Danganronpa: Gilded Cage
is Massive Multiplayer Crossover written by CeladonRam
where sixteen characters from various franchises are forced to “participate” in a Killing game from Danganronpa.
Adrien Agreste, also known as Cat Noir, wake up in a strange place with fifteen others strangers with no idea how he got there, why and without his Miraculous. Things somehow go even worse when a familiar teddy bear reveal that they are actually in a spaceship and there is only one way out: to kill another without being caught.
Now thrown in a despairing situation, Adrien must try to solve the mysteries of the Starship Despair while hoping that nobody will succumb to Monokuma's game.
- Adrien Agreste, The Super Duper High School Disaster
- Natsuki Subaru, The Super Duper High School Bigamist
- Candace Flynn, The Super Duper High School Tattletale
- Susato Mikotoba, The Super Duper High School Crossdresser
- Riz Gukgak, The Super Duper High School Fraudulent Advertiser
- Goro Akechi, The Super Duper High School Bastard
- Princess Remedy, The Super Duper High School Heartbreaker
- Giovanni Potage, The Super Duper High School Wannabe
- Excel Excel, The Super Duper High School Motormouth
- Maximum Ride, The Super Duper High School Schizophrenic
- Legoshi, The Super Duper High School Cannibal
- Noelle Holiday, The Super Duper High School Doormat
- Katniss Everdeen, The Super Duper High School Human Sacrifice
- Hiro Hamada, The Super Duper High School Dogfighter
- Devra Caspit, The Super Duper High School Tagalong
- Karma Akabane, The Super Duper High School Wasted Potential
Danganronpa: Gilded Cage provides examples of:
- Birds of a Feather: Devra and Hiro both hit it right off thanks to their shared interest in inventing and tinkering and what's implied to be their background in superheroism. By Chapter 2, they are both working together to fight Monokuma by studying him and his armament and stop the game.
- Break Them by Talking: Like in the games, Monokuma will tear down into someone the moment the oppurtunity present itself. At the end of the second trial, When Devra has a meltdown about who voted for Hiro and send him to his death, Monokuma takes the time to point how all the way she indirectly lead to the second murder to happens. Sending Devra in the depth of despairDevra: I have to know! Whoever voted for him- they killed him! It’s their fault that Hiro’s dead!.Monokuma: . Is it? Remind me, who was it that proposed this whole ‘breakout’ idea? Who was it that told everyone not to mention it to their loved ones on the phone calls, and make it sound like you were stuck here with no option but to kill to escape? And who was it that removed the oh-so-important safety handrails from the top of my ropes course? The way I see it, this whole thing could have been avoided if you hadn’t pushed for all this, Ms. Caspit! Puhuhuhu! Did you seriously still think I didn’t know what you were up to just because there were no cameras in the pool? I just planted a microphone in there! Plus, you all were so focused on making sure I didn’t know it never occurred to you that I might be trying to keep you from knowing I knew! You know? All of which is to say, you were never going to accomplish anything with this hare-brained scheme of yours. Now a bear- brained scheme, that might have worked! But instead, all you got was your only friend in years violently executed. Some leader you turned out to be, huh?
- The Coroner: Because Princess Remedy is a healing and medical expert, she became this during the investigation as she is the only one with any similar experience.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Wouldn't be a killing game hosted by Monokuma without some of those:
- The first execution start with Max tied to an iceberg by barbed wire. Then Monokuma start to increase the room's temperature, melting the iceberg and slowly making the sea boils leading Max to fell into the sea...Where it's revealed she can breath under water. Despite being lacerated and having one of her wing broken, Max manage to swim toward the surface thinking she is gonna survive... only for Monokuma to launch a nuke and making Max the ground zero of a nuclear explosion.
