Move Aside, Make Way for Ultra Despair is a Fusion Fic between Danganronpa and Fireman Sam. Yes, even though one is a gory murder mystery and the other is a children's cartoon. It was started on September 29, 2024 and ended on September 29, 2025.

Fifteen residents of Pontypandy (thirteen canon and two Original Characters) wake up in a room together. They don't remember who each other are and how they got there; all they know is that they were scouted out by the Gathering Hope Foundation for being the best of the best in various different fields.

However, this is soon revealed to be a ruse by the one and only Monokuma, trapping them all in the Killing Game Program, where the only way out is to take a life or die trying.

This fic is notable for being a very rare M-rated fic from NoonboryKedabory, and is the first in a six-part series known collectively as "Ultra Despair Ruins Your Childhood". It is followed by the second installment, They're Gonna Wreck the Day, Ultra Despair that takes place after the Bad Ending of the final chapter.

In addition to the above, there is also a Spin-Off fic using the same cast called Great Talents of Jabberwock Island which involves the Pontypandian residents being brought to Jabberwock Island by Usami to hang out with the Hope's Peak students.

Due to the spoiler-heavy nature of Danganronpa, all spoilers for the franchise as a whole will be unmarked. Spoilers pertaining only to this fic, however, are blanked out.

Tropes:

