#dr 1x1

I already posted this on TikTok (@dr1x1au), but I wanted to post it here too as I am looking for someone to collaborate with to actually write this out, as I do not have enough faith in my writing abilities to give this the script I want. So I’m looking for someone who will help with the writing and creative decisions outside what I have laid out! If you’re interested, please comment with your ao3 tag or wherever you have your works published so I can look at what you’ve written!

Now that that’s settled, let’s get into it!

Notes :

- l wanted to change almost every single survivor. The only one I kept was Kyoko, and every other survivor will not make it out.

- I also wanted to state that there will be some minor changes in the sense of how things go down. Something I really appreciate about thh specifically was the inclusion of multiple different degrees of murder. Like chapter 1 was 3rd degree, chapter 2 was 2nd degree, chapter 3 was 1st degree, aod chapter 4 was suicide. No repeats, and I wanted to honor that to the best of my ability while also taking into account the other changes in cast and motive.

- the motives will stay the same until chapter 4. The 4th chapters motive will be "a hint toward the mystery of the school" where every student gets a hint towards the mystery of hopes peak written as a riddle to further motivate them to get out. And chapter 5's will be "tag, you're it", which is inspired by yttd. Each character is given a bracelet, and one player is designed to be it. The person who is it has to tag someone in order to make someone else it. At the end of the 24 hour time limit, the one who's it will be executed. However, there is a way to save the one who's it, you must kill someone before the time limit ends. This is to spread animosity between the cast and tear them apart, while also distracting them from their investigation to solving the mystery of the school.

- the third chapter will not be a double murder. It is kind of a staple of chapter 3, but I wanted tn keep 6 survivors like in the original, and I wanted to add a case of manslaughter/accidental murder to the mix as well as saving another student, which meant the double murder would not have been possible.

Now, the concept of this whole idea is that 1x1 is another possibility of what could've went down in thh. The same as 2x2, it's not canon, just another way it could've gone down. So, in order for it to be another reality maintaining that rule, there would need to be a catalyst. Something that changes the way the entire game would play out. And the catalyst I chose was what if Sayaka succeeded in killing Leon.

Immediate changes :

- If Sayaka's plan had actually gone accordingly, then Leon would've died that night and Sayaka would've been there the next day. With sayaka's temporary survival, and her and makoto still together as friends, I think their harmony in wanting to keep everyone safe would result in the survival of junko/mukuro. I do think Sayaka would've been shaken up about learning about the trial and execution system, but her presence alone I think would ve been enough for makoto to be able to cool mukuro off. (I don't know if mukuro was genuinely angry, or acting, but my guess is that it was all an act, and she hurt monokuma assuming that - as a part of the plan - she'd be safe no matter what. However, she's also very smart, and if I remember correctly she has a thing for makoto, which I think is enough for her to drop it and truly consider her sister for a second.)

- And also, since Sayaka's plan worked, there'd be new evidence as well. She'd have to switch the nameplates back, get rid of the note, get rid of any trace she'd been to makotos room (since her plan revolved around framing makoto), and get rid of her bloody clothes. I figured what would make the most sense, is her accidentally losing a screw for one of the nameplates, so it's hanging off a little bit, the lack of hair in makotos room once again, hina's account where her and Sakura saw Sayaka entering the dining hall, and hr ioeng late to the morning meeting. In the original thh, when investigating, Sayaka didn't bring a spare outfit, and because she wasn't in charge of the trash room and doesn't have Leon's baseball abilities, she would have no way to change her clothes or hide them anywhere except her own room on top of her not being able to wash any blood off of herself until 7am. But makoto was in her room, so she would have to wait for makoto to leave the morning meeting in order to be able to go to her room and clean herself.

- Ultimately, makoto would instantly know Sayaka did it. Whether he'd be able to actually convict her or not is the question. Kyoko would also figure it out, and Hina and Sakura would know at least a little that Sayaka was suspicious - or at least an accomplice - by them seeing her grabbing the knife. In the end though, I think Sayaka would give up and admit it eventually. A thing about Sayaka that a lot of people don't recognize is that she made her plan NOT KNOWING about the trial system or the executions. She wasn't aware that there were extra steps, and that if she wanted to leave so desperately she would have to kill everyone there. I don't think she wanted to sacrifice so many people, at least not makoto, since it's been shown numerous times over the game, and the anime, that her affections weren't fake. She did genuinely like him, and their relationship was not a lie. A lot of people treat her as a malicious $ 12i€ when, that is objectively not the case. Even kyoko tells makoto that much at the end of the original trial. I do believe she wouldn't have pushed it and would've admitted to what she did, knowing what the full repercussions of her actions would entail.

