[Original post is in reddit]

Okay. I’ve been playing DDLC non-stop these days and I just can’t get enough of the characters, especially my personal favorite. Since I’ve got some time to spare, I feel like talking about what I think about her, as well as theories and speculations concerning her. I will also be talking about the other girls a little bit afterwards. Let me just say there will be A LOT OF SPOILERS from the game and easter eggs in it. You may need to take some notes to whatever assumptions/theories I made in this post because this will be long and complicated.

Naturally, I’ll start with my favorite. Yuri. We start of with her being the shy, timid and sweet bookworm. Just like what MC said, she seemed like a person that could hardly keep up with Sayori and Natsuki, which is exactly how I would feel if I had to deal with such an energetic and robust personality. Regardless, I find that it’s a bit odd that it was Yuri who greets us first when we come into the club, and not Monika, the President.

(Yuri greeting us as we first enter the classroom)

It felt like we were supposed to meet her first to establish her character as much as possible because personally, I think Yuri has the most drastic change after her programming gets tampered by dear Monika. I mean, as I said from the beginning, she started as a quiet and innocent girl and then she turned into an uncontrollable laughing masochist. I have seen many people saying that Yuri has been attracted to knives for pleasure reasons from the beginning and that her mind has been twisted from the start. Meanwhile, I don’t see it this way. Bear in mind that I do not deny that I DO think she is fascinated with knives for some time already. Based on my research on people who does self-harming, there are 6 reasons why they do so. And I think of 3 possible reasons why Yuri harms herself. One, to regain control; to shift attention. Two, to self-punish. Three, to experience euphoria. But each of these reasons occur in different occasions.

For this point, I’ll be talking about the possibilities she harms herself for reason #1 and reason #2. Remember, she was bullied because of her mannerisms when she gets excited (maybe concerning her knife fascination), and this contributes to her self-harming. I think that she feels like she is revolting, even sickening and as such she punishes herself with those knives, and believes that those scars are meant for her and she deserves them. She did say that “[She] started hating those things about [herself]”. Eventually she finds comfort from the knives as the pain makes her forget or control her urges from getting overexcited. It is hinted that Yuri doesn’t have any friends, because she mentions that she eats lunch by herself and jokes that her boyfriend is fictional. As such, she comes to believe that the knives are her ‘friends’ since they are the only things, aside from books, that give her comfort and company. And this is why she treasures her knife collections so much and made sure that they are not ‘lonely’. Note how she talks as if they were people. This girl is craving for human interaction! But sadly, the interaction she had previously were insults and dismissal. Let’s also not forget that Yuri has a low self-esteem, and is often second guessing herself. I also like to think that she punishes herself as she falls for MC because she feels like she doesn’t deserve him. When we are about to catch her red-handed, the MC describes the sound she makes are as if she was in pain. I think before her personality worsens into being possessive and crazy, her main reasons to hurt herself are these. But as she starts to fall for him more and more, reason #3 comes in, and Monika worsens it even further.

(Yuri on her past and fascination)

Now, on to reason #3; to experience euphoria. Human beings have different ways to experience ecstasy, even weird ways. Sexual pleasure often comes soon after one is infatuated with another, especially by teenagers whose hormones are acting like wildfire. And cutting herself is one of her ways to find pleasure, aside from… other things that she does like touching herself with MC’s pen… Then this would give us an idea that Yuri could be a masochist. After she confesses to MC, I think there are explained reasons why she kills herself, for both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ response from us. If we choose ‘Yes’, she wants to feel happier and more excited and this brings us back to reason #3 but this this time her pleasure is way over line and instead of cutting herself she goes to stabbing herself because she can’t contain herself anymore. If we choose ‘No’, I think she is trying to protect us from herself. Maybe she’s feeling a psychotic side of her is trying to kill us for rejecting her, so she stabs herself to save us. Either way, Yuri’s end is already written the moment Monika messes with her programming.

I have another thought that Monika may feel threatened by Yuri the most. Considering how drastic she changed Yuri’s programming, it seems like this is possible. I noticed that right at the beginning when MC just gets into the club, Monika openly states that Yuri is trying to impress him. Now this may be just some slight teasing, but I can’t help but feel that this is one of Monika’s schemes to make Yuri seem undesirable, since some players do not really prefer shy girls like Yuri. I may be overthinking this, but what do you think?

Now onto the bigger part of this post. In Monika’s character file, she mentions that DDLC isn’t her only story, which means it’s not the only game she’s in and the same goes for the other characters.

“But I know that this isn’t my only story.
I can see that now. Really clearly.
And I think everyone else has had the same kind of experience. Some kind of deja vu.”

-Monika’s file

What if one of the other games that they featured in together is Project Libitina? In this game, they have a different name.