• Adaptation Amalgamation: This fic uses elements from all three games such as all the Class Trial minigames (e.g. Hangman's Gambit and Mind Mine).
• Ambiguous Gender: Briar and Chihiro are referred to with they/them pronouns.
• Antagonist Title: The fic is named for the Ultra Despair group.
• Argument of Contradictions:
  • Bronwyn and Charlie have a childish back-and-forth over whether fish tastes better fried or grilled.
  • Monokuma attempts to invoke this by egging Mrs. Chen and Joe into a "No I won't/But you might" argument, but Mrs. Chen nips it in the bud early and walks away.
• Berserk Button:
  • Jodie - Being called 'sister'. It reminds her of her own sibling, currently locked out of the centre.
  • Monokuma - The contestants not listening to him. He gets angry when they don't wake up when he says so, and so forces them out of bed.
  • Svetlana - Having the art of ballet insulted. She openly takes her anger out on the Monokubs for mocking Swan Lake.
• Big Sleep: After Helen is found bleeding out in the infirmary, she says her Last Words to Mike, then closes her eyes and goes limp.
• Big "WHAT?!": Dilys shouts one of these when Monokuma informs the Ultimates that no one outside the centre can remember them, which includes her son Norman.
• Big "NO!": Played for Laughs in Chapter 5's Daily Life, when Monokuma asks "If [Mrs. Chen]'s not invited, can I come instead?", everyone at the table responds with this.
• Bittersweet Ending: Pontypandy's surviving citizens will never be the same again but Junko is dead and Mukuro's been arrested, putting an end to Ultra Despair. In addition, the survivors build the Hope's Memorial Hospital, Millicent adopts Peter after the rest of his family was killed and he found the bodies and Chihiro designs a worldwide program that will allow anyone to speak with the dead contestants at any time, allowing their souls to live on.
• Black Comedy: Monokuma is frequently told by other characters that he has a twisted sense of humour, which includes:
  • Personalizing the portraits of deceased contestants to fit their personalities, ex. Ben's portrait has a wavy line drawn over his head and bubbles around him to make it look like he's literally sleeping with the fishes.
  • Giving the contestants a pool after killing off their coastguard.
  • Designing an arcade game's Damsel in Distress to resemble deceased contestants.
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. The first five characters to die (Ben, Svetlana, Charlie, Bronwyn, and Elvis) are all white; it's not until the sixth death, Helen, that a Black person is killed.
• Blood from the Mouth: Blood oozes from Mike's torso and mouth in Chapter 4.
• Bookends: Svetlana (the first murderer) and Junko's executions start with them being dragged away via metal clamp around their neck a la the first execution in Danganronpa.
• Bound and Gagged: The dead contestants do this to the Monokubs in Chapter 5, after they've taken over the Afterlife Despair Program.
• The Cameo: Mahiru and Makoto make cameos in a newspaper interview in Chapter 6, being interviewed regarding Hanoko's death with the former revealing "She always had awful notes falling out of her locker, and flowers put on her desk" and the latter saying “I don’t know why everyone hated her so much,” commented student Makoto Naegi. “She was really nice.”
• Company Cross-References: In Chapter 1, Bronwyn makes apple, banana, and papaya twist smoothies, the same kind of smoothie that Annie Carmichael makes in Shining and Sweet.
• Conclusive Confession:
  • First Class Trial; while initially denying it aggressively, when evidence is presented that proves only Svetlana Blomgren, the Ultimate Ballerina, could have murdered the first victim, she gives in and admits it, claiming it was a crime of passion (partly due to Sanity Slippage) and all she really wanted was to leave the centre and find out what Monokuma did to her sister.
  • Second Class Trial: Bronwyn Griffiths, the Ultimate Chef makes little effort to defend herself, due to her guilt about it, and when confronted, just admits it.
• Death by Adaptation: As expected for Danganronpa, several Fireman Sam characters bite the dust whereas they're still alive in the show.
• Death by Irony: In Danganronpa tradition:
  • Svetlana Blomgren, the Ultimate Ballerina is executed by being put on stage and having a moon prop dropped on her head.
  • Charlie Jones, the Ultimate Fisher, drowns.
  • Bronwyn Griffiths, the Ultimate Chef is executed by being cooked alive and eaten.
  • Tom Thomas, the Ultimate Pilot is executed by being thrown out of a plane.
  • Lizzie McNamara, the Ultimate Veterinarian is executed by being run over by a truck.
• Death of a Child: Implied; the USB sticks Monokuma gives to Sam, Joe, Svetlana, and Charlie all contain a video of a little kid (Svetlana's video has Freya, Sam's video has Sarah, Charlie's video has James, Joe's video is implied to have Hannah), and ends on a very eerie picture containing a blood stain, hinting that Monokuma has killed them.
• Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: The fic crosses a gory murder mystery with a children's cartoon.
• Determinator: Both Sam and Steele as he's the one who snaps the survivors out of their Flashback Light-induced despair in the good ending in the Chapter 6 Class Trial.
• Developer's Foresight: Characters' Free Time Events are only detailed once they are dead, since that's when all information about them is final. As such, they are marked by death order instead of by name, since marking the tabs with the characters' names would spoil who dies, and when.
