Please note that this page and the Game Mod it covers contain MAJOR spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club! If you have not played that game, it is strongly recommended that you do so before reading this page or playing the mod, as doing either first is very likely to ruin your experience.
Welcome back. We put things back together for you.
Doki Doki Club Meetings is a series of fan-made, episodic Game Mods for Doki Doki Literature Club!, created by DokiDokiClubMeetings. After the events of the original DDLC, Sayori convinced Monika to bring back the world and everyone in it. The mod follows the (now weekly) meetings of the Literature Club as they cope with learning about the true nature of their reality, and their triumphs and struggles along the way.
It can be viewed on the mod's official Youtube channel here
. Alternatively, each of the three seasons can be downloaded for free as a full collection: Season 1, Season 2, Season 3.
This series of mods contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Averted. Natsuki's father has emotional issues and isn't the best parent, but he tries to be, and he's certainly not abusive, breaking from a common characterization of him in DDLC modding.
- Accidental Pervert: A few times with Sayori and MC. Less frequently with Natsuki and Yuri.
- Adaptational Heroism: Monika. The villain of the base game, she has undertaken self-examination and worked hard to regain everyone's trust.
- Addressing the Player: Standard DDLC practice.
- The Ageless: No one ages while the time loop runs which causes the club to endlessly have their next year of high school always be their senior year.
- All Just a Dream: More than once, a character has had a nightmare which was ostensibly just the actual episode in progress at first.
- Americasia: The setting is ostensibly Japan, but since the club is Medium Aware, they know they're really here.
- The Anti-Nihilist: Monika, big time.
-
Anvilicious: About taking risks for love, about preferring order to chaos, and about the validity of being LGBTQ+. - Arc Words: "No matter what" in reference to Sayori and MC. References to Monika as being "The Queen." Most episodes contrive to sneak the words "Just Monika" in somewhere.
- Art Shift: The mod includes many a CG and sprite that differs from the original style.
- Ascended Extra: Several minor characters from Season 1 have gained sprites and been given increased focus in later seasons, such as Ms. Ida in Season 2 and Rie in Season 3.
- Aside Comment: It is pretty common for the current club president to have whole aside conversations with the player.
- The Aloner: Ms. Ida at the end of season 2 is confronted with a completely empty world.
- The Atoner: Monika.
- Author Avatar: Monika is the developer's mouthpiece for various worldviews, tastes in music, food, and so forth.
- Badass Adorable: Natsuki, but don't say it to her face.
- Badass Bookworm: Yuri becomes this.
- Batman Gambit: Monika is an expert. She pulls off a very complicated one in season 2 which requires Sayori, Ms. Ida, and the student council all to act in very particular ways, with the end result that Sayori is finally able to express her long-suppressed anger at Monika, Ms. Ida's persistent quest into the club's secrets finally ends, and the club is able to fend off the student council's demands and get more resources.
- Beach Episode: Lampshaded by Monika when the club visits the aquarium/water park in the season 1 collection. She even comments that normally there'd be outrageous swimsuit fanservice in such an episode, "but we'd never stoop that low, of course."
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Sayori and MC, even when Sayori is dating someone else. Also, Natsuki and Yuri.
- Big Damn Heroes: Ms. Ida at the end of season 2, sacrificing herself to save the club, and Monika also at the end of season 2, using her power to save Ms. Ida AND Fuyuki.
- Bilingual Bonus: Rarely, knowledge of Japanese will give the reader an extra joke or insight or two, but also, strangely enough, French, since Monika makes occasional use of it.
- Black Comedy: Plenty of it, but Sayori in particular is fond of it, especially of jokes that deal with her own depression and suicidality.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Yuri likes to use archaic vocabulary and phrasings, and often expresses a preference for antiquated traditions and aesthetics.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: This is a DDLC extension story, after all.
- Brick Joke: The author is obviously fond of this. Too many to count.
