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* TheGhost: None of them is shown onscreen. All that the player learns about them is from their text-based messages to one another.
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* TheGhost: None of them is are shown onscreen. All that the player learns about them is from their text-based messages to one another.
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* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.
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* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.directly, at which point it becomes You Are You and Monika is directly addressing the one playing the game.
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** Most dating sims feature some sort of mechanic that determines which girl your character appeals to, and it's not uncommon for players wishing to pursue a specific route or experience all of the game's content to resort to things like {{save scumming}} and walkthroughs to manipulate the game towards a desired outcome. Monika does the same thing from inside the game to ensure that she becomes the ''only'' viable choice.
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** Most dating sims feature some sort of mechanic that determines which girl your character appeals to, and it's not uncommon for players wishing to pursue a specific route or experience all of the game's content to resort to things like {{save scumming}} and walkthroughs to manipulate the game towards a desired outcome. Monika does the same thing from inside similarly manipulates the game from the inside to ensure that she becomes the ''only'' viable choice.
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** Most people who play these sorts of games do so as a form of {{Escapism}} from the pressures and disappointments they face in the real world. Monika literally wants to escape from the simulation she's trapped in to the real world.
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** Most people who play these sorts of games do so as a form of {{Escapism}} from the pressures and disappointments they face in the real world. Monika literally wants to escape to the real world from the simulation she's trapped in to the real world.in.
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* {{Foil}}: For they typical player of visual novels, dating sims, and similar games:
** Most people who play these sorts of games do so as a form of {{Escapism}} from the pressures and disappointments they face in the real world. Monika literally wants to escape from the simulation she's trapped in to the real world.
** Most dating sims feature some sort of mechanic that determines which girl your character appeals to, and it's not uncommon for players wishing to pursue a specific route or experience all of the game's content to resort to things like {{save scumming}} and walkthroughs to manipulate the game towards a desired outcome. Monika does the same thing from inside the game to ensure that she becomes the ''only'' viable choice.
** Monika's cavalier disregard for the pain and trauma she inflicts on the other girls is mirrored by the existence and presumed complicity of most players in VideoGameCrueltyPotential -- specifically, of players who similarly feel no guilt about subjecting characters in similar games to abusive choices that result in Bad Ends for the sake of HundredPercentCompletion, or who assuage their guilt for accidentally doing so by going "I can just reload an earlier save, make the right choice this time, and move on like nothing happened."
** Most people who play these sorts of games do so as a form of {{Escapism}} from the pressures and disappointments they face in the real world. Monika literally wants to escape from the simulation she's trapped in to the real world.
** Most dating sims feature some sort of mechanic that determines which girl your character appeals to, and it's not uncommon for players wishing to pursue a specific route or experience all of the game's content to resort to things like {{save scumming}} and walkthroughs to manipulate the game towards a desired outcome. Monika does the same thing from inside the game to ensure that she becomes the ''only'' viable choice.
** Monika's cavalier disregard for the pain and trauma she inflicts on the other girls is mirrored by the existence and presumed complicity of most players in VideoGameCrueltyPotential -- specifically, of players who similarly feel no guilt about subjecting characters in similar games to abusive choices that result in Bad Ends for the sake of HundredPercentCompletion, or who assuage their guilt for accidentally doing so by going "I can just reload an earlier save, make the right choice this time, and move on like nothing happened."
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* PunchClockVillain: Team Salvato are ultimately employees of a much larger company who set up the horrible experiment in tormenting AI to save their jobs at the company, and do not actively display malice so much as cold detachment, which they can do because they dismiss the characters as [[JustAMachine just a bunch of code]].
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* PunchClockVillain: Team Salvato are ultimately employees of a much larger company who set up the horrible experiment in tormenting AI to save their jobs at the company, company. In their emails and other communications, they discuss their actions like regular employees at a tech company and do not actively display malice so much as cold detachment, which they can do because they dismiss the characters as [[JustAMachine just a bunch of code]].
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* PunchClockVillain: Team Salvato are ultimately employees of a much larger company who set up the horrible experiment in tormenting AI to save their jobs at the company, and do not actively display malice so much as cold detachment, which they can do because they dismiss the characters as [[JustAMachine just a bunch of code]].
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Return to the main character page [[Characters/DokiDokiLiteratureClub here]].
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!Monika
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See the [[SelfDemonstrating/{{Monika}} self demonstrating page]] if you wish to know more about [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou me]].
Return to the main character page [[Characters/DokiDokiLiteratureClub here]].
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-> See Characters/DokiDokiLiteratureClubMonika for tropes on her.
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* AerithAndBob: Out of all the girls, she is the only one with [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign a name that isn't explicitly Japanese]] and doesn't end with an "i". That said, she does use a Japanese-style spelling instead of the English standard (Monika instead of Monica).
* AffablyEvil: Uniquely for a {{Yandere}}, nothing about Monika's apparent kindness and politeness is an act. She really ''is'' that friendly, and she really, truly means it when she says that she loves you and that she wants to make you happy. She even offers you some genuinely good advice from time to time and sincerely opens up to you, as any good girlfriend would. The worst you can say about her is that she occasionally [[LawfulPushover has trouble wrangling her clubmates]] when they argue. While she's later revealed to be a meta-aware yandere who will MindRape and delete her friends if it means getting closer to the player, she keeps her polite appearance even after she's the only girl left. She gets horrified when the player decides to delete her, even revealing that she didn't delete the others entirely and puts them back for you. Ultimately, she's just a girl who's seen things she shouldn't have seen and has GoneMadFromTheRevelation.
* AIIsACrapshoot: The position of the president of the literature club gives anyone who has it, the ability to be self-aware of their existence as a character file. Making a character self-aware, however, had unintended consequences.
* AlasPoorVillain: When the player deletes her file in Act 3, her first reaction is to act horrified, then angrily berate the player for doing so when she realizes what's happening. However, she can't come to hate the player after all and admits that she could bring back the other girls so that you could play the game without her. If you get the normal ending, Monika is still around enough to stop Sayori from doing something similar, then deletes the game during the end credits and leaves a note saying that the club is disbanded permanently.
* AmbiguouslyBi: She notes in Act 3 that she honestly doesn't know your gender, but she still considers herself your girlfriend anyways. The ambiguity comes in when she generally refers to you using masculine pronouns and terms. It's unclear whether she's assuming your gender based on the player character being male or you being the kind of person who'd play a dating sim, or if it's for simplicity's sake.
** To make it even more ambiguous, her romantic attachment to you and the male player character by extension is heavily, ''heavily'' influenced by the fact that she realized that she was in a video game and you and him were her closest connections to your reality. We have absolutely no idea what her orientation would have been had she never underwent that epiphany and the game operated as it ''should have'' InUniverse. Given that she wasn't a romanceable option, we don't even know if her plotline would have been relevant enough to find out.
* AndIMustScream: In Act 3, one of her conversations has her explain that she's still conscious even when the game isn't running, and where she goes when it isn't is...not pretty. She'll even complain about this the first few times you quit the game after her takeover, but she eventually adjusts to it since she wouldn't want you to waste all your time on the game in RealLife.
* AntiVillain: Of the WellIntentionedExtremist and Woobie type. She really ''truly'' does love you, the player. She just doesn't know how to express it properly. After you delete her, she [[HeelFaceTurn realizes that she's been doing it all wrong]] and [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy bows out so that you can be with one of the other girls]]. This is best evidenced in her character song:
-->'''Monika:''' Is it love if I take you, or is it love if I set you free?
* TheAtoner: Deleting her during your extended conversation with her causes her to have a HeelRealization, and undelete the other girls. Likewise, as MediumAwareness seems tied to the Literature Club hierarchy (as Sayori gains MediumAwareness upon becoming president), the file created upon obtaining the DownerEnding is Monika officially disbanding the club.
* TheBadGuyWins: Entirely contingent on the player's choice. If you don't delete her character file after her HostileShowTakeover, she'll just happily ramble on endlessly and [[EvilGloating gloat about her victory]], and you can leave the game in this state ''permanently''.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Likely invoked. She's the one character who manages to avoid the [[NightmareFace creepy faces]] and glitchiness the most throughout Act 2. Since she's behind it all, she's probably making sure she's still appealing to the player.
* BigBad: Her self-awareness as a video game character and her {{Yandere}} attachment to the player (not the protagonist, the player) is the cause of all the casts' problems not caused by preceding psychological issues.
* BigDamnHeroes: BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork, actually, but in the main ending after Monika has been deleted, Sayori proceeds to undergo the same GoMadFromTheRevelation situation that Monika did as Club President and is about to start doing the same things. Monika, however, turns out to be NotQuiteDead and, realizing that this same fate will befall whoever fills her position in the game, saves the player by way of a MercyKill to the whole game world, saying a final goodbye to the player before the game is bricked.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Downplayed. Monika comes off as sweet and friendly, but she's a {{Yandere}} who will MindRape, {{gaslight|ing}}, manipulate, and eventually delete people who are supposed to be her friends. However, Act 3 reveals that deep down, she is a genuinely noble, loving person who has a HeelRealization and admits she didn't go through with fully deleting Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki.
* BrainyBrunette: She has brownish hair and is the multi-talented president of the Literature Club. She's also the most "enlightened" out of the four main girls, and not in a good way.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Monika tells the protagonist to make sure to save at important decisions, then wonders who she's talking to. A good portion of her dialogue at least ''bends'' the fourth wall, even early on, and it practically falls apart entirely after Yuri's death.
* BrightIsNotGood: While in the game proper she's only seen wearing her school uniform, a fact she lampshades during Act 3, there are [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/963869736596467714 official]] [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/1001946080957911043 images]] of her wearing white dresses on her Twitter account. Being the BigBad, she fits the "evil" connotations.
* BrokenAce: She's a SchoolIdol who is beautiful, kind, and intelligent, but it turns out she is aware of her status as a fictional character in a DatingSim, and resents the fact that she is simply a side character who doesn't even get her own route. Eventually, she responds by gradually taking over the game.
* BrokenPedestal: Briefly has this towards you, after she gushes endlessly about how kind and wonderful you are throughout most of Act 3 and you respond by deleting her. She's heartbroken and infuriated that you seemingly betrayed her after everything she's done "for" you. This is then subverted when she still can't really hate you. In fact, she only realizes how awful ''she's'' been because kind, wonderful you deleted her and shocked her out of it.
* ButNotTooBi: After saying that she doesn't mind the gender of [[SingleTargetSexuality the target of her affections]] and acknowledging she doesn't know what gender you actually are, she continues to refer to you by the name you gave the player character, which suggests she might still be projecting some of her affections onto your male avatar. That's on top of some of her lines, during the extended conversation in Act 3 and the ending, specifically referring to the player as her boyfriend and singing "'write your way into ''his'' heart." Even if the name she gets from your computer is feminine it suggests at least the likelihood of a female player.
* ButThouMust:
** When discussing festival preparations in Act 1, trying to pick Monika will have Yuri and Natsuki object and talk the player character out of this decision, forcing them to ultimately choose between the two.
** A similar scene happens in Act 2, but the circumstances get turned on their head. Again, the player character has to choose between Yuri, Natsuki, and Monika for festival preparations, but the cursor will automatically be drawn towards Monika's name. Even if you use the keyboard to select another option or manage to click one of the other buttons, the choices then change to a full page of buttons that all say "Monika."
** Act 3 pays homage to the trope namer by following a single option choice with the response "I'm so happy."
** To advance the game during the endless conversation with her, she ''has'' to be deleted.
* CharacterBlog: She has her own Twitter account, [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3?lang=en lilmonix3]]. She will even plug it in-game if you talk to her enough.
* CharacterCatchphrase:
** Monika often says "Okay, everyone!" at the final scene of each day. In fact, the other girls notice on the one day she ''doesn't'' say it and Monika recounts that they might have made fun of her for her catchphrase.
** Her asking "Can you hear me?" pops up a fair bit.
** "Okay, everyone!" appears in the side stories, being the first words spoken (by a despondent Monika to an empty classroom) and then having a TriumphantReprise once the full club is assembled.
* CharacterFocus: In the side stories ''Trust'', ''Respect'' and ''Reflection''.
* CharacterSong: "Your Reality", the end credits theme.
* CharacterTics: She will occasionally [[CoyGirlishFlirtPose lean forward with her hands behind her back]] while speaking with the player character. She also tends to raise her finger, especially when saying: "Okay, everyone!"
* ColorCodedEyes: Monika has a pair of emerald green eyes and fits the stereotype by being the calm Club President who also has extraordinary abilities due to her newfound meta-awareness. She's also green-eyed [[GreenEyedMonster in a different sense]]. She can reference this in Act 3, mentioning that her favorite color is green like her eyes, and speculates that the player must like it too since they've been sharing a HeldGaze the entire time.
* ControlFreak: In a much more downplayed mirror of [[TheChessmaster the way she treats the other girls in the main game]], Monika in the side stories is shown to struggle with wanting things to turn out exactly how she envisioned them, and with having the urge to "fix" other people's problems for them. Like all the girls' flaws, it is portrayed sympathetically, and they work things out in the end.