• Dwindling Party: As typical for Danganronpa, the contestants begin to die one by one as the Killing Game Program progresses.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • During Elvis' introduction, he asks if one of the other players is the Ultimate Pilot. The very next character to be introduced is Tom, who is indeed the Ultimate Pilot.
  • In Chapter 5, while trying to get into Gabby's room, Joe and Jodie point out she may be dead which Gabby is when they do break the door down.
• Flipping the Bird: In Chapter 4, Jodie gives one of Monokuma's security cameras the finger out of spite.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the prologue, Elvis quips to Sam that Tom is scary. Turns out this feeling was right, as Tom later murders Elvis.
  • During the introduction, the first person to question Monokuma is Ben. Ben ends up being the first dead.
  • Chapter 2's Class Trial: When Hangman's Gambit is launched, reversing the junk letters spells out the phrase "Bronwyn is the killer".
  • In Chapter 3, Monokuma states the Ultimate Culprit, a.k.a the Mastermind, is female. Furthermore, in the final part, Monokuma's clue towards the Mastermind is "Just underneath Neverland's killing office, Emily never offended Steven's harmful intellectual management, actually". What do those initials spell out?
  • Mrs. Chen is shown to know things she reasonably shouldn't, such as Sam and some others being in the sauna, despite the fact (as Sam silently points out) the door to the sauna is solid and doesn't have a window. That's because she's the Ultimate Psychic.
  • In Chapter 6, when Steele says he took care of Mukuro, Sam questions what he did to which Steele says they'll talk about it later. Dilys also finds a bleach blonde wig tied into big, puffy pigtails with white and red ribbons that could have been used by the Mastermind, Mukuro or another Ultra Despair agent as a disguise.
• French Maid Outfit: In Chapter 4, while cleaning up the dorms, Monokuma wears a French maid dress.
• High-Altitude Homicide: Tom's execution involves being thrown out of a plane without a parachute.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Monokuma's specialty as you might expect.
  • In Chapter 6, Steele reveals that Ultra Despair has made a lot of "changes" in Pontypandy, causing businesses to be shut down such as Bella's café as she had to give it up after Dily's store was converted into an orphanage for all the little children of Pontypandy and homes to be abandoned and they always leave little notes mocking the Pontypandians.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: During the Class Trial of Chapter 4, Mrs. Chen notes that the bottle of poison found was specifically paraquat. Gabby, who found the bottle, asks her how she knows this, since she never showed anyone else the label. Later, when Mrs. Chen mentions the piece of thread left behind by the victim, Joe calls her out again, because she was not in the room when the thread was found. Both of these seem to point towards her being the killer; however, Monokuma soon reveals that it's actually because Mrs. Chen is the Ultimate Psychic.
• Inelegant Blubbering: When Svetlana is outed as Ben's killer, she bursts into tears, explaining that she only did it to save her sister.
• Lame Pun Reaction: After hearing Monokuma's "unbearable" pun, Mrs. Chen literally bites her tongue to keep quiet, lest she be executed on the spot.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: As is Danganronpa tradition, the players in the killing game have their memories wiped upon entry, with none of the players being able to remember each other, despite the fact that many of them are related (ex. Sam and Charlie are brothers). Because of this, they don't remember connective family members either (ex. Sam seems to recognize Sarah in videos, but doesn't remember she's his niece).
• Last Episode, New Character: Kiyotaka, Mondo and Chihiro appear in the last chapter, the former two escorting the latter to show the Pontypandians a worldwide program that will allow anyone to speak with the dead contestants at any time.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Ultimates are prone to this, such as when:
  • It's revealed the only way out is to kill someone.
  • Ben Hooper's body is found.
  • They learn that Monokuma's punishment for the Blackened is execution.
  • Tom reveals he planned to beat the Class Trial and let everyone else die, just to get to the Mastermind.
  • When a figure drops in to the room they're in until it's revealed it's Steele and when they realize they're in a morgue.
• Multiple Endings: The Chapter 5 Class Trial and Chapter 6 Class Trial have Bad Endings if you execute Mrs. Chen and agree to have the survivors killed respectively. To get the Good Endings you must refuse to execute Mrs. Chen and say No to Junko's question respectively. The latter leads into They're Gonna Wreck the Day, Ultra Despair.
• Mythology Gag:
  • From Danganronpa:
    • Several Ultimate titles are repeats from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Bronwyn shares the title of "Ultimate Chef" with Teruteru Hanamura, Elvis shares "Ultimate Musician" with Ibuki Mioda, Helen shares "Ultimate Nurse" with Mikan Tsumiki, and Mike shares "Ultimate Mechanic" with Kazuichi Soda.
    • Dilys was selected for being the latest and best in a long line of successful business owners, just like Byakuya Togami (though on a much smaller scale).
    • There's a safe in the laundry room that will grant Sam one hundred Mono-Coins if opened; the correct code to get into it is 11037, a Danganronpa Arc Number.
