#I thought I was fine with the audio drama ending where it does. Then I heard Hua Cheng say 'I pray to never rest in peace'

[ta-bajna-cerna-okybaca]

Crying screaming throwing up etc because of the heaven official's blessing audio drama s1 finale

XL going "hey San Lang, you know way too much about me, have we met before?" and then the IMMEDIATE cut to the god-pleasing festival agsdgfjfkdakajttjss

And then!!! The montage of all their best quotes from the past!!! If you don’t know how to live on anymore, then live for me! I have a beloved who's still in this world! I pray to never rest in peace! Forget me. - Taizi dianxia, I will never forget you!!!

And then back to the festival and Xie Lian finishes catching little baby Hong-er AND THEN??? IT JUST ENDS????? HOW DARE????????

[slyandthefamilybook]

The Nine Houses texting styles

(I haven't included any characters from Nona the Ninth bc I Haven't Read It Yet)

Harrow: Starts every text with "Dear [name]," and ends with "Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House" like a forum signature

Gideon: Lots of keysmashes. Lots of typos. Uses txtspk liberally. Harrow spends most of their conversations correcting Gideon's grammar

Ortus: Responds every time with a video message, no matter what he's replying to. Hasn't yet figured out where the microphone on his phone is so the audio is always muffled

Judith: Will call you

Marta: Will call you on Judith's phone

Coronabeth: So many emojis. Will sometimes reply in just emojis. Ends every text with a 🌹 or "xoxo". Thoughts are broken up into multiple texts (e.g. "Oh don't" "worry about it" "it's fine")

Ianthe: Forgets to text you back for at least 12 hours every time. Screenshots every convo for drama. Refuses to save anyone's number and so always starts a convo with "who is this"

Naberius: Doesn't own a phone

Isaac: Replies exclusively in reaction images. Will not text first

Jeannemary: Will spend 20 minutes agonizing over the proper response, before finally deciding on "Sounds good"

Magnus: Will laugh out loud rather than sending "lol". Doesn't understand slang terms (will follow up a butt dial with "sorry didn't mean to booty call you)

Abigail: Uses way too many gifs, all from her favorite show that went off the air 20 years ago. Texts are signed "Sent from my iPhone"

Palamades: One word replies with periods. Frequently sends random videos (like sewage treatment techniques) with "thought this would interest you"

Camilla: Somehow has a meme for every situation. If she doesn't have one she'll make it herself with a shockingly quick turnaround.

Dulcinea: Sends one-word texts with no clarification. Criminally misuses emojis (e.g. "Movie? 🍆"). Will not clarify when asked

Protesilaus: Is dead. Hasn't figured out how to get a ghost phone yet

Silas: Sends selfies from way too low an angle with text overlayed like a Snapchat. Will spam you if you're a minute late

Colum: So many ellipses... Ends every text with them...

Mercymorn: Still has a flip-phone with a pre-paid plan. Gets mad when people send her multiple texts in a row because it costs her $0.15 to open each one

Gideon the First: Does not text. Will instead show up at your house asking you to explain yourself

Augustine: Over-relies on speech-to-text. Texts are full of "what no I said duck not duck you stupid machine no duck oh John damn it"

Cytherea: Waits for you to text first. Gets mad when you don't.

John: Long rambling voice notes where he frequently gets distracted, leaving minutes at a time of awkward silence

[jahnavisurenda-21]

Hazbin Hotel||Alastor X Reader||When You are Overwhelmed||Mental stress Comfort

An unhealthy habit of mine is to always eat the stress away, which causes me to have indigestion, and a lot of heat accumulation at my stomach area, instead try journaling, meditating works wonders as well.

You remembered your father from your time on Earth had once told you in the eighth or seventh grade you had forgotten it, but it somehow resonated more with him like he preached words of great value, and right now you remember them clearly as day.

He said, "From here on, your childhood is over you will only have exams, entrance exams, stressful people who drain all your energy, and more drama."

It was the wisest truth you ever had the pleasure of encountering, you always thought if your dad was to quit or get fired from his job your family would do just fine if he worked as a motivational speaker in a talk show.

But you couldn't find any advice that would help you cope, or relieve you from this mental anxiety your brain was accumulated in.

You tried to sleep but, the thoughts throbbed through your skull, then tried to walk around but, your thoughts could not stop being transmitted by the neurons.

So, it was the kitchen, "My dear." Your heart skipped a beat when Alastor's radio-like voice alerted you of his presence.

"Hey, Alastor darling... this is not what it looks like." You quickly spurted out, "Now Now my dear, from how I see it I would say you are trying to eat the stress away."

You sighed heavily closing the fridge door, when you heard the magnets being clasped, you couldn't hold back your tears which brimmed it was simply too much.

You spun around before hugging Alastor like a lifeline, Alastor anticipated that as he took hold of you, and let your tears drench his coat.

He heard Charlie and the others come back, so he motioned you to come to his office, where he let you cry out some stress.

