#i'm worried i made no sense here

[dangancode]

Rain Code Chapter 0, and why its Twist F*cking Sucks.

This is going to be the start of a series I call "My Gripes with Master Detective Archives: Rain Code". Unfortunately, they are quite numerous, but I figure it's better for me to split them up rather then write one massive post complaining about it.

Because yeah, I did the writer's equivalent of a rage quit on this game, and it breaks my heart. Not only because the writing doesn't work, but because IT HAD THE POTENTIAL TO.

And what better place to start this then the Massacre on the Amaterasu Express, and why shock value is not good writing.

Spoilers for Chapter 0 of Rain Code, and also for Danganronpa 1, 2, V3, and UDG.

Right off the bat, we're introduced to five other characters besides our infamous protagonist, Yuma Kokohead. Aphex Logan, Melami Goldmine, Pucci Lavmin, Zilch Alexander, and Zange Eraser. They're introduced, provide a bit of exposition to Yuma and the player, and their dynamics seem pretty solid so far. Each of them has room to develop, there's hints that Pucci might be a love interest of sorts to Yuma, and some of even show off cool powers that definitely might come in handy in later cases. But then what happens?

They're all f*cking killed. They last twenty minutes before every single one of them, including the culprit, all die off-screen.

SO YEAH. IF YOU'RE ANYTHING AT ALL LIKE ME, YOU'RE MAD. Not upset, not devastated seeing characters you like die.

F*CKING. MAD.

What Kodaka seems to have forgotten when writing Chapter 0, is that there's a reason the deaths in the Danganronpa series work. THEY EXPLICITLY PUT THE IDEA OF MURDER INTO YOUR HEAD. From the very moment Monokuma is introduced in DR1, he says directly, without any sugarcoating, that the only way the characters can get out of permanent imprisonment is to kill someone and get away with it.

The writers don't say who will die (ignoring the whole 11037 thing), because they don't NEED TO. They know the player is smart enough to use context clues and figure out, "Hey, Sayaka and Makoto have been getting awfully chummy, chances are she's probably kicking the bucket." It makes sense, there's payoff, and the moments leading up to that are meant to build connection between the player and the characters.

WHAT PAYOFF IS THERE IN RAIN CODE CHAPTER 0'S TWIST?!

There is none, because Kodaka forgot to give us, the player, any semblance of a hint aside from the chapter's title that maaaaaybe these characters aren't gonna live much longer so try to avoid getting attached.

And no, saying "it's made by the same people who made Danganronpa so it's on you for not expecting that" does not suffice here. Even if Rain Code were established to be part of the same universe or whatnot (it's not), why didn't they give us a bit more warning?

WHAT IS THE POINT OF INTRODUCING THESE CHARACTERS IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THEY'RE ALL GONNA DIE WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES OF MEETING THEM?

The short answer is: shock value.

Take a look at Kodaka's writing, and you'll find that he adores shock value. Between the protagonist swap in V3, the divisive "it's a lie!!" ending, and a handful of deaths throughout the series (Taka, Hiyoko, Yuta Asahina), and it becomes entirely clear that payoff isn't his top priority. It's pulling the rug from under our feet, watching us land on the floor, and when we say, "WTF Kodaka?!", his response is probably, "IDK what to tell you fam, you really should've seen that coming."

No, my dude. Of course I didn't see this twist coming. Because you did a terrible job with your foreshadowing. You introduced five characters whose only purpose is to improve your marketing by showcasing a bigger cast on the game's cover art, vaguely hinted at potential development in later chapters, and then did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH THEM.

As a writer, I despise shock value. Not hinting at a twist properly beforehand almost never works, and when it does, it falls in line with what we know about the story and the stakes. But by the time the stakes are set up in Rain Code, Aphex and the others are already gone, so their deaths don't really matter.

If Aphex, Melami, Pucci, Zilch and Zange didn't exist, THIS STORY WOULD'VE PANNED OUT THE EXACT SAME WAY. Nobody mentions these characters again anyway, SO WHY DO THEY EVEN EXIST?

Oh, and I've barely discussed the culprit himself, "Zilch-Alexander-but not-really-it's-just-some-unnamed-hitman-who-looks-and-sounds-exactly-like-him."

You mean to tell me that the real Zilch just happened to look EXACTLY LIKE THIS RANDOM HITMAN? A hitman who, much later in the game, is revealed to be old pals with Yomi Hellsmile, the symbolic leader of Amaterasu?

You're telling me this isn't actually a hitman, he's an insider from Amaterasu who managed to not only get out of Kanai Ward, but only left to kill four detectives, use some intricately designed train to pull off their murders, and then frame the trainee who just happened to have amnesia so his alibi is already pretty shaky?

