph]

:0 If you don't mind I wanna adopt that headcanon! Though I'd also like some resources on ASPD if you know them, pretty please. Not because I don't believe you, but because I'd like to learn more about the disorder so I charactize ASPD headcanons &/or characters better (sorry for asking, I'm not the best googler). Thank you for explaining :3

Also, I mean- in-game's rich enough to get some-

[luck4hope]

i dont mind at all!! and as for resources, your-aspd-dad on tumblr is pretty good-- s' how i figured out i had it! speaking of, this is my durarara tumblr: https://wawawawawawawawawawawawawa.tumblr.com/ i talk a LOT about aspd and what its like to have aspd on there, but ur gonna have to deal w the anime boy framing to get the genuine mental health stuff lmao

im also open to questions about it!

DO NOT GO TO REDDIT AND DO NOT GO TO QUORA. nothing good comes of there. yes even the aspd subredits they are filled with the kind of people that are more obsessed with fakeclaiming people than they are like, actually saying things about the disorder

[abyssal_sylph]

Thank you for the link to your (durarara)tumblr! (your-aspd-dad isn't showing up for me, but I'll try again later). I'll deal with the anime boy framing, heck, maybe I'll add it to the "stuff to consume" list :3

I might DM you with questions later, apologies in advance for the odd hours.

Also dw, I don't trust reddit in general & have lost faith in Quora as a platform.

[usononikki]

I'll let luck4hope's elaboration on the Amami ASPD headcanon speak for itself, on account they were where that headcanon originated for me and I share most if not all of the same sentiments in regard to it lmao

Also very ironic that you headcanon Saihara with BPD because I happen to headcanon Ouma with BPD too depending on the context. I can see the same going for Saihara, though, given how easily he tends to latch onto people like Akamatsu and then Momota.

I like to mix and match an assortment of Afflictions(tm) for Ouma that vary by universe and interpretation, too. In the realm of Pregame, the "wishes harm to himself to externalize his inner turmoil" has Munchausen-y attributes to it in that he almost eagerly lets bad shit happen to him at any opportunity. He doesn't really go out of his way to put himself in those situations, and doesn't necessarily want to die per se, but he fantasizes about it a lot and if something bad does happen he is very quietly in his own mind like "Yes... Vindication(tm)..."

[abyssal_sylph]

Yeah, I saw a post that mentioned they headcanon Shuichi with BPD, I went "WHAT???" & started researching a bit (which is how i found out about quiet BPD, and got me to headcanon Basil Omori with BPD as well lmao).

I personally kinda, suck at headcanoning anything specific for Kokichi mental health wise? Outside of paranioa tendensies & trust issues. Mainly because I'm still learning about mental health stuff outside the commonly known stuff. And proof of this (kinda) is that my bestie had to point out Shuichi is autistic codded. I didn't notice. Despite being an autist.

I'd say your pre-game Kokichi & younger me would get along. But 1) they wouldn't & 2) it's likely diffrent flavours of the same thing anyway.

[usononikki]

That's fair, honestly! I'm kind of the same with Saihara beyond the autism (and now touches of BPD I suppose lmao).

Ouma's such an interesting ball of neuroses to me, though, so I end up playing with those neuroses a lot. BPD is a common thread for most of them, as it's the one that best fits canon imo, and I apply it in varying extremes depending on the nuances of the AU. He splits hard, though. That much is pretty consistent. Ironically I personally think he is typically pretty trusting at first, but only up until he's given proof, however small, that someone is not to be trusted. After that, it's like a switch flips and it's very hard to get that trust back (again, the splitting is so so bad).

Canon compliant BPD stuff is typically Hope Factory flash fiction brand and then in 467 and Counting I put him in a time loop and take that BPD to its absolute extreme. In pregame, it takes the form of just wanting someone to actually give a shit about him so, so bad, to the point of ignoring any questionable aspects about them, even if it blows up in his face.

Beyond canon, though, I dabble in a few other interpretations. Pregame of course has the previously-mentioned Munchausen tendencies.

I like playing with the idea that he's prone to delusion due to his paranoia and compulsive lying. That comes up a lot in the Pride and Perjury flashes I do.

I like playing with just how compulsive his lying actually is. That's prevalent in Project Despair and Wisteriav3rse.

I like playing with the idea of him being plural without realizing it, in an OSDD-1a sense of having different "flavors." Irresponsibly Responsible dabbles in that without really saying it outright. It also cameos in Faraday Fox Den with the dissociation problems.

Ouma's very versatile and I like putting him in hyper-specific situations to watch how his mind bends. It's very cathartic.

[abyssal_sylph]

Yeah, Kokichi's the kinda character who's all layers. Its what makes it so intimidating for me to armchair diagnose him. Also hi plurality mention! ngl I have this idea for an au which is "no despair* hpa but whoops! V3 class is all plural systems", but I need to workshop it first.

[usononikki]

Plural to plural communication! I'm not explicit about it on DW for the most part, as this account is primarily for the host(s), but we out here! Full disclosure like... 80% of my fics are headmates' memories lmao That is my true secret, I just write what they tell me about.

I look forward to hearing more about that AU, though! It would be interesting to consider what each of the class' systems would be like. I've seen some fics dabbling in pregame/postgame plurality, but I wonder what nuances there could be outside of the personality structure, y'know?