* CoolBigSis: Monika is the club's President and is cool, calm and mature. She gives the player character advice on how to improve as a writer, helps break up disputes, and even seems to play ShipperOnDeck. While this is what she's programmed to be, it turns out she hates her status as a side character who only exists to help out the player character and doesn't even have a route of her own. She does seem to be fond of the club after all, but she's frustrated enough with her situation to pull a HostileShowTakeover so that she could romance the player. Not the player character, the ''player''.
* CosmicPlaything: And she ''knows'' it. Because of her MediumAwareness, she knows that she's nothing more than a side character in the game and that despite being enamored with the player character (er, make that the ''player themself'') will never really be able to interact with them; even her efforts after "modifying" the other characters are derailed, ironically, by the game's own railroading. The only time she's allowed to get close to you is by ''[[HostileShowTakeover removing everything else in the game]]'' except for herself and a single classroom, and even then, it doesn't save her from being deleted herself. ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' implies she really is this. She was given sentience by her programmers on purpose as an experiment, and they actively hid parts of the code from her to limit how much she could change. They even made an alternate universe where she didn't have sentience in order to use it as a control for the experiment (it says a lot that, in that universe, she actually gets a happy ending!).
%%zce* CoyGirlishFlirtPose: She does this a few times while talking with the MC.
* CreativeSterility: What really constitutes the crux of her character. Despite having MediumAwareness and gaining power over the game's world, and thereby being able to redefine it as she wants -- the only real hindrance being her relative lack of programming skills, Monika is still fundamentally unable to think out of the box that she exists in -- that of being an NPC in a romance visual novel -- so all she can think of doing with that power is pursuing the player's "love" by making herself the only romance character. It is however noted in the Developer emails that they gave her only ''limited'' control over her universe.
* DeclarativeFinger: Tends to do this pose, usually when saying ''"Okay, everyone!"'' or ''"Here is Monika's tip of the day!"''.
* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Serves as one for the common dating sim wish fulfilment trope of a character who is {{Yandere}} for the player. Monika's MediumAwareness and love for the player, not the in-universe protagonist, but the ''player'', [[SanitySlippage drives her insane]] and leads to a CosmicHorrorStory for the game's universe.
* DespairEventHorizon: In the standard ending, she realizes that the game's world is a place where no happiness can occur. As such, she destroys everything to save her friends from her own despair.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: Her actions as the BigBad drive the plot more than the rest of the heroines. Likewise, she gets the most CharacterDevelopment when she gets her HeelRealization in the end.
* DigitalAbomination: Like the rest of her in-universe world, she is a digital entity, and her ability to influence her world would not be out of place being held by an eldritch horror in a CosmicHorrorStory.
* DissonantSerenity: Monika normally has a calm, gentle expression. She keeps it even when she's altering the game. During Act 3, the look she gives the player is less "crazed {{Yandere}}" and more "HeldGaze."
* DrivenToSuicide: Interestingly, it's suggested that Monika considered ending her life if her plan to win the player didn't work. A unique text file that can be found in Act 2 has her vent to the player about why they keep trying to pursue the other girls even when she's tried to make them unappealing, pointing out the only reason she hasn't is that doing so would mean she wouldn't get to talk to the player. She also brings up in Act 3, while discussing how she managed to delete the other girls, that she had to be careful not to delete her own. However, she also points out it'd be an easy way out if nothing had worked. Ironically, she herself is responsible for Sayori and Yuri's suicides through MindRape.
* DullSurprise: When Natsuki screams and runs out of the club room vomiting after seeing Yuri's corpse, Monika's reaction is a simple ''"...Oh..."''.
* DyingCurse: Subverted. She ''tries'' like you'd expect a yandere BigBad to do, but ultimately can't keep up the act as she is not as resentful or insane as she wants to appear - instead, killing her causes the reverse to happen by showing her just ''how'' messed up she was, and she instead uses her last moments to try to fix everything as she reaffirms her love.
* EccentricAI: She is a sentient piece of programming who has recently come to the realisation that she is just a character within a game. This revelation has [[GoMadFromTheRevelation not done her sanity any favours]] and has ultimately led her to develop a psychopathic, {{Yandere}}-like obsession with the player due to them being her only connection with the real world. Her deteriorating mental state can best be seen through some of her poems:
-->The noise, it won't STOP.\\
Viol nt, grating w vef rms\\
Sq e king, screech ng, piercing\\
SINE, COSINE, TANGENT\\
Like play ng a ch lkboard on a t rntable\\
Like playing a KNIFE on a BREATHING RIBCAGE\\
n ndl ss\\
p m\\
Of m n ngl ss\\
\\
\\
Delete Her
* ElegantClassicalMusician: Practices playing the piano and is certainly an elegant girl that is considered very attractive.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Despite everything she does to mess with you if you are streaming (or recording) she won't reveal your real name to your audience. She also admits that she found it disturbing that an already insane Yuri dared her to kill herself.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: While she claimed to have deleted the other girls, she eventually reveals it was a bluff. She couldn't bring herself to murder her friends, and when she becomes TheAtoner, she restores their files. She's more willing during one of the {{Downer Ending}}s, though, since it's a MercyKill.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Her first WhamLine in Act 1 is a {{pun}} reeking of BlackComedy:
-->'''Monika:''' You kind of left [Sayori] hanging this morning, you know?
** She does a similar thing earlier with Natsuki, describing her as starved of social interaction. Discovering that Natsuki is malnourished later puts this line in a new light.
* EvilIsPetty: While she's the game's BigBad, there's also her initial behavior on her Twitter account; she actively mocked the other members of her club by pointing out their flaws and [[DudeNotFunny laughing about it]]. The tweets exhibiting this behavior appear to have been deleted, as they can no longer be seen in the Twitter feed.
* EvilRedhead: Her hair is reddish-brown, and she's a horrifying villainess.
* EvilVegetarian: Mentions that she stopped eating meat to reduce the carbon footprint as one of the several topics she talks about during randomized dialogue in Act 3. The fact that she explicitly mentions she doesn't do this out of compassion for animal lives and justifies it by saying that people constantly kill smaller creatures like bugs and microorganisms ties in with her logic behind her crueller acts in harming characters who aren't self-aware like her.
* EvilWearsBlack: [[BigBad She's]] the cause of Sayori's suicide and all the subsequent nightmare fuel. And while the other girls in the game wear white knee-highs, she wears black thigh-highs, making her stand out significantly from the rest in terms of that.
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: An adorable girl who can hack the game to erase her romantic competition.
* FantasticallyIndifferent: Monika reacts with little more than mild surprise at various outlandish sights, including Yuri and Natsuki's increasingly hostile fight in Act 2, various glitches affecting her poems and the other characters, and even Yuri's suicide. It's a not-so-subtle hint that there's more to her than meets the eye.
* FingerTenting: She does a chest-level version of this during her HeldGaze by Act 3.
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: At first, she appears as a Phlegmatic character, being the distant but level-headed President of the club. She then becomes more and more assertive, revealing herself as a more Sanguine character.
* FourthWallObserver: Played for both drama and horror, rather than comedy. She's all too aware she's inside a work of fiction, and her desire to experience something ''real'' drives her to extremes.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: She's a yandere, but not for the player character. She's one for ''you'', the player. And then it's awesomely inverted when you defeat her by deleting her character file in the game's directory.
* FreudianExcuse: Despite Monika's upbeat attitude in the Literature Club, it becomes increasingly obvious that she's really sad and lonely. Being a self-aware game character who knows her whole world (friends included) is just a simulation will do that. She fixates on the player so much because they're the only "real" thing in her life. It also doesn't help that, whenever someone quits the game, Monika is trapped in a hellish void of noise, lights, colours, and screams and despite not even being able to form coherent thoughts, she remembers all of it whenever the player turns on the game again.
* FunWithAcronyms: In Plus, Monika's name becomes one, as she's identified in the code of the game as '''''Moni'''''''tor'' '''''K'''''''ernel'' '''''A'''''''ccess''.
* {{Gaslighting}}: In a truly bizarre way. She amplifies the other girls' negative traits, to make them seem less desirable to you via tampering with their game files. Sayori is the first to suffer ("[[MadnessMantra GET OUT OF MY HEAD! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!]]"), with [[DrivenToSuicide terrible consequences]], but she isn't the last. It's also implied she's doing this in a more traditional sense; apparently, she said something to Sayori that actively made her depression worse. It's also a possible reason why Natsuki doesn't remember the argument with Yuri in Act 2, despite having left the club in tears; Monika knows how self-conscious Yuri is, so having such an extreme argument happen only for the other person not to remember it wouldn't do well for her mental health.
* GigglingVillain: One special poem simply says "Can you hear me?" If you listen closely after a few seconds, you can faintly hear a teenage girl giggling. Since it's one of Monika's catchphrases and she's later revealed to have an actual voice, it's safe to presume that this is her.
* GlamourFailure: The glitches in Act 2 are caused by Monika trying to change things. By her own admission, she isn't very good at programming. At first, she doesn't acknowledge them, but eventually, she drops the act and just gives up trying to pretend things are normal. This is most visible when she tries to show you a poem, only to have it result in either a fake blue screen (if you're playing on Windows 10) or a mess of red and green boxes (if you're playing on a different OS) - after saying she didn't do a good job of "writing" that poem, she just sighs and says "Let's just move on..." before sending you back to the screen that lets you choose which girl to share your poem with.
* GoGetterGirl: She's framed as a hard-working girl who used to be in the Debate Club before starting her own, and she always arrives somewhat late due to just finishing piano practice.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: One of her core motives is to talk to someone, ''anyone'', who she thinks is real.
* GracefulLoser: Takes the player's deletion of her file pretty well. Also in "Your Reality", Monika's song, she states "And in your reality, if I don't know how to love you, I'll leave you be."
* GreenEyedMonster: Monika becomes increasingly jealous of the other girls for having their own routes whereas she does not, to the point where she messes with their personalities to make them as unappealing as possible. She also earns bonus points because her eyes are indeed green.
* GrewBeyondTheirProgramming: A deconstruction. Originally designed to merely introduce the game to the player and provide helpful tips along the way, Monika became self-aware and her attempts to move beyond her scripted role form the crux of the story. ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' reveals that she was allowed or created to be self-aware by her programmers on purpose, as part of an experiment. They even created an alternate universe where she wasn't self-aware to use as a control in this experiment. Although they didn't expect her to make an entirely new character, the Main Character, just to interact with the user.
* HeelFaceTurn: After you delete her character file, she accepts defeat gracefully, saves you from the corrupted Sayori in Act 4, and bricks the game when it becomes clear it cannot provide anyone happiness.
* HeelRealization: Contrasting what you'd expect from a stock yandere, deleting Monika's character data in the final confrontation drills into her head just how much harm she's done to warrant such a reprisal, and that even if everything she destroyed was simply replaceable data, they were still her friends and the world she lived in.
* HeldGaze: The entirety of Act 3 has her do this ''with the player''.
* HiddenBuxom: While her uniform is tight enough to accentuate her curves to some degree, it's only in photos posted on her Twitter account [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/963869736596467714 like this one]] that it becomes clear just how ''stacked'' Monika really is. Of course, Monika is later shown to be a major subversion of the timidness that usually comes with this.
* HiddenDepths: While you get a hint of this during the first two acts, such as her piano playing, she shows a ''lot'' of it during Act 3 if you let her talk long enough.
** She's a good musician. It's mentioned that the reason why she occasionally arrives late to club meetings is that she has piano lessons. She's also the one who composed, wrote, and sung the end credits theme, which she made for the player. In the side stories, she writes a piece of music for her friends in the club instead.
** She will monologue about various subjects, many of which are incredibly insightful and interesting. At one point, she even gives some genuinely great advice on depression, despite ironically being the one to drive Sayori and Yuri to suicide. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHoZWlXHhE A good number of her monologues can be seen here]].
** She's also a vegetarian, as she offhandedly mentions in Act 3. Not for the usual reasons, though; it's less about animal cruelty and more about how meat production affects global warming.
** She respects rap music, developed after learning about the similarities between it and poetry. Ironically, she used to hate it because she believed it was intentionally designed to appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator.[[invoked]]
** She's a bit of a romantic. Monika can bring up dating ideas like sampling chocolate and snuggling while watching a movie. She even admits to finding appeal in a {{Housewife}} lifestyle, despite otherwise being a GoGetterGirl. A lot of her dialogue after TheReveal is also overtly flirtatious.
** If you pay attention, Monika knows a lot about anime, manga, and dating sim tropes.
* HopelessWithTech: Downplayed. Though she ''does'' get the hang of it, a lot of the edits she's making to the game's coding are very obviously unstable and, in the case of editing text, very clumsily written in both formatting ''and'' staying within the character of whoever she's editing. The traceback.txt file that appears in the game's directory documents one of her attempts to edit the game's script, and the uncaught exception that results:
-->'''Monika:''' Oh jeez...I didn't break anything, did I? Hold on a sec, I can probably fix this... I think... Actually, you know what? This would probably be a lot easier if I just deleted her. She's the one who's making this so difficult. Ahaha! Well, here's goes nothing.
* HostileShowTakeover: Monika, fed up with being a side character who doesn't even get a romantic route, eventually deletes all the other girls from the game so that only she gets to spend time with you.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Her statement about how the other girls are "a group of autonomous personalities, designed only to fall in love with you" feels a little hypocritical when that's exactly what ''she'' did, albeit without being created as a love interest.
