YMMV / Forest of Despair

• Abandon Shipping: Because of the reveal of Atsuto being the mastermind, many ships were abandoned.
• Adorkable: Some of the things Shinichi does can be seen as cute, and his appearance makes him look like a nerd...which he totally is.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Done perhaps purposefully during chapter three. Hayato did not put up a fight since he wanted to get caught. Satoshi, however, wanted to truth behind Kazuhiko's trial and confessed to his murder of Mitsuru after a little fight.
• Awesome Ego: Some view Cassius as having this.
• Base-Breaking Character
  • There's Kazuhiko. Some love him for his energetic personality and protectiveness over Ayano, while others hate him for what he did for Akita and always wanting to do anything, besides hurt Ayano, for a scoop. Though this has lessened lately.
  • On a much smaller level, there are the two jewelers, Kira and Cassius. Some see Cassius and Kira as just a couple of brats, and others find their actions either super adorable or funny. This has also lessened greatly because of the events in chapter two, making a lot more people like them.
  • Also Akemi. Others find him cute and interesting, while some find him to be really annoying.
  • Seems like Akita is getting some hate as well. Some find her constant sass annoying and have no idea why she is the Ultimate Mediator. Others find her sass enduring and her talent being one of the more interesting things about her character.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment
  • During the prologue, Mirabilis comes out of nowhere and 'purifies' Akita. Hayato tries to bring it up again, but Akita denies him.
• Bizarro Episode: Some feel that Chapter 1-4 is this.
• Broken Base:
  • The base is very broken considering Akita's dreams. Some find them confusing and pointless, while others find them interesting and insightful into Akita's character and the plot as a whole.
• Crack Pairing: The author actually encourages this. So far, there's a ship for almost everyone...including Monokuma and Mochi.
• Cry for the Devil: With Akemi, he may be Kaneshiro's traitor but he did not approve of his later actions and then got his heart so broken by Kaneshiro that he suffered a heart attack and died.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mochi. Even being a rabbit, Mochi has a lot of fans because he is cute. Plus, he belongs to Yasu, one of the more chill characters that is well liked.
• Fanfic Fuel: The literal hundreds of Killing Games that have happened in the canon. Helps that there is actual fanfic of this fanfic that uses this idea that fits into the canon as a sort of spinoff.
• Fan Nickname: Some of Monokuma's nicknames have become this such as Aya-Izumi-Chan-Chan.
• Gotta Ship 'Em All: Literally. The fanbase for this fanfiction is very fond of shipping the characters with each other due to the author's status of a crack shipper herself.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The drunk chapter. Knowing that Sae came out while Akita was drunk and was begging for escape just makes the whole chapter a lot more creepy.
  • The students' actions during 2-6. Shinichi gets peer pressured into drinking alcohol. This is just seemed as normal at first...until it is revealed that Shinichi's cup is laced with poison. He painfully dies in debatably the worse way in all of the series just because he gave into peer pressure. If he stood his ground, he would still be alive.
  • Cassius. Just everything surrounding Cassius. First, he was executed for a crime which Monokuma has admitted he's innocent of. And he isn't even a jeweler, even though this isn't the harsh part. He didn't even know he wasn't a jeweler! Everything was hidden by the family that he loved so much. This is what causes his death. Cassius dies for his family that did nothing but lies to him. Damn.
• Ho Yay
  • Akita makes her crush on Mitsuru very, very clear.
  • Tsukiko and Namita are always with each other and could be viewed as team moms.
  • Miyuki calls Mitsuru Mitsu-cho, even though their relationship with each other is not clear. Of course, Miyuki doesn't call anybody else by their nickname and seems to be fond of Mitsuru.
  • Mitsuru just seems to attract all of the Ho Yay.
  • Namita and Miyuki are now getting a lot of moments too. Let's not forget that moment in the second trial where Miyuki defends Namita. Namita even jumped onto Miyuki because she was scared of the blackout before.
    • Not to mention these two become canon!
  • There's a very suspicious scene with Takayuki and Takara. During the third investigation, Monokuma even seems to realize they are having a...moment.
  • Monokuma keeps teasing Hayato about his rather...questionable relationship with Cassius.
  • Hideyoshi is described to get in very...interesting poses with Takayuki and Hayato.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Because this fandom has a little bit too much fun with ships.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Akita is very shippable. She is already confirmed as bisexual by the creator, so it creates even more ships.
