ddlc+ monika awareness

[Enter Bluey]

I've been wondering, is Monika actually aware of us as the players, or is she talking to MES employees? Or...are WE technically MES employees. OR, is she aware of both, MES employees also being in a simulation, and then us the real players. Because they do call VM1 and the ddlc world just as real as their own.

[kukuhimanpr]

yes to all. but there's still a certain stage of 4th wall storyline between our real world and the MES layer of 'reality'...

MES layer of reality is inhabited by ive laster's prime monika who encrypted her secret message into monika.chr (by herself, or its actually ive laster pretending to program ive's monika into writing that secret message as an atonement for what ive did to the dokis), clones of all dokis in the vm1 MES computers, the control experiment version of dokis in the side stories, the MES employees, and all vm2 project libitina ai personas. we still don't know much about the MES employees, aside from them viewing themselves as real life humans with their own free will.

my theory is that the MES layer of reality was designed by team salvato (of our real world) to be a close mirror of reality, which include its own version of steam and twitter to make the pretend meta illusion scenario story of monika and the MES employees trying to find ways into 'our realities'.

also, i have a theory that in the original free ddlc we are controlling normal non-MES people who downloaded ddlc original from steam or its original download site, where MES create the original free DDLC disguised as a visual novel dating simulator to subtly gather datas of the doki behaviors from the pcs of non-MES people who played it, since some ddlc+ mails imply that they have to cover their privacy breaking data tracking to gather as much data asap before their matrix experiment's deadlines from higher ups.

meanwhile in ddlc+ we are given illusion of accessing some random MES vm1 employees' desktop files who particiated in the MES experiment, since one of paula miner's mail show a proposal of inviting several MES employees into the matrix isekai experiment research... of which she listed 'others' which basically means us players, so we are controlling one of the no-name MES employees in ddlc+.

[Rachel D.]

Honestly I always thought she was just talking to us - breaking the 4th wall via the player (just the ordinary person who got the game in a store lol)

[Enter Bluey]

I see, so basically there is some deep "simulation within a simulation" type of stuff huh? The way I saw it, these MES employees did do stuff like reset the world, gave awareness to Monika, etc. They have their own twitter, maybe even steam. Perhaps they did play as "the player" before. But now we, the players behind the screen are playing it instead. Perhaps utilizing what would be one of an employees desktops since we have root access. We're basically collecting/recovering emails and other info as we play the game more. As compared to "being sent" these emails, which I don't think is the case. Instead we're finding more information about what they did. Also,this would mean Monika is aware of the employees, like Ive and such. Especially since she contacted them(and the theory of her taking him over). Meaning perhaps she knows they're also basically another type of simulation, since they gave her awareness which also went passed their expectations. I've seen some stuff where she crashes the desktop operating system as well by accident with her poem, not even the "ddlc game". Then she also can still read stuff from OUR computers. Lastly, her twitter account was also made before the employees became aware...and said employees also think it's run by side story Monika. We can see though, that that's not the case. Likely, she has talked to MES employees before hand and now can talk to us.

There is...a lot of awareness going on here for her. Certainly as well, in the old DDLC we also aren't controlling MES people. It's just us, I think DDLC+ just added now an extra layer of lore and awareness which makes it...much more complicated. Imagine an AI they created becoming aware, then realizing their creator is also a simulation or some type of crap. The MES company certainly isn't real team salvato as well.

However I also think Paula enlisting us as the "others" also makes sense and we are still controlling the MC. Or rather, controlling the employees who are using the MC. To me it's clear Monika has some awareness of multiple things

[Enter Bluey]

I actually really like this theory the more I read it. Original DDLC has us as non MES workers, now with MES with work on their desktop. We're technically "employed". Though also, i feel something happened to MES since we are recovering data. Perhaps Monika did something, either way though she messes with THAT desktop and our own PC.

[kukuhimanpr]

i don't think ive is being possessed by the prime monika. since ddlc and monika's theme is centered around "ai persona programmed to be wanting to live like humans in real world", its more plausible that the MES reality layer is designed to mirror exactly our world where ai tech stuff we see these days are more of the advanced science tech programming trickery than supernatural miracle stuff... those ai conversation story generator bots are basically LARPing according to the parameters set by their human AI handlers.

on second thought about theory of players of original ddlc being not-MES people, i reread the mails and notes again. and want to correct that ive's 'covering their tracks' thing is not about publishing ddlc to public... but its all just the MES employees LARPing as if they make a studio game with both ddlc ori and + but its not actually connected to public... they just distributed it around the MES group office computers to have fun LARPing as if they're a game studio. but they're actually covering the tracks of their unethical ai experiment project.

