"It never mattered. I don't think it matters now."
—The Kingmaker
The second round of Trustfell.
Warning: all spoilers are unmarked.
- Achilles in His Tent: During her Heroic BSoD after Mettaton reveals that he was working for the Kingmaker and is executed, Sigrun goes into hiding and admits that she doesn't want to be the leader anymore. Cherryblod brings her around.
- Acting for Two: Black puts on a one-person play.
- Alternate Self: Very present this round. Were any Round 1 characters reapped (none were), they would have had to have been straight from canon and not from R1. Canonmates of the R1 characters also all seem to be from alternate versions of their world: Mettaton's from a different route from Undyne's, Cabanela's leaving home at the end of the first round would have derailed Lynne, Shirazu's canonmates were from separate timelines anyway, and Speedwagon is from earlier than Dio's canonpoint, causing another divergence.
- Anachronism Stew: The kitchen is high-tech but the laundry room is archaic. A few weeks' worth of complaints to the Kingmaker later, the captives get a new, modern laundry room.
- Animal Motifs: Everyone gets one of these, thanks to Black and Shirazu's stuffed animal zoo. Originally it was restricted to just the dead (it was being used to memorialize them and as some post-trial stress relief, on Black's end), but it has since been extended to the living to make asking about people's favorite animals less depressing. Animals generally fit the character somehow as according to them, their players, or other characters.
- Arc Symbol: The swirl logo on the mod account and community icons. It's Glory's idle pen-brush movement that they use to indicate that they're still there to talk to (albeit unintentionally because all pen-brush swirls pretty much look the same), and also meant to resemble Ryuunosuke's Command Seals.
- Ass Shove: Not done literally, but Sigrun uses it as a metaphor for putting the Kingmaker on trial.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Tarrlok's reaction to his third memory regain.
- Awful Truth: Some of the secrets from the secret incentive were this to characters who didn't know either their own (like Mouri's) or their close CR's (like Cherryblod's).
- Awkward Kiss: Sigrun curiously licks Mettaton's face.
- Ballad of X: Some of the titles of Sigrun's compositions.
- Bathroom Stall Graffiti: Yosuke uses this to pass along secret messages late in the game.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Misa crosses her own line by killing innocents, Caren by going for the Soul Jar when she fights Pearl, and both are disgusted by it. This ties into the round's driving question of what's really unforgivable.
- Be All My Sins Remembered: Part of the reason for Yato's Zero-Approval Gambit, as well as Mettaton's reminding the people close to him not to get attached.
- Because You Can Cope: Cherryblod confesses to Sigrun that he'd have killed to spare Yosuke in his place had a motive like that come up. He says that Yosuke would have been better able to cope with being the only one left alive than Sigrun, who's already been betrayed enough times.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Ryuunosuke admits in the mastermind trial that he liked Sigrun because, even if his game was horrible to her, she treated him like a person.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Norman finally asserts himself by yelling this at Caren when he's supporting Team Kill and she's defending Team Spare in the final trial.
- Birds of a Feather: Zagi and Kamui, who bond over their love of fighting each other and wrecking the place.
- Breaking Bad News Gently: Some of the ghosts try to tell Cherryblod about Mettaton's fate this way. One of them ruins it with a blunt "He's not here."
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Yato calls Shirazu's title a death flag.
- Call-Back:
- 2-3 is set up similarly to 1-1, featuring a fake hanging. There's also a reference to the Flaming Sword finale in the sword's new item description.
- Speedwagon describes Dio as a danger who really shouldn't be in a murder vault, "even if we had any real angels."
- Stan comes up with Blue's same idea that their captor wears sweater vests.
- "There are so few of you now" from the Week 7 log calls back to round one's use of the phrase in the seventh investigation and the final trial. It later becomes a series tradition.
- When Black explains that his real name is something normal, he asks what kind of world would have Colourful Theme Naming. Hmm, how about Blue's or Weiss's?
- Carnivore Confusion: Cherryblod (a humanoid shrimp) and the King (a bird bird) give a lot of the humans this.