- The second execution feature Hiro bound to a desk and a chair in a classroom surrounded by featureless mannequins in the same situation as Monokuma starts a lecture about how humans' use of tools through the ages, and how they were used to execute people. Going from stoning, burning at the stake, hanging, being stomped to death, electrocution and being gased as more and more mannequins are destroyed around Hiro. Until the presentation reaches Hiro's own microbots who then swarm their creator and start crushing, constricting him and pulling away his joints. The execution end when the swarm of robots encasing Hiro accidentally hit the electrocuted mannequin, frying them both.
- The Cynic: Candace start to become this by chapter 3, as her always failling at she tries to do takes a darker turn in a killing game, and the mutiny plan completely failling comfort her in the idea.Candance: “Pfft. A plan. Right. Hey, remind me— what were we doing for the past week? Planning! And did it help even a little? Did it? No! Listen. My whole life, there has been one through-line. Nothing I do will work, or succeed, or help at all, and being stuck in this nightmare is no different. So stop acting like anything you're doing is some sort of progress."
- Death by Irony: While it's expected for a Danganronpa fanfiction, The death of the second culprit deserves mentions since Monokuma use the microbots that Hiro created to stretch and crush him to death.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: During the second trial, Adrien point out to Akechi that Excel couldn't have had the time to kill Noelle as she would have to run to Noelle's position, kill her, drop her clothes and antler to the theater, run back and jump into the pool, all of this under one minute. Akechi retorts that Adrien is basing himself on Noelle's watch and any killer with common sense would have tampered with it....Only to realise midway he is talking about Excel.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Susato is this, being from Japan during the Meiji Restoration while the other passengers are either from modern era, futuristic setting or fantasy worlds. She becomes fascinated with the technological developments since her time, notably with cinema.
- Foreshadowing: During Chapter 2, Katniss say to Adrien that her early hostility and attacking Hiro that with how she reacted early in the game, she made herself an easy scapegoat who will get voted off easily in the next trial if another murder happens. It's exactly what happens during the next trial when Candace immediately accuse her the moment they hit a roadblock as she didn't participate in the previous investigation being detained by Monokuma.
- The Friend Nobody Likes:
- Katniss rapidly establishes herself as this as she immediately tries to kill Hiro before Monokuma even finished explaining the rules of the Killing Game. Her distrust and barely concealed hostility don't help either.
- After Karma tries to kill Katniss at the party in Chapter 1, he becomes this as the depth of his sociopathy is shown to the other passagers.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Being from a world without humans, Legoshi has a hard time wrapping his head around them and even asks if they sleep. He also notes that nobody else seems to smell like herbivores, not even Noelle.
- Innocently Insensitive: When meeting Legoshi, Noelle says she is happy to not be the only monster on board. Legoshi, not understanding that she's talking about her species, is hurt at whats seems to be an accusation and immediately leave the room.
- I Did What I Had to Do: When Devra lash out at those who voted for Hiro and then condamned him to die for nothing, Susato bluntly tell her that yes he died for nothing but they really had no reasons at the time to believe Monokuma would show mercy. Unfortunately while her answer convinces Adrien, it doesn't convinces the still grieving Devra.Susato: Yes! He did! There is not a person here who remains unaware of that! If I were able, I would go back and change my vote in an instant, but I cannot. And better men than Hiro Hamada have died for no reason. For simply sleeping in the wrong rooms, or for refusing a meal. The world is a cruel place, and this cursed ship even more so. I was— all of us were— seemingly faced with a choice of whether we thought Monokuma would show mercy. Would you really fault us for thinking he wouldn’t?”
- I Want My Mommy!: Played for drama during the second trial, Hiro last's words before he is dragged to his execution is to scream for Tadashi to help him.
- Metaphorically True: Some of the secrets exchanged between participants used in Chapter 1 as motives fall into this, not helped by some of them being lies. Notably, Susato's secret, about her sending an innocent to the gallows by fabricating evidence is false as the man in canon was far from innocent...but she did tamper a crime scene by creating false key evidence that allowed the man to be arrested.