- Bury Your Gays: Hard subverted with Fuyuki. It looks at first like she's going to die of cancer, but Monika, after much struggle, defies fate to save her at the last possible moment.
- But Thou Must!: The entire mod. The characters occasionally like to rub it in the player's face, and it's not always Monika doing so.
- Call-Back: Far, far too many to list comprehensively:
- Natsuki mentions that she thinks doing laser tag is a cool date idea in response to a season 1 e-mail. In season 2 Yuri mentions, without context, that she recently played laser tag. In season 3, the club is surprised to hear that Natsuki complain that Yuri has become very good at laser tag.
- Yuri recommends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to Monika, being a humorous metareferential play about being a character stuck executing a predetermined plot line. In a later episode, Monika throws out a reference to it, pleasing Yuri greatly.
- Ayami talks to the bathroom gang about her fun date where she went to dinner and then went window shopping with her boyfriend. In Episode 31, Natsuki and Yuri go to dinner and then go window shopping.
- After the whole confusing "diver tease men" incident in season 1, Monika later receives an e-mail that causes her to finally understand what the heck was going on that day. She explains that she was speaking French and actually said "divertissement."
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Sayori, and also Monika, although she's a teetotaler.
- Character Catchphrase:
- Monika - "Okay, everyone!", "And that's Monika's writing tip of the day!" (although she uses that last one less often these days).
- Sayori - "The Vice President of the Literature Club.......COMMANDS IT!" (always accompanied by a dramatic sound effect in-game).
- Yuri - "Indeed" and "Quite."
- Natsuki - "NEEEEXXXXXXXT!" when going through viewer e-mails, especially during long e-mail sessions during season collections.
- Fuyuki - "X, a Y? Excellent." After reacting to Natsuki coming out to her with a mistaken "My sister, a lesbian? Excellent," and then after being corrected by Natsuki, immediately recovering with "My sister, bisexual? Excellent."
- Ms. Ida - "For Science!", of course!
- Character Rerailment: Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki get this. Since they were tampered with by Monika in the base game, their Club Meetings personalities are their REAL personalities.
- Chekhov's Classroom: During the season 1 collection, depending on player choices, Monika buys a book and reads it. the book is about cancer and Monika comments on how hard it seems to be to cure cancer.
- The Chessmaster: Monika. Although it's a bit subtle and hard to discover just how MUCH of a chessmaster she is...
- Childhood Friend Romance: Sayori and MC, of course.
- Christmas Episode: A minor example, fitting since Christmas is a more minor holiday for the characters. Sayori and MC kiss under the mistletoe, and Monika chats with Natsuki, who has just returned from a heist.
- Club Stub: The "club" carries on with just five members. Though Kenzo briefly joins for a couple of meetings, they gain Ms. Ida as an advisor, and later in season 3, Rie joins the club.
- Color-Coded Characters: One difference between Club Meetings and the original game is that textboxes are now color-coded to match the characters:
- Monika is green.
- Sayori is blue, which changes to black when she's especially depressed.
- Natsuki, Fuyuki, and minor characters keep the original pink.
- Yuri is purple.
- MC is yellow.
- Ms. Ida is silver.
- Rie is brown.
- Comically Missing the Point: A rare intentional example by Monika. When an e-mailer writes a crude, sexy poem about Monika's thighs, Monika completely ignores the sexy bits to provide a detailed technical critique of the poem's construction.
- Comical Nap Drool: Monika apparently does this, according to stories told by other club members.
- Comic-Book Time: In-universe. The simulation runs on what is essentially a time loop: the club members are always in their senior year, and their next year of school is always their senior year. The club breaks the loop and graduates for real at the end of Season 3.
- Coming-Out Story: Yuri describes herself as demisexual but doesn't learn the word until later. Natsuki is bisexual but doesn't admit it to herself or come out as bisexual until season 3. This is apparently in part because she saw her sister's difficulties coming out as a trans woman.
- Companion Cube: Natsuki treats Sayashi, the skeleton hanging in Ms. Ida's classroom, as one.