Now I want to get into the characters roles (survivor, victim, or blackened) per chapter, and why I chose them for each character - keeping in mind the cast changes, the original motives, as well as the additional motives.

Chapter 2 :

The victim is hifumi, and the culprit is Toko

- A lot of hifumi's character in the game is not very explored, it's very simple. He is a popular fanfic author, cosplayer, and he makes comics. He is written to be kind of a perv and and is supposed to be weird and geeky, though he wears the title geek like a badge. His whole life has surrounded his love for animations, specifically - demon angel pretty pudgy princess. And he has a fascination with Celeste, as he listens to her commands and sticks close to her - despite her hatred for him. While I don't not like him, he's not a very deep character and there's not much to him beyond being a comic relief. The best we see of him - and where I gained a decent amount of respect for him, Was when he killed Taka for assaulting Celeste. Yes, he was upset about alter ego, but he was not motivated to kill Taka until Celeste said that. That's when hifumi says "I'm gonna effing kill him!" He was manipulated, but the context of Celeste's lie about taka made it believable. Overall, he's not that bad of a character, but because of his lack of depth and the general public’s dislike of his character, I knew he should die early on. And while I could see him as either a culprit OR a victim, in the context of this notice I thought it made more sense for him to be victim.

- Toko is a very interesting character. And she's actually one of my favorites from these games. When she was younger her dad slept around and got two women pregnant at the same time, one of the babies miscarried - but toko was in fact born. However the hospital had a mixup and she didn't know who her real mother was, and both women refused a blood test (most likely due to both of them not wanting her). She ended up living with both women as well as her father. Due to societal pressure and the abuse she suffered from her mothers, Toko developed DID as a coping mechanism. To my knowledge, she used to be locked in the closet for days, and one of her moms tried to drown her in the bath, which is why she doesn't shower). She was also bullied a lot at school, having zero friends except for her pet stinkbug kameko, who she claimed to relate to, due to their hygiene. Toko also had issues with boys, lots of them would mess with her. But one guy in specific hurt Toko so bad, that genocide jack started killing in toko's defense as an act of protection, starting with that one guy. Toko is very masochistic, and has a very skewed view on what love is. And Toko in the game trigger happy havoc, is not super developed. Neither her, or genocide jack, really learn, or grow. A lot of the development for each of them is in the game ultra despair girls. And after thinking about her character, and each of the motives, I was set on her being the blackened in chapter 2 - based on the threat of her secret being exposed.

How it went down :

To start, mondo and chihiro are still just as affected by the motive as they were originally, mondo and taka still become friends, and chihiro still asks mondo to work out with him. But instead of saying yes, mondo chooses not to ignore his anxiety and tells chihiro no, that he's feeling sick and to ask taka instead. Taka invited mondo again himself, but ultimately mondo says no once again. When chihiro and taka leave, Mukuro saw them looking worried and decides to talk to mondo herself.

At the same time, Toko is freaking out. Instead of her hiding in her room, she tries to find byakuya in hopes he'll be able to calm her down from her panic attack. She heads to the library, but he's not there. She starts getting worse, her frustration and panic leads her to dissasociate and start throwing books around, and due to the noise she doesn't hear hifumi entering. He's intending to start writing his own original comic, but all he finds is Toko. She doesn't hear him, and so hifumi moves closer to try to stop her, but she turns around and hits him across the head with a dictionary. But in this state she doesn't realize what she's doing and she keeps slamming the book on his face until he dies. She ends up calming down, and she freaks out realizing what she's done, and she passes out at the sight of blood. Genocide jack comes to, and realizes what Toko did. She ends up just leaving and going back to her dorm room as quick as she could.

Mukuro ends up talking to mondo and keeps him calm, and she ends up encouraging him to talk to taka or chihiro about his secret before leaving. Mondo sits there for a couple minutes thinking before leaving to go to the locker room.

However, byakuya sees him leaving his room at the same time byakuya leaves to go to the library. He follows mondo, watching him go up the stairs and waiting for a bit before following. When byakuya goes up he doesn't see mondo, so he goes to the library and finds the body, thinking mondo did it. And he still frames genocide jack, just tying hifumis arms to the table in the library with the extension cord, before leaving.