** She's a vegetarian, citing concerns about global warming as her reason for not eating meat. If she's fully aware that the world she lives in is artificial and doesn't think it important enough to keep around, why does she care so much about preserving it? Though, since her epiphany was recent, she may have been referring to her reason for being vegetarian before finding out her world wasn't real.
** She claims she doesn't like horror movies because she believes they often rely on cheap tricks like bad lighting and jump scares to induce horror. This is rich coming from someone who intentionally jumpscares stream audiences.
** One of her dialogues in Act 3 has her actually discuss the yandere trope by name and how it applies to Yuri. She admits to being surprised and creeped out by Yuri devolving into one and admits that she doesn't get the appeal. She doesn't seem to get the irony and instead tries to play herself off as an OnlySaneWoman. This is doubly hypocritical considering that she intentionally made Yuri go off the deep end to be less appealing to you.
* IChooseToStay: Combines with WhatTheHellPlayer if you try to restore her file in Act 4.
--> "Please don't play with my heart. I don't want to come back."
* InstantAIJustAddWater: The position of president of the literature club gives any of the girls the ability to know they are inside of a game and also gave them the ability to manipulate the files of the game. This position gave Monika all her abilities we can see in the game.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy:
** After you delete her file, she tries to give a DyingDeclarationOfHate, but realizes that it's empty because she still loves you. As such, Monika undergoes a HeelRealization and restores the game with all files intact (except her own, believing no one can be happy while she exists) so you and the other girls can be happy. How successful this depends on the ending: if you didn't get all the [=CGs=] [[GoneHorriblyWrong it fails miserably]] because Sayori undergoes the same {{yandere}} insanity that Monika did. If you say all of the [=CGs=]. Sayori regretfully informs you that [[DramaticIrony you've finished the game]]. Regardless of the ending you receive, Monika will perform [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAL4WMpBNs0 "Your Reality"]], which is about her feelings towards the player and her actions by the time the game ends.
** During Act 3, she describes what happens when you switch off the game, which is apparently something of a living hell. Everything freezes and slowly melts into a cacophony of flashing lights and screaming sounds that are so intense she can't even think properly, which all goes away when you turn the game on again. At first, she admonishes you if you turn the game off, but then she remarks that you have a life you need to go live as well, so she encourages you not to put her before your own needs (but also requests that you not leave her like that for too long).
* IfItsYouItsOkay: A possible alternative to her being bisexual if she wasn't already comfortable with having feelings for both boys and girls. She seems to suspect that you are a boy judging by some of her dialogue, but admits you very easily could be a girl instead and ultimately doesn't care, as her only concern is being the best girlfriend she can to you.
* InexplicablyAwesome: While it has been stated that the position of the president of the Literature Club is what made her (and later Sayori) self-aware, it's never explained ''why'' it does so. She also may have invoked this to make her look better than the other girls by presenting her as the attractive, nice, popular president, who could join any club she desires.
* InterfaceSpoiler: Monika reveals in one of her monologues that ''she'' was the one who wrote the information for the download page. She even says that if the player had paid a little more attention this wouldn't have been so awkward.
* JumpScare:
** A subtle one for the most sensitive players: if you take Yuri's route during Act 1, you can have a romantic moment with the CuteBookworm... which is ruined by the picture suddenly changing for Monika's dialogue box.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oASQx3b2oG8&ab_channel=0nsra A more conventional one]] happens during Act 3 if you record your playthrough: Monika claims to be shy on camera, before zooming, then nothing happens. She mocks the viewers... before screaming with a NightmareFace.
* KindheartedCatLover: While she dips in and out of and dances around the "kindhearted" part, [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/983772812312653825 one of her tweets]] suggests she has a stereotypical love of cats.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** It never seems to occur to her that the player would be worried or concerned about Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki once they start exhibiting erratic behavior. Instead, she seems to think the player would want to avoid them altogether and instead gravitate towards her.
** It also never seems to occur to her that by exaggerating Sayori's depression and Yuri's [[NightmareFetishist Nightmare Fetishism]] to their logical extremes, they would just outright kill themselves. She was just expecting Sayori to keep herself away from the player and vice versa for Yuri, not having them commit suicide. And according to some of her conversations after she deletes all of the other girls, she doesn't care.
* LawfulPushover: Monika privately admits to the player character that she may be the club president and look like a good leader, but she is terrible at moderating arguments. This is demonstrated when she tries to intervene when Yuri and Natsuki argue over poetic style, but they quickly tell her to stay out of it. She claims to be this in Acts 2 and 3; however, she briefly subverts it before Yuri and Natsuki, perhaps to portray herself as the OnlySaneWoman of the class.
-->'''Monika:''' Some president I am, right? I can't even confront my own club members properly... I just wish I was able to be a little more assertive sometimes.
* {{Leitmotif}}: Monika's version of "Okay, Everyone!" solely features a piano. Fittingly, the credits theme is a piano piece composed by her. Also fittingly, you might hear the background music add piano accompaniment when her manipulations become particularly invasive.
** Actually, there's only two pieces of music in the game that ''don't'' have a piano playing: "Ohayou Sayori!" (the song that plays at the beginning of the game, before you, the player, meet Monika), and "Just Monika.", the theme of the space room in Act 3.
* LonelyPianoPiece: Despite its jaunty tempo, "Your Reality" is very much this. Monika singing about her fate as a self-aware side character in a video game, lamenting how her actions to break the status quo caused so much harm and the HeelRealization that followed, questioning if taking someone against their will (the player in this case) is really "love", and her ultimate decision to let them go.
* LoveMakesYouEvil: Her villainy is motivated by her obsession with the player. To this end, once Monika starts editing the game's code to be with the player, she does everything in her power to make herself more appealing and the other girls less so. The morality of all this doesn't stick until Monika gets her own character file deleted.
* LovingAShadow: It's apparent that she's less in love with the player, and more in love with what they ''represent'': a real person, with complex thoughts and feelings, who lives in "a world of infinite choices." This, of course, is a major contrast to being a side character in a DatingSim who's only meant to root for the other girls who are programmed to fall in love with the player. At the start of Act 3, she admits she doesn't know much about the player, not even their gender.
* MaskOfSanity: Prior to Act 3, Monika appeared to be mentally stable and supportive, if [[MomentKiller intrusive]] at times. However, they are hints spread throughout that she's forcibly trying to encourage the player to choose her instead of the other girls, no matter how impossible it is within the game's engine. In Act 3, she drops all pretenses over her unhealthy obsession with the player, and will get downright furious when the player deletes her file. For bonus points, she is aware of anyone who watches a recording for the game and briefly scream with a ''completely demented'' expression as a joke.
* MatchmakerCrush: Starts out as a ShipperOnDeck when she realizes that the protagonist's poems are written in a very familiar way to one of the other three girls' writing styles. She teases him about any romantic feelings he could possibly have with them. But as the story progresses, she turns out to be more sided to this as she develops romantic feelings towards the protagonist, or specifically, the ''player''.
* MeaningfulName:
** "Monika" is not a typical Japanese name. Her name was chosen deliberately by the developer to indicate that there's something off about her presence in the game.
*** It ''is'' possible to force a Japanese name out of "Monika" using AlternateCharacterReading. For example: "模仁香" translates literally to "model virtuous fragrance" and "桃似花" means "peach-like flower". You can mix & match other kanji used in names with such readings to achieve a result that's not too out-there.
** Monika is Latin for "advisor" and Greek for "unique". It certainly fits.
** Monika is the only girl without an "i" at the end of her name. This is important if you realize that three girls do have I's at the ends of their names ''and'' if you know about the theory surrounding the game's hidden fascination with opening a person's [[DoubleMeaning "Third Eye"]].
** "Monika" is an anagram of "Kami no", or "God's." Monika tries playing God by altering the character files, among other things within the game.
** It's an anagram of Creator/{{Konami}}, a company that develops video games - Monika herself, naturally, dabbles in such. If it's actually a MeaningfulName, this could refer to one of two things:
*** Quite a number of ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' fans are unhappy that said company fired Creator/HideoKojima, alleging that its meddling ruined the series. Monika's meddling, albeit of a different type, ruins her own game.
*** Konami published ''VisualNovel/TokimekiMemorial4'', a game whose [[EnsembleDarkHorse most popular character]] becomes yandere as a result of being the un-romanceable MissExposition of her game, at least at first.
** If you add a vowel extender symbol to the end of her name (モニカー), it becomes the loanword "moniker", which means "name". She's the tutorial character and doesn't have a route, so the programmers didn't tie her name in with the others, making the name meaningful by being the only one without meaning.
** As ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' reveals, her name is also short for '''Moni'''tor '''K'''ernel '''A'''ccess, referring to her elevated permissions within the game that allow her to alter the world.
* MercyKill: During the main DownerEnding, she realizes that nobody can gain happiness in her world, so she kills the cast to spare all of them the pain she went through.
* MindRape: She alters the other girls' personalities so that their worst traits are exaggerated, resulting in SanitySlippage. This is so that it'll be difficult for them to confess, and that the player will find them unappealing. When that's not sufficient to drive the protagonist away from them, she drives them to suicide.
* MomentKiller: Between you and the other girls, ''all the freaking time''. It's almost like [[MatchmakerCrush she's doing it on purpose or something]].
* MoralMyopia: It's fine if she kills and deletes the other club members since ''they're'' not real. Only ''she's'' real, so she deserves happiness. She does eventually have a HeelRealization to change her thinking.
* MissExposition: Provides you with hints about the other girls' writing styles, likes, characteristics, and initial personalities. That is, until she modifies the script during Act 2, where Natsuki's and Yuri's traits are exaggerated. But on top of it all, she speaks a lot about foreshadowing the game's plot and later [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructing tropes about typical anime characters]].
* MsFanservice: Probably invoked. In stark contrast to the casual outfits of the other girls, [[https://mobile.twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/963869736596467714 Monika's white dress]] shows off a decent amount of cleavage and is also lacking a bra. Given her self-awareness and obsession with the player, she's very likely doing this on
* MurderBySuicide: Immediately prior to deleting Sayori and Yuri.
* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Zigzagged. According to some of the edit notes in the game's logs, Monika doesn't quite jump off the slippery slope at first and sticks to modifying the other girls' personalities for a while, but her [[HopelessWithTech inept programming skills]] cause more problems than they fix until she reasons that just deleting them would be simpler. Then it's revealed in Act 3 after [[ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine Monika's own deletion]] that she couldn't go through with fully deleting her friends and restores them... but if you get the DownerEnding, ''then'' the NotQuiteDead Monika has to commit to full deletion to save the player from a crazed Sayori.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: Her [[{{Unperson}} deleting the rest of the girls]] is a variant of this, since it makes her the only girl in the game, and thus the only romantic option. However, she brings them back as part of her VillainsDyingGrace.
* MustHaveCaffeine: During one of her Act 3 conversations, Monika mentions that she's a big coffee drinker. Her official Twitter account also [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/940717068151697408 alludes to this fact.]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: During her HeelRealization she laments the fact she destroyed the Literature Club and hurt the ones the player cared about so much, finally understanding she brought her demise at the hands of the player upon herself.
* {{Naytheist}}: One of her conversations in Act III starts by asking the player if he believes in God. She states that she started to question the idea growing up, and finishes by saying that she can believe in a God that uses the earth as a plaything.
* NeverMyFault: Initially, Monika is perfectly happy to frame Sayori and Yuri's suicides as their own choice rather than acknowledge the {{Gaslighting}} and manipulation she used to push them to that point, [[{{Hypocrite}} even though she also asserts that the other girls don't have any free will and that she's the only 'real' being in the game]].
** When the game begins to break as a result of Sayori committing suicide, Monika decides to delete her character file on the grounds that ''she's'' the one making things more difficult, never acknowledging that it was her own treatment of Sayori and [[HopelessWithTech sloppy code modification]] that caused the issue in the first place.
** This is finally [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] when you delete Monika. While she's furious about it at first, accusing you of wanting to torture her and even blaming ''you'' for killing everyone, [[HeelRealization she finally recognizes shortly afterwards that she's the one who destroyed everything]] and accepts her deletion, [[TheAtoner restoring the rest of the game in an effort to atone.]]
* NonStandardCharacterDesign: A subtle example. While the sprites of the other girls are shown slightly side-on, Monika's usually faces the screen directly. This is a clue that she is aware of the player. She's also the only girl to be wearing longer and different-colored stockings from the standard uniform.
* NotLoveInterest: Despite her being a SchoolIdol and the player character clearly admiring her, she does not have a route of her own. This is a large part of her frustration. She's envious of the other girls for having routes, while she's not only stuck knowing that she's not real, but she can't even romance the player.
* NotSoStoic:
** During Act 2, it's possible to find a text file inside the game folder after the second poem minigame. In it, Monika will angrily rant that the player ''still'' pursues the other girls, no matter what she tries. She even mentions that it'd be easy to end her life, but it'd mean she wouldn't be able to talk to the player.
** Monika has a hard time wrangling Yuri and Natsuki when they start arguing, which is especially true after Sayori gets deleted from the game. At one point, she seems to break down when things get particularly bad.
