Epilogue Up! (March 24th) · 4:02am Mar 24th, 2021
And that’s a wrap folks. The Epilogue is posted, making Danganronpa: In Harmony’s Wake officially complete.
I said it in the author’s notes and I’ll say it again here. Thank you, all of you, so much for following along with me on this journey. I cannot overstate enough how important being able to finish a story like this was for me. It’s a remarkable feat. It’s something I can look back to for years and say “Yeah, I did that.”
So thank you, for all your thoughts, your reactions, your enjoyment. I know from time to time this story was…hard, given the characters involved. We all love these characters or else we wouldn’t be here, and watching them suffer and die is… it’s a bitter experience, even if the story is good.
I’m taking the lessons I learned from writing this and applying it towards future works. Will there be a sequel to IHW? There could be. There’s a few sequel ideas I have floating around. The obvious Cruise Mode I’ve only mentioned like ten times by now. Then there’s a followup from the epilogue, which would effectively involve Earth and Equus in a Cold War type situation, constant tension risking true war at any time. I’m not sure if I could handle the kind of political intrigue this story would require. Then of course there’s a couple of different ways a killing game sequel could roll. I think of the three, Cruise Mode is the most likely, the KG would be the most similar, and the Cold War would be the most interesting.
But I won’t promise any of those. And at this point if they surface at all, it’ll be after the Star Trek story. Given the way work's been getting rougher, I don't want to promise anything much right now, haha. 
A few notes for particular points in this epilogue. I did my best to try and take a realistic tack on “what would happen after a killing game” because it’s not something we ever see from canon. Granted, canon loves to emphasize despair in the moment but never seems to care about the lasting trauma. Thus having all of them change in some particular way as a result of it only makes logical sense. Things like the constant recurring nightmares, the comfort eating, all of that is… well, it’s stuff I go through a lot too thanks to my own past.
The whole lockdown of Canterlot High is actually a deliberate reference to something in said past. Fifteen years ago there was a hostage crisis at the combination middle and high school that my siblings and I went to. Although I had already graduated, none of my younger sisters had, and they were all stuck there. My family went through hours of not knowing what was happening, if any of them were safe. I later found out my ex-girlfriend was in the classroom with the hostage taker, and he ended up killing one of the students, who was my sister’s best friend at the time. My sister's not been the same ever since. Drawing upon stuff like that has informed a lot of this story.
Yes, the song referenced in both the epilogue title and mentioned as the one they sang is “The Last Goodbye” from the end of The Hobbit movie. I wanted to include a song somewhere, and while I did consider a few of the fandom’s takes on the ending of EQG, they were all too happy and didn’t acknowledge the losses. This did, even if it’s a bit improperly gendered with the focus on the word brothers. Thank you to Rainstorm for suggesting that, as it helped me title something I was otherwise struggling with pretty hard. Up to that point my working title had been Shore Leave, which had the unfortunate side effect of implying they’d be thrown into another killing game, which wasn’t my intention.
As for Lost Moments, that will continue to be updated when I have the notion to. Dabbling in it will help satiate any real DR cravings I’ll have for a long while, at least. “The Right Target” has several mysteries potentially planned, should it carry on past Chapter Two. It’d be abridged, compared to the original IHW, but it could still be some fun mystery solving. I’ve already floated the mystery ideas to a couple of people and they all said they sound both intriguing, different from what we saw before, and just as difficult to solve as the actual mysteries, so we’ll see!
Of course the occasional short will show itself sooner or later as well. Whatever fancy strikes me.
In any case, take care everyone. I plan to go enjoy my birthday this year doing… something. 
I know you've pretty much stated that if Cruise Mode ever does happen, it'll be a prequel, but I kinda want it to be set up so that it leads in an entirely different, and happier, direction overall in the end. (Like just when Cozy decides she's had enough and is about to wipe their memories again, Princess Twilight from the timeline of the original fic goes back in time and stops her, and while it doesn't affect her timeline (per Endgame time travel rules), she's happy that she was able to give at least one version of the group a happy ending)
Not sure if I'll read the Cold War one if/when you ever do it. I've never really been a fan of real world politics
...Despite what I said about the original fic, I'd actually be interested in reading that. It'd especially be interesting if it involved a group of villains, rather than heroes. (Not like in DR2, though)
Spoiler for DR3: The anime actually does delve into that, especially with Makoto
Also, that story about your past... wow that's pretty heavy.
