Creatornottraitor wrote:My questions are Monaca, and Kotoko
no judging tho
thanks for asking! owo
i love
monaca because i think she's a great villain! i know that udg is less popular than the other dr games, but the warriors of hope are absolutely some of my favorites. i'll admit that i didn't like her at first, but she's grown on me over time. i like that she has the same absurd ideals as junko (despair over all else), and how insidiously she implemented her plans to reach her goal (all-out war by manipulating the residents of Towa City, the Future Foundation,
and the
Remnants of Despair themselves). i found her more compelling than junko though because of the way she grows. in dr3 when she admits that the whole despair craze was "just a phase" and she's embarrassed and over it now, she totally comes off like the surly preteen she is, and it seems that she's in a better place. her journal entries (specifically the ones about her urge to self harm), her begging komaru/haiji/kotoko/touko to end her life after they win, and the reveal that she was so badly abused also make me feel for her. (she may not be actually disabled, but that doesn't change the fact that haiji and tokuichi canonically threw her down the stairs violently enough that her spine fractured and they
believed that they had paralyzed her permanently.) i'm not saying the abuse justified her actions, or that anyone victimized by her is obligated to forgive her. but i do believe that she's a young child, and deserves a chance at rehabilitation and recovery, just like the other warriors of hope. i've even thought about writing a fic wherein hajime and the other remnants of despair kind of adopt the warriors of hope, and they all recover and try to be better together on jabberwock island (though it would be awhile before i start, because i'm focusing on my fic danganronpa: reshuffle).
i know that was really long, so tl;dr: i like monaca because she's a good villain with a realistic motivation (devotion to the girl who rescued her from her abusive family) who's not completely beyond redemption.as for
kotoko: most of my feelings about her are sympathy and a desire to protect her. i think she's a sweet girl with a wicked streak and a surprising affinity for violence, which she learned as a defense mechanism from the terrible people in her life. i think she's more complicated and vindictive than she first seems/presents herself as (and plays off moments of authenticity as "acting"), and i really like that. my major qualm with her is the way her lines are written. i don't mind how cutesy she is, and i think that the gross allusions to her history of abuse are good foreshadowing that's in-line with her character. what i don't like is the "random" humor, which is much better suited to jatarou, because it feels completely unnecessary. like, when she's having a discussion with monaca and she deflects by talking about putting maple syrup on fried eggs. it's fine for one of them to have a speech pattern like that, but it suits jatarou much better. really it's a minor issue that i have with her writing, and i still like her, i just find her slightly more annoying than the other warriors.