- Central Theme: What, if anything, is really unforgivable? Can people change for the better, or just for the worse? How do we break the cycle of people who've been hurt lashing out at others?
- Chaos Architecture: It seems that the Survivors aren't just unlocking floors that were already there. The Kingmaker, or maybe the Vault itself, seems to be creating the new floors and changing them at will.
- Childless Dystopia: The Vault is all adults, unlike the previous round and other murdergames; even the trauma exemption only ended up letting in 17-year-olds. According to the round's initial announcement, this is a plot point, though it's kept for later rounds as well.
- Clone Army: Mion thinks the Kingmaker has a bunch of clones of the Survivors lying around.
- Clothing Damage: Not used for fanservice, but mild clothing damage is used as evidence in the third case.
- Collection Sidequest: Searching for the key cards.
- Collective Identity: The Kingmaker is two people.
- Confess to a Lesser Crime: When word gets out that he had a "wild youth," Cherryblod tells Kogorou that he used to do graffiti and shoplifting. By this point, the readers already know that he's actually an ex-mob enforcer. He later comes clean to the whole group.
- Cop and Scientist: Mouri and Banner, who tend to handle investigating the bodies.
- Creepy Twins: This round has five characters who are twins. Two are killers, two are moles, and one's from a horror canon.
- Cycle of Revenge: A major part of this round's backstory. While murder games were developed to punish evildoers, the torture of the situation got so bad that the winners would regularly take over to run a new game with innocent captives to take their pain out on someone else. Sparing the Kingmakers helps to break the cycle.
- Dropping the Bombshell: Everyone assuming that the wrong person drew the "Dickbutt Kingmaker" until Cherryblod reveals that it was Bruce.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Yosuke's envelope in the secrets motive contains these, since he's already come out with all the important stuff.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The reason for this exercise's existence — and the one that begat it — is that the wrong people were victims and their not-so-moral loved ones killed everyone else and rebooted.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: According to the Kingmaker, the characters' worlds have been completely destroyed. He's full of it.
- Everybody Lives: Week 8 had a trial for attempted murder.
- Everything Is Online: During the seventh trial, Aiden ends up explaining that his world works this way. Reactions range from awed to horrified.
- Evil Costume Switch: Mettaton shows up in slightly different attire at the mastermind reveal.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Yosuke is going over what they saw in the second trial with Bruce, he stops and realizes that his theory might mean that the motive was a fake to begin with.
- First-Name Basis: Black lets Yosuke call him by his real name "on special occasions."
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the final trial, the survivors suddenly pick up on the fact that the Kingmaker is on a First-Name Basis with Mettaton and only Mettaton. Just then, they have to confront the only reason that might be...
- Flat "What": Glory gives a flat "wow" when Sigrun tells them about the events of the fourth trial.
- Frames of Reference: Compare Black's big glasses, emphasizing his soft eye shape and showing that he's not so heartless after all, to Colress's clinical Nerd Glasses.
- Freak Out: Detective Mouri is never the same after learning that his fame and success were born from a lie. It actually fosters positive Character Development, though, where he learns to work with and care about the other captives instead of just take over everything and jump to self-serving conclusions.
- Friendship Trinket: Aqua makes her close friends wayfinders.
- Given Name Reveal: Black tells Yosuke his real name in private.
- Go Through Me: Cherryblod says this to anyone who might want to harm the people he's taken in as his own. This protectiveness is what moves him from Team Kill to the head of Team Spare when Mettaton turns out to be one of their captors.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Sigrun plans an elaborate date for Mettaton, including everything from reminders of home to a manufactured starry sky and a handmade Mettaton sculpture. She breaks down describing it all in the sixth trial when Mettaton admits what he's done.
- Hair-Trigger Explosive: The seventh murder involved a chemical bomb that was extremely easy to set off.
- Hand Gagging: Sigrun, to stop Cherryblod's Mirthless Laughter.
- Hanlon's Razor: The Survivors assume that whatever caused the speakers and alarm to act up was dangerous. The dead were just messing around.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The third culprit tries to frame their victim for this because the motive was "kill someone or I'll kill one of you at random."
