Doki Doki Literature Club!

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Will you write the way into their heart? (from left to right: Sayori, Yuri, Natsuki, Monika)

"I'm super excited for you to make friends with everyone and help the Literature Club become a more intimate place for all my members. But I can tell already that you're a sweetheart—will you promise to spend the most time with me? ♥" —Monika, official description of the game

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a 2017 visual novel by Team Salvato, available on Steam and itch.io for free.

An Ordinary High School Student (with a custom name) is invited by his ditzy childhood friend Sayori to the Literature Club. Reluctant at first, he finds out all four members, including Sayori, are girls! As he bonds with Natsuki, the cute but feisty Tsundere, Yuri, the shy bookworm, and Monika, the club's President, he may fall in love just in time for the Festival…

This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.

Tropes used in Doki Doki Literature Club! include:

Note: The main character will be referred to here as "MC". Also, tropes that happen during the Festival should go on this page.

• Adaptational Jerkass: Implied in a meta-level, especially with the deluxe edition. Before Monika gains sentience and corrupts the program, all the girls are friendly with each other. Indeed, rather than manipulating her into a suicide, Monika hugs Sayori and comforts her through a depressive episode, while she helps Yuri write an apology letter to Natsuki. Then you get to the main story...Monika hacks the story so that both Sayori and Yuri die by suicide, while Natsuki becomes more abrasive due to her father starving her. While she realizes that she went too far, because she just wanted to make her friends unlikable, not kill them, Monika erases most of the world, including the innocent player character, so she can have the actual player to herself.
• Adaptational Personality Adjustment: Act Two enforces this on the girls after someone drives Sayori to suicide and erases her, resetting the game without her. Yuri goes from a Shrinking Violet to a Yandere that practices Self-Harm, while Natsuki transitions from irritable and hungry Tsundere all the time to straight up Broken Bird owing to her father going from neglectful to outright abusive. Monika goes from kindhearted Team Mom of the Literature Club to Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, which makes sense when we learn she was the one who erased Sayori and is altering her friends' personalities. We find out that she used to be nicer, until realizing that she was in a video game and that her life had no meaning. In Act Four, after the player deletes Monika, Natsuki and Yuri are reset to their Act One personalities, but Sayori gains the same awareness that she's in a video game and starts going down the same path as Monika. In the Golden Ending, Sayori doesn't snap but instead thanks you for playing and making everyone happy.
• Adult Fear:
  • Sayori reveals to the MC that she suffers from bad depression, and has for several years. The only reason she gets out of bed in the morning is because of her crush on the MC. All MC can do is promise to be there for her, and hug her after declaring that he loves her if you make that choice. He doesn't know how to comfort Sayori as she admits that she's thrilled he loves her, but is still feeling sad.
  • The scene that ends Act One. Sayori doesn't show up to walk with the MC to school, who is worried but hurries to class. Monika shows Sayori's last poem, which is a Madness Mantra and makes a quip about leaving her hanging. The MC realizes that something must be wrong because of the poem and Sayori said she would always get up for school to walk with him. He hurries to her house, calling for her after finding the front door unlocked. Then he sees her body hanging from her bedroom ceiling. The MC breaks down as the game glitches, unable to comprehend that Sayori is dead. Let's say this is the most mundane part of the nightmare fuel before the real scares start.
  • Natsuki's home life is less than ideal. It's implied that her father forgets to feed her, which is why she bakes all the time. Monika makes her home life worse in Act Two, so it's a miracle that Natsuki doesn't snap the way that Yuri does.
• An Aesop:
  • Life is going to have uncontrollable situations, whether it's realizing that your best friend has a strong mental illness that a quick pep talk or declaration of love can't fix, or finding out that your world is not real and you are characters created for others' entertainment.
  • You can't force people to love you; doing so will only guarantee that they don't want to spend time with you. While Monika schemes to ensure that the player character can only choose her, she railroads your choices so the options are either to delete her file, or let her talk with you in a room forever. Monika herself realizes that by taking the choice away from you, she ensured that no one would end up happy, least of all her.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: If you choose to have the MC return Sayori's feeling, he gives a speech centered around this. The MC says that he may not understand how Sayori is suffering, but he wants to help her, and they can tackle this journey together. No matter what happens, he will be there for her every step of the way, starting with them going to the school festival the next day. Sayori is so touched that she hugs him even while still feeling depressed.
• Apologises a Lot: Yuri. Lampshaded by MC on the third day, who convinces her to apologize less often.
• Beige Prose: Natsuki swears on this technique for her poems, on the condition of including cute words in them. She utterly despises Purple Prose.