"I was this close to being done with it you know?" You asked sniffling,

"My dear, maybe this new mission to help Charlie has done you more harm than good, I don't want my latest form of entertainment to fail yet, because if it does the end product won't be so entertaining."

Then he pulled you away from him so that you could look at him, "But I don't find any entertainment in watching you in despair."

You pushed yourself away, "I really want to help Alastor. I believe in her."

"And you are helping, taking care of yourself will also count," Alastor said with his never-fading grin.

He touched your hair before brushing it past your face, all these emotions which flowed out of you like a waterfall, time and time he saw them, it was your innocence, an innocence which proved you couldn't, by choice be in hell.

He had found you in the right time, "So, Alastor?"

"Hm?"

"Can you do a voice recording?"

Then Alastor's eyes flashed, "I almost forgot my dear, Remember I told you that day I had been working on a few audios for a week?"

"Yes." You said excitedly, you honestly were quite curious, "Well... here."

"A Record." You said but, it was beautifully engraved with things you found comfort in, Books, Antique pieces, fluffy rugs, It was like a cover page, behind the record the words engraved were,

'To My love'

Which made you blush.

"Not now my dear, keep the surprise, do put in on play when you have the misfortune of coming across these painful days."

"You actually made this your highness?" You playfully asked, but Alastor could see the joy it had brought you, "Thank you so much."

You threw yourself at him again, before respectfully pulling back, "Sorry darling, I keep forgetting you are still not accustomed to physical touch."

"Not a problem at the moment my dear."

----------------------------------

Thank You for coming through to the end of another post.

[tastylemonbread]

At long last, Library's bio is here! A plain text version is available under the cut.

The next god to receive a bio is being voted on now here!

Image 1:

[This one is divided into sections, kinda like a newspaper. The specific formatting isn't really relevant, and it's pretty plain anyway.

Library, #17

Domain over data, memory, and organization.

AKA The Librarian, The Archivist, The Cryptkeeper

[Next to this first section of text is a neat black and white drawing of Library's sigil, a simple symbol comprised of a 2x4 grid of eight rectangles forming a square. The borderlines of the square extend a little past the corners, and an extra line lays horizontal at the bottom of the symbol.]

(next section of text)

PRIMARY:

As old as written word, Library has sought to archive all written works, but expands their purview to include new technologies as they are invented. Though many may assume Library to be meek and nerdy, They can be quite a powerful force if they want to be, possessing abilities such as teleportation, mind reading, and spatial manipulation. It's rare to see these powers used outside of the Grand Library. Being arguably the god of information, they have quite a good understanding of the human mind, and can effortlessly transmit and receive thoughts as long as they have physical contact with the person. Even gazing into Library's odd shelf face is enough to get the mind racing, overclocked with too much miscellaneous information to process. Despite all this, Library is pretty incompetent when it comes to social interaction.

(next section of text)

DOMAIN:

Library holds domain over every written word, work of art, video, audio recording, line of code, punch card, receipt, label, stone carving, and anything else that may be used to store precious precious data. Though Library considers each of these (and more) to be fall under the umbrella of their domain, they do not have control over these. Rather, Library can simply feel when something like that is created, and a copy is set into Library's mind.

(next section of text)

REALM:

Like many other realms, the Grand Library is located on a plane of existence  parallel from standard Earth. The Grand Library does not appear to have a floor, walls, or a ceiling, instead contained within a hazy white void filled with neat rows of bookshelves. Despite there being no visible floor, one can walk around as if on solid ground. The rows of shelves go on past what the eye can see, and the place is so large that finding another visitor is incredibly rare. The only entrance and exit to the Grand Library is a set of very large fine oak double doors which connect to the lobby of the Bureau of Divine Intervention, which is the realm of another god that I won't elaborate on here. There are other ways to access the Grand Library, but those doors are the only permanent fixtures. A reception desk is by the entrance inside the Grand Library, at which Library is typically stationed. Since the Grand Library is so inconceivably large, a guide is always needed to find a specific book, and that guide is Library. They can take your hand and instantly zip you to where you need to be. The process is very disorienting, especially for mortals and those who don't regularly visit. Library can always sense where you are, and can always hear you ask for help so long as you are in the Grand Library.

(next section of text)

Relations with other gods:

good: monument, arts, drama, machine, health, hive

bad: flame, sea, war, death, rot, fear

(end of the first image)

Image 2:

[Standing in the center of the image is a tall, slim figure with one hand behind their back and the other raised to wave awkwardly. They are wearing a plain yellow raincoat that conceals most of their body, and brown gloves and boots. Their neck is long, curved, and round, made up of a thick tube of wires with a metal zip-tie keeping them in place. Their head is a cubic bookshelf, with the open side of the bookshelf acting as their face. The multicolored books within the shelf head are arranged in a way that resembles the static color bars of an old CRT TV. There are two more doodles of their head from two different angles, which are described in upcoming text so I'll leave it out here. Around the figure are bits of text that kinda correspond to various physical features of the god.]