- After the first trial, It's revealed that one of the reasons Max killed Natsuki was because she received the secret that "Subaru Natsuki is responsible for this experiment". Monokuma immediately mock her and the other students after the verdict for that, pointing out that the sentence is so vague that it doesn't mean that Natsuki was the killing game mastermind and could also very well mean that Natsuki was the primary target of the killing game and that they have no way to ask the concerned now that he's dead.
- No Body Left Behind: True to her source material, Noelle's "body" is reduced to dust after getting killed in Chapter 2. To even get something to investigate for Remedy, Akechi force Giovanni to sweep as much of her dust as he can during investigations.
- "Not Your Fault" Reassurance: During Candace's freetime in Chapter 3, Adrien reassure Candace when she starts blaming herself for Max commiting a murder. But one of his argument is that Max never wanted to hurt her, before he realise the glaring contradiction in saying that when Max didn't confess. Candace however miss that and interprets the conversation as Adrien saying that "ruthless pragmatism is alright".
- Obvious Rule Patch:
- Katniss tries to stockpile foods and hole herself in her appartment to avoid contact with the other passengers. The next day she reveals that Monokuma took away the food saying she's not playing the game right.
- Later, after Karma traps Monokuma by just restraining him, while pointing out the rules never said they couldn't trap the headmaster. Monokuma immediately changes the rules to stop from happening later.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Some of the participants' talents are based on single events in their respective franchise without the context. For example, Susato is the Super Duper High School Crossdresser for the time she pretended to be a male attorney because Meiji Japan prohibited women from participating in court outside of being a witness in crime, Legoshi is the Super Duper High School Cannibal for when he ate the leg of his schoolmate Louis (who gave it to him willingly) to fight off a stronger carnivore, Hiro is the Super Duper High School Dogfighter for his past in bot-fighting (which he dropped during the start of Big Hero 6)
- Rejected Apology: At the end of the second trial, After the tie between Hiro and Noelle is broken in "favor" of Hiro. Monokuma reveal he would accepted any of those two as the blackened all along, meaning that the remaining students just condamned Hiro to death by an execution. When Riz awkwardly apologise, Hiro hysterically remind him that he is going to die and that he hopes whoever voted for him will also die.
- Sacrificial Lion: Subaru establishes himself rapidly as the leader of the group and tries to steer the group from Monokuma's game by trying to keep them united. Unfortunately, he ends being the first victim.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Akechi is this during the first trial, as he desperately tries to steer the trial towards a resolution that won't end with most of them getting killed despite the colourful cast throwing baseless accusations or going on tangents. Adrien notes that Akechi look ready to scream after this exchange:Legoshi:"Oh, I get it. Subaru must have been like a giraffe."Giovanni:"Like, he had a long neck…?"Karma:“Wouldn’t that be Candace?”Candance: “Hey!”Akechi: "Dear god, why.This is a murder trial.
- Time Loop Fatigue: In the aftermath of the disastrous party where Karma almost killed Katniss, Subaru has a mental breakdown who implies he has been stuck in a time loop trying to stop the killing game from happening and failling so far. Unfortunately, he is soon killed after that breakdown, failling once again.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: In his breakdown, Subaru implies that during all the loops of the killing game he seems to have participated to. Adrien never ended up being a blackened.
- Wham Line: During the second trial, after people had been debating about if Noelle really could have been the one who instigated the murder and got killed in the attempt, Akechi manage to convince Monokuma to reveal Noelle's secret from the first motive, reasoning that it should prove that the monster girl had the will to kill despite Legoshi's protest. Revealing in the process that Noelle came from a Snowgrave Route.With a showman-like flick of his wrist, Akechi displayed his Monophone.Noelle Holiday has committed more murders than any other participant on the ship.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Katniss initially thinks that the Killing Game is similar to the Hunger Games and is immediately hostile towards the other passengers, acting as if the game is a Battle Royale. After the first trial, she realizes she clearly misread the situation and as she notes, she only made her the perfect scapegoat as everyone would probably vote for her now if another murder happen.