So, in Project Libitina, if we assume it’s a different game (that sets before DDLC), there are 3 characters mentioned; Libitina, Elyssa and Reiner. People mostly only take note of these three, but we’re forgetting about the person who mentions Elyssa and Reiner. So I’m saying we should be considering the fourth character from Project Libitina, and the last person would be unknown (I like to call this person the Reporter). Now, we need to figure out who Libitina and Elyssa are first. Many people have theorized that Libitina is either Yuri or Monika.

What piqued my interest the most about Yuri is the possibility she could be Libitina! I learned about this theory from the YouTube channel Game Theory (yes I am a constant viewer of this series). Although I usually watch the channel just for fun, but this time it’s different. For some reason the idea that Yuri might be the girl with supernatural (psychic) abilities just hypes me up so much! This may be because if she is Libitina she’ll have much more spotlight towards her and we can perhaps learn more about her backstory. All the girls in DDLC have vague backstories but Yuri and Monika have the most mysterious one as Sayori and Natsuki are established to at least have a family, regardless happy or not. Is it possible that Yuri’s love for knives comes from an abusive environment, or an even more sinister situation? If so, this links back to Game Theory about Yuri possibly coming from an experiment, and that her lust for danger and harm are derived from it. Remember the image of the white-haired woman from Natsuki’s character file? Although MatPat said the woman doesn’t bear resemblance with any of the characters, I couldn’t help but notice some similarities between that woman and Yuri.

Sure, the woman looks older and might be in her twenties or even older. But notice that she looks quite thin, as if she’s malnourished. This makes me think what if the image of this woman is an older Yuri? If you look closely, their hair is almost similar to each other, with parts of their hair shaping up around their faces near the cheeks, and they have a huge strand of bangs in the middle of their forehead. They also have two strands of hair that flow to their chest. Speaking of which, it seems like both women have the same chest size. Sure, there are a bit of differences that the lady clearly has thicker volume of hair and her bang is facing the opposite side, but we can assume that years of abuse and experimentation may alter her appearance a bit. What’s more is that NONE of the other girls have this kind of hairstyle! Another thing that suggests that Yuri is Libitina is supported through Yuri’s character file. After decoding it, we know it’s a story about ‘Maria’ who is curious about killing. She shows aspects of being a careful stalker and eventually kills someone named Linda. Maria’s thirst for the idea of killing is somewhat related to Yuri since her self-harming behaviour may be coming from her thirst for blood. It’s a long shot, but who else in DDLC is related to blood expect Yuri?

Monika is, actually. In Special Poem 4, the writer cuts herself for the first time and finds it exhilarating and now understands Yuri’s pleasure. She describes herself as the ‘responsible one’ and this quickly makes me believe that this is Monika.

Reading further to one of Yuri’s poems (the one covered in blood) Yuri feels disgusted for thinking of images of killing someone. This makes me think what if these images are images of ‘Maria’ killing Linda? The reason why Yuri sees this is because Monika puts in those images from her character file into her mind as she manipulates Yuri’s programming. By putting these images, it deteriorates Yuri’s mental state. Which makes sense when in that poem Yuri says, “Her Third Eye is drawing [Yuri] closer” (Yuri, mdpnfbo,jrfp) where “her” is referring to Monika. I also got this idea when in the game, she mentions that “recently, [she]’s been feeling something sharp whenever [Monika]’s around”. If Yuri feels disgusted with these uncontrollable thoughts and images, it adds more reason why she harms herself. Either way, Monika knows this would make her less desirable to us.

Whoop. Hold up a minute. Project Libitina supposedly happened before DDLC since the subject test Libitina’s age is reported to be 3 years old which means that the white-haired lady shouldn’t be any of the girls if the image IS Libitina. Unless the image is an image from an incoming future, after the events of DDLC, should Yuri have survived! WHAAAAAAAT!?

Okay, as much as I love the idea of Yuri being the next potential main character or villain, I’d like to expand the idea of Monika/Libitina more. From the Project Libitina report, we know the test subject (Libitina) has the ‘Third Eye’ ability. And this ability seems to be related to the “trait that turns them into killing machines for blood” (Portrait of Markov, Act 2). Okay, as of now, we don’t know if this means that the people who have the ‘Third Eye’ just have the impulse to kill people for blood, or that they have the ability to manipulate others to kill. They are simply called ‘killing machines’ in the book but that doesn’t imply that they’re the ones who do the killing directly. If the ‘Third Eye’ really is a psychic ability to manipulate others to kill, that does open Monika’s candidacy as Libitina since she is able to manipulate the other girls’ programming. But let’s not forget Sayori as well. I think after Monika is deleted and then Sayori becomes self-aware, I do think she has gained the ‘Third Eye’ ability, but she hasn’t mastered or maybe not fully aware of her newfound ability. In Act 4, it seems like Sayori is developing an almost obsessive personality. I think if Monika doesn’t stop Sayori, she’d end up controlling or manipulating the game instead. Because of this, I believe Sayori is a potential Libitina candidate.

