I have... So many thoughts on DRAMAtical Murder. Too many to organize with any kind of cohesion in one post. I will try to summarize them anyway. (It will be long)
- You give me bubblegum pop retrofuturistic cyberpunk with a story about overthrowing an evil colonizing CEO, and make it gay? Of course I'm going to love it. Of course it's going to rewire my brain and change me forever
- I was one of those dang teens that got into DMMd during it's heyday, and unfortunately it became an integral piece of media to me. I am still active in the fandom. The love never died. It likely never will.
- When I first played I was appalled by the 4+ hours of mandatory exposition before the route divergence, but now it's my favorite part of the game. Midorijima is such a charming place and the world-building is genuinely fascinating.
- Tae is my actual grandma fr and I would die for her. Obviously the best character.
- I'm also obviously biased for Noiz's route, and I have a LOT of thoughts about it. His scrap was such an effective piece of interactive fiction, the phrases "Can I give up? Can I stop? Can I rest?" are so powerful and are a major influence my writing & the themes I often explore. Especially as a mentally ill & disabled person, the idea of desperately wishing for relief, for rest, for escape from the constant need to be strong when living itself is exhausting...ough. (Noiz DMMD's narrative is inherently menhera to me. He even has a hospital scene.)
- His good ending though... incredibly ineffective decision making on N+C's part. His charm points are largely aesthetic-based, most people who chose to target his route do so because he's the cool piercing character. So when you finish his route, the game 'rewards' the player by...taking out the cool piercings? Making him a business suit dweeb? You rid him of what most people were attracted to in the first place! (And don't even get me started on what they do to him in Re:Code. The epilogue is Not canon, to me. It is in fact directly undermining Noiz's characterization, and also it sucks.)
- Noiz bad end also inherently rewired my brain, but like. In a freak way. (It's also narratively satisfying and worthy of discussion, but mainly I'm a blood freak.)
- Clear and Mink's scraps are so fascinating to me on a ludonarrative level—both rely on a lack of interaction with the game mechanics, Clear bc he doesn't need to be 'fixed' bc nothing is wrong with him and Mink bc there is no fixing what has broken for him. I think about both all the time.
- Koujaku is the worst route of the entire game, and it actively infuriates me that he's the fan favorite. I think ranting about it requires it's own separate post bc there's so much to rip apart but the way the writers used him makes me SO mad
- Somehow I accidentally ended up high-key shipping KouNoi though, because their rivalry is really funny to write. I've written so many fics of them. I don't know how this happened.
- Ren is inherently funny to me. That is all I have to say on the matter.
I would be extremely happy to discuss any DMMD topics in more detail, this is not even close to all my thoughts