- Control Freak: Monika. She even resents death for being disorderly and DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
- Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Natsuki is the cool kid, Yuri is the loser. Later, they upgrade from friendship.
- Couch Gag: The splash screen for each episode is different, usually written by whoever is club president at the time.
- Crack Fic: Monika writes one in the form of her mod "Doki Doki Cursed Ship Club."
- Cry into Chest: Sayori in Episode 13 when MC tells her it's okay to show her true feelings around him.
- Deadpan Snarker: While most of the club will engage in snarkery now and again, no one holds a candle to Yuri, especially when she's commenting on some choice of Natsuki's.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Ms. Ida chooses instantly to sacrifice herself in order to save the club's world.
- Dynamic Character: Everyone gets pretty long-lasting character arcs with big changes, for the most part.
- Dysfunction Junction: Everyone in the club probably needs a lot of therapy at this point.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Everyone, but especially Monika. And MC. And the player themselves?
- Easily Forgiven: Played with. While Yuri and Sayori forgive Monika instantly for her actions during the game, it's stated in no uncertain terms that it took quite a while for Natsuki to come around. Midway through Season 2, it's revealed that Sayori hasn't forgiven Monika yet — she'd simply been so depressed that she couldn't bring herself to be angry at the time.
- Easter Egg: Lots:
- MC.chr in the file structure.
- Looking at benches in Natsuki Quest.
- During Monika's season 3 mod "Undiscovered Epilogue," Sayashi has a chance to appear as a vignette.
- When Yuri disables world.bat and asks you to turn off the game so she can experience what that's like as club president, you can try to torment her by REPEATEDLY doing so - but the dev knew you would do that.
- Eating Lunch Alone: Deconstructed. Yuri really DOES choose to eat lunch alone. She welcomes occasional visitors.
- Everybody Must Get Stoned: When MC makes his "Doki Doki Wine Club" mod. Also when the club has its drinking party in Episode 35.
- Everyone Can See It: Natsuki and Yuri.
- Fast-Forward Gag: Natsuki is fond of this when she makes her "Baking With Natsuki" mods.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Every episode, the club takes some time to answer e-mails from viewers.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: The concept behind MC's mod in Season 2. It's even called "Obligatory Body Swap Episode"!
- Functional Addict: Monika, although she's addicted to the player and the player's world rather than a substance.
- Gender Flip: Yuri's "Love, Literature, LXIII" mod does this, but only to Yuri her/himself.
- Genki Girl: Sayori, ostensibly.
- Gentleman Snarker: Yuri has this down pat.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Sayori is amassing quite the collection, especially after she gets a new one at the beginning of Season 2.
- The Glomp: One of Sayori's trademark moves. Ms. Ida is on the receiving end of an MC/Natsuki/Sayori triple glomp when she returns to the club at the end of season 2.
- Go-Getter Girl: Monika continues on as the girl who can do it all. Well....ALMOST.
- Hair Colors: Discussed. The only characters with "unrealistic" hair colors are Natsuki and Yuri, who comment that in their world it's perfectly natural to have purple and pink hair, and that they think it's weird that those colors are arbitrarily not present in the real world.
- Heal the Cutie: Sayori's character arc.
- Heroic BSoD: Monika, when she thinks the player has been disconnected after the club brings back MC, and also when she thinks she has failed to save Fuyuki.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ms. Ida deletes herself in Episode 24 in order to fix the game. Monika and Yuri are able to bring her back, however.
- Hidden Depths: Every character, compared to their base game characterizations.
- Monika is The Anti-Nihilist in addition to the Go-Getter Girl, whose experiences with the nature of reality have made her more vulnerable and self-doubtful, but still determined.
- Yuri gains confidence and self-assurance through the course of the mod, finding great strength in her inner self, although she still sometimes struggles in interacting with the outside world.
- Natsuki is not just a snarky tsundere, or even the memequeen otaku gamer she portrays herself as, but genuinely cares about her clubmates especially Yuri, and learns that it's sometimes okay to let her guard down and love people unironically.