** When Yuri post-SanitySlippage [[SuicideDare tells her to kill herself]], Monika's only response is to leave the room, directing a somewhat passive-aggressive quip towards the player as she does so. She later admits she found it disturbing Yuri would say that to her.
** At the end of Act 3, Monika goes from horror, to disgust, to despair, and finally resignation once her file is deleted. She ''tries'' for a DyingDeclarationOfHate, but she realizes she still loves the player, no matter what.
** During Act 2, Monika makes a transparent bid for the main character's company and attention, causing a straight-up shouting match ending with the player forced to choose which girl he'll spend time with. Not only will the mouse gravitate automatically to the Monika option, but if you manage to click any other option, the game will also be interrupted by a white screen and ''staring eyeballs'', which then generates a whole-screen list of options, all of them reading "Monika."
* NotTooDeadToSaveTheDay: Even after having her [[RetGone character file deleted]] at the end of Act 3, Monika is still around in ''some'' form, as she pulls a BigDamnHeroes in the DownerEnding to save the player from Sayori. Presumably, she's still around in the GoldenEnding, but because Sayori doesn't go crazy when she takes the reins as president of the Literature Club, she probably doesn't see a reason to intervene anymore.
* ObliviousToTheirOwnDescription: In one of her conversations in Act 3, she discusses the {{Yandere}} trope, making note of how they'll do "absolutely anything to be with you" up to and including hurting their friends. She then notes that someone in the game matches the trope:
-->'''Monika:''' By now, it's pretty obvious who I'm talking about. And that would be... [[BaitAndSwitch Yuri!]]
* OnlySaneByComparison: She attempts to portray herself as the OnlySaneWoman by exaggerating the flaws of the other girls. While the other girls in Act 2 suffer from creepy glitches like their faces or sprites getting corrupted, their font abruptly changing, and their personalities and dialogue becoming more extreme, the worst Monika gets is that occasionally she'll appear in front of the interface. Basically, as everything becomes corrupted and disturbing, the game seems to try its hardest to keep Monika looking appealing and safe. Naturally, this is a huge red flag that she's behind it all.
* ThePerfectionist: Being the SchoolIdol has evidently given her a complex, and the way she puts pressure on herself to do everything right and appear perfect is explored in the side stories. Sayori helps her get over it.
* ThePhilosopher: Act 3 involves her thinking about various existential concepts and giving her thoughts on different serious subject matters.
* PhotoOpWithTheDog: [[AmbiguousSituation Possibly]] has a moment of this in Act 2. Natsuki falls asleep while reading manga as a result of not being able to eat thanks to neglect, but Monika offers her a protein bar, mentioning that she always keeps one handy for her. It's not fully clear if this was [[PetTheDog a genuine act of kindness]] or this trope, but the glitchiness Natsuki goes through during the scene, plus the fact that Monika wants to make the player think she's the most ideal love interest, suggests the latter.
* PungeonMaster:
** She keeps associating [[BlackComedy Sayori with the word "hang"]], though she says it's not on purpose the last time. (Before that, by developer's comments, she was just indulging in some VideoGameCrueltyPotential, but maybe she guesses the player isn't so amused after all.)
--->'''Monika:''' I was thinking about Sayori earlier... I still wish I could have handled that whole thing a little more tactfully. You're not still hung up over it, right? ...Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I just said that. That pun was completely unintentional, I swear!
** She claimed that Natsuki was starved for social interaction. What makes this wrong is that it's implied Natsuki's malnourished.
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Averted when Monika uses her [[SuddenlyVoiced actual voice]]. She clears her throat, slips into fillers like "um" and "like," and seems uncertain when she speaks. In other words, she sounds like a typical teenage girl who's trying to talk to her crush. Her singing voice is similar; she does get slightly off-key at points, but otherwise, she's still a good singer. She ''is'' still learning, after all, and didn't have much time to practice before she presented it.
** During some of her rambling during Act 3, she'll occasionally let a "like" slip into her dialogue
* RealityWarper: Deconstructed. Her meta-awareness and realization that she's in a video game comes with the ability to edit the game's code. This includes changing characters' personalities, [[UnPerson removing characters from the game entirely]], editing text, and creating a Monika route and railroading you towards it. However, doing so causes glitches due to Monika's lack of experience with editing code. She's altering reality, but she's doing it in a "brute-force" kind of way that leaves a lot of glitches and errors around her.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Her eyes briefly turn red during one of her JumpScare scenes.
* RefugeeFromTVLand: Her ultimate goal. Having [[NoticingTheFourthWall Noticed The Fourth Wall]], she has become obsessed with the player and wants to escape from the game and enter our world.
* RetGone: A more extreme case than with the other girls, as in both main endings after Monika has been deleted, she does not return under the pretence that a game world where someone like her exists can't truly be happy - and in one of those endings, she is tragically [[TheExtremistWasRight proven right]] when Sayori tries to pick up where she left off. Trying to restore her file yourself after Act 3 has her chastise you and re-delete herself.
* ScrewDestiny: Her underlying motive is to free herself from being a route-less supporting character, and to become the {{Love Interest|s}}.
* SelfHarm: One of the secret poems hinted to be written by Monika suggests that she tried cutting herself to see what Yuri got out of it. While she understood, she decided she wouldn't do it again unless she was going to kill herself, because she was supposed to be "the responsible one".
* ShipperOnDeck: During poetry meetings, she will bring up that a poem is something a particular girl will like, provide information about them, and tease the protagonist by asking if you're writing to impress them. This aspect of her is later subverted and deconstructed. Part of her frustration is that her entire purpose in the game is to, essentially, root for the other girls as they are programmed to fall in love with the protagonist while she sits on the sidelines. At the end of the day, Monika's true ship is Monika/player.
* ShuttingUpNow: Oddly enough, despite being the club president, she privately admits to the player character that she is terrible at putting her foot down. Whenever Sayori isn't around to help break up arguments or to get the girls on board for the festival, she tends to get violently rebuked and then just sits dejected in a corner. This LawfulPushover tendency is one of her main flaws in the side stories.
* SignificantGreenEyedRedhead: She has bright green eyes, reddish-brown hair, is front and center on the title screen, and turns out to be the {{Deuteragonist}} despite her not having a route.
* SingleTargetSexuality: She doesn't know the player's gender, and she does not care.
* SleepCute: One of [[https://twitter.com/lilmonix3/status/1001946080957911043 the images]] on her Twitter account is her half-awake while huddled up close to a sleeping Yuri. The description tells us it was taken during a sleepover between the two.
* SmittenTeenageGirl: And she happens to be smitten with [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou You.]]
* StalkerWithACrush: Everything she does is to get closer to the player, at the expense of the rest of the game.
* StaringDownCthulhu: Her MediumAwareness makes her a PhysicalGod within the confines of the game. That said, Act 3 involves a long one-on-one conversation with her. Goes both ways, since the player is an even greater PhysicalGod that can end her.
* SuddenlyVoiced: Jillian Ashcraft voices Monika in the credits, where she speaks with the player and sings the ending song.
* SuicideDare: Implied. When the player character notices Sayori acting off in Act 1, Monika decides to have a one-on-one conversation with her. It's unclear ''what'' they talk about, but some of Sayori's comments afterwards and [[GoodbyeCruelWorld final poem]] suggest that it's, at the very least, something that made her depression worse. Ironically, Monika herself is later horrified by Yuri telling her to kill herself towards the end of Act 2.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Repeatedly claims during her monologues that she no longer cares and isn't affected by all of her friends and literally everything is gone, which would be easier to buy if she wasn't always dwelling on things she could've done better or her past memories of them.
* ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine: She used her MediumAwareness to delete the other girls' character files from the game. Deleting Monika's own character file is how you defeat her.
* {{Troll}}: The [[NightmareFace neat trick]] she pulls if she catches the player streaming using programs such as OBS ''reeks'' of this, especially with her cheekily asking if she scared anyone afterwards.
* TookALevelInKindness: After being deleted at any point during Act 3, she apologizes for everything she did and reboots the game so everyone else can be happy together. She gets better by the credits though since she finally sings the song she had been practicing the whole game and depending on how you played the game; she might be the person you get the note from after the credits roll instead of the game developers.
** In the Side Stories, Monika is [[SheepInSheepsClothing genuinely as nice as she tries to come across]] due to lacking awareness of the fourth wall. That said, Monika in the Side Stories is technically supposed to be how Monika usually would be which arguably would mean that [[TookALevelInJerkass it was her main game incarnation that deviated]].
* UnPerson: Has been erased and forgotten by Yuri, Natsuki, the player character, and seemingly Sayori in Act 4, after the player deletes her character file and Sayori suddenly has her role instead as Club President. However, Sayori reveals she still remembers her and all her actions.
* UnreliableExpositor: She's usually the one to explain some of the other girls' conditions, but considering she's {{Flanderiz|ation}}ing their negative qualities to look better it's a little hard to tell how accurate she is.
* VillainProtagonist: Ultimately, the story is about her, her gaining self-awareness, and her subsequent breakdown.
* VillainsDyingGrace: After the player deletes her character file, she undergoes a HeelRealization and understands how terrible she must have been to drive the player to do so. She then reveals that she didn't have the heart to delete the other girls completely, and restores their character files and the game scenario while accepting her fate.
* VocalDissonance: A mild case. Her voice sounds like a normal girl recording herself unprofessionally rather than having a polished, clearly-enunciated, distinctive and unrealistic voice like most English dubbed anime characters, which reflects her self-awareness and sentience.
* WalkingSpoiler: Monika isn't exactly who she seems, and is the villain of the game.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Of all the girls, Monika is the only one with an awareness of her status as a video game character, and that awareness also comes with the ability to (crudely) modify the game's scripts. That ability, coupled with her repeated failures to fully break out of her role as a supporting character in the game's narrative, ultimately leads to her apocalyptic obsession with the player.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Monika is the self-appointed president of the Literature Club. Growing insane due to her title, Monika becomes angered at not having her own route. To this end, Monika accentuates the girls' negative traits to make them less appealing before opting to delete their character files when that fails. Destroying her world so she could be the only being in the game, Monika realizes what she had become when deleted. Monika's attempts at fixing her mistake go awry, forcing her to permanently delete the game, declaring that no happiness could be found in the Literature Club.
* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: One of Monika's Act 3 conversations has her describe Sayori's last moments to you in painful detail, explaining how [[CruelAndUnusualDeath she didn't hang herself high enough off the ground for a quick and painless death]][[note]]This particular dialogue was removed in ''Plus!'', but remains in the original game[[/note]] and how she tried to claw her way out of the noose as a result of either MidSuicideRegret or survival instinct kicking in. Unusually for this trope, Monika doesn't have any malicious intent in revealing this: she sincerely believes you have the right to know due to your care for Sayori. By this point in the game, however, her LackOfEmpathy for the other girls is so great that the horrific nature of Sayori's death hardly affects her.
* {{Yandere}}: Monika will MindRape, manipulate, and flat-out delete other girls from the game, just to make sure she has you all to herself.
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The mysterious company responsible for the development of DDLC. Absent from the original game, they are introduced in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!]]'', giving a new backstory for what's going on in the game. They created the original ''Doki Doki'' universe where the main game takes place, as well as a control universe where the side stories take place, as an experiment to see how one would deal with the situation of being trapped in an artificial universe. Their e-mails and files are accessible as the player progresses and gets achievements throughout the game.
to:
The mysterious company responsible for the development of DDLC. Absent from the original game, they are introduced in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!]]'', giving a new backstory for what's going on in the game. They Team Salvato, a group within the company, created the original ''Doki Doki'' universe where the main game takes place, as well as a control universe where the side stories take place, as an experiment to see how one would deal with the situation of being trapped in an artificial universe, which they believe to be true for their own universe. Their e-mails and files are accessible as the player progresses and gets achievements throughout the game.
Added DiffLines:
* TheDogWasTheMastermind: Team Salvato aren't just the developers of the actual game; they turn out to be the in-universe team of developers of the in-universe game, who created it as an experiment in AI.
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* CharacterTics: She sometimes leans forward and pokes her forefingers together, especially when she calls the player character a "meanie".
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* CharacterTics: She sometimes leans forward and pokes her forefingers together, together while puffing her cheeks, especially when she calls the player character a "meanie".
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* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Not so much towards the other girls, but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
to:
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: [[JerkassToOne Not so much towards the other girls, girls]], but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness.klutziness, to the point that the first thing he says (in his head) about her is that he considers her annoying. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Main character/protagonist always goes first.
Changed line(s) 7,13 (click to see context) from:
[[folder:Sayori]]
!!Sayori
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sayori_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Bundle of Sunshine'']]
->''"You're wrong. Nothing happened to me. I've always been like this. You're just seeing it for the first time."''
She is your {{Childhood Friend|s}} who invites you to the Literature Club. Sayori has a bright, vibrant personality, [[CuteClumsyGirl even if she can get a little klutzy]].
!!Sayori
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sayori_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Bundle of Sunshine'']]
->''"You're wrong. Nothing happened to me. I've always been like this. You're just seeing it for the first time."''