(these are the bits of text:)

When walking, their head bobs like a bird.

head is actually a bookshelf, with four little shelves at the bottom. Library's sigil in burned into either side. On the back of their head is a little computer with some wires connected running seamlessly into the shelf.

Big weird hands. Also wires?

Seemingly normal raincoat with a reflective stripe. Nobody's ever actually seen what's under it.

in comparison to other humanoid gods, library is very lanky, standing at 7'3" (222 cm).

Leaves no footprints?

(end of the second image)

Image 3:

[This one has sentences and paragraphs placed around without much purpose. There was some empty space, so I copy + pasted the same doodle of Library laying on their stomach with their feet in the air, but I stretched out the doodles to make em look sillier.]

MISCELLANEOUS BITS:

Prayers, summons, and ceremonies are often answered with very verbose personal letters expressing gratitude, and rarely result in actual face-to-face communication.

Library has been spotted reorganizing human libraries and archives on Earth. They admit that this is a guilty pleasure of theirs, as they usually try not to get involved in mortal affairs otherwise.

All publicly available books in the grand library have been translated into a "universal script" which can be understood by absolutely anybody who is able to read in at least one language. Library is eager to teach people how to write universal script, but lessons are so long and dry that Library is still the only one who knows how to write that way.

Though Library's life is known to be well documented, they have taken efforts to seize all record of their past and politely refuses to share these records publicly.

The largest book in Library's head is actually a binder filled with articles, notes, photos, and other information about each of the gods. Library doesn't actually need to consult the binder, but they like to update it often.

Like many other gods, Library's voice is heard from a listener's POV as if it's just a voice in their own head. Library's "voice" varies depending on who hears it, but consensus seems to be that they speak gently, eloquently, and with a vaguely African accent.

Pulling on their wires isn't a good idea.

Though they appreciate Order's efforts to document and regulate godly affairs, Library finds it too much of a headache to navigate the Bureau of Divine Intervention, and tries to stay away from anything to do with it.

Miscellaneous books and scraps are always seen floating around the Grand Library, sliding into and out of shelves.

(end of third image)

This is the most I've had to describe, but lucky me, most of the images are just comprised of text. If there's any unexpected issues with this plain text version, please let me know. Even if it's just nitpicks, I'd love to hear it.

Thank you for reading/listening to my silly thing :^)

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 17th March ✨

I’m back! I’ve been cursed by something and life keeps trying to really kill the vibe but I’m back!! Happy Audio Drama Sunday, everyone! ✨

👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E5.5) Ough, Riley! This is not good. They may be (pretending to be) fine but I’m not!! Absolutely fuming at the sequence of events that has separated Riley from the only person who can handle them and vice versa 😮‍💨

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (143) season 4 is gripping me by the lapels, screaming “do you UNDERSTAND?!” In my face while I stammer that I am not sure if I understand. I LOVE it though. It’s so fun listening to show where you can trust the creator to take risks and know that it will pay off if you pay attention and keep your red string handy. I love the idea that the god of change and rebirth is affecting the actual narrative - it’s so cool! Though, I want to grab Marolmar by the antlers and fling him somewhere nasty. If Nikignik gets (more) hurt, there will be blood. 

🧳 Travelling Light @monstrousproductions (15) hehe frogs 🐸. My wife can attest that I actually went ‘oh, no!’ out loud when I twigged where the little guys had come from! Oh, Traveller, what are we going to do with you? 

🎙 Not only did I have the immense pleasure of seeing The Attic live show this week, the new WTNV episode was so fun as well!! I’m so glad Kevin is back…

♦️@grottopod (6) Aaaah!!! Emily!! They have to get them back together?!! What does that MEAN??!! 

⚔️ @camlannpod (5) TURN ON YOUR LOCATION, COWARDS. Waaaah I just want to talk about how this episode hit us with the ‘you are in charge of your own destiny, your story can be changed’ then with a reminder that ‘there is no version of this story which doesn’t have a good ending’ BUT wHAt if he’s making one!!?!?!? I feel for Dai SO much but I really truly believe that the power of love is going to win !!! The Green Knight has just broken the radio so we don’t get to hear his long lecture about how to be a better boyfriend. 

🖥️ The Magnus Protocol (10) that was creepy as all hell. Absolutely hated that, actually. The first time in ages that I've thought about a podcast character with fear before turning out the light 😬

⚓️ The beloved eelers of @eelerschoice were back with a very fun Q+A episode. My main impression was how dARE anyone tell Lou that ey cannot write music??? Who is this person?? Feed them to the eels!!!! 

🍎 I finished @notquitedeadpod S2 these past few weeks which was GRIPPING as hell. I listened to the Q+A today and I have to say that it’s one of my fave Q+As ever, there was so much genuine thought and detail put into the answers. I can only dream of producing such a coherent, interesting response to any question about my own work! SO excited for S3, especially given that we're about to get into the vampire science!!!! let's gooo!!! 