[If MC shows Natsuki a poem that appeals to Yuri.] Natsuki: I hate when people try to sound fancy or add more meaning just by using annoying and complicated language. Just make it simple, cute, and to the point! Yuri's head over heels for all this cryptic nonsense, but I see right through that BS. Hah! Making your reader look so hard for all this deep meaning is just an excuse to have no meaning at all.

• Actually, Natsuki is not so much a Beige Prose writer, she just likes to write simple poems that some people may call childish.

• Beneath the Mask: Sayori is a very happy person on the outside, but she suffers from depression inside.
• Betty, Veronica and Archie Switcheroo: Deconstructs this concept with the nameless player characters and the different girls he can romance. Sayori and Yuri seem to be Bettys while Natsuki and Monika are Veronicas, but in reality Sayori and Yuri are very depressed with the latter practicing self-harm, Natsuki does care about her friends, and Monika, well, she does admit that she wants a life beyond what is in the romance novel. The girls are a lot deeper than they look, and the best ending involves using your save slots to appeal to all their best interests.
• Big Eater: On the fourth day, when making cupcakes with Natsuki at his kitchen, MC says that if Sayori were here with them now, there would be ten less cupcakes and she would still be hungry for dinner. That's in contrast to Natsuki, who has to keep her appetite for her father's dinner.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Monika frequently breaks the fourth wall, giving the tip of saving the game as one of her Writing Tips, pointing out that an Incredibly Lame Pun in Japanese by Natsuki doesn't make sense in translation, pointing out that humans are "two-dimensional", only to get corrected by MC (it's "one-dimensional"…).
  • Every time this happens, she acts as if she made a mistake, playing dumb.
• But Thou Must!:
  • On the third day, choosing to help Sayori for the festival preparations ends up with the three other girls insisting that she will be helped by Monika. The choice prompt then appears again, minus the choice for Sayori.
  • Choosing Monika will prompt a big argument between the three (Monika already has Sayori to help, and she needs the least help; ulterior motives?). In the end, Monika will relent and let MC choose between the other girls.
• Buxom Is Better: Yuri gets comments about her large chest from Natsuki (as an insult) and Sayori (as an endearing, but embarrassing compliment).
• Collectible Cloney Babies: It's revealed that Yuki has a large collection of manga... and knives. The narrator is fascinated by the manga, showing he recognizes some of the titles, and tries to ignore the blades. Unfortunately, in Act Two, Yuki uses one of the blades to stab herself in the chest, and she bleeds to death in front of the narrator.
• Damned By Faint Praise: In the beginning of Yuri and Natsuki's confrontation:

Yuri: [Your poem] is… cute… Natsuki: Cute? Did you completely miss the symbolism of something? It's about the feeling of giving up. How can that be cute? Yuri: I-I know that! I just meant… The language, I guess… I was trying to say something nice… Natsuki: Eh? You mean you have to try that hard to come up with something nice to say? Thanks, but it really didn't come out nice at all!

• Eating Lunch Alone: Yuri reveals to MC in third day (if she reads a poem she likes) that she eats alone during lunchtime.
• Everybody Lives: If you know how to get the Golden Ending, No one dies though Monika remains deleted and content to remain that way. Sayori thanks the player for helping everyone reach their happy ending, and the game closes out with a sweet song.
• Excited Show Title!
• Foreshadowing:
  • On the first day, Yuri tells MC about her favorite literature genre, surreal horror, and how she is engaged with complex turns and twists in her books.

Yuri: Isn't it amazing how a writer can so deliberately take advantage of your own lack of imagination to completely throw you for a loop?

• On the second day, when following Yuri's route, MC is surprised at the darkness of Yuri's book:

"Yuri made it sound like it was going to be a nice story, so that dark turn came from nowhere."