She is your {{Childhood Friend|s}} who invites you to the Literature Club. Sayori has a bright, vibrant personality, [[CuteClumsyGirl even if she can get a little klutzy]].
to:
!!Sayori
[[quoteright:350:https://static.
!!Main Character
[[quoteright:319:https://static.tvtropes.
[[caption-width-right:350:''Bundle
[[caption-width-right:319:A sketch of
->''"You're wrong. Nothing happened to me. I've always been
She is your {{Childhood Friend|s}} who invites you
The player character, a typical Japanese high school student with typical otaku interests. His introduction to the Literature
* AccidentalPervert: {{Subverted}}. He helps Natsuki take a box of manga from a tall shelf by attempting to stabilize a swivel chair. However, he notices that he is in a position where he can look up her skirt, so he tries to look away. Unfortunately, Natsuki notices this and accuses him of setting her up... before eventually apologizing for taking out her bad day on him.
* AdaptedOut: He's completely absent in the side stories of ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' Instead of "Adapted-Out", he was never "[[{{Inverted|Trope}} Adapted-In]]" to the side stories' universe in the first place. In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus'', an e-mail from one of the developers that created the Doki Doki universe reveals the side stories that took place in a separate control universe that they also created. It also reveals that the Main Character doesn't exist at all in the side stories' universe, as they never created him in either one. Someone else created him in the main universe. That developer suspects Monika did after she became self-aware, as an attempt to get in touch with the "user" (presumably the player). Sayori, in the first side story, does briefly reference him by mentioning a friend who likes anime, but perhaps a reference doesn't count as an actual character given the nature of things taking place in a pre-programmed artificial universe.
* AngerBornOfWorry: Not ''anger'', per se, but he often seems frustrated when talking to Sayori, especially about her depression, since she claims he can't help her. He very much ''wants'' to help her, because she's his close friend and he cares about her, but unfortunately, depression isn't something one person can fix. His occasional sharpness stems mainly from wanting to help Sayori feel better, but having no clue ''how''.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: After Sayori gives her own anguished declaration of love, the player character has the option to reciprocate with one of his own.
* ArtificialHuman: Possibly. One developer theorizes that Monika cobbled him together as a "fifth entity", giving players a proxy to interact with the world of ''DDLC.'' That being so, he still is perceived as being as human as the others by other characters of the universe, essentially making him this in the ''Doki Doki'' universe.
* AscendedExtra: A retroactive example in the side stories of ''Plus''. He was only mentioned in a passing comment by Sayori as being the "friend" that likes anime, and with him being the "Main Character" in the main game while the side stories chronologically take place before that, it would be an obvious reference. However, as revealed by the developers, he was never supposed to exist as a "character" in the first place, since they believed that Monika was responsible for cobbling together a "fifth entity" (i.e. him) for the actual players to interact with her. Meaning that while he does "technically" exist by virtue of Sayori's mentioning, he's no more than TheGhost used for flavoring purposes.
* AudienceSurrogate:
** Played with. He's, in a sense, even more a victim of the narrative than the girls. While the player obviously remembers and notices, the player character himself completely forgets Sayori after she's deleted along with everyone else, and in Act 2, he shows absolutely no reaction to the glitching, oddities like Natsuki forgetting her argument with Yuri, and even the more extreme outbursts by Natsuki and Yuri. By the time Yuri madly confesses her love to him in Act 2, he no longer even speaks, and when Monika finally starts addressing the player directly, he essentially ceases to exist until Act 4.
** In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'', one of the programmers of the ''Doki Doki'' universe suspects it was Monika who created the Main Character in an attempt to contact and interact with the player. If true, that means he was created to be an audience surrogate in-universe. It would also explain ''why'' the MC never reacts to any of the Act 2 glitches or grows suspicious of Monika, while Yuri and Natsuki do.
* BlankSlate:
** Despite having his own personality and traits, the Main Character is honestly nothing more than an avatar for the Players to navigate in the story. WordOfGod even confirms this in an anniversary stream on ''[[https://www.twitch.tv/dansalvato/clip/MiniatureDirtyDragonMVGame Twitch]]'' and his Reddit post.
--->'''Dan Salvato:''' I don't imagine him as a character in the same way as the other characters. He's just a blank slate that says whatever is convenient.\\\
'''Dan Salvato:''' MC is the nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games. His main purpose is for the girls to interact with you. It's true that you can discover a few details about his life, but he's deliberately given little to no focus compared with everyone else.
** Confirmed in-universe too. One of the developers of the universe notes that he has "such limited and dissonant personality traits", and believes that's evidence Monika created him solely as a way to interact with the player.
* CanonName: He was called Ive in the [=DDLC=] Plus Gameplay Trailer.
** One of the in-universe developers of the program is named Ive. This could mean that Ive the developer was either beta testing the program during the trailer, or Ive is canonically the user who was playing as the MC, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone which would explain why he started being less talkative during company meetings.]]
* ChickMagnet: Like any visual novel protagonist, all the female characters in the game are attracted to him. Most notable are Yuri and Natsuki, who only get to know the protagonist for about a week before attempting to kiss him. With the official DDLC+ sketch of him, you can really tell ''why'' the girls would find him attractive.
* ClosetGeek: He really likes anime and manga, but is conscious that people could look down on him for this. When Yuri asks what books he reads, he is embarrassed that he can only answer with "manga." Later, when Natsuki says that she likes manga, he is reluctant to tell her how much he likes it until he's sure that she's as into it as him. At one point, he even bemoans how difficult it is to find friends that won't judge a person's nerdy hobbies, much less ones that share them.
* DecoyProtagonist: While he's set up as the protagonist at first, the story's more focused on Monika being self-aware, and the actual protagonist ends up being the player themselves when he is removed from the narrative near the end of Act 2.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: Appreciates the beautiful girls in the club.
* EmptyShell: After Yuri's suicide, he is rendered totally mute, and by the start of Act 3, he serves as nothing more than an empty vessel Monika uses to facilitate communication with the player.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's meant to be portrayed as a complete dick since that's how Salvato interprets the typical visual novel protagonist. That said, he's genuinely horrified after witnessing Sayori and Yuri's individual suicides, to the point where he has a HeroicBSOD.
* ExtremeDoormat: Downplayed. He mostly acts like this during the earlier parts of Acts 1 and 2. He allows the other characters to guilt him into joining the Literature Club despite his lack of interest.
* TheFaceless: Only once do we even see him onscreen, when Sayori hugs him toward the end of Act 1, and only the back of his head is seen. All we can see is that he has short brown hair. A possible foreshadowing of the fact that he is not truly an AudienceSurrogate, although it could just as well be explained by his ''being'' a supposed audience surrogate. ''DDLC Plus'' does have a piece of unlockable artwork showing what he would have looked like (from the torso up), however.
* ForcedToWatch: Watches Yuri's corpse decomposing over the weekend because he can't move from his spot. Interestingly, it was because of a glitch, making this a meta version for the player.
* TheGadfly: More prominently towards Natsuki, who also teases him back. This is perhaps best seen when they bake cupcakes together. At one point, they try to fling icing at each other, but the player character gains the upper hand and stops her. After Natsuki apologizes for calling him gross (the player character told her that there are guys who are into her body type) and tells him that he should not be teasing girls, the player character impishly takes Natsuki's finger and licks off the icing, flustering her.
* GeekPhysiques:
** From what we can see of his body in the main game, fitting with his borderline {{NEET}} status.
** {{Averted|Trope}} with his official ''DDLC+'' sketch, however, looking much more fit and broad-shouldered.
* TheGhost: This was his entire role in the side stories of ''DDLC+'', being only a passing mention by Sayori as the "friend" who likes anime. That's also getting into the fact that he doesn't really exist as his own character in the first place.
* HaremSeeker: A minor case. Even if you, the player, are focused on another girl, he will still have an obvious moment with whichever girl comes round to his house to help with the festival preparations. No doubt, walking out just in time to see them nearly kiss does no good for Sayori's already shattered confidence.
* HeroicBSOD:
** When he finds Sayori having committed suicide, he is in abject horror and guilt and tries to deny that it had happened until he bitterly accepts the reality.
** After Yuri stabs herself to death, he suffers a massive one, so much so that it leaves him catatonic for the entire weekend. Of course, this only applies if you interpret the scene with him as a character being present as opposed to the game glitching while he's essentially stopped existing.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: He feels responsible for Sayori's death and blames himself for not doing anything to prevent it. Not that he could prevent it from happening, because Sayori killed herself before he even woke up.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He's irritated by Sayori's arrival at the beginning of the game, and criticizes her tendency to oversleep. Her oversleeping is a symptom of her growing depression, and her friendship with the main character is her biggest coping mechanism.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Not so much towards the other girls, but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Sayori. Extremely. When their relationship starts to change, she is seriously affected.
* MadeMyselfSad: Near the end of Act 1, when talking to Monika, he cracks another joke about Sayori oversleeping only to immediately remember what she said about her depression, causing him to shut up and feel bad about what he said.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Downplayed. He's certainly pleased that the Literature Club is full of attractive girls, but this isn't his only motivation for joining.
* MeaningfulName: His CanonName is '''Ive''', which is a written proposition of oneself.
** Ive is [[GeniusBonus also]] the Frisian form of Ivo, which means "yew tree". In some cultures such as Celtic, the yew tree symbolizes death and rebirth. Acts 1, 2 and 3 eventually kill off the girls, while Act 4 has Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri brought back to life, only for Monika or Sayori to delete the game.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: No matter what, he blames himself for Sayori's suicide.
* {{NEET}}: Sayori encourages him to join a club out of fear that he's destined to become one.
* NiceGuy: Downplayed, as he wasn’t written to be a “real” character, but he is generally polite and considerate towards the girls in the game. Although, he's initially less so with Sayori (a lifelong friend whom he tends to take for granted and teases for her flaws, such as her constant oversleeping) and with Yuri and Natsuki's first argument (where his thought process is more about impressing one of the girls rather than defusing the argument or even saying what he really thinks). Anyhow, aside from genre inevitability, this is basically why at least Yuri and Natsuki fall for him: he's patient and considerate enough to naturally give them the opportunity to finally get close to someone in spite of their quirky personalities.
* TheOneGuy: The only male character in an otherwise all-female cast.
* {{Otaku}}: He is an avid fan of anime and manga, at one point becoming mildly annoyed that something could disrupt his daily anime watching.
* OutOfFocus: As the game goes on, he starts contributing less to the story and eventually more or less vanishes from the story after Yuri's suicide. On a meta note, he's also the only character in the game never to appear in any official merchandise.
* PerpetualFrowner: His official DDLC+ sketch of him has this expression. Even in-game, you can pretty much guess his expression through his dialogue.
* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.
* PlayerCharacter: He's the avatar for the player and in fact, this is the reason why his character is not at all brought up in the end game, since the actual living player is the one Monika is after.
* PrettyBoy: The official DDLC+ sketch of him as an ''actual'' character depicts him this way.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's a typical romance visual novel protagonist. He has a (relatively) inoffensive and relatable personality, and the female characters are attracted to him despite his mundanity. This is later {{averted|Trope}} as his official DDLC+ sketch depicts him as a {{Bishonen}}.
* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: Judging from what little is seen of him, he appears to be wearing an (appropriately enough, black) school uniform at all times.
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: With everyone interested in him, he repeatedly has to tell this to someone about someone else, although it's not always true that he's ''not'' pursuing that girl.
* TookALevelInKindness: He's a lot nicer to Sayori in Act 4, admiring her strong points and joining the Literature Club as her friend rather than [[HaremSeeker for the cute girls]]. Sayori being [[HostileShowTakeover the new president]] might have something to do with this.
* VitriolicBestBuds: A largely one-sided case with Sayori, whom he pokes fun at for her behaviors and habits in a BrutalHonesty fashion. This may come across as harsher to the player (who unlike him, is just meeting Sayori), but he clearly does mean well and tries to be there for her when she reveals to him that she suffers from chronic depression, and has a HeroicBSOD when he finds her body. In turn, Sayori can poke fun at the player character, like when she chides him for staying up late and says that he is not in the napping club.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Towards the end of Act 2, he essentially exits the narrative when he stops talking and no longer shows any reaction to anything. His apparent removal is not addressed like it is with the girls. Perhaps the only acknowledgment of this is Monika dismissing him as irrelevant next to you, the player. This is partially averted when he seamlessly returns for Act 4, but the final ending doesn't shed much light on his ultimate fate (if any).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sayori]]
!!Sayori
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sayori_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Bundle of Sunshine'']]
->''"You're wrong. Nothing happened to me. I've always been like this. You're just seeing it for the first time."''
She is your {{Childhood Friend|s}} who invites you to the Literature Club. Sayori has a bright, vibrant personality, [[CuteClumsyGirl even if she can get a little klutzy]].
----
* AdaptedOut: He's completely absent in the side stories of ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' Instead of "Adapted-Out", he was never "[[{{Inverted|Trope}} Adapted-In]]" to the side stories' universe in the first place. In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus'', an e-mail from one of the developers that created the Doki Doki universe reveals the side stories that took place in a separate control universe that they also created. It also reveals that the Main Character doesn't exist at all in the side stories' universe, as they never created him in either one. Someone else created him in the main universe. That developer suspects Monika did after she became self-aware, as an attempt to get in touch with the "user" (presumably the player). Sayori, in the first side story, does briefly reference him by mentioning a friend who likes anime, but perhaps a reference doesn't count as an actual character given the nature of things taking place in a pre-programmed artificial universe.