You're telling me he got past all of the security regulations that Kanai Ward had in place preventing people from getting in or out, and instead of taking this opportunity to spread Amaterasu's influence, HE WENT STRAIGHT BACK THERE AND EXPECTED TO BE GREETED WITH OPEN ARMS?!

Are you starting to get why I have issues with this chapter?

It would've been so much simpler to say "Zilch was bribed by Amaterasu to betray the WDO". Melami or Aphex could even mention something along the lines of, "Not all detectives care about the truth. Some only care about lining their own pockets and making themselves look better in the eyes of the WDO." Which would make it easier for us to understand that detectives don't always have everyone's best interests in mind.

And if it's absolutely necessary for the sake of the plot, to fuel Yuma's desire to solve injustices and learn how to use the Mystery Labyrinth to uncover the truth, why can't it just be ONE DEATH INSTEAD OF FOUR?

I discussed this with a friend of mine on Discord, but rewriting this chapter so that only Zange dies would be incredibly easy. Zange realizes their drinks are drugged, and when everyone else falls asleep, he confronts Zilch. Of course it ends badly, and by the time the others realize he's dead, Zilch's status as the traitor becomes even more apparent. One Mystery Labyrinth later, and Swank kills Zilch for blowing cover, saying something like, "You said this would go off without a hitch." It would make Amaterasu seem more like a threat, since they're willing to go to such extreme lengths to compromise the WDO's involvement in Kanai Ward. Aphex, Melami and Pucci would all join the rest of the detective gang along with Yuma, and the story would proceed as normal.

Do you see how easy that was? I'm not trying to say this would've been better than how it actually played out, but I certainly would've enjoyed the game a bit more, at least.

Anyways, I digress. Rants are exhausting, but I definitely feel better getting all of this off my chest. Of course, you're free to agree or disagree, but I'd really prefer not to be called an egomaniac just because I disliked Kodaka's galaxy brain storytelling on this one.

Have a great rest of your day or night, I'm gonna go lay down now. :')

[krysmcscience]

The Lamb is malicious in a funny way and the Goat is funny in a malicious way. No, I will not elaborate.

Anyway, everyone give thanks to the Lamb for interrupting what was sure to be a very boring and patronizing PSA from their grouchy cat hubby. Truly, they are doing God's work. Granted, the Lamb canonically is God now, so, uh. Mostly they're just doing their own work.

Speaking of their grouchy cat hubby, yes this is absolutely still Narilamb, Narinder is 100% into his goofy-ass spouse always no matter what and we all know it, he just wasn't expecting his brand new adopted kid to share the same single goofy-ass brain cell as the Lamb. :)

[coldbycrossfade]

MAN THAT REALLY COLORS THIS RESPONSE IN THIS CONVERSATION SO DIFFERENTLY FOR ME

[south-sea]

i've been promising it for ages, so here are finally some notes on the two iterations of black arms/doom i write for. in this house we ignore the "black doom is an evil space tyrant for the sake of being an evil space tyrant" thing and have fun exploring his motives from different angles

(it's because i had no idea that was even a thing until like a week ago. i've always thought the motivator was Just Food, and i like that significantly more.)

i like to think of eclipse's paternal qualities as something telling to black doom/the species as a whole, at least outside of canon instances. so that's an intentional trend across both.

it's also intentionally implied the alt arms are more or less what aruna's hive could/would have turned out like if he were less traditionally stubborn and foolhardy.

as for their plans and how things ended up:

alt doom started out as generally interested in how humanity might progress. once in contact with gerald, his plan was to trade his DNA for the chaos emeralds as a source of energy for the black comet, as its at-the-time power would have been mostly depleted by the time it circled back around in 50 years. this agreement was doomed to fail; both he and gerald almost immediately realized how badly it could backfire, got paranoid, and mutually planned to destroy each other. the fact humans are good sustenance for the black arms was just a convenient bonus at that point.

given shadow didn't make it past SA2 on this timeline, it left sonic to defeat the black arms. and in sonic fashion, this meant putting them in their place and sending them packing without properly destroying them.

alt doom is not so much one to accept he's been beaten, and more one to re-approach something from a different angle once he realizes his methods were flawed. this leads to him picking up and just going Somewhere Else. he's a scientist too, on some level. he can figure it out. and he does. rather than being all traditional and stubborn, he learns to work with other species, which in turn leads to securing better/more diverse materials, more ethical/convenient food sources, etc. the arms' population booms and advances at breakneck pace from then on. they diversify and spread out. without having to fight for survival, things are chill. it's considered the good end.

aruna's is the bad end. shadow is present on this timeline, and summarily wrecks his entire shit (for good reason).

