Webcomic / Doki Doki Literature Girls

A typical day for them.

Sayori: Hey Moni, want to go to the mall after the club?
Monika: Sure thing! I mean, I have piano lessons, but I can just delete the teacher~
Sayori: ...please don't do that.

Doki Doki Literature Girls is a fan comic written by Yui based on the popular horror visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club!. The webcomic picks up after the ending of the original visual novel after Monika had deleted everything. While floating endlessly in the void, Sayori confronts Monika, demanding that she give her, Yuri, and Natsuki another chance at happiness. As such, Monika and Sayori function as the main characters to a degree, with the main premise initially being keeping Natsuki and Yuri from discovering Monika's reality-warping abilities.

The story can be read in chronological order here; the story arcs can be seen here, and a link to Yui's page is present here.

The webcomic's final arc concluded on October 31, 2021. It has received a spin-off series starring Ako called Feel Less with the girls from the main series paying a visit to commemorate Ako's birthday.

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Doki Doki Literature Girls provides examples of:

• Adaptational Sexuality: In the original visual novel, Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki are in love with the male MC with no indication of them being interested in each other, and Monika is Ambiguously Bi at most.^note she admits to not minding if the player is a girl, but she shows no interest in the girls in the visual novel proper and generally refers to the player with masculine pronouns, making it unclear if she is actually bisexual. Here, they're all explicitly lesbian/bisexual and are in romantic relationships with each other.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Sayori, finally losing her patience with Monika's emotional denseness, confesses her feelings under the fireworks on New Year's Eve, fully expecting to be rejected because Monika deserves better than her.
• Anti-Hero: Monika for the most part. While trying to keep her promise to Sayori, Monika does indulge using her reality warping powers at points, a prevalent instance in the Natsuki's Despair story arc where Monika is forced to delete a car not originating from the game when it threatened to mow her and Sayori down. In one of the story arcs, Monika contemplates deleting a club that had taken their room but doesn't go through with it after Sayori talked to them over it.
• Arc Villain: Anthy of the Apocalypse arc.
• Art Shift: Moments that can't be conveyed with the game's sprites are usually drawn instead.
• The Atoner: What Monika becomes after she goes through character development. Though she doesn't show it in front of the others, she's clearly wracked with guilt over her actions in canon and tries everything she can to help the other girls.
• Bait-and-Switch: When the Perfect Yuri ends up being in control of Yuri once again during the Beach Episode, Natsuki remembers what she did the last time to bring Yuri back to normal (with The Power of Love). So Natsuki affectionatedly hugged the Perfect Yuri from behind... and delivered one hell of a Suplex Finisher.
• Beach Episode: Is the breather arc after the events of Apocalypse.
• Black Comedy: Monika jokes around at first with deleting the anime club after they had taken their place in the literature club.
• Book Ends: The "Friendship" Arc ends the same way it begins: with Sayori and Ako watching the sunset together (albeit from different points of view).
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Happens one time the lights went out.
• Cast Full of Gay: Every named character is either lesbian or bisexual.
• Character Exaggeration: In the original game, Yuri was considered a bit of a weirdo by her classmates, and used a slightly more elaborated language than the other girls. Here, she has negative social skills and speaks in such a complex manner it sometimes borders on Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
• Chromosome Casting: Every character in the webcomic, both canon and original, is female.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: While not to the same Ax-Crazy level as her canon self, Monika does have moments where she feels threatened that Sayori would leave her for someone else. One instance of this is when Sayori informs her that she would be attending a (mandatory) field trip that day. Monika has an inner Madness Mantra before shouting out that Sayori belonged to only her.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Monika exhibits this every now and then, often joking about deleting someone. This could be seen as her trying to learn to have empathy towards others.
• Darker and Edgier: The appropriately named arc Apocalypse introduces Anthy, an antivirus software program who is practically even more powerful than Monika as she can delete entire settings and towards the climax of the arc, 90% of the setting had been deleted.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first several strips before both of the Official Couples hook up are very different from the rest of the comic. The tone back then was overall much more comedic and gag-oriented as opposed to being a Dramedy, the main characters were the only people in the comic at all, and there's nothing that even remotely hints at Natsuki being Transgender. There's also little to no Original Artwork throughout this portion of the comic, unlike now where Yui puts in drawings here and there.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Invoked when Natsuki claimed My Gym Partner's a Monkey is a "kafkaesque deconstruction of class inequality".
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: One early strip has Monika attempt to help Sayori with her math homework, only to see a bunch of incomprehensible equations and throw it in the trash.
• Falling Damage: In one strip, Yuri and Natsuki wonder if the game they live in has Fall Damage or not, and test it out by throwing books and plates off the school rooftop. Monika joins in by jumping off the roof herself and finds out the hard way that yes, their game does, in fact, have fall damage.
• Faux Horrific: Natsuki's idea of a scary story.
  Natsuki: And when the anime adaptation came out... IT WAS ALL CGI!!
  Everyone Else: ...
• GIS Syndrome: Justified, as Monika really is getting new backgrounds and items using search engines.
  Sayori: This couch is so comfy! Where did you find it?
  Monika: Same as everything else, Google Images.
• The Ghost: The player is often mentioned in passing, but plays no crucial role in the webcomic.