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As for the Cold War one, I don't blame you. Like I said I don't know if I could handle the intrigue necessary to write it, and honestly I don't know how much I'd actually want to. It's the most interesting in terms of its content idea, but... yeah.
Yeah if it did involve villains it wouldn't be like that. I've actually got a couple of tentative casts sitting around in a document for such a KG sequel. One, in fact, would involve every single villain from the show, reformed ones included, and could potentially feature Cozy herself as the protagonist. Or Starlight Glimmer, but witegirlninja's already doing that and I don't want to copy. The other would be more in the vein of a full on followup, with sixteen canon EQG characters who are all very aware of the events of the first one, and would include, among other people, Applejack, Shining Armor and Aria Blaze.
So I've heard. I was referring to the games though.
Yeah, it's... well, let's just say I've seen a lot in my life and leave it at that.
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Consider me even more hyped (even though you made the point of saying you haven't confirmed doing it yet)
Okay, I'd actually love to see that, especially if Spoiled B*tch ends up a victim (even though she's not a main villain, she'd be one of the few who deserves to die)
Oh god... I can already imagine the horror and fear they'd be feeling.
I know
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She's one I'd toss into the list, yeah. In fact, here's the full list(subject to change):
As you can see it's actually balanced gender wise, unlike the last set of cast members. Though I'm still not sold on including both Flim and Flam. I might swap one of them out for some other dude. And I couldn't help include Trixie again. I know she's a repeat. But dang it... Trixie.
Especially because Applejack's been through the first one. She'd have her full memories. She'd know exactly what it is, and would be the protagonist in that one. Imagine suffering through such a thing, surviving it... only to end up in another one.
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If you do decide to swap out Flim or Flam (I wouldn't mind if they BOTH bit the dust, but that's just me), then Svengallop, Wind Rider, or Blueblood would all be good choices.
And yeah, including Trixie in this just makes too much sense.
I do have some ideas on who would kill whom in the scenario with the 16 listed, but that might be best suited to PMs just in case.
Even worse if, unlike Sunset in the first one, she ends up getting killed. Doubly worse if she ends up a blackened. At least if she's a victim, she could rest in peace with the knowledge that she at least didn't break in either case.
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Hmm, yeah. I think of those three, Wind Rider is who I'd like the most, because I like the idea of a washed up old Wonderbolt and Lightning Dust interacting, but Blueblood would probably be the better option. Especially because it'd give me a cowardly character. Svengallop, eh, I barely even remember him compared to the other two.
As for ideas, please, go right ahead, PM away.
I'll be honest. If I did write this one, the temptation to make Applejack a blackened would be excruciatingly difficult to resist. Killing her would also be very, very hard to resist. Though I have no idea who'd take over for protag. Honestly that one I was finding a lot harder to fill character slots for than the villain one.
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Honestly, I'd think Shining Armor should be the one to take over if AJ ends up a blackened or victim.
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I suppose that's possible, but Shining's a police detective. Going to be pretty hard for him to stay alive. Assuming this ever even gets written, which who knows. Still, he'd be a very good choice. I do like him a lot.
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It being difficult for him to stay alive would actually make things more interesting. Especially if he ends up foiling attempts to murder him without killing the would-be attacker
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Ooooh, yes. This would dovetail nicely with an idea that Rainstorm kept suggesting to me about trying to deal with a would-be blackened or victim being injured and having to be watched over/cared for. Shining repeatedly handling murder attempts only to never do so lethally would be impressive, and cool.
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Especially since that was never done in the games. The one time someone fought off their attacker was Leon, and that was fatal.
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That's because Leon was a freaking moron who thought it was a good idea to go and try to open up the door. Whether it's for the manga reason of trying to save her from hurting herself, or the game-implied reason that he wanted her dead... he could've gotten out of there without a death.
That said you're not wrong. Definitely it's an idea that will show up in a future KG of mine if I write another one, regardless of where or how or who's involved. Doing things the game didn't is something I was fond of trying to do with IHW, and this would be another thing on that list.
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Another fun thing would be a Chapter 3 situation where the two victims are also each other's blackened's. Even better if it's not premeditated
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Fun fact: this was actually intended in the original story I was going to write, the one that featured the blackeneds from all three games. Mikan and Peko were going to be each other's blackeneds. This is one of the murder ideas from that story that didn't make it into IHW, though most of the other ones did in one form or another.
Still, I have other ideas for a different sort of Chapter Three. Including one that if I ever get around to writing it you'll get to see for The Right Target.
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Well consider me intrigued.