It's not every day you see someone listening to the end credits of the game they were in.
Less Bittersweet
(aka. DDLC: Less Bittersweet) is a fan webcomic by Ville V. Kokko based on the visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club! It starts off from the secret less sad ending of the game and shows what happens afterwards.
The plot revolves largely around Sayori and Monika, who are the only ones who can remember the horrifying events of the game, as they try to get by while dealing with the aftermath — and some new twists when it turns out it's not all over yet. The other characters from the original are present but clueless and engage in more mundane things like subplots about relationship drama.
The comic debuted on June 12 2022, as of the end of 2023 is projected to continue until some point in 2024, and usually or at least often updates on Mondays and Thursdays.
Spoilers for the original Doki Doki Literature Club! will be unmarked below.
Provides examples of:
- Adapted Out: The comic takes some elements from DDLC Plus!, mainly the side stories, but the author has been explicit that the whole story about the game being based on a simulation created by Metaverse Enterprises Solutions is firmly discarded.
- All There in the Manual: The author comments often give additional background.
- Animesque: The character art is done in a simpler imitation of the already Animesque style of the game. Other than that, though, the comic isn't trying to be a manga but uses Western conventions.
- Art Evolution: The author's stated intention is to actually learn some of the things he's doing in the art while creating this comic.
- Chapter 2 upgrades the black and white art by adding grey for dark areas, chapter 3 adds shading on top of that, chapter 4 has three shades of grey plus shading, and chapter 5 has full colour without any shading.
- Art Shift: A "Rejected April Fools' Day strip" only posted on Reddit uses scenes made with the the Doki Doki Dialog Generator instead of hand-drawn art — so basically, mostly art taken from the game itself.
- Batman Gambit: Having seen what things could happen in the game, and with the story having started over again, Sayori manipulates events so that Ive gets the first romance scene with both Yuri and Natsuki during one day. She does this to make everyone happy, but forgets to think about what it implies for her.
- Character Tics: The characters frequently adopt variants of the poses their sprites had in the game.
- The Teapot Pose: Sayori's drawing of Monika uses this (her signature pose), and Sayori herself when imitating Monika as the club President adopts it too.
- Sayori has developed a new one of pulling at her collar, which is implied to be because she can remember hanging herself.
- Dramedy: The overall plot is a serious one about existential and relationship questions, even some rather dark things, but there's plenty of comedy between the characters.
- Easily Forgiven: As soon as Monika starts to apologise, Sayori has already forgiven her for half-accidentally mind-raping everyone and driving Sayori herself to suicide during the game. It's because Sayori had the same kind of experience of Going Mad from the Revelation, and because Monika's subsequently sacrificing herself to make everyone else happy really resonates with Sayori. She also understands that Monika was Obliviously Evil, thinking none of the other characters in the game were real people like herself.
- Fix Fic: Inverted: A Fix Fic aims to make the original "better" by doing what the fic's author thinks should have been done originally. Conversely, the author of Less Bittersweet pretty much says that the original tragic ending was better. But he created a story that made the ending, well, less bittersweet anyway, because he was inspired and thought it could be good in other ways.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The comic sort of continues from how the game used this trope by always representing the name the player inserted in the game as an unreadable hand-drawn squiggle. However, the comic itself isn't written with this logic, since the characters do know the specific name, and so they don't react as if it could be absolutely any name. It doesn't come up a lot, but if you look carefully, Monika at one point says something that does nothing to reveal the actual name but rules out some classes of options.note
- Lighter and Softer: The comic is described as having the same themes as the original but not being at all as dark.
- Masquerade: Sayori and Monika consider it unthinkable to reveal to anyone that they're living in the world of a video game — even though that means they can't share the recent traumatic events with anyone but each other.
- Named by the Adaptation: The former Player Character is given the name Ive, taken from a trailer for DDLC+, the Updated Re-release of the game. This trope even happens in-universe, since before this, his name was whatever the player had chosen.
- No Name Given: The characters know the player's name (the name he used in the game, anyway), but it's always redacted in the comic.
- Noodle Incident: Comic 9 starts off with Ive explaining some weird incident to Sayori, but all we hear about it is the very end: "...And then he just sat on the other chair!"
- Painting the Medium: The first two panels use the Aller font for dialogue as in game itself does, but after that — as the game has ended, in-universe — it switches to Ready for More BB, a custom comic strip front, except for a couple of flashbacks from the game later on. Monika’s singing "Your Reality" is in the Journal font, which was used for the lyrics in the game too (and to represent her handwriting).
- Patchwork Fic: Though not based on different adaptations, the comic is somehow a sequel to both the original game and the side stories from the Updated Re-release, even though the side stories are in an Alternate Continuity to the main game (sort of, it's complicated). The author immediately pointed out how this was odd when it first came up, hinting that there was an explanation but that it would be revealed later.
- Take a Third Option: In strip 47, Ive is trying to decide between siding with Yuri or Natsuki in their argument so that he can get to spend time with the one he chooses and get closer to them. However, he can't choose which one he's interested in, because that was exactly the kind of choice where he could go either way in the game, and the player would have decided it for him. Then he notices that Sayori is starting to cry for failing to stop them fighting, and he decides to help her instead. The next strip (where he calls himself a "third wheel") is called "Take a Third Wheel".
- Unknowingly in Love: Downplayed with Ive's feelings for Sayori, since it's not quite being in love yet. He's very attracted to all three out of Yuri, Natsuki and Sayori, and could fall in love with any of them. After all, he used to be the Player Character and they were the three romance options. However, he was also written as being all She Is Not My Girlfriend about his childhood friend Sayori, only admitting otherwise at the very end if the player had him accept her confession. So now, he's consciously trying to choose between just Yuri and Natsuki, but unconsciously just as drawn to Sayori.
- Unsound Effect:
- (of a door) slide
- cheery girlish ringtone — and when it's been ignored for a while, pleeease pick me up already
- run into!
- door closing
- door closing again
- The Voice: Monika, having been deleted, can only manifest in the DDLC world as a voice — and even then, only Sayori can hear her.
- Word Salad Title: Parodied/in-universe: Ive tells Sayori about a new anime he's been watching called Sword la Kill Love.