• Hope Springs Eternal: Sayori is a firm believer of this, demanding that Monika give the Literature Club another chance, taking it upon herself to ensure that the girls become friends.
• Idea Bulb: As seen here.
• If Only You Knew: After being asked by Monika what H. P. Lovecraft's novels are about, Yuri explains that he pioneered a genre of horror called "cosmicism" which that deals with the fear that our existence is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and that we're just a creation of a greater, unfeeling God who doesn't care about us. She then asks Monika whether she would become a nihilistic psychopath if she realized that everything she ever felt was insignificant and that our world held little value. Unbeknownst to Yuri, her description of cosmicism is actually a perfect reflection of Monika's situation as someone who's aware of her own status as a fictional character, unhappy about it, and gets driven to commit cruel acts against the other characters because of it.
• Insecure Love Interest: Sayori and Monika are this to each other, with each being blind to their own good points (Sayori because of her depression, Monika because of the weight of her sins from the source material) and thinking the other deserves better than to be with them.
• Lighter and Softer: Justified because this is Monika and Sayori's attempt at creating a world where none of the bad events had a chance to happen.
• Limited Wardrobe: In general, the girls only have two outfits: their school outfit and casual clothes.
• Medium Awareness: Following the "Natsuki's Despair" arc, all the girls are aware they're visual novel characters, frequently referencing they're in a game world and its digital nature. They're even aware their activities are being shown on Tumblr. However, they aren't aware they're in a webcomic.
• Minimalist Cast: For the first few months of the webcomic's strips, the only characters in the story were the four literature club members. Later strips after both official couples hooked up have averted this by having more extras around such as other classmates and teachers, and as of the Friendship arc there is now an entirely new character by the name of Ako.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Monika is remorseful for the actions she had committed in the visual novel and the webcomic functions as her redemption story.
  • Natsuki is horrified at punching Monika after discovering that the world she lived in was fictional.
• No Antagonist: Due to Monika making a Heel–Face Turn, there's no antagonist in this comic and instead most of the conflict comes from the girls' personal issues and sometimes the game heavily glitching out. Subverted in the "Apocalypse" arc, which introduces Anthy, the webcomic's first antagonist.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Invoked; Monika and Sayori want to give them all time to work out their problems before they become adults.
  • Decon-Recon Switch: Shortly after becoming aware of this, Yuri briefly ponders why they should keep going, as there's no way for them to move on and become adults. Sayori points out this means they have forever to fix all their personal problems without the stress of grown-up responsibilities always hanging over their heads. Naturally, Yuri doesn't take the news lightly.
• Official Couple: Natsuki and Yuri, and Sayori and Monika.
• Opposites Attract: Yuri slowly becomes more appreciative of Natsuki's style of writing after Natsuki helped her write a poem and notes how Natsuki is the only one who understands her more morbid interests. This eventually graduates to her falling in love with her and the feeling is mutual.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Monika once passed herself as Santa Claus by wearing the outfit and beard. Never mind Monika is a thin girl and Santa is a heavyset male.
  • In another strip, the girls attempt to help Yuri by disguising themselves with a fake mustache on Sayori, a demon mask on Monika and Natuski with a funny nose and glasses. Yuri doesn't fall for the last one only because Natsuki used her pet name for Yuri.
  • One time, Natsuki managed to pass herself off as a transfer student simply by wearing a mask of Komaru Naegi.
• Previously on…: A humorous version here.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: When Yuri became "perfect" (by increasing all her stats to a perfect ten when she briefly got access to the game's code), her hair went to dark purple to bright, glowing teal (her eyes also went the same color change).
• Pet the Dog: Monika creates a new room for the anime club after they willingly gave the girls their clubroom back.

• Recursive Fanfiction:
  • Akonthy Real, an Ako/Anthy oneshot.
  • Enemies Within, a psuedo-crossover with the original game.
  • poetry of an unknown author, an Alternate Universe series based on what might have happened to the player character after the events of the original game.
• Scooby Stack: As seen here.
• Shout-Out:
  • Monika powers herself up in a similar fashion to Son Goku as a means of cheering Sayori up.
  • When Yuri coerces Monika into going to the bookstore to get her a book whilst she's on a date with Natsuki, Monika subconsciously creates a rendition of AM's infamous hatred speech from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
  • Yuri references Edgar Allen Poe's The Cask of Amontillado only to become irritated that her friends are unfamiliar with the short story, but automatically get Monika's allusion to Jane Eyre.
• Sick Episode: Sayori catches a cold which causes her to glitch out and unwittingly alter aspects of the game.
• Villain Protagonist: Monika, unsurprisingly. Though "villain" in the loosest sense of the word.
• Walk The Multiverse: When the call is made to end the comic, Ako decides to leave the game to visit other worlds to continue her Character Development and expand her horizons. Though, someone did suggest the other Doki's do the same◊ so we may see them again in some other tale.
• Wham Episode: "Natsuki's Despair", in which Yuri and Natsuki learn the truth about their world.
  • In the Apocalypse arc, Monika gets her right arm ripped off by Anthy. Meaning it is likely gone forever.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Natsuki angrily berates Monika for keeping the truth about the world from her, climaxing in her giving her a punch in the face.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Yuri laments over this after discovering the cylical time loop Monika had set in place. It comes to the point that Yuri vocally wishes to be able to die.
• World Limited to the Plot: Justified in that since they're living in a game, so they really do have only a certain number of places they can go. If they want to go somewhere new, Monika usually has to delete an old element to make room.