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[mytalikes]

Welcome to the Cursed Underoak! Break your Curse to get your Wish. Will you enlist the help of your fellow Cursed for it, or will you find another, darker way?

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[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

[magicaltimelady44]

so like. if anyone else, like me, still has the occasional fanfic they follow on fanfiction.net, and hasn't been getting the update emails for the longest time and was wondering if ti meant the site is on its last legs

no

no they've done something stupid as fuck

you have to opt back in to getting the emails/notifications of new chapters every six months, because they automatically assume you don't want to know when the fics you followed for the updates have updated

[secondbeatsongs]

imagine an Observation Duty-type game, but there actually. aren't any anomalies. and if you sit through the full game doing nothing, the music will ramp up and you'll get multiple warning messages, but you'll still always win so long as you don't report anything. because there were never any anomalies to report in the first place

...but if you do try to report an anomaly, the second you do it, shit starts for real. you'll have walls changing texture, stuff falling from the ceiling, ghost intruders poking their heads through doors, the works.

it'll be immediate hard mode, ramping up to the point where the game is near-impossible, with sneaky anomalies along with very obvious ones, as well as some that the game will just simply refuse to fix, because fuck you that's why

and the streamers and the youtube gamers will suffer, and pull their hair out, and find themselves in an endless loop, never to truly feel the satisfaction of victory

because I don't think a single one of them could go the full length of a game without either imagining an anomaly where there isn't one, or getting desperate and guessing wildly out of anxiety and because they think it'll help

anyway I'd probably title it something like "Unobservant", because somewhere in the tutorial it'll have a guy full-on saying, "but don't worry! surely this house doesn't have any anomalies! >:3" and honestly, it's the gamers' own faults at that point if they choose not to believe him

[canisalbus]

Imagine if Machete was Muslim instead of Catholic. His name would be something like Saif سيف, and Vasco would probably be something like Dhahabi ذَهَبِيّ

.

[apas-95]

most anarchists don't outright say they want to abolish building codes (or organisations) - but, practically, when the question of enforcement comes down to it, it's a different story. building codes that are not enforced are not building codes, they're fun suggestions. if you are not ensuring that all, in this case wheelchair ramps, are up to code, you functionally do not have building codes. it's the same issue as with organisation - without a concept of democratic centralism, 'what if the organisation decides to do something that a small subset disagree with' generally receives no solution other than just 'those people just won't do what the organisation decides', which in practice means there does not exist an organisation at all, just a group of people who currently happen to all agree on something, and will disintegrate when they stop happening to agree. in practice there can be no actual collective action, no ensuring wide conformity to codes and programs, without some form of central authority to make reference to. 'just let the village's Ramp Inspecting enthusiast decide if it's fine' does not a building code make.

[cringeworms]

Sara Ahmed's A KillJoy Survival Kit Item 10: Bodies. From "Living a Feminist Life"

[entrop-y]

i know it was almost certainly unintentional, but watching season eleven, it really seems like reid just has devastatingly hopeless, unrequited feelings for morgan

the online discussion of ‘queer coding’ in criminal minds often leaves a lot to be desired (and often fundamentally misunderstands what queer coding is) so i am not even arguing that—especially by season eleven—reid is an explicitly/intentionally queer coded character, but the dynamic of their relationship (the specific dialogue, the body language, and how reid handles morgan’s departure) just accidentally, but so clearly, frame it that way

[bugsbenefit]

genuinely still baffled by the "they don't need to address Mike's sexuality, all that matters is that he's in love with Will" crowd. especially when people say it who claim to care about Mike's character (when you could also just say you don't really care for that part of the show, which would be fine, no one cares about all characters/arcs)

because Surely you realize how him being gay or bi would change his entire character, right. whether he's attracted to girls or not would change the way all his actions up until now are to be interpreted. not even making a statement on his sexuality here, this is generally speaking

if he was actually attracted to El you'd have to address when and why he suddenly stopped loving El since in fiction "it just happened" isn't usually a satisfying answer to breaking a multi season couple up. Why is Will it for him? he's been acting weird for ages so when did he realize? and what made it click he fell out of love with El for good? you'd have to give some explanation for why he was able to proclaim his love for El accidentally in s3 and then fail to do it in the same season while looking uncomfortable with kissing her and so on since his pov was so majorly withheld

