Two high schoolers try out for the 53rd season of Danganronpa... unfortunately, they get exactly what they wanted..
"Who We Were
" by divisionten and edited by QwertysHuman is a Danganronpa Perspective Flip fanfic following Ouma Kokichi, The Antagonist of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony.
As the fanfic is canon-compliant and spoils some major plot points for Danganronpa V3 right from the first chapter, Danganronpa V3 spoilers after this point will be left un-tagged.
Tropes in "Who We Were" include:
- A Day In The Lime Light: Perspective briefly switches to follow K1-b0 after Shuichi's second mind wipe, as K1-b0 helps patch up some injuries sustained before the start of the game. K1-b0 later gets several chapters from his perspective, jumping back to the holding facility an unspecified point in time after every character's death before switching back to Kokichi.
- Ascended Extra: Several
- Iidabashi goes from being He Who Must Not Be Seen to a fully fleshed out character with his own backstory and motives.
- The entire Team Danganronpa is turned from another He Who Must Not Be Seen offscreen faceless entity into real people, and lots of them, from stylists, to costume designers, craft services, writers, and therapists.
- At least one other surviving member from Rantaro's earlier seasons becomes an actual character- Momo, who became Yurie, the Ultimate Diver in Season 51.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Keisuke and Toshiro, both who are very well aware of this. It just makes it harder when Keisuke is mind wiped, and Toshiro has to watch losing his friend in front of him.
- Break Them by Talking: It's how Kokichi gets Daisuke to give up his body so they stop being paralyzed. He does apologise later, in a roundabout way.
- Cast of Snowflakes: Not only are there 16 distinct ultimates, there's multiple named Danganronpa staff, the actual people that are brainwashed into becoming Ultimates (and distinct from those characters), an entire robotics team, and friends and family of some of the contestants. All with their own personalities and motivations.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The Danganronpa mind wipes can't overwrite smells, and even Arukawa mentions this to both Ai and Daisuke. Between the coffee and incense, it's how Daisuke is able to snap himself out of stupor and take his hand over again. Too bad Kokichi doesn't remember Morse Code...
- The partitions in the computer terminal are other K1-b0, numbered from 1 up. The robotics team gave K2-b0 a body as well, to help with some work keeping an eye on the human participants' health, who then jokes that he'd like to ask for more so they can split the workload further
- Continuity Nod: Since the games and anime were real media in the v3 world, there's quite a few.
- There's a vintage PSP and a Fuyuhiko plush on a table at the auditions.
- Toki is based of of Fukawa Toko, and Kokichi even calls her out on it.
- Tsumugi gets Izaki and Toshiro to cosplay as Hajime and Makoto respectively for the mock trial, giving a credible explanation for the demo case from the game.
- Everyone Knows Morse: Inverted. Kokichi has to sit down and learn it, though he's a very quick study. Too bad it didn't survive the Laser-Guided Amnesia, though he does pick it up again pretty quickly with some help from Daisuke. Inverted further in that most people don't realize Kokichi is using Morse at all, for two reasons:
- He hides it as a nervous tic
- He's specifically using Morse and not Wabun, the Japanese equivalent.
- The only reason K1-b0 even notices and knows is because he's aware that Daisuke has possession of only an arm- later just a hand. There's not many ways to communicate discreetly with just a hand and nothing else, without leaving a paper/electronic trail.
- First-Episode Twist:
- The fic is far enough along that it is tagged as being from Kokichi's perspective, though it starts off following a kid named Daisuke. It's fairly obvious this lonely nerd ends up becoming Kokichi on the show.
- Same can be said for Ai and who she ends up being in-game.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- The premise of this fanfiction is a cannon compliant fanfic from an alternate perspective, which means the protagonist will have to get crushed by the hydraulic press.
- Kokichi was still unable to stop Rantaro's murder and Kaede's execution.
- Same with Ryoma and Kirumi.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Used to quickly show familiarity between characters.
- All the kids are on a first name basis on Arukawa's orders, to preserve the One-Steve Limit. Both Rei and Ichiro's last names are Honda, and there's another Sato other than Ai, Ryoma's actor, Jun. Even then, they still use honorifics.
- When the brainwashing begins, they all shift over to their new names, but stay on a first name basis.
- When the game actually starts, and they've forgotten each other, everyone only uses last names and honorifics. Kokichi deliberately invokes -chan with everyone, including the boys, to Ryoma's chagrin.
- K1-b0, however, specifically requests no honorific at all, as his name is an acronym for the AI in his system. However, when he takes on his Meaningful Rename, he requests -kun be used.
- K2-b0, K1-b0's code-brother, simply responds to Ni, as in Ni-b0, a play on both him being somewhat older-brotherly, and the second in the line. He in turn calls K3-b0 Three-b0, so that all of their names rhyme.