* AngerBornOfWorry: Not ''anger'', per se, but he often seems frustrated when talking to Sayori, especially about her depression, since she claims he can't help her. He very much ''wants'' to help her, because she's his close friend and he cares about her, but unfortunately, depression isn't something one person can fix. His occasional sharpness stems mainly from wanting to help Sayori feel better, but having no clue ''how''.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: After Sayori gives her own anguished declaration of love, the player character has the option to reciprocate with one of his own.
* ArtificialHuman: Possibly. One developer theorizes that Monika cobbled him together as a "fifth entity", giving players a proxy to interact with the world of ''DDLC.'' That being so, he still is perceived as being as human as the others by other characters of the universe, essentially making him this in the ''Doki Doki'' universe.
* AscendedExtra: A retroactive example in the side stories of ''Plus''. He was only mentioned in a passing comment by Sayori as being the "friend" that likes anime, and with him being the "Main Character" in the main game while the side stories chronologically take place before that, it would be an obvious reference. However, as revealed by the developers, he was never supposed to exist as a "character" in the first place, since they believed that Monika was responsible for cobbling together a "fifth entity" (i.e. him) for the actual players to interact with her. Meaning that while he does "technically" exist by virtue of Sayori's mentioning, he's no more than TheGhost used for flavoring purposes.
* AudienceSurrogate:
** Played with. He's, in a sense, even more a victim of the narrative than the girls. While the player obviously remembers and notices, the player character himself completely forgets Sayori after she's deleted along with everyone else, and in Act 2, he shows absolutely no reaction to the glitching, oddities like Natsuki forgetting her argument with Yuri, and even the more extreme outbursts by Natsuki and Yuri. By the time Yuri madly confesses her love to him in Act 2, he no longer even speaks, and when Monika finally starts addressing the player directly, he essentially ceases to exist until Act 4.
** In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'', one of the programmers of the ''Doki Doki'' universe suspects it was Monika who created the Main Character in an attempt to contact and interact with the player. If true, that means he was created to be an audience surrogate in-universe. It would also explain ''why'' the MC never reacts to any of the Act 2 glitches or grows suspicious of Monika, while Yuri and Natsuki do.
* BlankSlate:
** Despite having his own personality and traits, the Main Character is honestly nothing more than an avatar for the Players to navigate in the story. WordOfGod even confirms this in an anniversary stream on ''[[https://www.twitch.tv/dansalvato/clip/MiniatureDirtyDragonMVGame Twitch]]'' and his Reddit post.
--->'''Dan Salvato:''' I don't imagine him as a character in the same way as the other characters. He's just a blank slate that says whatever is convenient.\\\
'''Dan Salvato:''' MC is the nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games. His main purpose is for the girls to interact with you. It's true that you can discover a few details about his life, but he's deliberately given little to no focus compared with everyone else.
** Confirmed in-universe too. One of the developers of the universe notes that he has "such limited and dissonant personality traits", and believes that's evidence Monika created him solely as a way to interact with the player.
* CanonName: He was called Ive in the [=DDLC=] Plus Gameplay Trailer.
** One of the in-universe developers of the program is named Ive. This could mean that Ive the developer was either beta testing the program during the trailer, or Ive is canonically the user who was playing as the MC, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone which would explain why he started being less talkative during company meetings.]]
* ChickMagnet: Like any visual novel protagonist, all the female characters in the game are attracted to him. Most notable are Yuri and Natsuki, who only get to know the protagonist for about a week before attempting to kiss him. With the official DDLC+ sketch of him, you can really tell ''why'' the girls would find him attractive.
* ClosetGeek: He really likes anime and manga, but is conscious that people could look down on him for this. When Yuri asks what books he reads, he is embarrassed that he can only answer with "manga." Later, when Natsuki says that she likes manga, he is reluctant to tell her how much he likes it until he's sure that she's as into it as him. At one point, he even bemoans how difficult it is to find friends that won't judge a person's nerdy hobbies, much less ones that share them.
* DecoyProtagonist: While he's set up as the protagonist at first, the story's more focused on Monika being self-aware, and the actual protagonist ends up being the player themselves when he is removed from the narrative near the end of Act 2.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: Appreciates the beautiful girls in the club.
* EmptyShell: After Yuri's suicide, he is rendered totally mute, and by the start of Act 3, he serves as nothing more than an empty vessel Monika uses to facilitate communication with the player.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's meant to be portrayed as a complete dick since that's how Salvato interprets the typical visual novel protagonist. That said, he's genuinely horrified after witnessing Sayori and Yuri's individual suicides, to the point where he has a HeroicBSOD.
* ExtremeDoormat: Downplayed. He mostly acts like this during the earlier parts of Acts 1 and 2. He allows the other characters to guilt him into joining the Literature Club despite his lack of interest.
* TheFaceless: Only once do we even see him onscreen, when Sayori hugs him toward the end of Act 1, and only the back of his head is seen. All we can see is that he has short brown hair. A possible foreshadowing of the fact that he is not truly an AudienceSurrogate, although it could just as well be explained by his ''being'' a supposed audience surrogate. ''DDLC Plus'' does have a piece of unlockable artwork showing what he would have looked like (from the torso up), however.
* ForcedToWatch: Watches Yuri's corpse decomposing over the weekend because he can't move from his spot. Interestingly, it was because of a glitch, making this a meta version for the player.
* TheGadfly: More prominently towards Natsuki, who also teases him back. This is perhaps best seen when they bake cupcakes together. At one point, they try to fling icing at each other, but the player character gains the upper hand and stops her. After Natsuki apologizes for calling him gross (the player character told her that there are guys who are into her body type) and tells him that he should not be teasing girls, the player character impishly takes Natsuki's finger and licks off the icing, flustering her.
* GeekPhysiques:
** From what we can see of his body in the main game, fitting with his borderline {{NEET}} status.
** {{Averted|Trope}} with his official ''DDLC+'' sketch, however, looking much more fit and broad-shouldered.
* TheGhost: This was his entire role in the side stories of ''DDLC+'', being only a passing mention by Sayori as the "friend" who likes anime. That's also getting into the fact that he doesn't really exist as his own character in the first place.
* HaremSeeker: A minor case. Even if you, the player, are focused on another girl, he will still have an obvious moment with whichever girl comes round to his house to help with the festival preparations. No doubt, walking out just in time to see them nearly kiss does no good for Sayori's already shattered confidence.
* HeroicBSOD:
** When he finds Sayori having committed suicide, he is in abject horror and guilt and tries to deny that it had happened until he bitterly accepts the reality.
** After Yuri stabs herself to death, he suffers a massive one, so much so that it leaves him catatonic for the entire weekend. Of course, this only applies if you interpret the scene with him as a character being present as opposed to the game glitching while he's essentially stopped existing.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: He feels responsible for Sayori's death and blames himself for not doing anything to prevent it. Not that he could prevent it from happening, because Sayori killed herself before he even woke up.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He's irritated by Sayori's arrival at the beginning of the game, and criticizes her tendency to oversleep. Her oversleeping is a symptom of her growing depression, and her friendship with the main character is her biggest coping mechanism.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Not so much towards the other girls, but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Sayori. Extremely. When their relationship starts to change, she is seriously affected.
* MadeMyselfSad: Near the end of Act 1, when talking to Monika, he cracks another joke about Sayori oversleeping only to immediately remember what she said about her depression, causing him to shut up and feel bad about what he said.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Downplayed. He's certainly pleased that the Literature Club is full of attractive girls, but this isn't his only motivation for joining.
* MeaningfulName: His CanonName is '''Ive''', which is a written proposition of oneself.
** Ive is [[GeniusBonus also]] the Frisian form of Ivo, which means "yew tree". In some cultures such as Celtic, the yew tree symbolizes death and rebirth. Acts 1, 2 and 3 eventually kill off the girls, while Act 4 has Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri brought back to life, only for Monika or Sayori to delete the game.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: No matter what, he blames himself for Sayori's suicide.
* {{NEET}}: Sayori encourages him to join a club out of fear that he's destined to become one.
* NiceGuy: Downplayed, as he wasn’t written to be a “real” character, but he is generally polite and considerate towards the girls in the game. Although, he's initially less so with Sayori (a lifelong friend whom he tends to take for granted and teases for her flaws, such as her constant oversleeping) and with Yuri and Natsuki's first argument (where his thought process is more about impressing one of the girls rather than defusing the argument or even saying what he really thinks). Anyhow, aside from genre inevitability, this is basically why at least Yuri and Natsuki fall for him: he's patient and considerate enough to naturally give them the opportunity to finally get close to someone in spite of their quirky personalities.
* TheOneGuy: The only male character in an otherwise all-female cast.
* {{Otaku}}: He is an avid fan of anime and manga, at one point becoming mildly annoyed that something could disrupt his daily anime watching.
* OutOfFocus: As the game goes on, he starts contributing less to the story and eventually more or less vanishes from the story after Yuri's suicide. On a meta note, he's also the only character in the game never to appear in any official merchandise.
* PerpetualFrowner: His official DDLC+ sketch of him has this expression. Even in-game, you can pretty much guess his expression through his dialogue.
* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.
* PlayerCharacter: He's the avatar for the player and in fact, this is the reason why his character is not at all brought up in the end game, since the actual living player is the one Monika is after.
* PrettyBoy: The official DDLC+ sketch of him as an ''actual'' character depicts him this way.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's a typical romance visual novel protagonist. He has a (relatively) inoffensive and relatable personality, and the female characters are attracted to him despite his mundanity. This is later {{averted|Trope}} as his official DDLC+ sketch depicts him as a {{Bishonen}}.
* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: Judging from what little is seen of him, he appears to be wearing an (appropriately enough, black) school uniform at all times.
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: With everyone interested in him, he repeatedly has to tell this to someone about someone else, although it's not always true that he's ''not'' pursuing that girl.
* TookALevelInKindness: He's a lot nicer to Sayori in Act 4, admiring her strong points and joining the Literature Club as her friend rather than [[HaremSeeker for the cute girls]]. Sayori being [[HostileShowTakeover the new president]] might have something to do with this.
* VitriolicBestBuds: A largely one-sided case with Sayori, whom he pokes fun at for her behaviors and habits in a BrutalHonesty fashion. This may come across as harsher to the player (who unlike him, is just meeting Sayori), but he clearly does mean well and tries to be there for her when she reveals to him that she suffers from chronic depression, and has a HeroicBSOD when he finds her body. In turn, Sayori can poke fun at the player character, like when she chides him for staying up late and says that he is not in the napping club.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Towards the end of Act 2, he essentially exits the narrative when he stops talking and no longer shows any reaction to anything. His apparent removal is not addressed like it is with the girls. Perhaps the only acknowledgment of this is Monika dismissing him as irrelevant next to you, the player. This is partially averted when he seamlessly returns for Act 4, but the final ending doesn't shed much light on his ultimate fate (if any).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Sayori]]
!!Sayori
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sayori_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Bundle of Sunshine'']]
->''"You're wrong. Nothing happened to me. I've always been like this. You're just seeing it for the first time."''
She is your {{Childhood Friend|s}} who invites you to the Literature Club. Sayori has a bright, vibrant personality, [[CuteClumsyGirl even if she can get a little klutzy]].
----
Changed line(s) 335,339 (click to see context) from:
[[folder:Main Character]]
!!Main Character
[[quoteright:319:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ddlc_mc.PNG]]
[[caption-width-right:319:A sketch of what he'd look like if he were a ”real” character, as of ''[=DDLC Plus=]''.]]
The player character, a typical Japanese high school student with typical otaku interests. His introduction to the Literature Club is what drives the story. [[HelloInsertNamehere You decide his name]].
!!Main Character
[[quoteright:319:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ddlc_mc.PNG]]
[[caption-width-right:319:A sketch of what he'd look like if he were a ”real” character, as of ''[=DDLC Plus=]''.]]
The player character, a typical Japanese high school student with typical otaku interests. His introduction to the Literature Club is what drives the story. [[HelloInsertNamehere You decide his name]].
to:
!!Main Character
[[quoteright:319:https://static.
!!Metaverse Enterprise Solutions[=/=]Team Salvato
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.
[[caption-width-right:319:A sketch of what he'd look like if he were a ”real” character, as of ''[=DDLC Plus=]''.]]
-->With world-class engineers and industry-leading specialists, Metaverse Enterprise Solutions will always deliver solutions that last. Cost-per-year analysis shows that Metaverse solution saves up to 30% in the long run. And our flexible support model ensures that quality can be delivered at the price point that is right for your company size.\\
[...]\\
With solutions you can count on and experts you can trust, this is our promise to you: You're In Good Company.\\\
The
Deleted line(s) 341,410 (click to see context) :
* AccidentalPervert: {{Subverted}}. He helps Natsuki take a box of manga from a tall shelf by attempting to stabilize a swivel chair. However, he notices that he is in a position where he can look up her skirt, so he tries to look away. Unfortunately, Natsuki notices this and accuses him of setting her up... before eventually apologizing for taking out her bad day on him.
