YMMV / The PreDespair Kids

• Arc Fatigue: A complaint leveled at the sixth round of The Hope Games, which spanned over 50 pages of truths and dares that only grew crueler and more embarrassing as the event went on, to the point that most of the anons felt sorry for the participants while some tried to break the challenge by exploiting Loophole Abuse (a point some anons raised later as well). As one anon put it:
  "Praise hope jesus it's finally over after 57 pages!"
• Archive Panic: The original blog has 1566 pages, and the sequel blog has surpassed that.
• Crack Pairing: Mod J made a list of his top 10 crack ships here
  • One anon ships Karma and Mike.
  • An anon suggested Maverick and Junpei due to their kinks... their creators responses were rather displeased.
  • On the sequel blog, there's an anon that seems really adamant about getting Hajime together with Richard.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many of the original characters have become very popular.
  • One of the most beloved is Karma Graves, thanks to both her unique personality and mannerisms, sad sympathetic backstory, her talent as the Ultimate Secret Agent, and her relationship with Junpei.
  • Orochi Kamisaki, introduced in The Despair Kids has also quickly gained popularity for his quirky personality and his teasing Junpei.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Ethos/Mukuro is popular, despite the fact that Ethos is already in a relationship.
  • Quite a few anons like the idea of "Biotherapy" (Kyoji/Miaya) more than the teased Kiyoji/Mikan. The two were the closest to each other out of everyone in Class 75, often cleaning up the messes left behind by Maverick, and Kyoji does consider her one of the most important girls in his life alongside Mikan. His creator has also said that Kyoji and Miaya have shared a kiss once before, though it was more of an act of reassurance than romance. Funny enough, those two are the closest thing Ryoko has to parents, due to Miaya donating the egg needed to fuse Junko's DNA with, and Kyoji likely being the one to fuse the DNA.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Maverick and Kyoji is one of Mod J's crack ships. However, there's not really anything that indicates an attraction between the two on the blog.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • When you think about, it makes perfect sense that Ryouko is a clone of Junko. It explains the matching body proportions between the two, the aura she gives off, and even her facial expressions, especially the despair one.
  • It's also been established that Kyoji has access to Junko's DNA, which he used to create the bioagent. There's no reason to think he couldn't have used it for something like this as well.
• Fridge Horror: Quite a bit-
  • Just what the hell distracted the Steering committee from the Izuru Kamakura project? It's been two years since they made the offer to Hajime...
    • Turns out it wasn't distraction. Izuru Kamukura was already part of Hajime, laying dormant inside him.
  • Why the hell did Kyoji and the Future Foundation decide to clone Junko Enoshima?!
    • As it turns out, it was for either infiltration or decoy purposes.
  • After Kyoji left, Maverick turned the 75th class (sans Maiya), his kingdom. Given we are talking about someone that his talent is being Manipulative Bastard, what exactly did he do to them?
• Growing the Beard: The Hope Games arc was one of the first arcs in the blog, in which we got many events that set for its current mode, such as the opening of all of 77th class kids for questions, Mondo and Taka becoming Official Couple, the introduction of the first named anons, the appearance of Chiaki, the Heel–Face Turn of Mukuro and much more.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In an early post, Junko says she finds Celestia the most interesting to talk to in her class besides her sister. The gambler would eventually turn to despair.
• Ho Yay:
  • Nagito and Hajime carry this over from canon, with Nagito stating he has a crush on one of his male classmates. Most of the anons assume it to be Hajime although Nagito denies this whenever it's brought up. Nagito's last thoughts during The Fall of Hope's Peak are about how he wished he'd told Hajime how he felt, turning this case of Ho Yay into a tragic one.
  • In Schadenfreude Class 75 Edition, Maverick calls Ted Chikatilo "Teddy". While it's probably just to keep in time with the song, it does come off as a bit of an Affectionate Nickname.
    • When the Named Anon creators were asked if any of them were no longer virgins. Maverick's creator confirmed that Maverick and Ted slept together while drunk.
    • It's confirmed that Ted has a crush on Maverick in "Storms." Maverick uses this crush to manipulate Ted, before killing him.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Biothearpy for Kyoji/Maiya.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Karma has been shipped with lots of characters, including Junpei, Kazuichi, Naomi and Sly. They eventually enter into a relationship with Naomi.
  • Junpei himself has been shipped with Rogue, Karma, Naomi, and Orochi. He eventually ends up in a relationship with Orochi.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Remnants have crossed it plenty of times:
  • Junko crossed it when she attempted to kill Rogue after she pulled a Heel–Face Turn, and seemingly corrupted Mikan.
  • Junpei crossed it by implementing the death flag system. Although, this hasn't stopped various people try to bring him back. He may have partially come back with The Reveal that he turned away from the remnants when Mukuro did.
  • Celeste crossed it by murdering Yasuke and Hiyoko, and attempting to murder Leon.
    • In return, Micheal crossed it by pulling a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on her.
  • Maverick is probably the most vile of the named anons, however if one were to pinpoint a moment where he well and truely crossed the MEH would be in "Storms", where he tricked Ted Chikatilo into creating a bomb for him, coming to Hope's Peak's Library, and manipulating Ted's feelings for him, giving Ted a Kiss of Death where he armed the bomb, before shoving Ted onto a metal desk leg and leaving him to die with the bomb.
    • In terms of the sequel blog, killing his ex-girlfriend mostly because she didn't tell him that she had his child would be a good moment to pinpoint his worst crime so far. And, of course, he's still on a mission to kill all his former classmates... having succeeded in killing five already.
  • Monaca has pretty much crossed it by unleashing an army of Monokumas into the school.
  • Yasuke crosses it by killing Ryouko, That loved him with all her heart, mere minutes after she found out she was a clone.
  • Ibuki crosses it by killing Nagito.