Feel free to join me in manifesting a good week!! A huge thank you to everyone who's making these shows (and others!) which I love so much. There's nothing better than sticking on some headphones and escaping life for a while and I've needed that more than usual recently! 

[tisorridalamor]

Gonna write out my Milgram thoughts over Trial 1 before watching the 2nd trials and then reblog later when I've collected my thoughts on those that are out so far :) <- girl who loves watching and making theories for music videos has discovered a mixed media art piece about watching and making theories for music videos

To summarize where I'm writing from: I've seen all the Trial 1 vids, read the audio dramas, read the interrogations, and read through all the bonus mini app conversations until about mid 2022. But since I've only known about Milgram for like a week and due to "spoilers" for the 2nd trial I haven't done too much digging on other's interpretations so I'm sure there's details I'm missing :) Excited to read other's thoughts soon!

Undercover: One of my fav songs tbh! Es is kind of insane and I think I'd have a very different picture of them if I just watched this without reading the dramas/interrogations. Their role beyond 'prison guard' is fun to think about since they are more than just audience surrogate. The shot at the end of them without the cape and hat hints at who they were before becoming the 'prison guard'... Much to think and theorize about, especially with the empty prisoner room and their breakdowns in a few of the interrogations. I also do enjoy the dramatic visuals of each of the other prisoners killing Es. Not much else to say about the song otherwise, but it's very fun and I think the singer is great both here and on the Es covers :)

Weakness: This is a strong one to start out on and one of the hardest for me to interoperate personally - it's very clear a crime has been committed, but who was killed and why is a lot more vague than the other videos! It's clear from Haruka's dialog outside the music vid that he both fears others and strongly desires attention, either good or bad, and it seems to stem from a mental or developmental disorder. I'm really interested in seeing his 2nd vid. I understand the innocent verdict on this one - personally I'm all for innocent until proven guilty and I have a hard time passing judgement here (this will be a running theme)

Umbilical: To be honest, I had NO clue what the intended meaning was for this one until reading the comments. Completely agree with the general interpretation that Yuno had an abortion or several after reflection. That's totally fine lol. Not much else to say other than surprised how few people seem to discus how scary getting pregnant probably was for her - she likely couldn't turn to her family, and since the father(s) were possibly compensated dating clients it's unlikely she'd go to them for support. I really feel for her. Her upbeat personality feels like it's a front for just appealing to whoever she's around :'(

Bring it On: Really like both this vid and the song! I think it's fairly clear, either someone Futa targeted in a online harassment campaign committed suicide or someone caught in the crossfire committed suicide. Out of all the characters, I believe he's the only one who denies his murder, which I think stems from his strong view of himself being in the 'right.' Cause if he wasn't morally superior, that would make him just as bad as the people he targeted, and then his actions unjustifiable... I'm interested to see more details, but like Yuno I feel like I have a good idea of his story. Futa not having access to Twitter in Milgram is probably very good for him, and I like his protective nature to the younger prisoners a lot.

After Pain: Soooo to be completely honest, a LOT of the comments on Mu's vid reference her more sinister 2nd trial vid. The vid itself is straightforward, with her being bullied and killing one of her classmates who does nothing to help. Knowing the gist of what happens in her 2nd trial and the other Milgram material though makes her a lot less sympathetic. Considering the vid alone though, it's clear to me why everyone voted innocent. After Pain is also a huge bop, another song that gets stuck in your head easily!

Throw Down: Another banger!!! A lot of people in the comments theorizing that Shidou was killing people to somehow help save his wife??? I disagreed and thought it was more generally about the role of a doctor with terminally ill patients but some of his dialog outside the music vid implies he is killing specifically to help someone else, so maybe he is an organ thief! My personal interpretation was he works with terminally ill patients and possibly worked to end their lives early in the hopes that they would have less pain and it would help the surviving family move on quicker... until someone he was close to (wife likely) became terminally ill, throwing his worldview into question. I think I need more info from his next vid... Overall re-watching the vid was awesome, it has great visuals and I love Shidou's florist outfit!

This Is How To Be In Love With You: Oh Mahiru... our crazy tradwife... Another song that gets stuck in my head very easily! Her music vid is very vague, so I'm pretty shocked she got a guilty verdict. There's clearly an unhealthy relationship happening but I see comments making the case that Mahiru's lover committed suicide and I have a hard time seeing it. Since she's clearly shocked at the end and the last 'magazine' image is of a dinner she made, my current theory is she killed him via allergies in the food. She didn't know if he had one or think to ask, she was just going through the motions of what she thinks what a perfect gf would do. Her crime feels one out of carelessness or ignorance. This is definitely one that I could go back and forth on so I'm excited to see her second trial vid!