- He's Back!: After Cherryblod talks Sigrun out of her Heroic BSoD after losing Mettaton, she makes a triumphant recovery and returns to leading the group.
- He's Dead, Jim: As always, but actually subverted in Case 8: Gabriel is dead! No, he's not. They still have to investigate, though!
- He Who Fights Monsters: Mettaton, Ryuunosuke, and Archer were all victims of death exercises before being driven to the point of starting their own.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: A big part of why Black won't just outright confess his love is that he sees his friendship with Yosuke as this and is afraid of the rug being pulled out from under him.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Black and Yosuke mutually back away from what could have been a Relationship Upgrade at the case 5 afterparty, both citing this to themselves.
- I Have Your Wife: The week seven incentive. Characters receive photographic evidence that their loved ones are in their own killing game.
- I Lied: The mole wasn't really telling the Kingmaker to take him as a sacrifice in the third week, but conspiring with the Kingmaker. Well, he wasn't actually doing that either...
- The "I Love You" Stigma: Even to the people Black knows he likes Yosuke, he refuses to admit that it's anything stronger than a passing crush.
- I'm Going to Hell for This: Norman and his Split Personality (a manifestation of his abusive mother) both say they know he's going to hell for the murder he commits.
- Immoral Reality Show: The theory that comes up in-character in every murder game makes a reappearance here. This time, it's proven right.
- I'm Not Doing That Again: Mouri does this when he fails at sewing and ends up covered in bandages. Bruce tries to bring him around and he amends this to "okay, if we both survive, then I'll try again."
- Improbable Hairstyle: The maintenance variation is averted. Colress's hair goes limp without gel and Yosuke's roots start to come in without bleach.
- Irony: Case 5 rests for a while on the idea that the way the murder happened might be impossible and would be difficult to prove if it did happen. You know, how Misa's parents' killers walked free. What's more, the person who breaks the case apart is the one Misa considered "pure evil" and had contemplated killing instead.
- It Never Gets Any Easier: Cherryblod and Speedwagon both say this about executing the killers.
- It's All My Fault: Though he won't let himself admit it until his last weeks, Mettaton blames himself for the events of the more violent routes of his canon.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: It's not exactly fair that Archer got to live on in deadland and his victims, aside from the Kingmakers, were all deleted, but he eventually gets his. We find out that his body is long gone, he's lost his will to live after losing the only person he cared anything about, and the survivors Mercy Kill him at the end.
- Kill the Ones You Love: Learning that he's half of the Kingmaker, Sigrun finds that it's her duty as atoning leader to kill Mettaton. When the group chooses mercy, though, she decides that she might have to kill her boyfriend and his partner someday, but it doesn't have to be now.
- Kingmaker Scenario: What did you expect? The Kingmaker, actually called that, can't or won't become "King" himself because they already are, but he's more than willing to give one captive an edge over the others and wants to ensure a winner.
- Lazy Bum: Sigrun thinks "Occupation: Self-employed" on Speedwagon's profile is a nice euphemism for this.
- Like Father, Like Son: In Round 1, Giovanni made unlikely alliances with enemies and even tried the same with the mastermind. In the backstory of this game, his son Silver became the Morality Chain of a serial killer.
- Love at First Punch: During a seance Stan holds for the others to contact the ghosts, one of the dead insinuates that Zagi and Kamui have this relationship. It's true.
- Love Hurts: Remember, everyone, if you're falling for someone, one of you will end up dead, revealed to be working for the Kingmaker, or both!
- Love Makes You Dumb: Sigrun reflects on herself in week seven and concludes that "we all do dumb things for the people we love." Glory agrees, regretting (one of the people who make her up) having killed because the person they loved died.
- Ludicrous Mêlée Accuracy: Subverted in the third case, where it turns out that the victim had actually been knocked out before the One-Hit Kill.
- Marry Them All: Cherryblod is confused as to why Speedwagon's culture doesn't do this.
- Marshmallow Hell: Poor Black wakes up this way when Sigrun has him under her watch 24/7.
- Mauve Shirt: Despite his... not being a very nice person, many of the other characters had gotten attached to the first victim.
