SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL ENTRANCEWAY APPLICATION

[shelflife]

Name: rene
DW username: 524
E-Mail: 18morehours@gmail.com
IM: aim: a sick sight

Other Characters: n/a

Character Name: Touko Fukawa
Series: Dangan Ronpa
Timeline: Early Chapter 2
Canon Resource Link: The Wiki page is pretty barebones, so here is a link to the SomethingAwful LP thread too. Unfortunately, the game itself has a low likelihood of being officially translated into English. The English-speaking fanbase was pretty singlehandedly kickstarted by that LP thread, which also functions as the only existing fan translation of the whole game.

Character Background:
PLEASE BE AWARE OF MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE GAME WHILE READING THIS APPLICATION ok thanks. As a murder mystery genre visual novel-esque type game (similar to 999, if you've heard of that, since that ones actually been officially localized outside of Japan), giving away spoilers also gives away a lot of the fun of reading/playing the game. I'm going to avoid the game's major spoilers as long as they don't directly affect Fukawa as she is at this canon point, but there are still going to be a lot of spoiled reveals past this point. If you ever think there is even a possibility you'd be interested in Dangan Ronpa, do yourself a favor and read at least the prologue and first two chapters in full before reading past this point.

With that out of the way, please enjoy the product of feverish delusion that is the entirety of this application. Thank you for reading.

Fukawa is a student of Hope's Peak Academy, the elite high school that can only be entered through invitation. All students are considered Super High School Level in their special talent; in other words, an unparalleled prodigy in their field. Hope's Peak Academy is considered Japan's hope for the future, a grounds meant specifically to groom pure talent.

Touko Fukawa's full title as a student is Super High School Level Literary Girl, her specialty being the romance genre. At the age of ten, she came out with her debut novel to wide critical acclaim, becoming a nationally celebrated author at a very young age. Her most famous work, Before the Sea's Scent Fades Away, written at the age of 14, became Twilight Saga level in terms of popularity. Considered a national phenomenon, it painted the romantic aspirations of young Japanese girls everywhere, affecting young culture to the point of making fishing to be considered a desirable job for young men (or possibly women looking to meet someone). Just entering high school while a constant on best selling lists and recognized several times over by various literary awards, it was no wonder that Hope's Peak Academy sought her out.

Based on accomplishment alone, it's easy to imagine what kind of person Fukawa herself might be. Perhaps a popular girl with romantic experience starting from a young age. Maybe an introverted but lonely teenager with maturity beyond her years and an active imagination, able to connect with readers emotionally.

You probably shouldn't mention any of these speculations to her face, though, because Fukawa is a walking ball of neurosis with a heavy dose of paranoia and victim complexes, and would likely assume you were trying to humiliate her in some way.

Meeting Fukawa herself makes her accomplishments even more amazing, in a way, because it's hard to believe that a person like her was able to manage them. She has absolutely no experience with romance, as her personality simultaneously drives off anyone who comes near and attracts bullying (up until the point where her reactions to the abuse get too awkward for even the cruelest of bullies to want to deal with her anymore). Her idea of a perfect relationship is entirely abusive, going far beyond what would be considered a healthy masochistic lifestyle.

She insults anyone who looks at her in the same breath as she insults herself, and puts a few more insults that weren't even thought of in the mouths of anyone who tries to talk to her. She thinks of herself as a disgusting, ugly, awful person and assumes everyone else must also think so, and anyone who pretends otherwise has some kind of ulterior motive.

And, to top it all off, she suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Or, to put it simply, she has a second personality, a different name and SHSL title all her own.

The "other Fukawa" calls herself Genocider Syo, Super High School Level Murderer. An "unsolved case" of the police, Syo is a serial killer with a nigh-uncountable number of murders under her belt. With her level of skill at such a young age, it's no wonder Hope's Peak Academy sought her out.

Syo is an opposite to Fukawa in many ways, but she could also be considered a vastly different reaction to Fukawa's neuroses. Both are aware of the other, after having lived together for so long, but as is usual for people with DID, the personalities don't share their memories with one another. Both also absolutely hate each other. In some ways, some of Fukawa's more unpleasant traits can be considered a reaction to Syo's existence, as pushing people away may make them less likely to be killed by Syo, or for someone to figure out that she and Syo are, in essence, the same person. Syo, on the other hand, hates gloomy personalities and recognizes Fukawa's attempts to "defeat" her existence, so it's natural that Syo hates Fukawa.

Where Fukawa's insecurities cause her to shrink away, Syo flaunts hers as a joke, a totally different way to cope with them. Where Fukawa's loneliness causes her to long for someone to treat her badly in the name of "love", Syo specifically seeks out men that interest her to ritualistically kill.

