#duke mcgahan

[mikartwheat]

Charged for a crime he didn't commit

[mikhardwheat]

Is this too niche

[superbeth18]

Can someone else give me David x Duke shipp name?

[itmustbek8]

Eeyyy, we finished The Crooked Man, and with only minor oopsies

Now taking spooky game suggestions or next halloween

[rpgsocialservices]

The Core of 'The Crooked Man'

The Crooked Man is the first game in the strange man rpgmaker horror game series. It is perhaps the scariest rpg horror game I've ever played, thanks to the disturbing body horror, game pacing, and timely jump scares. Admittedly, that may partially be because of my own disposition and personal weakness toward body horror and jumpscares (I also have not played the last two games in the series, one of which has stronger content warning than The Crooked Man does). While I am not someone who likes essays explaining why society or some such is the 'true horror' in a piece of horror media, I do think that the best horror pieces use horror as an exaggeration of evils we already deal with in real life, their consequences, and as a way to showcase a tangible defeat of intangible evils.

VERY quick summary: David the protagonist of The Crooked Man, and is introduced during a period of self-isolation when his relationships are suffering and in some cases falling apart altogether. He begins to be haunted by a frightening apparition, and follows a trail to various locations as he attempts to get rid of this haunting. He meets other people who are also more or less at rock bottom, and finally finds the body of the Crooked Man [Duke McGahan] who has been haunting him and can put him to rest. I don't want to recap the entire game here or spoil everything, so this will overall make more sense if you have played the game before.

On the surface, the horror of this game is largely body horror, as the titular character is indeed disturbingly physically crooked, along with the jump scares and chase scenes. The anticipation of meeting the Crooked Man again as he chases you down is matched by the visceral revulsion you feel when you see him. There is also the general atmosphere of the game, as every place David has to travel through is empty except for one other person in each place who is at something of a dead end in their own journey. This creates a pervasive sense of desperation both for the characters to not fail in their darkest times and for David to find some companion so he isn't alone against this monster. However, none of our new friends follow us beyond their individual maps, so each move along the plot brings a loss of companionship even as it brings a new character for us to meet. This too contributes to the desperation that drives the game. The dread of facing the monster again is only matched by the twin contradictory fears of facing it alone or of it hurting someone you now care about, and all the while you are terribly aware that you are on the run.

But how did this happen in the first place? Why? This is only partially a case of 'wrong place, wrong time'. The core of The Crooked Man is not the body horror and the chase scenes, and it's not David's own problems, even though avoiding them was what drove him to the location where he first met the Crooked Man to begin with. The core of the The Crooked Man is the human need for connection. David's spiral is ultimately caused by his self-imposed isolation. Duke's suicide which lead to him becoming the Crooked Man was caused by his despair after a lifetime of abandonment, failure, and loneliness. Every character that David meets in each new location is desperately lonely, and this loneliness is mirrored in David. For brief periods of time, David seems slightly revitalized as he focuses on his companions over his own despair, but ultimately this is fleeting. Once we learn that these characters are only facets of Duke, the reality hits full force that this horror has narrowed down to encompass David alone as he faces Duke.

It is what comes after we walk away from the final confrontation that makes human connection the true core of this game. We've learned that Duke lacked any real safety net or network, and he succumbed to his despair and his own crooked man. David, by contrast, has a network of people who care about him, but has spent the game up until this point rejecting them, and has almost gone down the exact same path that Duke did. The foils of Duke and David's respective stories combine to one conclusion: your relationships with other people cannot save you, but they can make it easier if you let them. Loved ones cannot fix your problems for you. They cannot take away your depression. Importantly, they also cannot help you if you do not want to be helped. By the same token, if you are willing to reach out, they might be able to help you, and maybe make things a little easier and a bit more bearable. Maybe Duke wouldn't have become the Crooked Man if he had a network, or maybe he would have. David almost did because he isolated himself, which left him vulnerable to external and internal threats. We don't know how long it took for David to get better after the game, or what role his friends played in helping him bear it all, but we do know that in later games he reaches out to others to help them with their problems when he can. We know he learned how important that human connection is when facing trials and tribulations, and that he was willing to offer that to others.

[transgenderastarion]

I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING NOW

*THE CROOKED MAN GAME SPOILERS BELOW THEORY ABOUT HOW IT ALL WORKS*

HOLY FUCK OK SO YOU GUYS REMEMBER THE PART IN THE SCHOOL W/ D WHEN THE CROOKED MAN CATCHES YOU AND GRABS YOU BY THE NECK AND ESSENTIALLY ‘KNOCKS YOU OUT’ WHAT IF HE DID ACTUALLY KILL YOU 

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WAS ALIVE LIKE PAUL AND MARION AND SISSI AND D AT THE BEGINNING, BUT IF THE CROOKED MAN EVENTUALLY FOUND THEM TOO AND THEY DIED, THEN IT WOULD MAKE SENSE AS TO WHY YOU SEE THEM ALL AT THE END OF THE GAME, AND AS WELL SINCE TECHNICALLY I CLASSIFY THE CROOKED MAN AS A DEMON OR GHOST TYPE THING, SEEING HIM AS AN APPARITION AS AN APPARITION WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE. 

PLUS AT THE END OF THE HOSPITAL ROOF SCENE, YOU KNOW HOW PAUL CAN SEE YOU AND THE CROOKED MAN, BUT MARION CAN ONLY SEE PAUL??? HOW THE FUCKITY DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT? 

DAVID DIED IN THE SCHOOL. 

WHICH WAS ALSO HOW HE WAS ABLE TO SEE DUKE AT THE END OF THE SECOND PLAYTHROUGH.  

[theundecider]

in a little crooked house… / david h. thread.

in a little crooked house… / david h. answer.

in a little crooked house… / david h. about.

in a little crooked house… / david h. aesthetic.

in a little crooked house… / david h. character study.

in a little crooked house… / david h. desires.

in a little crooked house… / david h. face.

in a little crooked house… / david h. headcanon.

in a little crooked house… / david h. lookalike.

in a little crooked house… / david h. music.

in a little crooked house… / david h. musings.

in a little crooked house… / david h. plotting call.

in a little crooked house… / david h. starter call.

in a little crooked house… / david h. wardrobe.

in a little crooked house… / david h. verse one: precanon. ——— Precanon, just before the breakup.

in a little crooked house… / david h. verse two: canon. ——— Canon events.

in a little crooked house… / david h. verse three: postcanon. ——— Postcanon, good end.

david h. & darla hoover.

david h. & paul martin.

david h. & marion martin.

david h. & shirley webber.

david h. & sissi.

david h. & dee.

david h. & fluffy.

david h. & the crooked man/duke mcgahan.

david h. & sophie grundler.

[netsunii]

crooked relationships, crooked dreams, crooked family

[mikartwheat]

Thinking about them 24/7

[kitsunefyuu]

(via http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=Bp8nG_9pILM&u=/watch?v=fF6HjTKD_90&feature=share)

[transgenderastarion]

you have no clue how much I hate myself for making this and actually putting time and effort into this (creds to original David artist here)

[mikartwheat]

Wasn't sure if this was deserving of a separate post, but I needed to share with the world

[mikartwheat]

The real reason why David slept on the couch in TSM

[mikartwheat]

These guys again...

[mikartwheat]

Get this game away from me

[mikartwheat]

Late Halloween post with college!au David and Duke, where they met at a party