At the trial, genocide jack still gets outed early on. But still proves herself innocent, and hides what Toko did. Byakuya is also still sussed next, but again, is ultimately proven innocent, and he states that he saw mondo going to the second floor.

But he's also quickly proven innocent due to Mukuro's, taka's, and Chihiro's accounts. As he would've had to trash the scene, murder hifumi, go back to his room to change, and gather another alibi all in the span of like 5 minütes, which is impossibly. And ultimately, kyoko uses the same trick to get the killer to unknowingly confess, by saying that what brought hifumi to the library was enough to deduce who the killer is. The discussion surrounded what activity hifumi was attempting to do in the library, and they deduced that it must be related to the killers talent, and Toko stated "just because he was writing a comic doesn't mean it was me, I'm a writer but I'd never write that trash!"

Ultimately byakuva gets her to confess, and she admits killing hifumi due to the fear of having her secret outed, and panicked. And then once it was already done in the trial, all that fueled her was the fear of death. And how ultimately she wished she could've opened up and had a real friend.

Chapter 3 :

The victim is yasuhiro hagakure and the culprit is Kiyotaka ishimaru.

- Yasuhiro, like hifumi, isn't a super deep character. Outside of wanting all the survivors to change, I also wanted to kill characters off who had little room for character exploration, or barely any development in the original story. Yasuhiro grew up with basically just him and his mom. He was very close with his mom, but he doesn't really know his dad, as his parents broke up when he was younger and his dad left after accidentally burning down their house due to falling asleep with a cigarette. Yasuhiro also wasn't super smart, as he was held back 4 times in,school. He also had many issues with girls, and money, which resulted in him starting his fortune telling business. He had some faithful clients due to correct predictions, however he scammed most of the people who came in. Up to and including natsumi kuzuryuu, who told her father what yasuhiro did and caused hiro to pay debts for his scamming. Due to him not wanting to spend his own money to pay off the debts, he spent years hiding from the yakuza, until he was accepted into hopes peak. And in the game hiro seems out of the loop, and doesn't contribute much to the trials outside of being the comic relief. While his humor is appreciated, it made more sense for him to die earlier.

- Taka in the game is also not super explored. A lot of his development is tied to mondo, rather than his own issues surrounding his past. Taka's grandfather was once the prime minister of Japan, he was considered a genius and barely worked to earn his place in life. Eventually when Taka was very young, he got caught in a scandal that ran him out of office and left his family in immense debts. And because of this, Taka wanted to become prime minister in order to pay off the debts and prove that not all ishimaru's are like his grandfather. To do this, Taka throws himself into his studies and commitments - at the expense of his social life, and always pushes himself to be the best he can be, holding himself to his internal belief system that guides all of his decisions in life, values, ethics, and behavior. Which earns him his title of the ultimate moral compass. Because of how driven he is towards his goal, he lacks experience in social interaction. He has trouble talking to people normally, and he lacks understanding of human emotions outside of his own understanding and experience. While I’m sad about killing him decently early, I thought it could be a great parallel to the original game, as well as a chance to develop his character as HIM, rather than developing him surrounding his friend. A lot of takas development in the original game stems from Mondo’s death, and I thought it was a better fit for him to grow with his learning of social constructs, learning how to manage his newfound personal life with his goal, and making real connections as his development - rather than having his development TIED to the plot of the loss of mondo. Because in my mind that kind of reinforced to him that, on top of already having no friends, he was punished by the universe for straying his mind from his end goal - rather than learning that it’s ok to take breaks and live life without repercussions. I think the loss of alter ego also furthered that mindset.

How it went down :

The motive is still money, except Celeste doesn't come up with a plan. It is her ticket out, but the risk of her gamble going wrong, with no possible accomplices, she decides for the first time not to take the risk for such high stakes invölved. This sparks her development. And chihiro still makes alter ego and keeps him in the bathhouse, except chihiro tells everyone his plan with alter ego early on. As well as telling everyone his secret, because he doesn't want to hide or face away from the truth anymore, feeling empowered due to Mondo's help in the previous chapter.

(Mondo told taka and chihiro his own secret in the locker room thanks to mukuro's help, and then they shared theirs in return). They keep visiting alter ego throughout the chapter, with yasuhiro as the messenger. And one night, Taka gets a note from hiro telling him to meet in bathhouse, that something's up with alter ego. Because hiro was normally the messenger, Taka believed it and went. However, when he made it into the bathhouse, yasuhiro came at him with a knife, as he wanted the money to pay off his yakuza debts.

