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Comments

DDLC spoiler warning obviously!

[(Anonymous)]

hi anon!! i actually played her in a game for a while so i can tell you a bit about my decision-making process there! i can tell you i don't think you're overthinking it ;) the meta aspects of DDLC are the most fascinating parts so it's fun to think about how to play them in RP!

the first thing to keep in mind is that there's a lot of room for interpretation. there's so much in the game that's implied but never outright confirmed, and in a metafictional canon, what is and isn't explicitly textual is important to keep in mind! like the special poems unlocked during Act 2--most of them are implied to have been written by specific characters, but at no point is the process of writing them ever acknowledged! so DID the characters actually write them at some point? are they hidden pages from their respective journals, or are they the characters' inner thoughts getting spit out into the game? were they poems that you were intended to see further along the girls' routes if the game had proceeded as a normal dating sim? we don't know! they're just there. so there's a lot of flexibility about that kind of stuff!

i personally went with the interpretation that sayori would have gaps in her memory where her backstory wasn't elaborated upon. i chose this based on the way monika talks about her own backstory in Act 3 here: https://doki-doki-literature-club.fandom.com/wiki/Monika%27s_Talk#Japan

she spends a long time talking to the player about her memories growing up, but here, she admits that upon realising her entire reality is fake and she's just a character in a game, her history--her "backstory"--feels unfamiliar, even though she still remembers it. her backstory is as fictional as the rest of the game. and she talks about how hollow and obligatory the setting feels.

since monika mentions this disconnect from her own memories, it made sense to me that things not explicitly mentioned in the game just...wouldn't really exist to the characters! because their reality is restricted to what's been programmed. sayori was written to be the MC's childhood friend, and so she remembers that; but what about her family? we're never told anything about them, not even when sayori and the MC talk about their childhood together. they all go to school together but we only ever see them interact at the club; we never see any other students, or any teachers, or any class activities at all. we only see, as monika says, what "needs" to be there to advance the story. everything else is an afterthought. so maybe it's the case that sayori doesn't even have a family! maybe there are no teachers or other students! it can be challenging to play with, but it was really fun too. but there's also justification to fill in backstory gaps the way you would for characters not from super meta canons, so it's really up to you how far you want to push this particular conceit!

i was interested in the idea of sayori gradually learning that she's from a work of fiction, so the above interpretation was a good gateway to that, via other characters asking her about her past and her realizing she couldn't remember the details they were asking for. you could play it as she realizes it was a game as soon as she's pulled out of it, since no longer being in that world could mean no longer being subject to its rules. i chose not to have her realize as a sort of counterpoint to the concept of Club President; self-awareness is a function tied to being President, but it's a hard fact that the world is fictional regardless of if the other girls know. so it might be that not questioning their reality is a function tied to NOT being President! you could go either way on it and it would be interesting. (using the idea that she's predisposed not to question her reality also helped me acclimate her to a fantastical setting more quickly and skip over some of the adjustment period that's typical with putting characters into games far outside of their genre! because yeah sure why WOULDN'T magic be real?)

essentially, i played her the way a lot of sci-fi sentient AIs are portrayed: with base programming that she must or is at least inclined to follow, and with the potential to act outside of it and grow beyond it. it felt like an accurate reflection of how we see the girls behave in Act 2 especially! we know that they aren't ONLY a set of scripted lines because when monika alters yuri's behavior, natsuki notices and goes off-script in a way that monika doesn't expect, writing you a note because she's worried about yuri. plus, it's kind of a big point of the story that what monika does to them is crappy even though "they're not real" because at times we see them behave like real people. so even though they have scripts to follow, they're capable of acting outside of those scripts too! if you wanted to play it like their "code" no longer exists as soon as they're removed from the game, just handle her personality the way you would a character from any other canon!

i have to admit i did not bother figuring out biologically what would be happening there with a flesh-and-blood body LOL. i thought about it a few times but it never really came up. but human brains are just full of electrical impulses and constantly do a bunch of weird shit that they're not supposed to so, u know, i wasn't too worried about it. i kind of handwaved it as vague sci-fi bio-coding nonsense. if you wanted to work out something unusual like a mechanical brain or even some kind of mechanical/holographic body you could probably talk to the mod team of your game about it when you app! i certainly think there would be justification for it. again, it's up to you! there are a lot of directions you can go.

the castmate thing could get kind of complicated just because there IS so much that's up to interpretation, but that's just kind of a bridge you have to cross when you get to it. so it is important to be open to communication with potential castmates! how sayori interacts with them would depend on other decisions you make about the meta aspects of her character and their world. :)

sorry i talked for a million years LOL but i love DDLC and i'm really excited to see someone else out there interested in exploring it like this, so i hope this was helpful!! and i'd be happy to answer questions/offer further advice/etc if there's anything else you're wondering about. good luck and have fun playing best girl, anon!!!