if he's not attracted to girls his arc in s5 needs to focus more on comphet and how dating El affected him/why he felt he couldn't break up with her/homophobic attitude in his surrounding slash Hawkins. or the idea of platonic and romantic love in general. there would be no how he got from point A(El) to point B(Will), like what the focus of a bi!Mike s5 arc would have to be on to explain what happened, but a focus on how he ended up at point A in the first place and why he was stuck there/how it affected him

and even core moments of the series would have entirely different meanings depending on if he's attracted to girls. "it's not my fault you don't like girls" being a peak example. if he's gay it's easy to explain it with projection. if he IS attracted to girls though it would read as a much more intentional (even if blurted out) act of homophobia, since it would be him pointing something out that Will genuinely does (not liking being around girls) but he himself can't relate to

and that's all just the surface level differences. Mike being attracted to girls or not being attracted to girls would give his arc an entirely different focus in s5. AS WELL as make his past actions have entirely different meanings. the idea that "it doesn't matter for his character" is so insanely wrong it's wild how many people confidently peddle it

[hamable]

Loid can canonically seamlessly impersonate a higher feminine voice and I like that I have that information now

[artforinfinity]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ODILE!!!!!

I love you 4eva 💖

Reblogs appreciated <3

Bonus!

[ghostofsnails]

I drew gender boy from far-fetched but significantly bluer!!!!

[biggie-chcese]

Ways I Would Change Rain Code Chapter 3, Everyone's Favorite Chapter

(let's join hands and frolic in the fields of missed potential together yayyy yippeee 🐬🌈🫧 <3 spoilers btw. this is another long ass rant/critique so warning for that too)

chapter 3 is pretty infamous for being rain code's weakest chapter but i love this game and want it to be better, so here's some changes i'd make to it. these overhauls are gonna be pretty big in some places but hey! if that's what it takes!

Part 1: The Beginning

gonna start off with saying that makoto's introduction is perfect. i would change nothing about it. he's intriguing, his exchanges with yuma are fantastic, and he lays down some nice lore and foreshadowing. no notes

AS FOR WHEN YUMA LEAVES THAT PENTHOUSE... HOO BOY

i take so much issue with the introduction of the resistance. as hilarious as it is that they kidnap yuma by simply picking him up like a piece of furniture, it just kinda ruins every subsequent interaction he has with them. he has no reason to believe a single word shachi is saying. that man can preach about non-violence all day but that doesn't change the fact that he and his crew kidnapped yuma. and if i were yuma, that would be on my mind the entire time. just from a narrative standpoint, it feels strange for him to put more stock into what the resistance says than makoto, who literally saved his life. meanwhile the resistance kidnaps him, threatens to kill him like three times, and foists a menial task on him. why is he giving them the time of day at all? just lie about taking their request and go look for your friends.

so how would i change this? it's simple: have the resistance give yuma a good first impression

picture this: after leaving makoto's place, yuma returns to where the submarine used to be. he's devastated to not see any trace of his allies and breaks down. this is where he can have his sulking session like he has on that couch after being kidnapped in canon. shinigami teases him while he's down but eventually lifts his spirits when she talks about the detective who left an impression on her. yknow. "i want to eradicate all unsolved mysteries and bring happiness to everyone!" yeah, that guy. you know him. determined to keep going, yuma gets up and decides to search around for his friends. the player has control now and can talk to several NPCs asking about them. the final NPC says to yuma, "All the gunk and trash of Kanai Ward's rivers flow down into Dohya DIstrict. If you're looking for a body, that place is your best bet." that NPC gives yuma directions to dohya district, and the area is unlocked on the map! the player can take yuma there next

when yuma steps into dohya district, he has his initial shocked reaction to the place being completely flooded. it's horrible here, but he presses on, looking around and asking a couple more people if they've seen any bodies. as he's asking around, he sorta forgets that he is a small, frail, vulnerable outsider that looks really easy to rob, and so a couple of thugs come along to remind him of that. they corner him with knives, egging him on to fork up any money he's got (which would be none. yuma's broke ass lmao) and with no other options, yuma cries out for help.

in comes the resistance! i think this is where shachi saves yuma by breaking up the conflict peacefully- quite literally practicing what he preaches (SHOW, DON'T TELL!!!). the thugs leave, and shachi asks yuma if he's okay, inviting him to their hideout in the process. this is where we can have shachi drop the lore about dohya district as they walk there together. the resistance gets introduced, and i would change very little about their introduction! however, i would leave out the parts where they threaten to kill yuma, because yuma needs a reason to trust them. and let's be honest: those scenes do nothing but unnecessarily raise stakes before fizzling out immediately. yuma can still refuse their offer for him to join them because, well, they just met. and it's still a reasonable decision for him to make without the death threats and kidnapping. maybe instead of death threats, the resistance leaders get all riled up and loud, then shachi quiets them down and tells yuma he wants to talk about the issue in private on the roof. yuma can still witness shachi get his gun through the crack in the door.

everything is the same after that, including fubuki's scene because that part is perfect. everything about her in this chapter is perfect. i think she could've had a little bit of her labyrinth development outside of it but oh well. she kinda gets that in ch 4? moving on.