half: So personally I do NOT think Kazui is beating the cheating allegations lol. I'd like to be charitable and say his wife committed suicide because she thought he was cheating but he really wasn't, but the shot of him taking a bite out of the green apple really makes me think he did. The green apple (AKA the forbidden fruit....) seems to represent the woman at the bar with the shattered red apple being his wife. He may have killed her himself but I don't think there's enough to go off of here. Fun fact: I realized yesterday I'd actually been recommended his 2nd trial vid on youtube so many times I put it in my Watch Later list! It was fated that I'd discover Milgram at some point lol

Magic: Absolutely baffled at the guilty verdict... Amane is clearly a brainwashed kid caught up in a crazy cult :( No matter what she says in her interviews and drama, she's twelve and has been seriously abused. Can someone please help her?? Tbh her story just makes me sad and I've seen what she looks like after the guilty verdict :( I hope she gets better.

MeMe: Possibly the best music vid of them all for the shear drama and unexpected tone. I LOVE the music transitions to the calmer parts! I can't imagine how it would be to have had this drop live (especially cause idk when the interviews dropped in relation to the vids so the shock value would be amazing). It was a surprise for me too watching it the first time. Kotoko drops the idea that Mikoto could have dissociative identity disorder and I'm skeptical but you never know! There seems to be no motive for his crime... So much of the song seems to be him begging and threatening Es to say he's innocent - really can't wait to see what's next with him. Not surprised by the guilty verdict, I think this is the only one where I might have voted guilty as well.

Harrow: Seeing that Harrow and half are the only two songs that never got Es covers makes me sad! I feel like it's seriously overlooked since it comes right after MeMe. I love the wolf visuals and Kotoko's vigilante story is very compelling. I have a feeling this one might have a twist later, but for now the innocent vote is easy. I will say her actions in the dramas and interrogations have me worried though, I could see her becoming one of those 'vigilante with good intentions that goes too far' characters.

[elizabethshaw]

thoughts on "echoes"!! under the cut bc of spoilers:

this boxset absolutely came out at one of the worst possible times for me (my busiest day of the week, at a time when i have 6 different exams, a presentation and also assessments for my home uni to prepare for), and i fear it may have regnited my 8das fixation somewhat which is. not something i have time for rn lmao. we'll see how it goes i guess! anyway personal stuff over now-

i definitely enjoyed it overall! i'm still not entirely sure where i'd rank it in comparison with the other post-stranded boxsets but it was a lot of fun, and it was (as expected) a joy to hear this tardis team together again :)

i will say however that i did have one major qualm with it, which is that i felt a bit let down with how little it followed through with the emotional plotlines set up in the preceding two sets. i got the feeling when listening to "what lies inside?" and "connections" that they were very much going somewhere with this team's (particularly helen's) emotional arc, and while i won't deny there were some nice scenes with them in this set, the fact that these threads were otherwise left to one side most of the time was a disappointment. there was potential to do some really interesting character work in continuation from the events of those previous episodes and it just. didn't happen. i don't want to sound too down about it because i did still really enjoy these stories, but i think this side of things was missing a little bit for me. hm.

anyway, episode-by-episode thoughts:

birdsong

i think this was my favourite of the set. i really love audio drama that leans into more horror-adjacent aspects (even though i'm not a massive horror fan otherwise tbh), and also love it when audio drama just gets kinda fucked up with it. this story hit on both counts for me :)

love that this continued the running trend from the previous boxsets of the episode starting with eight, liv and helen just getting to be silly for a bit before the Horrors inevitably happen :D

lowkey actually love the concept of barcodes as a written language! part of me wants to try and work out how that could work now

scots pine trees... it never rains... bracken... sand... they're literally in breckland lmao

saying that it does also have the Suffocating Quietness going on so i think i'm onto something here...

when the vortex previews for this set mentioned a family member of helen's first mentioned in doom coalition being relevant to this story, i wasn't expecting it to be the grandmother she mentioned in "ship in a bottle". however it was actually really nice to have helen's relationship with her developed further, and it was woven into the story well i thought

being Normal about the scene between liv and helen at the fireside. i am being so normal about it

"i'm not sure i could do this with anyone else, you know? everything from exploring strange new worlds... to talking about my family." i'm fine. i'm fine!!!

[putting on my clown shoes] this is how liv/helen can still be canon in some form before helen inevitably dies! :))

i love how vivid this story felt to me. i always end up getting visuals in my head as i listen with any audio drama but some stories end up, for storytelling or sound design reasons, or both, creating really clear and vivid pictures in my mind and this was definitely one of those

i hope to god that when i visit home over the summer and listen to these with my mum (who loves these audios but refuses to listen to them without me, which is kind of sweet of her), my dad is not in the same room. i love him but he absolutely would be asking me to pause it every few minutes so he could identify the bird calls and then also getting really frustrated when i inevitably end up being unable to guess any of them correctly myself lol. the pains of being related to an ornithologist