- Heroic BSoD: Kokichi invokes it on Daisuke, with his Break Them by Talking speech.
- In Spite of a Nail: Even with Kokichi watching the monitors of the entire school, Rantaro still dies. Monokuma does distract him for a few minutes, though.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Naturally, with the crux of the game revolving around wiping people's memories to put in new personalities.
- The Danganronpa staff pile on more memories over the participant's existing ones, until their old personality is buried underneath it all. Afterwards, long enough time not being exposed to the memory-altering lights leads the personality to remain as sort of a conscience for survivors like Momo.
- K1-b0 does this to himself after falling on top of one of his research assistants, Mori. Mori doesn't seem to hold any grudge, and K1-b0 himself didn't delete the memory, just put it under password protection to make sure he didn't pull it up by accident, as he'd relive the experience again.
- Tabi did this to herself as a result of sexual assault. Professor Iidabashi was able to contain it, but Tabi lost several months of memories, enough to revert her back to the general K1-b0 AI. Iidabashi brings this AI up again, and gives it- him- a new body a few months later.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The entire fic hinges on the premise that the participants were normal people with fake memories and talents implanted in them, and that they asked to be there, which isn't revealed in the game until the final chapter.
- Meaningful Rename: All of K1-b0's siblings that have achieved sentience give themselves names, so they aren't simply K1-b0, K2-b0, etc.The original K1-b0 called herself Tabi, and K10-b0 is Mirai. This K1-b0 finally decided to rename himself... Kibou. Rantaro lampshades it, calling him Hope-Bot
- Meanwhile, Back at the…...: After a murder, the perspective shifts to follow K1-b0/Kibou back in the holding facility at some earlier unspecified point in time.
- Odd Friendship: Jiro and Daisuke actually get along very well, for the short time they know each other.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted, there's multiple characters with the same first or last name. The characters use nicknames or other means to disambiguate, so despite some reused names (both Rei and Ichiro are Honda, and both Professor Iidabashi and one of the graduate robotics students are Ren), there's never any confusion.
- Used as a plot point- Arukawa isn't exactly a common last name, so when Rantaro's real last name is revealed as Arukawa, it's immediately apparent he's related to the Professor.
- Parental Substitute: Professor Arukawa, to most of the cast. Except for Rantaro, since she's actually his mother.
- Put on a Bus: From Kokichi's point of view, several characters, but especially Kaede, since he ignores her through what would have been almost all of the game's prologue and Chapter 1. Her role in the story is significantly dimished since Kokichi himself doesn't care. She, like Rantaro, though, have additional story in the form of Whole Episode Flashback from K1-b0's point of view.
- Sharing a Body: While the other participants seem to have their minds painted over- Rantaro, Tsumugi and Shuichi all confirm this- Kokichi is a separate and distinct personality from Daisuke, and don't share one brain, or read each other's mind (though they do share very strong emotions). They have to actually communicate to each other to pass information back and forth.
- Shipper on Deck: Danganronpa itself includes possible romances written in for all of the characters, and shoots photos of all of them before the show starts.
- Spared by the Adaptation: K1-b0 is told pretty early on that he's backed up if he's killed, so he knows he can't die (though he's unaware in game and actually worried for his life). The worst that would happen is he'd lose some memories of the game.
- The Empath Kokichi and Daisuke can't read each other's minds, but they do share one emotional state. Daisuke uses this to his advantage to forcibly cheer up Kokichi... or blueball him into doing what he wants.
- Uncanny Valley: A main theme of the story, in regards to both the humans getting brainwashed as well as K1-b0. K1-b0 himself would rather look less human than fall into this trope.Kibou:“I don’t think going this far is necessary...I’d rather be on the left side of the uncanny valley than in it.”
- Talking Is a Free Action: Inverted. Several people, including Momo and even Kaito catch Kokichi trying to use Morse Code to communicate with Daisuke and call him out on it, since he has to stand still and concentrate. Thankfully for him, none of them actually know Morse Code and see it only as a nervous tic/Kokichi spacing out. Except for K1-b0, who knows they're talking to each other, and even privately converses to them both this way.
- Tragic Keepsake: Shuichi leaving behind his hat takes on a whole new meaning when one realizes it's his host's older brother's schoolcap, who is nearly on his deathbed
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Averted, as K1-b0 is immediately treated like everyone else, at least in pregame, and invited to do everything the rest of the teenagers do. While he's made fun of, usually the people teasing him are teasing everyone (pre-game Kokichi and Miu, for example). The only thing that mildly upsets Daisuke is the fact that he knows he could be killed in the game, but K1-b0 can't, due to the nature of his backup.