Part 2: Lamp Oil? Rope? Bombs?!

i actually love the bomb threats as a concept- they add a lot of stakes to the game. however, the pacing completely ruins that. yuma wastes too much time in between them in a way that makes the bombs lose all of their urgency. so let's just cut that all out and make them yuma's first priority. let's say yuma has 15-20 minutes reach and disarm each bomb. this gives him no time for lollygagging, and he goes running around the city immediately, trying to dodge all of the peacekeepers. he can even be intercepted by guillaume and dominic at these times and narrowly escape via QTEs and detours. this still gives our culprit at least 45 minutes to enact his plan, which is plenty of time. after disarming the bombs, then yuma can return to the hideout to confront the resistance. there, he finds nobody is there except shachi's corpse, slumped against the couch, with his revolver nestled in his right hand.

shachi's clothes are wet, implying he just came in from outside before shooting himself. the safe that held the gun is wide open. nothing else seems to have been moved around. since there's no evidence of a struggle, perhaps it... truly is a suicide?

"wait that's a pretty big change" you might be thinking. or not. im not psychic. but please consider: this game has enough locked room mysteries in it, and it can survive with one less.

my idea is that this mystery should have at least one more layer of complexity to it because the entire canon mystery hinges only on icardi's escape method... i guess there's also the "suicide or homicide?" part but anyone who has ever engaged with the mystery genre will instantly figure out that shachi is left handed the very second they bring up the gun's irregular design. so why not have a situation where the body is moved? we haven't done anything like that ever since chapter 0.

my other biggest gripe with this mystery is that icardi didn't need to kill shachi at all. he could've just done his robbery and left kanai ward (or, well, tried to) without any hiccups. why kill shachi? why does the game never touch on that? i guess we could go off of icardi hating shachi's ideals but... going out of his way to kill him during his otherwise perfect heist? idk, it seems like a super lukewarm motive for all that.

so why not have shachi get in his way? shachi directly tries to stop icardi by following him in secret and confronts him at the site where he's about to bomb the hydroelectric plant. and that is where shachi dies. i think shachi's true cause of death should be drowning, since it's the best way for icardi to kill him. and how does icardi do it? well, he threatens to drown servan first. in shachi's attempt to rescue servan, icardi gets the upper hand. icardi then transports his body back to dohya via the waterways to keep anyone off his trail. he then frames it like a suicide by shooting the corpse in the head. there, he plants the gun, cleans up a bit, and leaves.

there are a number of types of evidence for yuma to deduce this later. maybe shinigami notes that the gunshot wound seems way less bloody than it should be. maybe yuma finds something belonging to shachi near the hydroelectric plant, like his necklace (maybe stuck to a grate or buried in rubble from the explosion?) along with evidence of a huge struggle. also, yuma sees multiple safes floating outside a bank near the plant. also there should be a few more red herrings among the solution keys. yuma will still interrogate margulaw to get the lore on the others, of course

i want yuma to know that shachi was trying to save servan, but i honestly dont know how to make that clear through evidence. maybe servan leaves something behind on purpose?

(yuma can meet kurumi during all this the same way too idc. i don't really think her inclusion in this chapter is necessary but w/e i wont take what little screen time she has from her. poor girl)

in the end, yuma and co get cornered by guillaume and dominic at the hydroelectric plant's bomb ruins instead of a random office, so he can get his final batch of clues right beforehand. then just before dominic crushes him into a small purple stain, he panics and goes into the labyrinth as usual.