the trouble with aruna's hive is it was in a constant state of nutritional deficit. they were the multiverse's scavengers, tending to pick planets clean whose populations were already critically low. not for any moral or ethical reason, just that the hive itself was so comparatively small in numbers, they didn't much have a choice.

this led to desperation. he got Tired of it. his last ditch effort to secure some means of easier travel/means to acquire food was to obtain the chaos emeralds. so he struck a deal with gerald, as these things always go.

he comes back 50 years later, finds his son has sided with the humans, and just snaps. just goes absolutely nuclear. if the deal isn't going to be upheld, and shadow sees the black arms as The Enemy, then he's just going to take the emeralds (and by extension the whole planet itself) by force. he's done playing nice. he and his people are starving. have been starving for enough years he's lost count.

this ends with the entire comet being blown up, and that's the last thing he sees as he's falling back to earth.

what all goes on after that point is between nobody but him, the multiverse's worst and, somehow, eventually, a familiar fallen god. (it's going in another aruna-centric post, some day, maybe, i hope.)

there's even still more i could say about how their respective hives operated and how they interacted with them personally, but that also needs to go in another post because this one's already long enough. but oh man is there more to say.

(and a shoutout/direct link to @motobug as always for the mobian design)

[front-facing-pokemon]

[quaranmine]

random firewatch au detail that has basically no impact on the story unless you want to psychoanalyze fw!grian even further than i did as the author, but it's very intentional that i always refer to both of mumbo's parents but only grian's mom. did i give him daddy issues? i guess so, but not in a way where i really deeply examined the implications as meaningful to the story. it was just a detail i stuck with from the beginning as a way to keep fleshing out the story's background subtly. the idea behind grian's dual citizenship was always that he was born in america to an american dad and british mom, and that his mom moved back to the UK when he was very young since she wanted to be closer to her family. perhaps his dad didn't go with them? or perhaps his dad did, and then later they split and he went back to america? whatever the cause, grian never even mentions his dad in the story, and it wasn't because i intended him to be dead (because that would have come up in a story about grief) if you get me

[thethingything]

I keep randomly remembering that the reason our brain is especially fucked and a bunch of our symptoms are worse right now is because of like, an avoidable external thing that's chemically affected our nervous system instead of either our symptoms flaring up on their own or some specific stressful event triggering it, and for some reason that keeps making us feel especially bad about it.

like our mental health being bad because of stressful stuff going on and our mental illnesses randomly flaring up both suck, but I can handle our brain just doing its own thing and/or reacting to what's going on around us.

but something about it being a medication that someone else prescribed that's changed the way our brain functions is significantly more distressing in a way I can't put into words properly. a lot of the symptoms we've got (apathy, brain fog, alexithymia, memory problems, etc) are very typical depression and dissociation symptoms, but they're like a weird version of them that feels very different to how we normally experience them.

the only way I can describe the difference in feeling is that it feels more "artificial" but I can't even really describe what I mean by that. if normal brain fog is looking out the window on a foggy day, this is looking out of a window that's been covered with those frosted vinyl sheets. you can't see shit either way, but the feeling is very different.

I just desperately want it to go away. I'm finding it hard to be enthusiastic about things I'm normally excited about no matter how bad our depression gets, and our usual coping mechanisms for getting our brain to register positive things aren't really working because it's not the same underlying mechanism.

it feels like any control I did have over our symptoms and anything I could do to help with them has been stripped away and all I can do is wait it out and hope it fixes itself, and the whole "being given a drug that changes how your brain functions and takes away your control over what your brain is doing" is pretty much the exact phobia I was trying to learn to figure out how to deal with before we get dental work done, and for the dental work it'd be like... idk probably an hour at most, whereas now I'm just stuck dealing with experiencing it 24/7 for an undetermined amount of time

[aropride]

i have a dog motif going on but it's way different from whatever y'all have going on and it's based off an idea i had for a headcanon for a miraculous character

[sapsolais]

!

[drdumaurier]

Hi, hello everyone! This is a quick update since my queue ran out and I haven't even noticed. I'm back from my holidays in London, , but I haven't gotten the chance to write any drafts as I wanted to because, due to my legendary luck (if you know, you know), I got got sick with [drumrolls] pneumonia! 🥳 So I'll take a few more days to rest before working on the threads and asks I owe.

Thank you so much for your patience and I hope you're staying safe and cool in this heatwave!