- Maybe Ever After: Yosuke and Black end up admitting their feelings, but realize that they're both too damaged from the game and what went on between them, so they aren't officially an item, just... maybe someday.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Kamui's an ageless vampire and Zagi's human. Kamui gives a veto to the obvious solution, saying that it usually goes wrong.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Inverted. The RNG kills off most of the women in the first few weeks.
- Mercy Kill: Deleting Archer in the end, since his body is gone and he's lost his will to live anyway.
- Mermaid Problem: Misa and Cherryblod discuss how the latter once drunkenly asked mermaids how they reproduced. For her part, Caren isn't telling.
- Metaphorgotten: Sigrun has this gem:"Adventure is the spice of life. And the main dish. And the dessert. And everything else, actually, it's good!"
- Mirthless Laughter: Late in the game, Cherryblod collapses in worn-out, broken laughter when he gets a rapping fish ornament out of the prize machine.
- Mistaken Age: Stan is very confused at the ages of some of the captives from the round Archer ran. Notably, he mistakes 17-year-old Silver and 18-year-old Mai for small kids! Granted, if they had been, their eventual fates wouldn't have been out of character for the Kingmakers, both of whom are considered threats in canon in part because they very much Would Hurt a Child.
- Mistaken for Romance: Mouri has to go for the Brain Bleach when he assumes that Bruce and the King are an item.
- The Mole: This round has more of a "saboteur" type instead of the previous round's "informant" type, supposedly. It actually had two informants, with a third who turned down the offer, and Mettaton wasn't really a "killswitch," he was half of the Kingmaker.
- Morality Chain Beyond the Grave: Mettaton invokes this in a passive-aggressive fashion in Week 3, labeling a sign-out sheet by saying that one of the deceased would have made them do it anyway.
- New Parent Nomenclature Problem: Yosuke usually calls Cherryblod by his name, but starts slipping into "Dad" more later on.
- Non-Lethal Warfare: Sigrun is excited to start up mock battles and accepts all challengers, even the Pokémon.
- Noodle Incident: Cherryblod once fought in a dress.
- Nothing Personal: Aiden tells his victim this when they wake up in deadland. It isn't taken well. Misa also does the same thing, but the victim in that case is okay with it.
- Not What It Looks Like: Despite their embarrassment and Sigrun's teasing, Yosuke and Black really didn't do anything more than hold hands when they were in Black's bed after case five.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: The title was a joke (one of many, along with things like "Trustfell 2: Fall Further" and "Trustfell: Return to Anime Germany") that amused the mods enough to make it canon.
- Oh, Crap!: Yosuke's reaction in the eighth investigation when his father and sort-of-boyfriend are the last to turn up. Both are alive, though.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Sigrun first declares this on the Kingmaker after Mettaton's trial, albeit with killing. Played more straight during the Kingmaker's trial itself after learning who both masterminds were, and saying that no one could kill Mettaton before her. Technically, this is true, since she's the only one who knows how to.
- Opposites Attract:
- Black's an overprotective cynic afraid of making friends and Yosuke's already learned The Power of Friendship, hope, and letting go.
- Sigrun's a caring, responsible leader who takes each death hard and Mettaton tries to only look out for himself because it's easier not to care.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Caren calls the exercise the "worst time spent unconscious in a tank hooked up to life support." Though she clarifies that this has happened to her before, it's still weirdly specific.
- People Jars: The Survivors' bodies in the real world are kept in stasis pods.
- The Perfect Crime: Case 5 was almost one, with the murder being committed with a Death Note, something that not only very few characters even knew existed, but also another example of Trustfell subverting murdergame conventions that the players take for granted. It was solved by what looked to be another wacky tangent when Cherryblod's "crack theory" was proven right.
- The Power of Hate: What started their round in the first place, when Hans kills Silver and Alphys, kicking off Mettaton and Ryuunosuke's separate killing sprees. Neither have anything to go home to, so they decide to do a game of their own.
- The Power of Love: What ends up saving their round at the final trial. Cherryblod asks to spare Mettaton and Sigrun ends up taking his side. Mettaton asks that whatever they do, they do for Ryuunosuke too, and so both of the Kingmakers end up being spared.
