seth

The main idea was inspired by Sayaka, the avoidable tragedy of her death, and the vengeance that allowed her to name her killer from 'beyond the grave'

Each ghost is stuck, or trapped in some sort of loop, compelled to act according to certain 'rules', much like how they lived under monokuma within the Killing Game. Each rule has some connection to a ghost's talent, aspect of their life, or death. Reminding them of their regrets in a fashion that wouldn't allow them to pass on.

Sayaka "Don’t swap the dormitory name plates." Her fate in the game was a self-fulfilling prophecy. She was so scared of being trapped in the school, that she trapped herself. It seemed like a perfect stimulus for a ghost, going over the events of her death again and again, but never being able to break out of the cycle. She always leaves behind the message, as she'll never know if Makoto understood her regrets.

Mukuro "Don’t pick a fight in the gym." Mukuro's haunting is based entirely on how her death was a result of picking a fight with monokuma, and how she loses everything. Her lingering grudge creates an animalistic aggressive atmosphere like a Fenrir Wolf, her stoic soldier persona lost as she lashes out at people who remind her of her failure. She hides herself like she did in life, only visible in reflections as Junko's shadow - and will try stab you in the back, playing out her own betrayal.

Leon "Don’t play with baseballs near the hallway" It seemed like the worst fate for Leon would be being stuck, static in his unwanted role as The Ultimate Baseball Star. As with his murder, he couldn't help himself, but resorted back to those skills to dispose of evidence. His animosity making the game almost unplayable for everyone else, he releases all his frustrations toward himself, almost zombie like, at a scapegoat: baseball.

Chihiro "Don’t enter the locker rooms at night" Chihiro's murder and trial was mostly co-opted by red-herrings, like Genocide Jack and the location of the murder. So the idea is that the story got warped by a series of Chinese whispers; Genocide Jack miscast as a 'bloody Mary' style urban legend, Chihiro a forgotten footnote. Based on how Hina thought Alter Ego was actually Chihiro's ghost; I thought the haunting could work more like a séance or a ouija board; asking Chihiro questions beyond the veil much like how AlterEgo helped the class, Chihiro is only trying to help.

Mondo "Don’t eat the butter in the cafeteria" I REACHED for Mondo, I know! but he got turned into BUTTER! I wanted to incorporate his execution with his motive to murder, so his ghost is based on Calabar beans, supposedly able to sort the guilty and the innocent. If you swallow without worry the poison might not spread, but if you eat cautiously and chew; you'll die. He appears slowly, enough that you can ignore him, the same why you might ignore your guilty conscience. He may be a hypocrite, but in a way he's trying to save you from his own fate.

Taka "Don’t pass notes in the classroom" Not unlike Sayaka, it's another case of replaying actions when they were alive, but Taka is still continuing his role as 'Hall Monitor' His prompt is passing notes since that's what lead to his death, originally the note you were passed in class was going to be written by Taka but that felt like it broke his own rules. He disappears if he's ignored, much how he faded after Mondo's death. Ishida is only triggered if you interrupt his routine, disrupt his pace, and create disorder from what he sees as order, holding Mondo's pickaxe almost like a reaper's scythe.

Hifumi "Don’t play hooky in the art rooms" I know Hifumi is the 'Ultimate Fanfic Creator' in the english, but my brain always autocorrects that to 'Doujin Author' instead. And given his focus on fandom culture, I thought his haunting playing out like a video game, something in the zeitgeist like Slenderman the Eight Pages would be appropriate. Originally I had you collecting his artworks, with Hifumi hunting you down, blinded by the blood covering his glasses. He creates his own narrative much like how Celeste convinced him to go through with the murder. He certainly casts himself as a 'protector', expressing glee at being justified in his actions.

Celeste "Don’t default on your debts" As much as you could see Celeste's talent as unwholesome, she took absolute pride in it, and part of that was following through on a bet. Celeste does seem like the type to always find an angle; so she will find a way to exploit those around her into spoiling her, but that's not enough to dispel her stripped aristocracy. She's not in some vast ornate fireplace, she's in an incinerator where you burn rubbish. And the Versailles Witch won't let you get away if you get close enough to see her indignity.

Sakura "Don’t be disrespectful in the dojo" Sakura was very difficult since, like Chihiro, she's got no real impetus to become a vengeful spirit at all. But given her choice to betray the class to protect her dojo, it would be cold comfort being forced to watch over a facsimile of a dojo, at arms length, in a fashion like Tantalus. Her statue is based on Nio, muscular wrestler like figures who stand at the entrance of shrines to protect them from evil. She functions a little like SCP-173, she can only move if she's not watched.

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Given that the sdr2 kids were all remnants of despair, and all had the potential to be as monstrous as Junko - I tried to link them each to an urban legend or a cryptid or similar, to make them another degree removed from humanity. Additionally, their rules are written to sound more like threats, than the THH kids' warnings, to make the distinction that they were more dangerous, far more active.

Imposter "Never copy someone else’s work" There's a common belief that everyone has a doppelgänger, a normal extension of the concept that there are only so many different faces in the world, so some are bound to be potentially near identical. But it's often seen as a bad omen to see yours - a signifier of your imminent death, or maybe a tragedy. The Imposter craves the sensation being someone else, so they don't have to be left with the void that is their own personality. By reducing you to the imitation they show you a fraction of their own personal despair.

Teruteru "Never take someone’s food without asking" Although it could be argued that all the ghosts are kinds of Poltergeists, but I wanted Teruteru to have less of a physical appearance but to express himself through the items in the kitchen - the thrown knives, the rattling pans, the food, much how he was truly himself whilst cooking, but outside of that he projected a false and vain persona, a persona which has been burned away. There's also a reference to the crimes he's implied to have committed whilst a remnant of despair, namely cannibalism.