(Sayori’s developing obsessive personality)

But I also like to think the possibility that both Yuri and Monika are Libitina, who is split into two separate entities. I mean, they are not that different since they are the ones who would go for drastic measures to force us to be with them, Yuri being pushing Natsuki and Monika away, and Monika being deleting other characters. They also show their own obsessive and possessive behaviour to us. They are both Yandere in their own creepy way. Not to mention they are the only ones with long hair.

Next, on to Elyssa. Now, we don’t know who she is, nor do we know anything about her. She is only mentioned once in Special Poem 3, where her symptoms are compared to someone else’s symptoms (I think she is compared to Libitina). And that her condition seems very serious. And that Reiner is seen as someone who is behind everything, and he is assumed to be torturing or abusing Elyssa. Now, who in DDLC is abused by a paternal figure? Natsuki. So far, there is no further resemblance between Elyssa and Natsuki aside from the fact that they are both apparently abused by a man. But other than this, Elyssa has no similarities with the rest of the girls. Not to mention that the Reporter does mention “this family” in their report. And in DDLC we know that Natsuki is the only one who mentions her family member: her father. So from this, we can assume that Elyssa is Natsuki and Reiner is her father. But in this game, Reiner is a scientist who works on Elyssa, another test subject. But here’s a catch. In one of her poems, the one that needs to be decoded, is a description of the writer killing someone, and there is a voice telling her to stop “this uncontrollable pleasure”. If Natsuki/Elyssa is sharing the same urge for killing or lust for blood like Yuri/Libitina then this makes kind of sense if Libitina and Elyssa are tortured in the same prison.

On to the final character, the Reporter. I’d like to think that this person is the MC or us. Since in Special Poem 3, the Reporter, much like us or MC, is just someone who got involved into something that we aren’t prepared for. Not much to say about this character, since we don’t know if we should be indulging much about them. In one of my last discussions with a friend, we also consider that Monika could be the Reporter. This would explain why she knows things that happened in Project Libitina and DDLC.

Still with me? Just as a reminder. I’m pointing out that Project Libitina is a different game that presents the previous life of the characters in DDLC, not their childhood or past. Reincarnations, to put simply.

Now, here’s another twist that I came up with. What if the characters in the Portrait of Markov are the same characters in Project Libitina? From Yuri’s reaction when we mention that she resembles the main character (who is probably Libitina), her flabbergasted reaction kind of sends a signal as if she doesn’t want us to notice it. In Portrait of Markov, the main character is a girl who moves in to a school with her younger sister. She then gets targeted by people escaping from a human experiment prison. Sound familiar? What if that experiment prison is the same one where Project Libitina was held? And what if the girls in the book are Libitina and Elyssa who escaped from the prison? Sure, they may not be biological siblings, but years of torture in the prison makes them find comfort from each other to the point they are like siblings. When they escaped from the prison, they were separated and adopted by different families. And if my theory on Yuri/Libitina and Natsuki/Elyssa is correct, then their relationship in DDLC makes a bit more sense because they are often interacting with each other and Natsuki is always looking out for Yuri. Maybe they don’t remember each other’s faces after so many years and their minds naturally shut down the memories of their torture in the prison, but instinctively Natsuki feels protective of Yuri. As for Yuri, maybe she remembers some glimpse of her previous life as Libitina, but not Elyssa. I know you might be asking, then who is the author of Portrait of Markov? Well, what if the author is the Reporter, whom in DDLC has a different name and life, but just like Yuri and Natsuki, has some memory of their previous life? It can be assumed that they may feel guilty for not being able to help or do anything for Elyssa, but who knows maybe they actually helped Libitina and Elyssa to escape. Maybe they wrote Portrait of Markov that acts as a recollection to the girls’ horrible experience and that they can never really escape from the people from the prison. I know this still leaves the question, who was Sayori and Monika in Project Libitina? Well, remember when I said Libitina’s reincarnation may be split into separate entities? Monika and Yuri can both be Libitina with each of them having some aspects of her; Monika having the ‘Third Eye’ ability and Yuri having Libitina’s uncontrolled lust for blood. So where does this leave Sayori? Unfortunately I can’t think of any ideas for her place in Project Libitina, not just because I’m running out of characters.

I really am way over my head making up this twist, am I? Lololol.

But I sill have a question from the game (DDLC). After Sayori’s death, one of the opening messages when you start the game says, “PM died for this”. Who the heck is PM? One thing that came into my mind was Project M but I don’t think it has anything to do with DDLC. Another thing was the thought that PM might be an abbreviate for Portrait of Markov. But then it should have been “PoM” instead of “PM” and still wouldn’t make sense. So who is it!?

That’s all I have for now. I’ve been thinking a lot about this after discussing with my friend so many times and coming up with so many crazy ideas and assumptions based on things that we saw and read from the game and reddit posts. I’d like to know what you guys think about this.