Part 3: Down the Rabbit Hole We Go!

just a heads up, i'm changing nothing about fubuki in this labyrinth. fubuki and her interactions with shinigami are the best damn part of it, so imagine it's still there under this new format. anyway.

now i get it- this mystery still hinges on icardi's abilities. im not a mystery writer, so just imagine a lot of this stuff is more subtle than it is presented here.

let's frame it like this: the mystery casts a lot of doubt on shachi at first. from the evidence, yuma's initial assumption is that shachi did the hydroelectric bombing to send a message to the rich, then returned to his hideout and ended his own life.

as we go through the labyrinth, we first deduce that the bombs were all a diversion to keep yuma and the peacekeepers away. after that, we learn about shachi being left handed, then we deduce that this had to be a homicide. after that, we try to figure out shachi's actions before he died, eventually coming to the conclusion that he was present at the bombing of the hydroelectric plant, but if it was a homocide, someone else maybe tried to stop him. from here, we look back at how his body was discovered and figure out that his real cause of death was drowning. yuma then points the finger at icardi due to his swimming ability, and we take down his arguments accusing the others as usual.

after this, we find out his motive through actual RDM matches with his phantom instead of just mentioning it at the end of the labyrinth. through his motive, we learn more about how shachi's body was transported through the waterways and shot post-mortem at the hideout. then we can finally go to GOD shinigami mode, where icardi tries to say "this is what shachi wanted! he started the bombings and i tried to stop him. he realized the error in his ways and asked me to kill him!" but yuma counters that with the evidence servan left behind, saying that shachi has shown to be nothing but a man of peace, even til the very end.

when it's over, icardi says he hates this city and wanted to leave, but yuma scolds him on his selfishness, in how many people he endangered and how he killed a man who wanted to do some good for this world, all for money. pissed, he finishes icardi off with a silly little comic book

Part 4: Oh Yeah What About Guillaume and Dominic

imma be real with yall i do not like these two. they're just lame ass antagonists man. and maybe it's the black in me talkin but im not a fan of the dynamic where dominic, one of two characters in the entire game that's darker than a sheet of paper, is a big dumb brute whose likes include "sleeping lazily" and dislikes include "thinking," is completely loyal to this ambiguously pale little girl. i dont think guillaume herself is racist- she treats him exactly the same as her other underlings. actually she strikes me as one of those "im not racist! i hate everyone! ^w^" kinds of people and she actually means it. it's still pretty obnoxious though. sorry guillaume likers.

i'm also not even gonna accuse kodaka and the dev team of racism or colorism (though i could say something about how nearly all of the darker skinned characters in danganronpa such as akane, aoi, and yasuhiro are all portrayed as the Stupid Ones™ or the butt of a joke like daisaku from DR3 who happens to be the ultimate... farmer... ok. ok that's fine. whatever. the sole exception is sakura, an excellent character... whose appearance is still treated like a joke. also i will not complain about servan's afro + donut lips combo. i will not. do you see how all these little things build up to leaving a bad taste in my mouth? anyway im getting sidetracked). so i'll say it could just be chalked up to ignorance. either way, i think one simple fix to this is to let dominic talk... in the mystery labyrinth

a really fun payoff to his dynamic with guillaume is to simply have them swap their roles in the labyrinth. there, dominic does all of the yapping, showing he was actually paying attention to the case the whole time in the real world, and guillaume is on the sidelines occasionally making red text appear by calling yuma a little f- er- maggot. it still retains their running joke, but gives it a more memorable punchline imo. it doesn't really get rid of the weird undertones but i think it adds something to dominic that's sorely needed by showing him as smarter than he comes off as.

Part 5: The Ending

now my biggest change i'd make to this ending is making yuma recognize that he killed icardi for no reason. he... sorta does it in canon? but he's more worried about the fact that he killed icardi at all and not his trend of having a way too eager trigger finger when it comes to the labyrinth. and he hardly even hesitated either. he was so angry with icardi for killing a good man like shachi for his own selfish reasons that he mercilessly killed him for it. and i want yuma to acknowledge that more. i want him to reflect on how his tendency to just use the labyrinth the moment he feels like he's in danger is a terrible thing. please. please i want more reflection on this.

i wont change much else. however, when makoto replaces their submarine, i want there to be some consequence: all of their notes are gone. the inside of the sub is clean. the scent of yakou's cigarettes is gone. the furniture is the same, but it's all brand new. it's unsettling, but the NDA graciously accepts their new gift.

idk how much strain that'd put on the team that modeled the sub's interior, but i think it's worth it. the game needs some concept of change and consequence to it. make chapter 3 matter.

that's really all i have to say. thanks for reading!

[yesornopolls]

Is it weird for a bathroom in a private residence (not a public restroom) to have a window to the outside?

[snivyartjpeg]

world's most pathetic wet death god performs worst boom-kill to ever grace this earth, asked to leave the mystery labyrinth