#chapter 1 stuff

Some of the logistics behind my selection system might not make much sense since I’m just rambling about it and I’m pretty unorganized about it to begin with, but please just bear with me.

1. I initially did a random draw for the first murder, and the results were Umi stabbing Eli but she survived, since I did have everyone set equally for chances at the beginning. So, I wracked my brain for how Umi would ever get motivated to stab someone, let alone Eli, and came up with Kotori being involved, since Umi can’t seem to say no to her (or something along those lines), and so that’s how that plan was born.

2. A little while after this, I started taking into account motivation to kill into the killing itself. Since none of the girls had a REAL motive to kill at the beginning, I did a random draw of all of them to give someone an added incentive. The winner of that lucky drawing was Rin, which was why she was planned to get an extra push to kill, and what better extra push was there than witnessing the failed murder above, but having a key misunderstanding about it and its intent. So, that’s how Rin’s murder plan was developed, and gave her a pretty much 100% guaranteed chance of being the killer.

3. Some of the things during Eli’s investigation (I.E. her fear of the dark) were originally going to be included during the trial. So, like, for the example, you’d have to narrow down the list of suspects to get to Eli as the person who screamed, at which point Nozomi would be like ‘Well, yeah, isn’t that obvious?’, confirming the deduction. Since someone made a submission about it, though, I figured I’d include it then, but either way, some of your investigation decisions significantly reduced the time in trial for solving things and the like.

4a. If Umi and Kotori had Free Timed BEFORE the stabbing (Prologue/at the party), then Umi wouldn’t have been able to agree with the plan of killing Kotori. Her chances of being the ‘murderer’ would have went to zero, and she’d get Honoka involved to convince Kotori otherwise. As such, their plan for murder would have disappeared. Eventually, another murder would take place, but it wouldn’t be committed by the second years. 

4b. Conversely, if Honoka and Kotori had Free Timed, Kotori would have brought the plan up to her instead. Of course, Honoka would have been extremely against it, because hope and ‘FIGHTO-DAYO’ and all that good stuff, so she wouldn’t have become the attacker/murderer anyway. Since Kotori didn’t have a Free Time with either of them, she defaulted to Umi, the more mature of her two childhood friends, to bring the plan up to. 

4c. In this sense, with 2a and 2b, if you guys had fulfilled one of these conditions, Kotori’s plan would have been stopped; Eli never would have been stabbed and Rin never would have overheard the plan/gained an additional motive. If you had fulfilled both of these conditions, the Kotori would have had enough hope in her friends/their situation to not bring up the plan at all.

5a. As stated in 2, during this chapter, Rin was the only one who had real motivation to kill/was the only one who could be selected as the murderer (After Umi had a break down post-attacking Eli). Her victim was up for debate, however, as she knew both Umi and Kotori to be somehow involved in the plan. The Free Time events were a major deciding factor in who the victim was.

5b. If Umi and Rin Free Timed (which is what happened), then her thought process would have been something like ‘Kotori is dragging Umi into this thing; Kotori is the problem/the one that needs to be killed.’ and thus, she would have killed Kotori via a 100% Kotori victim chance.

5c. If Kotori and Rin Free Timed, then her thought process would have been something like ‘Umi is dragging Kotori into this thing; Umi is the problem/the one that needs to be killed.’ and thus, she would have killed Umi via a 100% Umi victim chance.

5d. If neither of these conditions were met, and Rin didn’t have a strong enough bond with Hanayo (2 hope shards), Rin wouldn’t be able to tell the others out of fear that if she ratted them out she/Hanayo would be in danger, and so Rin wouldn’t know who to blame specifically, thus leaving her victim to be who she could find first. (A resulting 50% chance for both Kotori and Umi to be the culprit. The story/the girls’ locations would have changed accordingly)

5e. If BOTH of these conditions were met (Prologue and Before party), then Rin wouldn’t have killed anyone, as she’d have trust in them all, but would have stayed long enough to hear the whole plan, and be concerned about them, and thus reveal the plan to the others almost right away, preventing Eli’s stabbing.

5f. If neither of these conditions were met but Rin had a strong enough bond with Hanayo, Rin would have told everyone right away, preventing the stabbing.

6a. If Kotori and Umi had Free Timed AFTER the stabbing [assuming it went through] (both of which they did), then Kotori would regain the will to live and have renewed hope for their situation. When confronted, she would have at least tried to fight back in order to survive and remain with the others.

6b. If Kotori and Umi hadn’t Free Timed AFTER the stabbing, then Kotori would have been fine with dying, and the crime scene would have changed accordingly. Rin’s fatal statement wouldn’t have been made, so the debate would have lasted longer, until the clothes matter was investigated.

7. From Monokuma’s point of view, Eli was a character that needed to be removed from the picture to get the murder ball rolling, which was why the result of Umi stabbing Eli was so favorable to him. Beyond messing with the lights, he stole a few supplies prior to the girls arriving, which prompted Eli’s depart and lead to her stumbling into the middle of Kotori and Umi’s murder plan. This also explains Nozomi’s comment made in ~0015 [Something along the lines of ‘I could have sworn we brought some [drinks] earlier, but we must have forgotten them’]. Even though the attempt wasn’t completed, he was still pretty content with it, since it took Eli out of the picture one way or another.