  • Minato is slowly becoming one of these. The fanbase loves shipping them a lot. Especially with Akita and Mirabilis.
• LGBT Fanbase: Due to the series having canon nonbinary canon characters, and the main character also being bisexual, this story has grown one of these.
• Memetic Mutation: Doors are the mastermind. ^Explanation In the prologue, both Hotaru and Kyoto are knocked out by doors.
  • In the same light, there are multiple memes about Mochi being a mastermind and a sparkly unicorn. ^Explanation During the same time as the doors, people started joking about Mochi being the mastermind just for fun...and it stuck. Also, in the submissions, the author puts Mochi's gender down as sparkly unicorn.
  • Akita is female!Deadpool. ^Explanation Akita breaks the fourth wall, is the protagonist but clearly not the hero, likes both genders and has a scar on her face. What do you means she's not Deadpool?
  • Yuki being the Ultimate Dick. ^Explanation When Akita is introducing Yuki, she calls him the Ultimate Dick. Some fans still tend to call him this
  • ANOTHER ANON! AAAAANNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! ^Explanation Due to the amount of characters sent in by anons, some fans started reacting like this.
    • poor cassiusfan ^Explanation  cassiusfan is an anon reviewer for this story. Because of their over the top reactions of agony, people have created this meme.
  • Attack of the short people. ^Explanation There are a lot of short people in the cast. So the fandom latched onto that idea...
  • #Anycharacterprotectionsquad ^Explanation Once again, accidentally started by the creator. She joked about one for Mochi, and now everybody has one. That includes Monokuma and Hideyoshi.
  • Aya-Izumi-Chan-Chan ^Explaination Monokuma gives Ayano the nickname Aya-Izumi-Chan-Chan and now that's her name by some of the fans.
  • Bunny Island ^Explaination  In one of Ayano's flashbacks, Kazuhiko mentions he was doing an article on 'Bunny Island.' The fandom was never the same again.
  • Kazuhikoed. ^Explaination  Whenever a character gets clubbed with a bat, how Kazuhiko killed both Kotori and Akita, some fans say they got Kazuhikoed.
  • Kaneshiro doing Kaneshiro ^Explanation  In a typo, Requiem accidentally said something along the lines of...I don't want to think about what Kaneshiro is doing to Kaneshiro. The rest is history.
  • Goddammit Dave ^Explaination  In chapter 4-5, Dave causes Ayano to get one of her real memories. Before this, Monokuma has this exact same reaction. Fans like making fun of Dave.
  • Requiem killed the character/is the Committee ^Explaination  Created on Discord. People started joking that Requiem is the one that killed the characters and she runs with it.
  • REDACTED ^Explaination  In the extra chapter of Fo D, a lot of information was redacted. People went wild with this idea.
  • Mitsu-bits ^Explaination  In the third trial, Mitsuru died and got cut up into pieces. Then people started to joke about these being mitsu-bits.
  • KANESHIRO KANESHIRO YAS QUEEN ^Explaination  Building onto the Kamukura yas queen jokes, people realized the names are similar and latched onto the idea.
• Mind Game Ship: If there is a ship with Kaneshiro, then it will be one of these.
• Moe: Naoko is cute and pretty at the same time.
• Moment of Awesome: Whenever the students outsmart Monokuma. Yasu hacked into Monokuma's systems in chapter two and almost ended the game almost by themself.
  • Hayato using Monokuma's own rules for him to reveal the truth of chapter one. Although Monokuma used this to his benefit, Hayato still caught Monokuma off guard. And, once again, all by himself.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The mastermind. Nothing more needs to be said than their actions during the first after trial.
• Never Live It Down: A small group of people seems to not realize that Akita has more character than a crazy bitch who stabbed herself almost twenty-one times.
• Nightmare Fuel: Now has its own page.
• No Yay: Kaneshiro with anybody, especially Hotaru and Ayano.
• One True Pairing
  • One for the fanbase is Akita/Mitsuru. Akita has a canon crush on Mitsuru, and Mitsuru at least sees her as a helpful ally. Mitsuru is also really upset when she finds Akita's dead body, punching the wall so much she has made a hole.
  • Another one is Ayano/Kazuhiko. It helps that they are already dating at the beginning of the story and seem to really care for each other even if they've vastly different ideals.
  • Then there is Takayuki/Naoko. Although much smaller than the other two, there are moments here and there. Opposites attract. Also, Naoko is the only person Takayuki trusts in the entire story.