* AdaptedOut: He's completely absent in the side stories of ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' Instead of "Adapted-Out", he was never "[[{{Inverted|Trope}} Adapted-In]]" to the side stories' universe in the first place. In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus'', an e-mail from one of the developers that created the Doki Doki universe reveals the side stories that took place in a separate control universe that they also created. It also reveals that the Main Character doesn't exist at all in the side stories' universe, as they never created him in either one. Someone else created him in the main universe. That developer suspects Monika did after she became self-aware, as an attempt to get in touch with the "user" (presumably the player). Sayori, in the first side story, does briefly reference him by mentioning a friend who likes anime, but perhaps a reference doesn't count as an actual character given the nature of things taking place in a pre-programmed artificial universe.
* AngerBornOfWorry: Not ''anger'', per se, but he often seems frustrated when talking to Sayori, especially about her depression, since she claims he can't help her. He very much ''wants'' to help her, because she's his close friend and he cares about her, but unfortunately, depression isn't something one person can fix. His occasional sharpness stems mainly from wanting to help Sayori feel better, but having no clue ''how''.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: After Sayori gives her own anguished declaration of love, the player character has the option to reciprocate with one of his own.
* ArtificialHuman: Possibly. One developer theorizes that Monika cobbled him together as a "fifth entity", giving players a proxy to interact with the world of ''DDLC.'' That being so, he still is perceived as being as human as the others by other characters of the universe, essentially making him this in the ''Doki Doki'' universe.
* AscendedExtra: A retroactive example in the side stories of ''Plus''. He was only mentioned in a passing comment by Sayori as being the "friend" that likes anime, and with him being the "Main Character" in the main game while the side stories chronologically take place before that, it would be an obvious reference. However, as revealed by the developers, he was never supposed to exist as a "character" in the first place, since they believed that Monika was responsible for cobbling together a "fifth entity" (i.e. him) for the actual players to interact with her. Meaning that while he does "technically" exist by virtue of Sayori's mentioning, he's no more than TheGhost used for flavoring purposes.
* AudienceSurrogate:
** Played with. He's, in a sense, even more a victim of the narrative than the girls. While the player obviously remembers and notices, the player character himself completely forgets Sayori after she's deleted along with everyone else, and in Act 2, he shows absolutely no reaction to the glitching, oddities like Natsuki forgetting her argument with Yuri, and even the more extreme outbursts by Natsuki and Yuri. By the time Yuri madly confesses her love to him in Act 2, he no longer even speaks, and when Monika finally starts addressing the player directly, he essentially ceases to exist until Act 4.
** In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'', one of the programmers of the ''Doki Doki'' universe suspects it was Monika who created the Main Character in an attempt to contact and interact with the player. If true, that means he was created to be an audience surrogate in-universe. It would also explain ''why'' the MC never reacts to any of the Act 2 glitches or grows suspicious of Monika, while Yuri and Natsuki do.
* BlankSlate:
** Despite having his own personality and traits, the Main Character is honestly nothing more than an avatar for the Players to navigate in the story. WordOfGod even confirms this in an anniversary stream on ''[[https://www.twitch.tv/dansalvato/clip/MiniatureDirtyDragonMVGame Twitch]]'' and his Reddit post.
--->'''Dan Salvato:''' I don't imagine him as a character in the same way as the other characters. He's just a blank slate that says whatever is convenient.\\\
'''Dan Salvato:''' MC is the nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games. His main purpose is for the girls to interact with you. It's true that you can discover a few details about his life, but he's deliberately given little to no focus compared with everyone else.
** Confirmed in-universe too. One of the developers of the universe notes that he has "such limited and dissonant personality traits", and believes that's evidence Monika created him solely as a way to interact with the player.
* CanonName: He was called Ive in the [=DDLC=] Plus Gameplay Trailer.
** One of the in-universe developers of the program is named Ive. This could mean that Ive the developer was either beta testing the program during the trailer, or Ive is canonically the user who was playing as the MC, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone which would explain why he started being less talkative during company meetings.]]
* ChickMagnet: Like any visual novel protagonist, all the female characters in the game are attracted to him. Most notable are Yuri and Natsuki, who only get to know the protagonist for about a week before attempting to kiss him. With the official DDLC+ sketch of him, you can really tell ''why'' the girls would find him attractive.
* ClosetGeek: He really likes anime and manga, but is conscious that people could look down on him for this. When Yuri asks what books he reads, he is embarrassed that he can only answer with "manga." Later, when Natsuki says that she likes manga, he is reluctant to tell her how much he likes it until he's sure that she's as into it as him. At one point, he even bemoans how difficult it is to find friends that won't judge a person's nerdy hobbies, much less ones that share them.
* DecoyProtagonist: While he's set up as the protagonist at first, the story's more focused on Monika being self-aware, and the actual protagonist ends up being the player themselves when he is removed from the narrative near the end of Act 2.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: Appreciates the beautiful girls in the club.
* EmptyShell: After Yuri's suicide, he is rendered totally mute, and by the start of Act 3, he serves as nothing more than an empty vessel Monika uses to facilitate communication with the player.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's meant to be portrayed as a complete dick since that's how Salvato interprets the typical visual novel protagonist. That said, he's genuinely horrified after witnessing Sayori and Yuri's individual suicides, to the point where he has a HeroicBSOD.
* ExtremeDoormat: Downplayed. He mostly acts like this during the earlier parts of Acts 1 and 2. He allows the other characters to guilt him into joining the Literature Club despite his lack of interest.
* TheFaceless: Only once do we even see him onscreen, when Sayori hugs him toward the end of Act 1, and only the back of his head is seen. All we can see is that he has short brown hair. A possible foreshadowing of the fact that he is not truly an AudienceSurrogate, although it could just as well be explained by his ''being'' a supposed audience surrogate. ''DDLC Plus'' does have a piece of unlockable artwork showing what he would have looked like (from the torso up), however.
* ForcedToWatch: Watches Yuri's corpse decomposing over the weekend because he can't move from his spot. Interestingly, it was because of a glitch, making this a meta version for the player.
* TheGadfly: More prominently towards Natsuki, who also teases him back. This is perhaps best seen when they bake cupcakes together. At one point, they try to fling icing at each other, but the player character gains the upper hand and stops her. After Natsuki apologizes for calling him gross (the player character told her that there are guys who are into her body type) and tells him that he should not be teasing girls, the player character impishly takes Natsuki's finger and licks off the icing, flustering her.
* GeekPhysiques:
** From what we can see of his body in the main game, fitting with his borderline {{NEET}} status.
** {{Averted|Trope}} with his official ''DDLC+'' sketch, however, looking much more fit and broad-shouldered.
* TheGhost: This was his entire role in the side stories of ''DDLC+'', being only a passing mention by Sayori as the "friend" who likes anime. That's also getting into the fact that he doesn't really exist as his own character in the first place.
* HaremSeeker: A minor case. Even if you, the player, are focused on another girl, he will still have an obvious moment with whichever girl comes round to his house to help with the festival preparations. No doubt, walking out just in time to see them nearly kiss does no good for Sayori's already shattered confidence.
* HeroicBSOD:
** When he finds Sayori having committed suicide, he is in abject horror and guilt and tries to deny that it had happened until he bitterly accepts the reality.
** After Yuri stabs herself to death, he suffers a massive one, so much so that it leaves him catatonic for the entire weekend. Of course, this only applies if you interpret the scene with him as a character being present as opposed to the game glitching while he's essentially stopped existing.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: He feels responsible for Sayori's death and blames himself for not doing anything to prevent it. Not that he could prevent it from happening, because Sayori killed herself before he even woke up.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He's irritated by Sayori's arrival at the beginning of the game, and criticizes her tendency to oversleep. Her oversleeping is a symptom of her growing depression, and her friendship with the main character is her biggest coping mechanism.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Not so much towards the other girls, but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Sayori. Extremely. When their relationship starts to change, she is seriously affected.
* MadeMyselfSad: Near the end of Act 1, when talking to Monika, he cracks another joke about Sayori oversleeping only to immediately remember what she said about her depression, causing him to shut up and feel bad about what he said.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Downplayed. He's certainly pleased that the Literature Club is full of attractive girls, but this isn't his only motivation for joining.
* MeaningfulName: His CanonName is '''Ive''', which is a written proposition of oneself.
** Ive is [[GeniusBonus also]] the Frisian form of Ivo, which means "yew tree". In some cultures such as Celtic, the yew tree symbolizes death and rebirth. Acts 1, 2 and 3 eventually kill off the girls, while Act 4 has Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri brought back to life, only for Monika or Sayori to delete the game.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: No matter what, he blames himself for Sayori's suicide.
* {{NEET}}: Sayori encourages him to join a club out of fear that he's destined to become one.
* NiceGuy: Downplayed, as he wasn’t written to be a “real” character, but he is generally polite and considerate towards the girls in the game. Although, he's initially less so with Sayori (a lifelong friend whom he tends to take for granted and teases for her flaws, such as her constant oversleeping) and with Yuri and Natsuki's first argument (where his thought process is more about impressing one of the girls rather than defusing the argument or even saying what he really thinks). Anyhow, aside from genre inevitability, this is basically why at least Yuri and Natsuki fall for him: he's patient and considerate enough to naturally give them the opportunity to finally get close to someone in spite of their quirky personalities.
* TheOneGuy: The only male character in an otherwise all-female cast.
* {{Otaku}}: He is an avid fan of anime and manga, at one point becoming mildly annoyed that something could disrupt his daily anime watching.
* OutOfFocus: As the game goes on, he starts contributing less to the story and eventually more or less vanishes from the story after Yuri's suicide. On a meta note, he's also the only character in the game never to appear in any official merchandise.
* PerpetualFrowner: His official DDLC+ sketch of him has this expression. Even in-game, you can pretty much guess his expression through his dialogue.
* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.
* PlayerCharacter: He's the avatar for the player and in fact, this is the reason why his character is not at all brought up in the end game, since the actual living player is the one Monika is after.
* PrettyBoy: The official DDLC+ sketch of him as an ''actual'' character depicts him this way.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's a typical romance visual novel protagonist. He has a (relatively) inoffensive and relatable personality, and the female characters are attracted to him despite his mundanity. This is later {{averted|Trope}} as his official DDLC+ sketch depicts him as a {{Bishonen}}.
* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: Judging from what little is seen of him, he appears to be wearing an (appropriately enough, black) school uniform at all times.
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: With everyone interested in him, he repeatedly has to tell this to someone about someone else, although it's not always true that he's ''not'' pursuing that girl.
* TookALevelInKindness: He's a lot nicer to Sayori in Act 4, admiring her strong points and joining the Literature Club as her friend rather than [[HaremSeeker for the cute girls]]. Sayori being [[HostileShowTakeover the new president]] might have something to do with this.
* VitriolicBestBuds: A largely one-sided case with Sayori, whom he pokes fun at for her behaviors and habits in a BrutalHonesty fashion. This may come across as harsher to the player (who unlike him, is just meeting Sayori), but he clearly does mean well and tries to be there for her when she reveals to him that she suffers from chronic depression, and has a HeroicBSOD when he finds her body. In turn, Sayori can poke fun at the player character, like when she chides him for staying up late and says that he is not in the napping club.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Towards the end of Act 2, he essentially exits the narrative when he stops talking and no longer shows any reaction to anything. His apparent removal is not addressed like it is with the girls. Perhaps the only acknowledgment of this is Monika dismissing him as irrelevant next to you, the player. This is partially averted when he seamlessly returns for Act 4, but the final ending doesn't shed much light on his ultimate fate (if any).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Developers]]
!!Metaverse Enterprise Solutions[=/=]Team Salvato
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/metaverselogo.png]]
-->With world-class engineers and industry-leading specialists, Metaverse Enterprise Solutions will always deliver solutions that last. Cost-per-year analysis shows that Metaverse solution saves up to 30% in the long run. And our flexible support model ensures that quality can be delivered at the price point that is right for your company size.\\
[...]\\
With solutions you can count on and experts you can trust, this is our promise to you: You're In Good Company.\\\
The mysterious company responsible for the development of DDLC. Absent from the original game, they are introduced in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!]]'', giving a new backstory for what's going on in the game. They created the original ''Doki Doki'' universe where the main game takes place, as well as a control universe where the side stories take place, as an experiment to see how one would deal with the situation of being trapped in an artificial universe. Their e-mails and files are accessible as the player progresses and gets achievements throughout the game.
----
* AdaptedOut: He's completely absent in the side stories of ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'' Instead of "Adapted-Out", he was never "[[{{Inverted|Trope}} Adapted-In]]" to the side stories' universe in the first place. In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus'', an e-mail from one of the developers that created the Doki Doki universe reveals the side stories that took place in a separate control universe that they also created. It also reveals that the Main Character doesn't exist at all in the side stories' universe, as they never created him in either one. Someone else created him in the main universe. That developer suspects Monika did after she became self-aware, as an attempt to get in touch with the "user" (presumably the player). Sayori, in the first side story, does briefly reference him by mentioning a friend who likes anime, but perhaps a reference doesn't count as an actual character given the nature of things taking place in a pre-programmed artificial universe.