- Piss-Take Rap: The rapping fish ornament that ends up in the prize machine. Cherryblod's own attempt to rap isn't much better.
- Pocket Protector: Defied when the spear that impales Caren hits her shell necklace first. The necklace holds her Soul Jar, which breaks, and the spear proceeds to go through her body.
- Porn Stash: While nobody actually finds one, Taichi sees Yosuke searching the storage room and jokes that he's found the Kingmaker's stash.
- Precision F-Strike: Cherryblod doesn't usually use obscenities, but he's aimed a choice few at the Kingmaker for rubbing it in that his loved ones are supposedly dead and for the whole Mettaton situation.
- Production Throwback: There have always been a few to Dangan Roleplay, but this time, it's actually a final investigation clue: while it's definitely still an Easter Egg and the game is still an Alternate Universe, Silver being Ryuunosuke's Only Friend was a big hint to the Kingmaker's identity (half of it).
- Put Them All Out of My Misery: Archer, Ryuunosuke, and Mettaton all have this motivation for killing their fellow survivors and starting a new murder game.
- Revenant Zombie: The executions appear to employ these, with a copy of the victim, having their powers and weapons back, coming to kill the culprit. After Pearl, whose real remains are right there in the courtroom at the time, appears as one too, the living start to suspect that they're fakes.
- Robosexual: Mettaton and Sigrun. They work surprisingly well together, to the point where Your Universe or Mine? comes up and Sigrun decides that her roboyfriend is coming back with her. Sadly, Sigrun decides to break up with Mettaton, albeit reluctantly, when he's revealed to be the Kingmaker's "kill switch" at the end of the sixth trial. They fall into old habits and get back together once they're in the real world, though, and he as well as Ryuunosuke are being taken back to her world to be kept an eye on by her and Cherryblod.
- Sadistic Choice: The second incentive, which comes down to "kill someone or I will."
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Faced with the trouble that would surely follow if he brought a huge amount of money home, Yosuke asks Cherryblod if he knows someone from his mob days who would help him launder it. The answer's no.
- Seashell Bra: Caren wears a simple one as a mermaid. A significantly fancier bejeweled one is her dead renewable regain, and though it's designed as outerwear (the undersea equivalent of a Pimped-Out Dress), Sigrun starts wearing it as underwear.
- Sequel Hook: Not only have there been more murder games, they've grown into a full-blown industry, mostly in the form of a virtual Immoral Reality Show... but hey, "Observant?" That means Round 1 was involved!
- Serenade Your Lover: Used tragically in Week 6. Sigrun works on writing Mettaton a song for the big special date she has planned, but Mettaton is "ordered to kill" the same week, reveals his treachery to the group, and dies before she can perform it for him.
- Shaming the Mob: Yosuke remembers being talked down in the third week and then does it himself when some of the others, Cherryblod in particular, start to gang up on the culprit.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Another leading theory for what exactly is carrying out the executions and looking like the victims. This one's more accurate, though it's just a projection.
- Someone Has to Die: The week three motive is this, implying that one person has to be sacrificed.
- Smoking Gun: Case 5's introduction of Misa's Death Note shows exactly how and by whom the murders were committed and that such a scenario was possible in the first place.
- Soul Jar: Both the victim and culprit of Case 2 have theirs broken.
- Spotting the Thread: Mettaton uses fashion knowledge to corner Misa, who would have known very well not to bleach a black dress.
- Spy Speak: Sigrun and Colress talk about radio waves when they actually mean ghosts.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: The end result of a Crossover Punchline to the mastermind's canon actually sticking this time. Sigrun uses "greatest cool", confusing the people around her, before anyone knew that Ryuunosuke was half of the Kingmaker.
- Talking in Bed: Just about every romantic or found-family relationship has a few moments like this, like Black/Yosuke, Sigrun/Mettaton, and Cherryblod + his sons.
- Tempting Fate: Sigrun tells Stan not to do this when he starts to theorize that the Kingmaker might kill someone himself if no one else does.