[pacificgasandelectric]

hanging out in this server i'm in is wild to me bc it's a generally very. wholesome place. and there Are dedicated channels for nsfw and there's a Single "dark nsfw" channel that pretty much only hosts stuff like "what if it was TECHNICALLY dubcon but nobody involved was actually forced into doing anything they felt genuinely uncomfortable with" and i'm over here like. what if a character restrained and lobotomized their captive, who was horrified the whole time. what if i invent an abortifacient herb so one character can induce a miscarriage on another in secret, and then accuse them of "not caring about their baby enough" to not lose it. what if there was adoptive incest On Top Of the blood-relative incest. what if i invented ways to violate autonomy using magic or technology that you literally can't do in real life. would that be cool or what

[metamorphmigus]

[fuckwhoeverpickedallthefunnyurls]

I just want to let you know that the things you say are very reassuring and they mean a lot. I just see you going along and telling others all those comforting words and you give that fairy godmother vibe. If that makes any sense. I appreciate you a lot and i always lighten up when i see you online.

This made me do a little happy dance and put down my phone to run through the hallway and back again you are literally so so nice and this is so cute

I hate when I see someone struggling and there's just nothing I can do. So yeah, thank you it's really nice knowing that my words have some kind of impact and I appreciate you and all of my other mutuals immensely <3

[marshmellowtea]

writing is so wack like i feel like the mood shifts in this story had to have some flow to them because literally how the fuck else did i get here, but also this character's feelings feel so different from the ones i was writing them having not even one hundred words ago so maybe it is clunky bad writing that'll make no fucking sense when i read it back

[xavieremix]

okay so the tags on that last post got me feeling those melon collies so i'm just gonna. tagdump in here. slightly sensitive topics? so uh. scroll down (or press J to jump to next post). or read my thoughts like the morning paper. sorry. cheers.

[hurtspideyparker]

In a timeline where Civil War didn't end in divorce and everyone lives in the compound:

Steve, walking into the living room: Don't worry Buck I think you'll really fit in around here. Everyone is super nice

Peter: Oh my god you're living here too?! Can I please look at your arm? Please please please please please-

Bucky: *turns around and leaves*

-

Clint: So... wanna test if your spider-sense defeats my perfect aim?

Peter: Oh my god do I ever

Tony & Steve: NO.

-

Peter: Hi. Big fan. Y'know we're like a spider duo. Crime fighting spiders. Arachnid pals

Natasha, staring blankly:

Peter: Web friends? SPY-ders?

Natasha:

Peter: Spinneret associates?

Natasha: Leave.

Peter: Yes okay sorry ma'am

-

During a meal:

Bucky: *glaring at Sam*

Sam: Ay Rogers come get your dog

Steve: Bucky, leave it

Bucky: *glares down at soup instead*

-

Peter: Mr. Rogers could you help me with my homework?

Tony: What the hell kid, I'm right here

Bruce: I have... so many degrees

Steve: Hey I know a thing or two myself. Sure Queens, what do you got?

Peter: Great! I'm just gonna ask some questions for my essay. What would you say the role of war propaganda was in your decision to enroll in the military? Was being poor a factor? Actually, how was the Great Depression for you?

Steve: Less depressing than this conversation.

-

Steve: Take a jacket, it's chilly

Wanda: Okay thanks dad

Steve:

Wanda:

Peter: Ha! That's so embarrassing, it's like calling your teacher dad

Wanda: Shut up Peter, you call Tony dad all the time

Peter: Yeah but I do it on purpose so it's not embarrassing. I'm very open about my daddy issues

-

Tony: I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth

Steve:

Tony: Looking at me with your angelic blue eyes, like a freak

Steve:

Tony: Stupid Dorito ass build. Making me wanna take a bite

Steve: I feel harassed but I'm not sure what kind

-

Natasha: Hey bird brain!

Clint and Sam both turn:

Natasha: Hm, that's a problem. You have thirty seconds to decide who gets bird brain. The other will be feather head

Clint and Sam: *start arguing*

Tony: I can't believe they're fighting to be called an insult

Steve: She has that effect on people

Peter: Aw man, I wish the Black Widow gave me a nickname :(

-

Peter: Hey old man

Bucky:

Peter: I'M SO SORRY SIR MR. WILSON MADE ME DO IT PLEASE DONT KILL ME

Sam: *cackling in the background*

Bucky: *stands up and turns to Sam*

Sam: Oh shit- kid you're not getting the money if you're gonna snitch!

Peter: That's okay, I'd like to think my life is worth more than twenty bucks

-

Bucky: I need your... help

Tony: Sure, what's up?

Bucky: *glances back at Steve who stands in the doorway and nods approvingly*

Bucky: Arm.

Tony: Ok... this conversation is killing you isn't it?

Bucky:

Tony: Say please

Bucky: Nope can't do it-

Steve: Do I need to get out the get-along shirt?

*Bucky and Tony share a look of alarm*

Bucky: Please fix my arm

Tony: Yep of course no problem buddy

Read Part 2 here