  • Chihiro crosses it by killing Sakura.
• Shocking Moments: Vesper Lord (Maverick's creator) described the Fall of Hope's Peak as "This arc has been basically one massive "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" after another." Good examples are:
  • Tock
  • The Truth of a Girl Pt.2. Part 1 also counts, but to a lesser extent.
  • The Online Goal
  • The reveals of the 3 Remnants of Despair hidden inside the school are pretty surprising:
    • The 77th Lucky Student and The Musician. It's Ibuki, who murders Nagito.
    • The Princess and The Mechanic. It's Kazuichi, who kills himself in front of Sonia.
    • The Fighter, The Reserve Course Student, and The Programmer. It's Chihiro, who blasts Sakura to pieces with a shotgun.
  • The Despairs has Chihiro rambling about how despair-inducing it would be if his father dies because of him.
  • Another example is Yuuko's game in The Despair Kids. This arc was full of major reveals, such as:
    • Ryouko being ressurected after a fakeout with Mahiru apparently being a despair.
    • Multiple Izuru Kamukuras, as well as the reveal of Izuru being dormant inside Hajime.
• Squick: The Truth or Dare challenge got rather cruel to the 6 players, leading to quite a bit of squick wherever food/eating was involved. Highlights include Private Agent having to both eat a cricket (Kyouko nearly threw up), Athlettes having to chug down month's worth of protein drink (both got very sick) and Earth & Stone having to eat a stick of butter each, which was the dare that finally ended the challenge after they were asked to eat two of them.
  • According to her sister's observation, Mukuro's cooking is basically food poisoning waiting to happen even though she thinks she isn't that bad a chef (keeping in mind that Mukuro has no problem eating bugs or raw chicken for sustenance). The remaining challengers on the second day of the Truth or Dare challenge proved this to be true after being dared to eat it.
  • Kyoji's BT-22 bioweapon, when used on a healthy clone of Jin Kirigiri's heart, causes it to turn brownish-gray, shrivel up, and wither away within seconds.
• Story-Breaker Power: Rogue can shoot lightning out of her hands, teleport, and even warp reality to a certain extent. It really seems like they shouldn't be having difficulty with the despairs with someone like her around.
  • Likewise, Kyoji can alter his entire appearance down to the genetic level and make poisons that only kill specific individuals or groups of people. He's also made it clear that, if he wanted to, he could cause The End of the World as We Know It just by crushing a vial in his hand. His reasons for not doing more to stop the despairs, especially if he does hate them, aren't exactly clear, but could be related to his own morals.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Haiji Towa is crucified by Maverick.
• Trolling Creator: Mod J is very vague when it comes to the matter of Izuru Kamakura. Early on in The Despair Kids, however, it's implied that Izuru will surface as a clone of Hajime created by the despairs.
• Unexpected Character: In the beginning, nobody was really expecting Chiaki to become a prominent character.
• The Woobie: Mod J is not kind to the characters. Most of them count at some point or another, but highlights are:
  • Ethos had no idea that his girlfriend and best friend are both Remnants of Despair up until the fall of Hope's Peak, where Mike ended up chopping off his arm.
  • Mahiru. Poor girl lost her best friend Sato (as in canon), and as of the Hope's Peak Arc, has lost her other best friend Hiyoko too. And, as she's stated to the 'counselor', she doesn't feel any closure over the death of Hiyoko's murderer. As of the Fall of Hope's Peak, she's likely to start feeling even worse, with the revelation that another of her good friends, Ibuki, is a member of Ultimate Despair.
  • Mikan. Just as in canon, she's endured pretty much every possible form of bullying and abuse her entire life. Only here, we get some more elaboration, like the time some girl randomly stabbed her in the arm with a stolen knife (in preschool no less), and the very heavy implication that she's been the victim of rape or sexual assault.
  • Just as Chihiro's getting up the strength to reveal that he's actually a guy, Hiyoko and (seemingly) Matsuda are murdered by Celeste, who is in turn sniped by Mike in a case of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. He ends up temporarily leaving Hope's Peak in an attempt to cope with all the shit that went down. But then comes the invasion of Hope's Peak... where he blasts Sakura with a shotgun and kills her.
  • Ryouko. The girl finally gets to return to Hope's Peak and what happens to her? Everyone in the audience treats her with suspicion, the boy she loves dies, she's caught in the middle of a murder situation, and she can't even remember most it happening. And then it's revealed that she's a clone of Junko, the one who ordered the murder of her boyfriend. And then it's revealed that said love is not actually dead, and was watching her because he was ordered to and not because he had any feelings to her. And then he stabs her with a knife and kills her. Her whole character arc is essentially a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story.
  • Kazuichi. Treated as a Butt-Monkey by many anons (not as much as Leon, but still), caught up in a crazy Love Triangle, and then, during the fall of Hope's Peak, he's revealed to be an Ultimate Despair, figured out by the girl he has a crush on. As it turns out, his death flag was raised, and he ends up committing suicide, choosing to kill himself instead of hurting any of his friends. His dying wish is for Sonia and Gundam to both make it out, which, thankfully, they both do.
  • Nagito. His luck causes all sorts of crazy things to happen to him, and he finds it hard to work up the courage to process his feelings for Hajime. Then, during the fall of Hope's Peak, he's stabbed to death by Ibuki.
  • Leon gets this, being the resident Butt-Monkey of the blog.
  • Chiaki, due to being a robot and often uncertain about a lot of things in her life. While she makes it through the Fall of Hope's Peak unharmed, she's separated from her two best friends, Hajime and Nagito. Hajime is with the Future Foundation, and OK, but Nagito was killed by Ibuki. And her two "fathers" turned out to both be members of Ultimate Despair, with one of them committing suicide. She has no idea that any of this has happened.