- That Came Out Wrong: Black accidentally tells his not-boyfriend to strip at the first meeting with Glory.
- There Is Another: The Survivors are told that they're the last from their worlds. Late in the game, there's a hostage motive that indicates that some of their loved ones also survived and were placed in another murder game, if you believe the Kingmaker's words.
- They Would Cut You Up: Stan does not want to take the obviously nonhuman Survivors anywhere near his own world.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Misa's attitude towards all the murderers, and she'll say as much, not caring if they've changed or have regrets.
- Try Not to Die: Cherryblod tells Yosuke he's not allowed to. Yosuke replies that he can't promise that in a murder vault, but asks that if he does die, that Cherryblod keep going.
- Understatement: Taichi upon pulling a blood-covered blade out of the incinerator."Well, this isn't good."
- Undesirable Prize: The "mystery prize" for the speed-dating game Yato sets up is a common prize machine drop. Sigrun is disappointed and wants something else.
- Uniqueness Decay: Naturally, this being the second round, the Graceside incident isn't the first murder exercise around. The part that isn't a Foregone Conclusion? There are lots of them.
- Unreliable Expositor: The fourth culprit, when found out, gives two versions of the murder and the events around it: Norman's and Norma's.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Yosuke goes to use the washroom in the seventh investigation and completely misses that Cherryblod's investigating in there, not just using the facilities, and that the body announcement's gone off.
- Urine Trouble: The subject of a couple jokes on Yosuke's part, where he fears he might scare someone into wetting their pants accidentally.
- Viking Funeral: Sigrun tries the Closest Thing We Got, which involves raiding the deceased's rooms to burn some of their stuff after the trials.
- Villain by Default: The list of previous victors in the control room's red book describes them as a warmonger, a serial murderer, a sadist, and a sociopath. Naturally, all four are bad news.
- Was It All a Lie?: The closest people to Mettaton, when he reveals himself as the "kill switch," ask this of him. He tries to say yes, but finds that he's grown a few feelings.
- Wet T-Shirt Contest: Joked to be the real reason that Yosuke threw a bucket of water on Caren. Really, it was just panic because she was coming toward him and trying to go for the bucket.
- Wham Episode: A few late in the game.
- The office unlocking, and how it doesn't match the rest of the Vault at all... but looks just like the office from Graceside. Kimblee himself is mentioned under his "Observant" title later on.
- The hostage motive suggesting that the Survivors' loved ones are not only alive, but are stuck in their own murder game. While it's falsified, it was big at the time.
- Case 8 was a great big stack of game-changing revelations. Everybody Lives, but Black had been plotting to kill to escape, he was working for the Kingmaker, so was Stan until recently, Colress had been approached to be a mole but turned it down, and there might still be another one based on Black's theory about things not adding up. Which turns out to be true, but it's none of the Survivors.
- The revelation of Glory's and the Kingmaker's identities.
- World Half Full: Glory describes their home world this way."The world wasn't good. But it was full of good people. They made the best of things."
- Wrong-Name Outburst: Black calls Sigrun "Mom" once when she embarrasses him.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Aqua tells Bruce this, stunning him into silence. Black tells the others this often, too, and is just as shocked when Yosuke uses it on him.
- You Are in Command Now: Attempted when Sigrun temporarily gives up after getting close to too many traitors and defending them before they turn out to be guilty. Cherryblod turns the promotion down and they compromise that it should be a group decision. In the end, the group doesn't vote to oust Sigrun as leader.
- You Are Not Alone: A major theme, with culprits and victims realizing too late that they could have turned to others and those still living starting to wonder if it's worth reaching out and being honest with one another.
- You Need to Get Laid: Sigrun starts thinking Caren wouldn't be such a killjoy if she could get a date, especially after Black outs her. In the postgame, she plots to get Caren a girlfriend, quickly roping others into the plan and driving Caren herself up the wall.
- Your Days Are Numbered: In lieu of a Week 8 incentive, the Survivors get a set of messages warning them that the Kingmaker wants to kill them all.
- Zero-Approval Gambit: The third culprit, when cornered and found out, decides to go full-out villain-act out of remorse and desperation.