Mahiru "Never record over something without checking" A large part of Mahiru's philosophy surrounding photography is in capturing the smiles and happy memories of her subjects. Writing over any of those would be unthinkable to her. She's based on Spirit Photography, ghosts and apparitions appearing in celluloid, with some aspects of the Ring, a ghoul able to cross over and reach you through a medium which something shouldn't be able to. The AV equipment she haunts is supposed to have been left behind by classes 77 and 78, the only other echoes of them that remain at Hope's Peak.

Peko "Never knock on an occupied stall" I know it's unfair! But she spends so much of case 1 in the toilet, and disposes of the evidence in case 2 in a bathroom.... Plus, I based her haunting on Hanako-san, a ghost who haunts a toilet stall, and only appears if someone knocks at her door. Peko cannot act alone - she can only act if she's called upon, if someone asks for her. Her multiple hands juggling the masks of the many identities she wears as she has none of her own. The colourful façade of 'Sparkling Justice' being her most memorable, and overriding her own face. Delicate yakuza tattoos wrap around her fingers, and she's missing her little finger on all but one of her hands - a common yakuza punishment for failure.

Ibuki "Never interrupt someone’s musical performance." If Sayaka is a siren, Ibuki is a Banshee, not only due to her singing voice, but also as she heralds the death of Hiyoko. Ibuki became trapped in someone else's elaborate web which lead to her death, so in her haunt she becomes twisted within the threads of her own vocal chords - as a reference to how she couldn't tell anyone what was wrong due to the despair disease. Her exceptional hearing helping her locate you, like a spider finds flies through the vibrations of the web. I was also inspired by the so-called suicide song, Gloomy Sunday, and getting such a song stuck in your head

Hiyoko "Never taunt someone with hurtful names" I wanted to make the rules more specific than just 'don't be a bully' so I used Hiyoko's vice of name calling as what makes her zone in on you; much how she picks apart insects when we first meet her. She's mistaken for a Zashiki-warashi, a harmless child spirit, a Japanese yokai in ode to her love of traditional Japanese culture. She's actually closer to a Usutsuki-warashi, a bad-omen, spirit of a child culled during famine when there wasn't enough food to go around - much like Hiyoko was culled to remove her as a witness.

Mikan "Never feign being sick" Mikan was partly based on Annabelle, the possessed Raggedy Anne doll, in how her innocent and clumsy nature belied the darkness beneath, but also how she was ultimately still just Junko's puppet on a string. Her only place of control is in the nurse's office where she can inflict her own feelings of helplessness onto her patients. (but there was also definite inspiration from the Silent Hill 2 Nurses, not just in the eerie way they move, but also how they are objectified, much like how Mikan is.)

Nekomaru "Never cheat in a sporting event" St. Elmo's Fire (witches fire not the movie) is an electrical phenom, an omen that precedes a lightning strike. Based on his appearance plus his transformation into the electrical Mechamaru, it also is reference to the electrical pulses that control the beating of the heart. Nekomaru essentially treating a bad-sportsman with the taste of a future where an infirmity forcibly retires them. Originally I had him drag them from underground to slow them to a crawl, but it seemed against Nekomaru's principles.

Gundham "Never harm an animal" Gundham would probably revel in the exaggeration of his myth; it's what he would do when he was alive. He's one of the more cryptid like, more of an animal than a person anymore, his transformation based on a Rat King. This phenomenon is where several rats get their tails tangled together with dirt creating a ring of trapped rats encircling their knotted tails in the centre. I originally thought to recreate it with hamsters, but given his beloved Devas survived him, I thought keeping it being rats was better.

Nagito "Never throw something useful away" Nagito is a difficult one since he would find no compunction continuing his test of hope vs despair, much as his role as servant in UDG. The Honest Axe parable has a woodsman drop his old axe into a lake, a river spirit offering him a gold and silver axe asking if those were the axe he dropped. If he refuses he is rewarded, but if he dishonestly accepts he his punished. If you accept Nagito's offer, you admit that you gave up on the item too soon, as a microcosm of giving up hope, you get a taste of his karmic luck as 'reward'. Nagito probably has a very good idea how to break their bonds as ghosts and allow them to pass on, but he won't give the ultimates the answer so easily.

Chiaki "Never delete someone’s saved game" Some of you were right on the money, Chiaki was based on Ben Drowned, I was originally going to draw her like the 'elegy of emptiness' link statue but it was so goofy, I went more classic .exe/doki doki style. Like many of the more positive characters, she's not really fit to be an evil spirit, and plus she was never actually a remnant of despair. The ominous foreboding feeling she gives you is a heightening of paranoia that would hopefully steer you away from contacting the other ghosts.

Junko Is the culmination of everything, the source of every rule. There's no despair after all if there's no one for her to torment, her vitriol enough to outlast her own death in canon by several games, she's dragged every victim into her purgatory. Like with the killing game, those she's trapped with her have the chance to 'beat her' but the game is rigged in her favour. She may be unable to manifest unless every rule is broken, but she's a master of manipulation. She's been the one to spread the rumours, so that people actively seek out to 'break' her rules, supernatural happenings being encouraging rather than deterring, making more people tempted to see for themselves. The ghosts were given just enough autonomy to believe they have agency, when they're trapped in Junko's loop.

If each ghost moved on, she'd have no one give her an endless stream of despair, no hauntings to spur on the thrill seekers/ghost chasers, no reason for all her rules to be actively broken by one person. She'd be slowly forgotten, slowly dissipate, and essentially disappear.

Originally I had Junko's haunting take place in the principle's office, She would call you over the tannoy, but I chose to make it more ambiguous. The idea was that, were she able to manifest, she was the only truly fatal haunting. Imagine the despair if they found a dead student in the principle's office.