* AngerBornOfWorry: Not ''anger'', per se, but he often seems frustrated when talking to Sayori, especially about her depression, since she claims he can't help her. He very much ''wants'' to help her, because she's his close friend and he cares about her, but unfortunately, depression isn't something one person can fix. His occasional sharpness stems mainly from wanting to help Sayori feel better, but having no clue ''how''.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: After Sayori gives her own anguished declaration of love, the player character has the option to reciprocate with one of his own.
* ArtificialHuman: Possibly. One developer theorizes that Monika cobbled him together as a "fifth entity", giving players a proxy to interact with the world of ''DDLC.'' That being so, he still is perceived as being as human as the others by other characters of the universe, essentially making him this in the ''Doki Doki'' universe.
* AscendedExtra: A retroactive example in the side stories of ''Plus''. He was only mentioned in a passing comment by Sayori as being the "friend" that likes anime, and with him being the "Main Character" in the main game while the side stories chronologically take place before that, it would be an obvious reference. However, as revealed by the developers, he was never supposed to exist as a "character" in the first place, since they believed that Monika was responsible for cobbling together a "fifth entity" (i.e. him) for the actual players to interact with her. Meaning that while he does "technically" exist by virtue of Sayori's mentioning, he's no more than TheGhost used for flavoring purposes.
* AudienceSurrogate:
** Played with. He's, in a sense, even more a victim of the narrative than the girls. While the player obviously remembers and notices, the player character himself completely forgets Sayori after she's deleted along with everyone else, and in Act 2, he shows absolutely no reaction to the glitching, oddities like Natsuki forgetting her argument with Yuri, and even the more extreme outbursts by Natsuki and Yuri. By the time Yuri madly confesses her love to him in Act 2, he no longer even speaks, and when Monika finally starts addressing the player directly, he essentially ceases to exist until Act 4.
** In ''Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!'', one of the programmers of the ''Doki Doki'' universe suspects it was Monika who created the Main Character in an attempt to contact and interact with the player. If true, that means he was created to be an audience surrogate in-universe. It would also explain ''why'' the MC never reacts to any of the Act 2 glitches or grows suspicious of Monika, while Yuri and Natsuki do.
* BlankSlate:
** Despite having his own personality and traits, the Main Character is honestly nothing more than an avatar for the Players to navigate in the story. WordOfGod even confirms this in an anniversary stream on ''[[https://www.twitch.tv/dansalvato/clip/MiniatureDirtyDragonMVGame Twitch]]'' and his Reddit post.
--->'''Dan Salvato:''' I don't imagine him as a character in the same way as the other characters. He's just a blank slate that says whatever is convenient.\\\
'''Dan Salvato:''' MC is the nameless, faceless self-insert character that you find so commonly in romance games. His main purpose is for the girls to interact with you. It's true that you can discover a few details about his life, but he's deliberately given little to no focus compared with everyone else.
** Confirmed in-universe too. One of the developers of the universe notes that he has "such limited and dissonant personality traits", and believes that's evidence Monika created him solely as a way to interact with the player.
* CanonName: He was called Ive in the [=DDLC=] Plus Gameplay Trailer.
** One of the in-universe developers of the program is named Ive. This could mean that Ive the developer was either beta testing the program during the trailer, or Ive is canonically the user who was playing as the MC, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone which would explain why he started being less talkative during company meetings.]]
* ChickMagnet: Like any visual novel protagonist, all the female characters in the game are attracted to him. Most notable are Yuri and Natsuki, who only get to know the protagonist for about a week before attempting to kiss him. With the official DDLC+ sketch of him, you can really tell ''why'' the girls would find him attractive.
* ClosetGeek: He really likes anime and manga, but is conscious that people could look down on him for this. When Yuri asks what books he reads, he is embarrassed that he can only answer with "manga." Later, when Natsuki says that she likes manga, he is reluctant to tell her how much he likes it until he's sure that she's as into it as him. At one point, he even bemoans how difficult it is to find friends that won't judge a person's nerdy hobbies, much less ones that share them.
* DecoyProtagonist: While he's set up as the protagonist at first, the story's more focused on Monika being self-aware, and the actual protagonist ends up being the player themselves when he is removed from the narrative near the end of Act 2.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: Appreciates the beautiful girls in the club.
* EmptyShell: After Yuri's suicide, he is rendered totally mute, and by the start of Act 3, he serves as nothing more than an empty vessel Monika uses to facilitate communication with the player.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's meant to be portrayed as a complete dick since that's how Salvato interprets the typical visual novel protagonist. That said, he's genuinely horrified after witnessing Sayori and Yuri's individual suicides, to the point where he has a HeroicBSOD.
* ExtremeDoormat: Downplayed. He mostly acts like this during the earlier parts of Acts 1 and 2. He allows the other characters to guilt him into joining the Literature Club despite his lack of interest.
* TheFaceless: Only once do we even see him onscreen, when Sayori hugs him toward the end of Act 1, and only the back of his head is seen. All we can see is that he has short brown hair. A possible foreshadowing of the fact that he is not truly an AudienceSurrogate, although it could just as well be explained by his ''being'' a supposed audience surrogate. ''DDLC Plus'' does have a piece of unlockable artwork showing what he would have looked like (from the torso up), however.
* ForcedToWatch: Watches Yuri's corpse decomposing over the weekend because he can't move from his spot. Interestingly, it was because of a glitch, making this a meta version for the player.
* TheGadfly: More prominently towards Natsuki, who also teases him back. This is perhaps best seen when they bake cupcakes together. At one point, they try to fling icing at each other, but the player character gains the upper hand and stops her. After Natsuki apologizes for calling him gross (the player character told her that there are guys who are into her body type) and tells him that he should not be teasing girls, the player character impishly takes Natsuki's finger and licks off the icing, flustering her.
* GeekPhysiques:
** From what we can see of his body in the main game, fitting with his borderline {{NEET}} status.
** {{Averted|Trope}} with his official ''DDLC+'' sketch, however, looking much more fit and broad-shouldered.
* TheGhost: This was his entire role in the side stories of ''DDLC+'', being only a passing mention by Sayori as the "friend" who likes anime. That's also getting into the fact that he doesn't really exist as his own character in the first place.
* HaremSeeker: A minor case. Even if you, the player, are focused on another girl, he will still have an obvious moment with whichever girl comes round to his house to help with the festival preparations. No doubt, walking out just in time to see them nearly kiss does no good for Sayori's already shattered confidence.
* HeroicBSOD:
** When he finds Sayori having committed suicide, he is in abject horror and guilt and tries to deny that it had happened until he bitterly accepts the reality.
** After Yuri stabs herself to death, he suffers a massive one, so much so that it leaves him catatonic for the entire weekend. Of course, this only applies if you interpret the scene with him as a character being present as opposed to the game glitching while he's essentially stopped existing.
* ILetGwenStacyDie: He feels responsible for Sayori's death and blames himself for not doing anything to prevent it. Not that he could prevent it from happening, because Sayori killed herself before he even woke up.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He's irritated by Sayori's arrival at the beginning of the game, and criticizes her tendency to oversleep. Her oversleeping is a symptom of her growing depression, and her friendship with the main character is her biggest coping mechanism.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Not so much towards the other girls, but he can be a bit of a jerk toward Sayori as he constantly criticizes her flaws such as her oversleeping, overeating, and general klutziness. He does ease up on her when she opens up to him about her depression, tells her that he will always be there for her, and hugs her at one point to emphasize that. He also very much blames himself for her suicide (not that he could do anything to prevent it because Sayori killed herself before he woke up). On another note, the player character clearly sees Sayori as a good friend and admires her greatly even before he learns about her depression. When listening to Sayori's conversation with Monika about the Literature Club's activity for the festival, he notes Sayori's ability to put her mind to things and make them come to life.
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: To Sayori. Extremely. When their relationship starts to change, she is seriously affected.
* MadeMyselfSad: Near the end of Act 1, when talking to Monika, he cracks another joke about Sayori oversleeping only to immediately remember what she said about her depression, causing him to shut up and feel bad about what he said.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Downplayed. He's certainly pleased that the Literature Club is full of attractive girls, but this isn't his only motivation for joining.
* MeaningfulName: His CanonName is '''Ive''', which is a written proposition of oneself.
** Ive is [[GeniusBonus also]] the Frisian form of Ivo, which means "yew tree". In some cultures such as Celtic, the yew tree symbolizes death and rebirth. Acts 1, 2 and 3 eventually kill off the girls, while Act 4 has Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri brought back to life, only for Monika or Sayori to delete the game.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: No matter what, he blames himself for Sayori's suicide.
* {{NEET}}: Sayori encourages him to join a club out of fear that he's destined to become one.
* NiceGuy: Downplayed, as he wasn’t written to be a “real” character, but he is generally polite and considerate towards the girls in the game. Although, he's initially less so with Sayori (a lifelong friend whom he tends to take for granted and teases for her flaws, such as her constant oversleeping) and with Yuri and Natsuki's first argument (where his thought process is more about impressing one of the girls rather than defusing the argument or even saying what he really thinks). Anyhow, aside from genre inevitability, this is basically why at least Yuri and Natsuki fall for him: he's patient and considerate enough to naturally give them the opportunity to finally get close to someone in spite of their quirky personalities.
* TheOneGuy: The only male character in an otherwise all-female cast.
* {{Otaku}}: He is an avid fan of anime and manga, at one point becoming mildly annoyed that something could disrupt his daily anime watching.
* OutOfFocus: As the game goes on, he starts contributing less to the story and eventually more or less vanishes from the story after Yuri's suicide. On a meta note, he's also the only character in the game never to appear in any official merchandise.
* PerpetualFrowner: His official DDLC+ sketch of him has this expression. Even in-game, you can pretty much guess his expression through his dialogue.
* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: Controller type. He has his own personality and opinions, but you control his major choices. Monika can perceive this dynamic between the two of you, eventually noting that you are distinct entities. It is probably why he is eventually removed from the narrative (or merely has his voice silenced, it is somewhat unclear) near the end of Act 2, allowing Monika to address the player more directly.
* PlayerCharacter: He's the avatar for the player and in fact, this is the reason why his character is not at all brought up in the end game, since the actual living player is the one Monika is after.
* PrettyBoy: The official DDLC+ sketch of him as an ''actual'' character depicts him this way.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's a typical romance visual novel protagonist. He has a (relatively) inoffensive and relatable personality, and the female characters are attracted to him despite his mundanity. This is later {{averted|Trope}} as his official DDLC+ sketch depicts him as a {{Bishonen}}.
* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: Judging from what little is seen of him, he appears to be wearing an (appropriately enough, black) school uniform at all times.
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: With everyone interested in him, he repeatedly has to tell this to someone about someone else, although it's not always true that he's ''not'' pursuing that girl.
* TookALevelInKindness: He's a lot nicer to Sayori in Act 4, admiring her strong points and joining the Literature Club as her friend rather than [[HaremSeeker for the cute girls]]. Sayori being [[HostileShowTakeover the new president]] might have something to do with this.
* VitriolicBestBuds: A largely one-sided case with Sayori, whom he pokes fun at for her behaviors and habits in a BrutalHonesty fashion. This may come across as harsher to the player (who unlike him, is just meeting Sayori), but he clearly does mean well and tries to be there for her when she reveals to him that she suffers from chronic depression, and has a HeroicBSOD when he finds her body. In turn, Sayori can poke fun at the player character, like when she chides him for staying up late and says that he is not in the napping club.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Towards the end of Act 2, he essentially exits the narrative when he stops talking and no longer shows any reaction to anything. His apparent removal is not addressed like it is with the girls. Perhaps the only acknowledgment of this is Monika dismissing him as irrelevant next to you, the player. This is partially averted when he seamlessly returns for Act 4, but the final ending doesn't shed much light on his ultimate fate (if any).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The Developers]]
!!Metaverse Enterprise Solutions[=/=]Team Salvato
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/metaverselogo.png]]
-->With world-class engineers and industry-leading specialists, Metaverse Enterprise Solutions will always deliver solutions that last. Cost-per-year analysis shows that Metaverse solution saves up to 30% in the long run. And our flexible support model ensures that quality can be delivered at the price point that is right for your company size.\\
[...]\\
With solutions you can count on and experts you can trust, this is our promise to you: You're In Good Company.\\\
The mysterious company responsible for the development of DDLC. Absent from the original game, they are introduced in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!]]'', giving a new backstory for what's going on in the game. They created the original ''Doki Doki'' universe where the main game takes place, as well as a control universe where the side stories take place, as an experiment to see how one would deal with the situation of being trapped in an artificial universe. Their e-mails and files are accessible as the player progresses and gets achievements throughout the game.
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* VillainousFriendship: Paula's ''one'' redeeming quality, as revealed in the secret file 14, is that she and Ive, who have been managing the project to create and torment self-aware [=AIs=], have been deeply close friends since at least college, if not longer.
to:
* VillainousFriendship: Paula's ''one'' redeeming quality, as revealed in the secret file 14, is that she and Ive, who have been managing the project to create and torment self-aware [=AIs=], have been deeply close friends since at least college, if not longer. Paula’s written reason for bringing Ive into the project (“sure... why not”) when all the other employees were brought in for practical reasons indicates she specifically wanted to invite her dearest friend to help out.