• When showing her first poem "Hole in Wall", Monika mentions to MC an "epiphany" she had, but doesn't say what it is.
• Yuri: I guess there's a little devil inside all of us, isn't there?
• Sayori: Writing's the best! I'm gonna keep writing until I die!
• In general, some of the poems gets darker and darker.
• Yuri: [about her poem "The Raccoon"] I wanted to express the way it feels for me to indulge in my unusual hobbies... It's those sorts of things I'm usually forced to keep to myself.
• On the third day with Natsuki:

Natsuki: [to Monika] See what happens when you put the manga on the top shelf?! Are you trying to kill your club members or something?

• Yuri: This club is seriously going to be the death of me…
• Yuri: Stagnating air is common foreshadowing that something terrible is about to happen…

MC: In your books, maybe!

• (When foreshadowing lampshades itself…)

• Genre Shift: The game starts out as a silly harem visual novel, with the MC spending his afternoons reading poetry with the girls and writing it. Then Sayori dies at the end of Act One, the game resets with glitches, and Sayori is nowhere to be seen. More glitches occur, and soon we realize this is a horror game.
• Go Mad From The Revelation: Anyone who becomes the president of the literature club realizes they're in a video game and a nonsentient character carrying out programming. Since the characters are teenagers, they naturally don't react well. If you delete Monika before starting a new game, Sayori breaks down and crashes the game; opening it up again shows the sprite of her hanging body and a Suicide Note saying "Now everyone is happy". Monika's response is to erase the girls and the poor MC, who didn't ask to be part of this story, so that she has the player to herself. Sayori nearly goes down this path in the Neutral Ending but Monika stops her and deletes the game. It's only avoided in the Golden Ending, where Sayori notes that you treated all the girls with love and care by using the multiple save files to make them happy, and thanks you.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Sayori says this to MC often, but it turns out she loves him, and it hurts.
• Knife Nut: On the fourth day, when making decorations with MC, Yuri admits to him that she is a fan of knives and has a collection of them.
• Living Emotional Crutch: As revealed later on the fourth day by Monika, Sayori is very dependent on MC and is the only reason she lives.
• Mini Game: The poem-writing mini game (click on words that appeal to different girls).
• Moment Killer: On the third day with Yuri, just as MC puts another chocolate in her mouth while sitting very close together, Monika pops up and announces the usual poem sharing session. MC then thinks "The spell is abruptly broken".
• Non Sequitur:
  • "Dear Sunshine" by Sayori is an earnest poem, but then ends with "I want breakfast".
  • Monika's second Writing Tip of the Day is to save the game.
• Out-of-Character is Serious Business: When MC sees Sayori, usually full of happiness, in a dejected mood at school, he becomes very concerned about her. Later, he's alarmed when she doesn't show up to walk with him to school, especially because she said that she got up precisely to walk with him. He becomes really scared when Monika shows him the poem Sayori wrote, which is a Madness Mantra and runs to her house calling her name. Turns out the MC was right to worry.
• Sequel Hook: You can find a message hidden in the game's coding, about something called "Project Libitina". The creators still haven't confirmed what this is.
• Show Within a Show: Yuri's book Portrait of Markov and Natsuki's Slice of Life manga Parfait Girls.
• Spoiler: In-Universe. Both Natsuki and Yuri interrupt themselves to avoid revealing spoilers in what they read to the main character.
• Stealth Insult: When MC and Natsuki are spending time together reading manga on the second day, they talk about people who judge manga readers:

MC: Honestly, it takes a lot of effort to find friends who don't judge, much less friends who are also into it… I'm already kind of a loser, so I guess I gravitated toward the other losers over time. But it's probably harder for someone like you… Natsuki: Hm. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. MC: [thinking] …Wait, which part??

• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Natsuki points out that she used the trope in her poem "Eagles Can Fly".
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Yuri has a habit of stating her emotions.
• Wham! Shot: Act One ends with Sayori's dead body hanging in her room, when the narrator goes to check on her. In-universe, this causes the game to glitch and restart with Sayori erased from the Literature Club. Slowly, the player realizes that this was a deliberate bug. But who erased Sayori? And why?.
• What Measure Is A Non Human: Examined in the game:
  • The reason why the characters don't react well if learning that they are in a visual novel dating sim. They realize they just exist to entertain a faceless player. Sayori hangs herself if you delete Monika and make Sayori the president of the literature club.
  • Monika callously mind-rapes her friends, drives Sayori and Yuri to suicide, and erases the entire world so that she can have the player to herself. She doesn't even know who you are, only your name. It takes being deleted for her to have a Heel Realization about this.