- Sayori confronts and successfully (so far) gets a rein on her depression and the rest of her chaotic inner world, allowing her to GENUINELY give the strength and love she's always tried to give to others.
- MC in particular is no longer a faceless player stand-in protagonist, but in fact wills himself into existence to be his own man - awkward at first, but caring, considerate, and a consummate gentleman who four girls feel entirely comfortable and safe around.
- I Hate Past Me: Monika, with regard to base game Monika.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Monika, briefly, at the end of Season 2, but she fixes it.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Sayori's excuse for stepping out of the club room in Episode 1 to let MC deliver his Sayori-focused poem.
- Iron Woobie: Both Monika and Sayori develop some iron to go with their Woobie as time goes on.
- Insult of Endearment: A Natsuki trademark. Everyone else tends to treat her the same way.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Natsuki.
- Just Woke Up Thatway: When MC writes his body swap mod, this is how the club realizes they've been body-swapped.
- Large Ham: Natsuki, and how! "NEEEEEEXXXXXXT!"
- Leitmotif: Most every important character gets one.
- "Let's Watch Our Show" Plot: The club does this from time to time.
- Lighter and Softer: By virtue of its premise. While it's not afraid to cover many of the same dark topics as the original game (such as mental illness and unreality), Club Meetings is much nicer to the Literature Club as a whole.
- Long-Runner: While most DDLC mods run 12 hours or so tops and are a single download, this mod has been running for over four years and 36 episodes, and counting, with over 100 hours of content.
- Love Makes You Evil: But at least Monika realizes this about herself now.
- Malaproper: Sayori. She has particular trouble with "introspection," and has a whole theory about why "parachutesial relationship" works better than "parasocial relationship."
- Masquerade: The club has to constantly pretend to everyone who doesn't know that reality ISN'T a visual novel's simulation of a world. They're not PARTICULARLY good at it.
- Medium Awareness: Every major character.
- Me's a Crowd: Monika is especially fond of this when she writes her own mods.
- Mind Screw: In Episode 26, Monika is apparently missing from the world completely, and none of the other characters seem to care, or even notice.
- Moment Killer: Extremely often, and as usual, it's Monika who's often the culprit.
- Mortality Phobia: It's more resentment than fear, but Monika certainly qualifies.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Yuri, on occasion.
- No Fourth Wall: At least, for the main club members who are aware that they inhabit a video game.
- Noticing the Fourth Wall: While all the club members know about the fourth wall, only the one who holds the role of Club President can see things as they truly are — such as the UI, the anime art style, and the background music.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: This is DDLC, after all. Happens whenever something's wrong with the game or the club president makes a mistake.
- Original Character: Several new characters are introduced who weren't in the original game. Some more notable ones include fellow classmates Kenzo and Rie, chemistry teacher Ms. Ida, and Natsuki's sister Fuyuki.
- Overly Long Gag: Sayashi's vignette in "Undeserved Epilogue," Monika's season 3 mod. The entirety of "Doki Doki Onion Club" in the season 3 collection.
- Parents as People: We get glimpses of the lives and struggles of the various parents from time to time, except for Monika's.
- Prelude to Suicide: You can definitely see Sayori going through a very worrying series of preparatory steps as season 1 wraps up.
- Preserve Your Gays: Invoked by Monika when Fuyuki gets cancer.
- Psychologist Teacher: Ms. Ida attempts to be one of these throughout Season 2, attempting to help the club through their shared trauma despite the club's reluctance to tell her what said trauma actually is. Eventually, after learning about the simulation, she becomes both a straight and inverted example — while she's willing to help the Literature Club through their troubles, she ends up being helped with her own problems just as much.
- Railroading: Played with. Monika often comments that she's realized that she has as much actual "free choice" as anyone in the real world does (since she believes in determinism), and also notes frequently on the implacable nature of the game/narrative she inhabits. In season 3, jokingly making reference to the possible imminent end of the mod, she gives the player "one more very meaningful player choice for the road," presenting a list of different dialogues that all lead to exactly the same response from Monika and have no effect whatsoever.