big fan of the way things got increasingly more disturbing towards the end. i do think the eight-liv-helen era has been lacking in terms of properly creepy stories (this is just my personal taste tbf), so it was cool having them properly lean into that for once. i have to say though the mental image of the scout's body with all the roots forcing their way into her eyes is not going to be leaving me for a long time

also thought the sound design was really well done on this one!! you could really feel the discomfort of the silence i think

got slightly choked up at helen and liv singing to bex as she died. i might have just been in a weird mood while i was listening to it but. yeah. it did something to me

anyway had a lot of fun with this episode! it had a lot of elements that appealed to me personally, and the character work it did was nice. i look forward to listening to it again one day :)

lost hearts

m.r. james episode!! i've only ever read two of his stories (both of which are products of me knowing this episode was coming haha), but was quite excited for this one regardless because a) ghost stories! and b) he's actually got connections to a village in the area i grew up in, and as i've never actually seen/heard any stories set where i come from in my life, it was neat to have a story in my favourite show, featuring some of my favourite characters, star someone more or less from where i'm from :')

have to say though i am disappointed to have lost the unofficial "will they namedrop great livermere" bet i had going on with my mum and brother. it's such a middle-of-nowhere village (it's not on the way to anywhere, has 3 streets (one of which is named "the street" and another of which is actually a dirt track), and you invariably see more chickens there than actual people), it would have been deeply amusing to me for it to have canonically existed in the dwu

loved all the direct (and indirect) callbacks to "the red lady" in this story! it felt fitting seeing as on some levels they do share certain elements in terms of plot/setting, and was also just fun for me as that is one of my favourite stories :)

was also a big fan of how active the story felt (not sure if that's quite the right word?) - each of the characters had a clear role to play and all the main cast got something to do, it never felt hugely like any of them were being sidelined, which does happen on occasion with 3+ person tardis teams

if helen had punched someone at some point in this story i honestly wouldn't have blamed her

"he's like the museum of cairo, stuffed inside a... well, a-" "a rude, ungracious little twerp?" oh my god askdfjdsfjkds

(let her swear!!!)

i like how the story was riffing off some of the plot/vibes of m.r. james' actual short story "lost hearts" (helpfully one of the two i've read)! it gave it that nice kind of connection, without feeling overly derivative and like it was straight-out copying it

my only main issue with this episode was that robert felt kinda underdeveloped. they started off well in his opening scene with liv, but i don't think we got enough of a chance to get to know him as a person after that point and i think the story suffered for it a little. i don't think it helped either that he's not a family member helen had ever mentioned prior to this episode, so they were essentially having to start from scratch and with everything else going on in the narrative, didn't quite find the time to give him sufficient detail

loved the emotional moments that were brought out when helen got erased... "helen, she's my- she's everything i have left" ough

and the salzburg parallels?? liv attempting to fly the tardis in a desperate attempt to rescue her friends, much like helen did? this is so... it's a lot

i won't lie, it did feel a bit odd to me that they would go to such lengths to avoid actually naming the uni in this episode as cambridge. i suppose it may have been to avoid spoiling the "it's m.r. james!!!" reveal at the end, but given that i think anyone who would have guessed it was him from the setting being cambridge probably would have guessed it anyway beforehand either from the episode blurb or the fact that the episode literally starts with him reciting one of his most famous short stories, it feels a little pointless. i mean i clocked it as an m.r. james episode when the set was announced and i had never read any of his work at that point lmao. not a glaring issue or anything, but felt like a weird choice

anyway loved helen getting to geek out a bit at the end... i love her :')

i think i'm going to have to relisten to this at some point so i can fully get my head around it but i did enjoy it!

slow beasts

this was a solid ep. not my favourite story this tardis team has ever had, but i did absolutely enjoy listening to it, and thought there were a lot of really good ideas in it!

the colonialism plotline especially worked really well for me, it felt pertinent in just the right sort of way. it's not necessarily something new for dr who, but i think it was definitely a good example of how to do it well.

i think "simple, but effective" is the way i'd sum this one up tbh. not exceptional, but it knew what it was setting out to do, did it, and did it well, and i think that worked. it did admittedly feel a bit strange after two more complex/experimental sort of stories, but i don't think that's any reflection on its actual quality

"here is the psychic paper. be confident. it only works if you're confident." "but... i- i'm not confident?" me if i got asked to use the psychic paper tbh

enjoyed the use of the translation circuit in this one :) i have a lot of thoughts on it as a general thing so i always like seeing the ways it gets utilized in different stories

so! had fun with these! a couple of things that maybe could have gone better, but overall a set of three stories i had good fun with and i suspect will enjoy listening to again. fingers crossed the december boxset is with these guys again and they do a bit more with helen's emotional plotlines next time :)

[m0e-ru]

HI dumb silly liveblog im putting into tumblr post format from a year ago. P4GA vol 4 drama cd "Boo ~ I bear a grudge on you ~" featuring !!! the investigation team +marie horror summer school trip adventures. dojima and adachi at the pub. naoto getting scared to death again.