Taka tries to take the knife from hiro and get him to calm down and he does manage to angle the knife away from him, but in their scuffle hiro trips forwards, and in trying to catch him Taka accidentally stabs him in the shoulder. Taka starts crying and apologizing over and over again, trying to put pressure on the wound and stop the bleeding. But eventually gives up and runs to mondo for help, and when they both get back to the bathhouse mondo tries his best to help but hiro ultimately dies due to the blood loss.

Taka wants to admit it, but mondo convinces him to try. He knows about taka's financial situation, and even though he's working on his own issues, he still feels immense guilt about his brother and views his own life as expendable - and he deeply wants Taka to survive. He then tells Taka to go back to his room, change, and bring him the bloody clothes - that he'd take care of the evidence if Taka felt too guilty. Taka did as he was told and after giving mondo the bloody clothes went back into his dorm and cried. Mondo washed his hands in the bath, as,well as the uniform, because the water is turned off and that's the only method available. But he scrubs too hard and without noticing he accidentally rips off one of the buttons on the uniform, as well as the water tinting a little due to the blood. He then took taka's note that he left on the floor, and burned it over the stove, burning off a little bit of his jacket, but leaving it in case something went wrong. He then wrote a note framing byakuya as the killer, writing it as byakuya inviting hiro to the bathhouse, then shoving that note into Hiro’s pocket.

Ultimately in the trial, byakuya is first sussed, but proven innocent since the handwriting doesn't match and the button doesn't match either. Mondo is then sussed because of the burnt sleeve, and he admits to the murder, pretending that he's the killer to keep taka safe, but the button still doesn't match, and in the end Taka tells mondo to stop, that he killed hiro. And he thanks everyone, including mondo, on showing him how to live - even when death is on the line.

Chapter 4 :

The victim is byakuya togami, and the culprit is aoi asahina

- Byakuya in the original game, has his development start right after chapter 4, because of sakura's death. He learns about the intensity of others emotions and and starts understanding that - he's not the smartest one there. And he learns not to be wary of everyone, because hina's devotion to Sakura proved that it really was possible to care about each other even in a place such as this. A lot of this is because of his past. His dad slept around trying to make heir's to the togami throne. So byakuya has 15 half siblings. And in order to declare the victorious sibling, all of them participated in what I call the togami hunger games. It was a challenge - of which I'm not sure what it entails but byakuya won. And all of his siblings were considered dead to the family and left to live on the streets. IMO he has implied npd, which has impacted him to this day. And I could only see him as a victim, but the thought of him being a culprit wasn’t an impossible thought.

- Hina - like taka- has a lot of her in game development tied to Sakura. Hina is shown right off of the bat to be very bubbly, very kind, and very protective of her friends. She's always been a very sporty person, trying multiple sports as a kid, but her favorite was always swimming. Ever since she was young she broke records in swimming, and was scouted for the Olympics. Which earned her her title. She's also commented on wanting to be seen more masculine and treated seriously, but because of her body and looks she's not. At the start of the game she immediately becomes close to Sakura. And while they're close, she has doubts about her ability to survive whether it was to kill someone herself, or keep doing the trials and watching someone be executed, or believing she wouldn't become a victim. She was scared and lacked hope, but - the second Sakura died and she read her note, she managed to believe in her own her abilities in order to avenge Sakura how she saw fit.

How it went down :

The motive this time is "a hint towards the mystery of the school", where each student gets a hint toward solving the mystery written as a riddle. And byakuya gets a riddle that - when solved - outs Sakura as the traitor. He asks her to talk and confronts her about it, where Sakura does admit it. She tells him she's been wanting to tell everyone for a long time, but how do you tell someone that trusts you something that will change how they see you forever? Whether she was blackmailed or not, nobody will trust her. Despite this he refuses to listen to her, and he makes an internal plan. He tells her that unless she meets him in the rec room at midnight and tells him everything she knows, he'll tell everyone. She agrees and they each go their separate ways.

Sakura goes to the dining hall to make some protein coffee for her stress, where Mukuro joins her. Sakura doesn't tell her, but they each find some solace in each other. Sakura says her line "would you believe in someone who doesn't believe in themselves?" here, and Mukuro is able to relate. She ends up convincing Sakura to at least tell someone, it's better to say something than ending up in a worse fate because you didn't. She listens and goes to Hina, telling her what happened with byakuya. And Hina is angry on her behalf, she wants to go with Sakura but Sakura says no, not to come, that she has everything handled and won't let anything happen. She says ok, but plans to follow her and watch to make sure.