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: When the club tried to bring back MC by electing him club president, also when Ms. Ida became club president, and finally, having learned enough technically to avoid the problem, averted when the club makes Rie the "chair" of the club instead of the president.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome The premise of the mod is a sort of Reality Ensues for what happens if a group of people find out they live in a simulation/video game. Also, how the mod deals with Sayori's depression - instead of handwaving it away or treating it simplistically, Sayori has to first work to overcome her reluctance to seek therapy and treatment, has to deal with finding a correct medication dose, continuously going to therapy, dealing with confusing feelings of self-worth and anger, etc. etc.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sayori delivers a brutal one to Monika in Episode 18.
- Reconstruction: of DDLC as a visual novel. Sort of.
- Recursive Reality: Defied. Instances of Doki Doki Literature Club run within Doki Doki Literature Club don't contain sentient club members. But Monika does like to make mods of her own with many recursive layers of simulation.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Natsuki and Yuri. No points for guessing who's who.
- Relationship Upgrade: Sayori and MC. Natsuki and Yuri much later.
- Ret-Gone: Has a tendency to happen in this universe.
- Resurrected Romance: Quite natural in a universe where everyone has been functionally resurrected.
- Rewatch Bonus: CONSTANTLY. Great pains were taken to foreshadow almost everything that happens, and clever players will notice hints as to upcoming plot points all the time, though not all are understandable unless you play through more than once.
- Running Gag: There are plenty:
- Sayori mispronouncing long words comically, especially "introspection" during season 2.
- Natsuki talking to the skeleton Sayashi as though it can hear.
- Sayori COMMANDING that something occur.
- Natsuki screaming "NEXXXXXT" when moving along season collection e-mails. (Although she also points out the importance of "mixing it up" by varying her volume or tone).
- "Just Monika" appearing somewhere in the mod, often hidden in other words ("That's completely unjust, Monika!") Sometimes other characters besides Monika get the "just." Sometimes it's foreshadowing that they do.
- Dropping in without any context whatsoever in the middle of a conversation, and the characters are somehow discussing something that involves the color blue.
- Sanctuary of Solitude: The girls all have one!
- Monika, of course, has her space room.
- Sayori and her bedroom have a long and complicated relationship.
- Yuri spends a lot of time on the roof of the school.
- Natsuki remains in the literature club closet, and also the allegorical closet, at least at first.
- Ms. Ida's living room can be inferred to be her sanctuary, where she likes to kick back a pretty good number of cold ones.
- Save Scumming: You can try. The mod occasionally disables the usefulness of save scumming and will have extra scenes that show the consequences of you trying to save scum. This particularly happens throughout season 3 when Yuri is club president.
- School Festival: Every year. Fortunately they tend to go a lot better than that first one from the base game did.
- School Stories: The clue is in the title of the mod.
- Self-Harm: Yuri still has a problem.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In "Episode 0," the various flashbacks to what happened prior to Episode 1, Monika and Sayori accomplish this.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: MC towards Sayori at first.
- Shipper on Deck: Natsuki with Sayori and MC. Sayori with Natsuki and Yuri.
- Ship Tease: CONSTANTLY with Sayori and MC, and also with Natsuki and Yuri.
- Shrinking Violet: Yuri, of course, quite literally when it comes to the color.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Once they get together, MC and Sayori are "truly diabetic," in Natsuki's words.
- Signature Instrument: Monika and the piano.
- Sixth Ranger: Ms. Ida becomes this for the Literature Club at the end of Season 2, after she briefly becomes club president and gains awareness of the nature of the simulation. Also, Rie, once she joins the club.
- Sleep Cute: Sayori and MC do this often.
- Slice of Life: Much of the series is simply the day-to-day lives of the Literature Club.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: If Natsuki and Yuri are in a room together long enough......