Syo is absolutely over the top in all that she does, teasing and laughing with a very dark sense of humor. She takes pride in her work, but also can't take herself too seriously. She is, in every way, a manifestation of the "opposite paths" Fukawa could have taken in her life.

For all these reasons, Fukawa is a perfect fit for the game set up by the mysterious mastermind: a school life of mutual killing. Using the avatar of Monobear, a remote-controlled mascot in the shape of a teddie bear, the mastermind has taken over as the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy, and only one class of students appears to still be attending. This class is forced to live the rest of their lives, secluded from the outside world, within the walls of Hope's Peak. Or, alternately, they may attempt to graduate.

Graduating involves killing another student and not getting caught. If, at the customary school trial, the murderer is found out, they are given a brutal execution by Monobear himself. If, on the other hand, they are able to fool everyone else into choosing the wrong culprit, they are set free while all the other students are killed.

It should be easy enough to simply take the option of living peacefully within the walls, killing no one. But Monobear finds that way too boring, so he actively manipulates the students into attempting murder by giving them extra motives. Monobear thrives on the despair he's able to induce in the students, and it's despair that drives them to their breaking points and eventually causes them to kill one another.

At Fukawa's timeline, there's only been one murder-and-execution so far, lowering the count of their group by two people. But, as her agitation with the tense atmosphere grows, and with Monobear suddenly introducing a new motive of "revealed secrets", Fukawa finds herself in a complicated situation with the second personality waiting at the back of her mind.

Abilities/Special Powers:
Super High School Level romance novel writing, by Fukawa.
Super High School Level serial killing, by Syo.

Also notable is the fact that, despite being generally physically weak in all other areas, Fukawa can actually take a surprising amount of damage and still get back up. She's got some heavy stamina in that regard, for such a small and unhealthy person. Though, it's likely due to being used to taking a lot of hits in general...

(That got depressing fast. Fukawa has the super abiltiy to make things depressing really fast, too.)

Third-Person Sample:

The grass stains on her knees and skirt go unnoticed. It's the smell of clean, clear air that hits her, sending Fukawa into high alert. She's always wary of her surroundings, and that has the tendency to grant her some powers of observation, noticing things others may not see.

Being detail-oriented helps when you're writing, but most of the time it just makes Fukawa very aware of the multiple ways she could die (or worse) at any moment.

Though, she probably wouldn't need to be all that observant to realize that Hope's Peak Academy was in an urban area, surrounded by trees, and right now she's looking at a grassy, rural landscape. There's a forest, with many more trees than the streets around the school would have room for, and hills rather than mountains in the distance, which is strange for any part of Japan, really, and shit she thinks she might have nervously scratched a scab from her hands she knew she should have bandaged that and she hasn't cut her fingernails in months she needs to stop the bleeding before she faints at the sight before someone notices bleeding attracts attention and attention breeds nothing but trouble trouble trouble...

Sticking her palm in her mouth forces her breathing to slow down a little. Her skin tastes salty around the copper blood. It all makes her feel sick. She tries to imagine she's being forced to suck on coins rather than think about blood being in her mouth. She imagines that she's so disgusting and offensive to so much as look at that she has to swallow someone's useless small change. It'd be useful to a useless one like her, is a bitter thought that pops up, but she catches herself starting to assign someone's face to the daydream in the same line of thought and forcefully shakes herself out of it.

The small trickle of blood has stopped flowing. But now Fukawa has to remember the situation she's in. The bigger picture has a way of sneaking up on her.

She takes one of her long braids in hand to fidget with, beginning to wander aimlessly in search of a sign or indication of where she is. She pulls harder as her agitation grows.

First-Person Sample:

I...I thought I got out somehow, but I was just singled out, wasn't I...? I'm so unpleasant to be around that even that sadistic parody of a headmaster took pity on everyone else... I'm not even significant enough to kill, am I? No, I just get tossed out of the window like garbage!

[Fukawa has to take a minute to calm down. Deep breaths, but they're the kind that precede a panic attack rather than follow it.]

I know I'm just a dark fog that only causes misery, but I'm already so tired of this... Let me go. Let me go. Let me go. I'll go home and disappear beneath the rug and everyone can eject me from their memories. I'll become a dust mite hidden away so I can't even offend your noses. Your days will look up from there, won't they? W...Without someone like me to cloud it up? You're thinking that already, aren't you!? I can feel your eyes screwing up just to look at me!!

Just stop looking then! Stop looking!