i am not fluent in JP and i just did this for fun the best i can i hope you can comprehend it at least. here's where i listened to it !!! please listen to it it has all the audio cues and context and it's part of the experience !! it's really fun

September 27, 2021

10:17 PM

synopsis: the IT is trying out summer activities with marie :)

the track: /kids screaming yelling/ /adachi at the pub/ /kids screaming and yelling/

10:18 PM

i mean it also did say 'a test of courage' so i get why'd they be scaring each other but why does golden always love to pick on naoto

10:21 PM

narukami going 'yosuke....goochab (good job)' was cute actually

10:30 PM

from what i can comprehend so far, the IT's on summer break and want more stuff to do and decide to have this 'test of courage' by hanging around yasogami in the middle of the night with marie

they all pull straws and walk around in pairs depending who they pull and theyre narukami and marie, yosuke and rise, kanji and yukiko, then teddie and chie

10:30 PM

i dont wanna rewind rn but yosukes like 'haha im with risette im gonna scare her in revenge (of something, i couldnt catch it)' but shes being a girlboss and sharing her own horror story of something that happened in a film set and yosuke's like '(we are walking in the dark hallways of this school) ths is fine im a brave boy totally haha'

10:32 PM

their segment ended off with 'aww senpai but it's toootally real !!' and wind wooshing and thumping noises scare yosuke and rise's just 'oh thats just the windows. haha hanamura-senpai's a scaredy cat' and all he could do was laugh nervously

10:32 PM

oh tebbi footsteps

10:34 PM

oh he uses watashi?my little mascot bear i never noticed from all the third person or this is a golden thing

10:36 PM

i... couldnt understand what happened. teddie's paired with chie but he was busy scaring each other like 'wh...what if this happens' and chie's like 'omgg!!!stop!!!!' then something scared the two but all i could understand were zipper sounds and punching

10:53 PM

okok so it's dojima and adachi at the pub with dojima already a bit woozy and adachi sober for the sake of keeping his boss in check and we get some mamasan interaction!! (mama-san is what you call the lady bartender at the pub)

anywho, dojima's complaining about naoto being 'prodigy detective' and 'the kubo kid' and almost smacking the soul out of adachi's body while adachi responds like a good subordinate listening to his boss' drunken complaining

it's concerning to know that he made his own cup (mug?) overflow with adachi's concerning 'dojimasan--stop, stop!' and even reminding him about...nanako

keeping him together with the thought of his daughter and hes like 'nanako....' while adachi gets a call about how dojima's doing and while acting in disbelief that his boss going off again when accused and he gets hung up on and he just finds dojima asleep and. yeah.

look, i also forget adachi and dojima's dynamic whether adachi's genuine or not, dojima is right to be grateful for his company woww a pair of besties if i see one

10:54 PM

im only halfway through this disc and i havent even heard marie for the second time but i know she screams

10:55 PM

omg it's kanji and yukiko ohhh she sounds so excited like 'ohh creepy dark hallways this is so fun dont u think so my dear kouhai'

10:55 PM

'whether it'd be a monster or a Shadow i'll fight it' hi kanji

11:00 PM

ohh my vocab is failing me but some lovey dovey dialogue is going down and kanji's misunderstanding it but yukiko's like 'i love.,.,.,.,scary things (I THINK)'

they enter a room and yukiko's like 🗿 and kanji's like 'senpai¿?' and yukiko's like 'ok yeah whatever——OH PIANO' and she plays a few keys sounding creepy something something midnight something something

kanji keeps talking and yukiko just slams on the piano and goes 'kanji.....kanji....!' and she laughs over some pun i couldnt understand

11:04 PM

ok yukiko keeps laughing over the piano and banging on the keys and kanji's 'what if satonaka senpai and the others hear this' and yukiko goes all monotone again like 'you hear that' it;s footsteps

and she slides open the door and kanji's like 'wtf amagi senpai' and she sprints out and he chases after her 'SENPAI????'

11:06 PM

omg,.,.., mari,.,...,.,.,.,narukami asks 'are you scared?' and she's like 'whats a scared?' like her usual genuine unknowingness

11:09 PM

ohh thats so cute narukami's like 'watch this' and in yosuke and rise pov does yosuke get a call from him and rise's like 'yusenpai???!!!' as usual but all he does is breathe into the phone all creepily and while theyre distracted marie sneaks up on them and goes 'boo' and the two lose their minds screaming jskdfasfgwyefgasf

11:10 PM

narukami: so how was it, marie?

marie: it was...fun

narukami: right?

yosuke: WHAT DO YOU MEAN "RIGHT"???