- Stealthy Colossus: Yuri is the tallest girl in the club, and yet she's also incredibly stealthy, capable of seemingly sneaking up on anyone at any time.
- Stepford Smiler: Sayori, naturally. Sometimes we get to see her internal monologue being horribly dark and awful while outwardly she's chipper as ever.
- The Stinger: The mod's usual formula of ending with credits in the darkened clubroom is occasionally interrupted by a stinger of some kind.
- Stubborn Hair: Natsuki mentions that the swath of bangs she has in a clip does this unless she clips it.
- Suicide Pact: Sayori's disturbing mod "No Matter What" has this.
- Sweet Tooth: Sayori will demolish the entire contents of the snack basket on her own. Natsuki too, but not nearly as much.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Everyone tries this with Sayori at the end of season 1, but Monika tries especially hard, resorting to a huge variety of different tactics, including outright manipulation, in a desperate effort to prevent the suicide.
- Technician Versus Performer: The club demonstrates this trope very well via their poetry styles:
- Monika is technician - she cares about page construction, and is quite capable of using meter and rhyme in a concrete way when it suits her.
- Yuri is a HARD technician to the point where she cares about form over substance. She is obsessed with creating imagery and "scenes" even if the reader completely lacks any context. She only uses poetic formalism when it serves these goals.
- Sayori is the best blend of technician and performer, leading Monika, the Author Avatar, to comment that she's the best poet in the club. Sayori cares most about producing an emotional impact, but uses clever technique to do so. As she undergoes treatment for her depression and gets better, the strong emotion that fueled her poetry weakens and her poetic voice actually gets less confident.
- Natsuki is a HARD performer - every poem MUST have a point obvious to the reader, which she beats them over the head with. Her poetic voice is extremely cynical and occasionally self-deprecating, but it's all about what effect she's having on her audience.
- MC starts as a performer, mainly imitating his crush Sayori to start, but influenced by the rest of the club, drifts more towards the technician side of the axis as time goes along.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. There ARE therapists, and Sayori sees one regularly. Eventually.
- Tsundere: Natsuki denies that she is one. Unconvincingly.
- Unsuspectingly Soused: Happens to the normally teetotaling Monika in Episode 35 when a drunken Natsuki adds alcohol to her juice.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The player has the option to essentially torture Yuri when she disables the world.bat system by repeatedly closing and reopening the game. Yuri isn't very happy about it.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Natsuki, in the flashback where she learns about what reality is.
- Welcomed to the Masquerade: The club eventually decides to let Ms. Ida in on the world's big secret.
- Wham Episode: Has a tendency to happen at the midpoint and end of seasons.
- Episode 6 shows us that Sayori has decided to date someone who isn't MC.
- Episode 12 has Sayori and MC finally getting together, but only after Sayori comes dangerously close to suicide again.
- Episode 17 shows Sayori blowing up at Monika, having finally let out her feelings about what happened to her in the base game.
- And right when you think you're safe from the midseason fallout, Episode 18 reveals that Fuyuki has cancer.
- Episode 23 apparently ends with a completely broken, ruined game as Ms. Ida becoming the club president shatters everything.
- And Episode 24 sees her and Monika make everything better, although apparently with Ms. Ida deleted at first to fix everything.
- Episode 30 reveals that Natsuki and Yuri have been dating in secret since the end of Season 2, and Episode 31 reviews the events of nearly two entire seasons, showing us Natsuki/Yuri relationship context that we didn't know about previously.
- Episode 36 seems like it's setting us up for an end to the mod where the club has to break the time loop and end player participation in their lives in order for them to graduate and move on, but Monika, control freak and addict that she is, finds a way to break the time loop AND continue the player's ability to see what happens.
- Will They or Won't They?: Sayori and MC. Natsuki and Yuri.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Fuyuki in season 2.
- That's all for now. Thanks to everyone who made this trope page possible. Don't forget to e-mail Monika your questions for the club at lit.club.pres.monika@gmail.com. See you next week.