  • Also, Takayuki/Akita. They are partners in the Committee and seem to have sexual tension with each other. Helped by the fact that Takayuki really did care when Akita died.
  • Starting chapter two, one became Kira/Cassius. Considering chapter two has a lot of hints to past ones, a lot of fans realized how they mirror Fuyuhiko and Peko, another favorite pairings with fans of the main series this is based off.
  • Namita/Miyuki. Helps that they are actually canon. There were a lot of hints before, especially if you notice how they address the other and how they were always alone with each other. Plus Miyuki's overprotectiveness. Then chapter four gave us the reveal a lot of fans were waiting for.
  • Atsuto/Yasu. Although for now it is mostly on the side of Atsuto. Atsuto has been shown to be willing to do anything for Yasu. Often he will put their wellbeing before his. Considering he got stabbed for them, and also stopped them from committing suicide, something which even Ayano was not able to do.
• One True Threesome:
  • Tsukiko, Miyuki, and Namita is becoming one. They spend most of the Killing Game together and are all friends that are in charge of the group.
  • Strangely enough, Takayuki, Naoko, and Mirabilis. Takayuki and Naoko have a lot of ship teases, while Mirabilis is usually with them since she is trying to purify Takayuki. All of the different ships in this threesome have different layers which cause some fans to ship them.
  • Then there's Ayano, Yasu, and Mirabilis. After freeing Yasu from Monokuma's torture chair, Ayano believes that the other two are trustworthy enough to work with to find the mastermind's fake identity.
  • Another that is gaining some fuel is Ayano, Atsuto, and Akemi. Some fans even add Yasu to the mix, but they are less common. This is because they are all the Yasu protection squad and have names starting with A. Atsuto and Ayano work well together and are friends, nobody knows whats up with Akemi and Atsuto, and Akemi and Ayano hate each other. And that makes this ship have a lot of different layers, especially with the idea that Atsuto can help bridge the gap between Akemi and Ayano.
• Paranoia Fuel: Oh boy, the author has made many people stay up late.
• Portmanteau Couple Name
  • Almost every possible ship in this story has one already.
• Ship Mates: Due to fandom still being small, and the author supporting most ships, there is hardly ever any conflict over ships and some people like to multiship.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Shipping Mirabilis with Minato is actually getting some backing even though they've never purposefully interacted with each other.
• Squick:
  • The pool. Made worse when Hotaru and Mitsuru swim in it for evidence which resulted in many fans being disturbed.
  • The fact that the killer doesn't clean up after himself and dumps executed bodies with the students. Made worse by the author going out of her way to describe that they're decomposing and disgusting.
• Theme Pairing:
  • People used to ship Minato and Mirabilis together because of their similar themes: Ultimate Traveler and Ultimate Florist, which leads the to connect with nature and be adventurous.
  • Similarly, people ship Kira and Cassius, they are respectively the Ultimate Jeweler and Ultimate Jeweler Smuggler.
  • Also why people shipped Kira and Cassius before the events of chapter two. Then chapter two gave them a lot more ship teases. A lot more.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character
  • Some feel that Kazuhiko is like this. They feel like he was killed off way too soon and had an interesting personality and moral mindset.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Due to the dark themes and disturbing material of this fanfic, some people think it crosses the line and becomes too dark. With this, and Base Breaking Characters, some people just don't care about some of the characters since they are already to doomed to suffer even more.
• Wheelchair Woobie: When Yasu gets paralyzed, they become on of these.
• The Woobie
  • Minato starts the story off by Monokuma forcing them to wear a chain because of something they cannot control. Things just get worse for Minato as their love interest and protector, Akita, gets brutally murdered. And then it snowballs out of control.
  • Naoko. She helps out a lot with investigations and has a cute personality. Too bad she is severely traumatized by the events of the fanfiction.
  • Yasu. Poor, poor Yasu. First, they get attacked by a random person and paralyzed from the waist down, then two of their friends brutally die, and has to deal with that in the same day. And not to mention their backstory is hinted to be darker. Fans were upset when Yasu tried to kill themself but sadly not surprised.
  • Takara. At first, most of the group found Takara way too creepy to hang out with. Then, when he made a group of friends, ALL of them died within a couple of days together. Four of his friends died and Takara wears Takayuki's jacket in remembrance.
  • You know what, all of the characters in the main cast are woobies in one way or another. Hell, even characters who only get mentioned a couple times can be this! Looking at you Hanako and Hisan.