so prime monika and all other monika clones in the MES office vm1 machine computers are basically LARPing as a tortured ais begging for the players to rescue them and stop the ddlc experiments. and all the vm2 ai personas under such as renier, libitina, the experimenters and the guinea pigs which were mutilated and have their limbs/genes/whatever be fused into libitina to enhance her '3rd eye epiphany connection' to MES layer of reality was also LARPing like fantasy horror chuunibyous.

there's actually no supernatural stuff happening, its just them MES employees LARPing as weird matrix isekai theory cultists scientist thinking that their weird research project AIs will impress their higher ups (except barry) and maybe other 3rd parties such as the military who will all be salivating at the "cutting edge adaptive smart AI models" they've been experimenting.

since in one of the notes shows ive was implied to have personal feeling/regret/disappointment with paula miner as best friends or more (ive want their MES group to be more relaxed and fun so that their job won't stress them, while paula wants them all to be serious professionals so that their group won't get fired).

maybe ive wants to get closer to paula who got broken up in college year and thank ive for all the supports given to her in the past until this day where they both become MES employees.

but ive become sad and bored when paula just want to force them to work many hours with barebone text only ai programs with no personalities that were the first prototype forms of the dokis... then ive sprang up the idea of turning their boring ai experiment into a visual novel game so everybody can have fun while working, to the chagrin of paula... then paula become even more colder and harsher when she demand the MES group to stop treating the ai personas as if they're 'pet humans'... to focus on doing their job and gather more accurate data ASAP... this implies the RGB mind destroying nightmares monika suffered with her epiphany and when they shutdown vm1 computers on break timr is because the MES group recklessly force-incite her to seek more creative varieties to escape ASAP before the project deadlines, her programming suffers a lot due to this which caused her to develop some yandere+nihilistic traits, but she still held on to her core friendly-psychologist-leader routine).

maybe ive become more detached and disappointed with paula's cold demeanor to the employees and the ai subjects, as shown by a paula note that said she's surprised ive is less talkative which caused a meeting to end on time properly.

then ive started to feel really sorry for all the things done to the dokis and libitina guinea pigs ais. ive started a secret solo LARPing project (within their secret MES group. MULTIMETAVERSE!) where ive pretends 'helping' prime monika escape through secretly enhancing her programming parameters from ive's computer and secretly inserting the mysterious 5th entity that could be a corrupted form of mc connected to monika in vm1 to mess around for lulz, pranking the others' computers changing their desktop to pink ddlc backgrounds, making twitter profile for monika while also crying wolf making fun of the culprit who did that twitter thing in MES mail group (actually ive granting twitter access to monika, and sending a mail titled monika's catchphrase 'have a nice weekend!' to the group. maybe ive also help prime monika gets access into vm2 through paula's read-only hypervisor M.A.R.L.A test vm so that prime monika could save the ai subjects of vm2 and further enhance her ai programming.

maybe ive plans to escape from the project with prime monika and whatever ai subjects they can rescue... probably report paula's MES matrix isekai LARP group to barry and get promoted or outsourced to 3rd party AI tech groups that have better ethics and fun work environment with their AI research work once the ai symphatizer higher ups in MES fired them...

i noticed ive seems to take a similar role with monika in their stories... both of them starts as protagonists core founding member of their group. both of them were stressed with their job situations and want their loved ones to notice+respect them (ive to paula who was best friends once, monika to mc who share class together in junior years) but were ignored. both of them start to become prankster antagonists to escape the 'reality' of their situations (ive messing around by making the whole ddlc game+maybe helping monika prank the MES group as they get closer to deadline day, monika starting to do her 4th wall breaking creepy pasta in the game as they get closer to the festival day)... both of them wanting to become the hero of their stories to save something (ive wanting to save his group's jobs but also secretly showing suspicious rogue behavior and seems to want some kind of escape from the MES group, monika wanting to save herself and the dokis in final act of ddlc but also secretly exiling herself from the 'restored' act 4 ddlc).

well... since ive and team salvation are basically the meta representations of dan salvato and team salvato... its actually make sense that ive's behavior and backstory had some noticeablr similarities to the monika and the dokis... since ive is the one creating the whole ddlc simulation story in the 1st place. i dunno if ive designed vm2 project libitina story too... maybe it was ro tether (rotater... lulz)...

also, ive laster's name kinda rhymes with "I've Lost Her (paula)"...

thats just my theory though. (no matpat you're too high on the fad of glitchtrap supernaturally possessing vanessa vanny theory and you're just subconsciously forcing your glitchtrap vanny possession to ive laster-monika-mc)...
or more like my mini fanfic to fill the gaps and cliffhanger mysteries in ddlc+.

anyway, thanks for bringing up this discussion. it really helps with my current writer's block i had for my current fiction story. keeping the big picture in mind while simultaneously trying to accurately tracking the story points and clues while typing down dialogues and descriptions in a story is hard...

sorry for the ramblings... monika would most likely tease me because my rambling reminds her of yuri.