    • Just like in the first and second games, the first victim wears a white shirt and dies by being stabbed in the stomach.
    • In the first Hangman's Gambit, in between the "thes" of "Bloody Clothes", the unhighlighted letters spell out the first initials of each death in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc; "S, M, L, C, M, K, H, C, S, J" for Sayaka, Mukuro, Leon, Chihiro, Mondo, Kiyotaka, Hifumi, Celeste, Sakura, and Junko.
    • The first killer, Svetlana Blomgren, stabbed someone to death out of worry for a family member's life, just like Teruteru Hanamura. An execution similar to his is later used for Bronwyn Griffiths, the second killer.
    • As tradition for the first killer in any Danganronpa game, Svetlana's execution starts with her being dragged away by a metal clamp around her neck.
    • Like in Trigger Happy Havoc, the new areas on the second floor include a pool and a library, which one particular student spends a lot of time in (in THH, it's Byakuya, here it's Mrs. Chen).
    • The Chapter 2 victim dies from drowning with a head injury, a combination of the causes of death for the Chapter 2 victims in the canon games.
    • During the second trial, the Bullet Time Battle is performed against an innocent student attempting to defend the killer (in this case, Elvis defending Bronwyn), like what Kiyotaka does for Mondo, and Kaito goes for Gonta.
    • The Chapter 3 victims die of a head injury, just like Kiyotaka Ishimaru and Hifumi Yamada.
    • During the Chapter 3 trial's Hangman Gambit, rearranging the junk letters spells out the name of Trigger Happy Havoc's Chapter 3 killer: Celestia Ludenburg/Taeko Yasuhiro.
    • In one of Charlie's Free Time Events, he uncovers a doujinshi manga in the library that stars Princess Piggles and was authored by Hifumi Yamada. How the Mastermind got it and what happened to Hifumi are unknown.
  • From Fireman Sam:
    • The title is a corruption of a lyric from the theme song: "Move aside, make way for Fireman Sam".
    • Due to having their memories erased, several married characters revert back to their maiden names (Bronwyn Jones, Helen Flood, and Lizzie Sparkes are referred to as Bronwyn Griffiths, Helen Williams, and Lizzie McNamara).
    • Mike wears his white jumpsuit from Series 5.
    • Svetlana's motivational video features a picture of Freya in a maze. In Everyday Craziness in Pontypandy, Freya was introduced in the episode "Sign of the Maze Monster".
    • Joe says the colour fuchsia reminds him of home. Fuchsia is the colour of Hannah's hair clips.
    • In the penultimate chapter, you get a Bad End if you peg Mrs. Chen as the killer, just like if Kyoko was pegged as the killer in the first game.
• Non-Nude Bathing: Monokuma invokes this by enforcing a dress code on the spa, which dictates that everyone must wear swimsuits while using the facilities, and nudity is strictly forbidden.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The audience is never fully shown how Station Officer Steele was able to get Mukuro Ikusaba arrested. All that is shown is him stalking her in the alleyway followed immediately by her in handcuffs
• Say My Name: Svetlana's Last Words are screaming her sister Freya's name.
• Script Fic: The Class Trials and Free Time Events are displayed in script format.
• Sequel Hook: Getting the bad ending in Chapter 6's Class Trial reveals that Junko and Monokuma have set up a new Killing Game using the contestants whose names were found on the dead body's toe tags in the morgue leading into the events of this fic's sequel.
• Slasher Smile: Monokuma, naturally with the narration of Chapter 1 stating that the fifteen Ultimates are unnerved by his grin.
• Shout-Out:
  • Chapter 1 is titled "Daylight Come and Me Wan' Go Home".
  • During his introduction, Elvis randomly shouts "I'm a survivor!".
  • When letting the students go for the first investigation, Monokuma yells "May the odds be ever in your favour!".
  • Looking closely at the letters in the first Hangman's Gambit will reveal the word "Mozart" hidden inside.
  • The Mono-Net has a Webkinz account, which all the contestants share.
  • Chapter 3 is titled "I'll Be There For You, Forever and a Day".
  • The arcade features a Mono-Kong machine.
  • Chapter 4 is titled "I Care For You, It's Really Magical, It Just Takes Two".
  • Chapter 5 is titled "I'll Write Myself a Brand New Story With a Happy End".
  • Chapter 6 is titled "I've Been In a Lot of Lonely Places, I've Never Been On the Outside".
• Sweet Tooth: Svetlana adds sugar to an already-sweet fruit drink.
• Switching P.O.V.: The Class Trial in Chapter 3 has multiple characters using the Truth Bullets, not just Sam and Mrs. Chen.
• Take That!: In one of Svetlana's Free Time Events, Sam tries to engage with her by asking "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?". Svetlana demands he stop, because she doesn't like that show.
• Toilet Humour:
  • Tom angrily threatens to dunk Monokuma in the toilet if he wakes him up again.
  • Monokuma claims that not using a face scrub will cause someone to have rough skin on their butt (how that makes sense to him, the world may never know).
• Weird Crossover: Crossing Danganronpa (a gory murder mystery visual novel series) with Fireman Sam (a kids' cartoon series) counts as this.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 5. The dead contestants in the Afterlife Despair Program are starting a revolution.
• Wham Shot: As typical for Danganronpa, each body discovery is treated with major shock.