When Sakura gets there, byakuya is waiting. He asks her to take a seat, and he asks for answers, to which Sakura attempts. But knows less than he thinks she does. He gets increasingly more frustrated and agitated. As Hina watches she gets more and more angry on sakuras behalf, and she's afraid byakuya might do something. She runs to the chem lab and grabs poison, and she runs to the dining hall to make some tea, she makes three cups and puts the poison in all three cups.

Meanwhile, byakuya is starting to lose his cool. He's angry that Sakura doesn't have the answers he wanted and he's planning to take things to the next level, like in his original plan, where he would kill her in order to eliminate someone who's working against them all. But soon Hina walks in with the tea. She said Sakura mentioned she was meeting someone here tonight and she thought she'd make some tea for them all, and that, based on the sound of things, everyone could use a little to calm down. Sakura agrees, but byakuya has an idea that one, meant for him, is poisoned. He makes an off handed comment about it being safe to drink, to which Hina hesitates, but says yes.

That hesitation confirms to him that his is poisoned, and without knowing all of them are poisoned, he makes Hina switch their cups. Hina shakes her head at Sakura just slightly, signaling to not drink it. And once byakuya does, he dies almost instantly. Hina tries to frame Makoto, since him and byakuya are kind of friends, so he would've taken the glass. Because of that Makoto was first sus, but he had an alibi for the night with chihiro and kyoko, as they were working on alter ego stuff. (Getting him hacked into the schools database remotely). Sakura was next sus. But in the end Hina admitted it, as she didn’t want Sakura to die, nor any of the others. She ultimately thanks everyone for giving her the hope she needed to believe in herself.

Chapter 5 :

The victim and culprit this time is Makoto.

- I originally wanted Makoto to be a survivor, as I didn’t want to do a protagonist switch, however, I think this worked out better for every character, and plot wise made the most sense.

How it went down :

The motive this time was "tag, you're it". Since the previous chapter ended with the outing of Sakura as the traitor, sakura was a huge target for the rest of the cast, however - the masterminds goal with this motive was to kill Kyoko, not Sakura. So kyoko was the first to be tagged. And the game started with her, after that everyone tried to spread out and avoid being tagged as they didn't want to be executed. A couple people were tagged, but eventually it ended up with Sakura. Who was willing to be sacrificed so everyone else could be safe and work together. However, Mukuro stuck by her side for a while. She begged for Sakura to tag her (since in this you can't touch someone to become it), but Sakura wouldn't do it. Eventually though, she retreated and went off on her own. She is jealous of sakuras ability to admit to her actions and accept her punishment, and wants to be the same, but knowing she can't without breaking her loyalty to her sister. And she's torn between two sides.

Mondo and chihiro also stuck together, Celeste hid on her own, and while kyoko and makoto were together for a little bit, kyoko left on her own to use this opportunity to investigate, while Makoto formed a plan. On top of feeling incredibly guilty, and like he was at fault for the deaths of all his friends, he also didn't want any more people to die and have himself sit on the sidelines watching everything happen. He was sick, and he planned to put a stop to this by ending himself. That way no one else would have to die. He writes a note, stating his plan and reasons, and then he goes through with his plan.

After, the new protagonist is Kyoko.

However, the mastermind is upset with this, and chooses to frame Kyoko - as she's too close to solving the mystery behind the school. However, with the clues she left, Mukuro could also be framed.

In the trial, it's ruled down to Mukuro and Kyoko. Celeste was also on her own, but was ruled out due to mondo and chihiro passing her hiding spot around the same time Makoto died. And the true ending is to have kyoko executed in the trial. Due to chihiro being alive, and alter ego as well, she will be saved and fall into the trash room.

However because alter ego saved Kyoko, alter ego was executed for breaking the rules. The real Chihiro almost was since it is his program, but mondo and mukuro defended him. Ultimately, Mukuro goes into the trash room to save Kyoko, where they bond. And all of them together work to solve the mystery of the school.

I’m still working out how I wanna handle chapter 6, specifically regarding mukuro’s placement in the final class trial and how I wanna handle her reveal. But for now, the survivors are Kyoko, Mukuro, Chihiro, mondo, Sakura, and Celeste. And because I’m lazy, you can read what I wrote for each of them here.