11:11 PM

SHE WANTS TO DO IT AGAIN OOOOHH.,..,.,.,.,MARI HORROR GIRL SUMMER

11:16 PM

from what i can understand it's like chie hid into teddie's costume along with him and hes just having a hard time moving around. hes the only one who can see though and these two are a bunch of scaredy cats (bears) where teddie's like 'theres a-a-a g-g-g-guy'

11:19 PM

before marie finishes her creepy chant, chie loses it and starts kicking and punching inside the costume screaming, but once she unzips it shes like 'YOU GUYS?????'

then narukami's like 'do you hear the other disembodied voice next to you' and teddie's just Dead and while chie's apologizing hes like 'ahh..sharing chie-chan's warmth was such an experience.,.,. i thought i could see the light (from almost dying??????)'

11:22 PM

it's kanji trying to look for yukiko like 'amagi senpaaaaai where are youuuuuu' and marie tries to scare him and he's like 'oaugh. u n senpai tryin to scare me?' and marie's like 'aw geez, old timer' 'im NOT old'

11:22 PM

seven more minutes to this

11:28 PM

kanji goes 'so have you seen amagi senpai?' and narukami immediately tells everyone else 'new goal (idk what the initial one was) let's look for amagi' and oHHHH marie

shes running with the IT and shes like 'im making a memory...my heart feels....' AND THE V ROOM MUSIC BOX STARTS PLAYING AND SHE STARTS MAKING A POEM ON THE SPOT OHHH,.,.,I LOVE HERSO MUCHH

something something kami, shinigami, any god out there, heart something something "forever dreamer" AAAUAUGHGHGHGHG....

and narukami's talking about yukiko totally unrelated to marie, to which she snaps back into reality tsundere screaming 'NOOO NAAHH I WASNT WRITING ANYTHING NOO STUPIDIDIOTIHATEYOU'

11:32 PM

ohh wait they split up lmao so marie's alone and she just heard narukami in her head. anyway theres no one around and she heard something and shes like 'ANYONE?? DOES ANYONE HEAR ME??' and it cuts to narukami, who kanji followed, finding yukiko and hearing marie yelling

theres a weak exhale, as if the person's dead, and kanji's like 'naoto¿??'

11:35 PM

back to adachi in the pub getting a call about naoto and hes like 'yeah yeah yup yup i got it' ending the call he does his usual 'everything's such a pain' then dojima's heard snoring. adachi asks for beer and ponzu and mamasan talks up and goes 'oh it's all a pain, you say. but it's not like you hate it all either, do you?' FUCK OFF

11:38 PM

golden loves bullying naoto huh like the golden anime christmas special wasnt enough

11:43 PM

anyway, new scene where the IT apologize to naoto and they go on a fit with stuff like 'why are you here??? you couldve damaged schoool property????youre all idiots!!!' and something about being at yasogami because of uhh,., adachi?

WAIT SO 'shin-chan' FROM THE FIRST CALL WAS REAL??? SHIROGANEKUN.,.,.,,.,.,.brb strangling adachi for a bit

then a loony cartoon sfx and we're into naoto's pov flashback where they kept running into the IT and accidentally scaring each other starting from yukiko banging on the piano and laughing, being the first one to scare chie and teddie,

and ultimately running away to be where marie is after they split up to find yukiko. from how naoto perceived it, she recites her poem rather,.,.,.,ghoulishly and finally they drop dead on the spot, which was the thump marie heard

11:46 PM

loony cartoon sfx plays again and the flashback is over and rise's like 'aww but all that matters is that youre fine!' and naoto's still in a daze back to yelling 'NO, SCHOOL IS A PLACE TO STUDY AND YOURE ALL MORONS' and the fun time montage plays and fin

11:51 PM

ok thats it for my sucky tl liveblog oh wait heres the thing https://youtu.be/PasKTZtKx

[acharlescoleman]

Yesterday, I made some light donations to a few Indiegogo's I'd been following. It was a pay day so I figured why not. And that lead me to check out what projects were going on at Seed and Sparrrk. I hadn't checked them out in a long time. I like to give to mostly comedies but I'll give to anything that interests me.

Anyways, I'm on Seed and S and you can categorize your search by genre so I put in comedy and the first three short films that popped up all had to do with death. And that's fine but I kept scrolling down and almost everything they had under comedy sounded more like a comedy-drama which I irked me a bit because I was hoping to find just a comedy, feature or short, by someone who had a great idea and was like we're trying to make the funniest thing out there. No one did that. Now, some of that is partially due to the Seed and Spuh audience, as someone who's followed them for over a decade and has supported many films over there, they are the kind of movies that do well, comedy-dramas or anything really with a semi-serious socio/political bent to it. And that's fine but sometimes I just wanna grab onto the funniest thing out there, if there's a nice angle that allows for some topical material then that's a bonus to me. But ugh, where are the comedies that don't have dour premises?!!

Oh, and the other thing that irked me today was at times, these projects on, both Indiegaga and Speed & sperk, didn't provide updates. One of the ones I donated to did, and the other didn't. And that's something I just don't understand! That's one of the fun things about Kickstarter (I'm watching two now, they both end in the upcoming weeks. And again, one does updates while the other one doesn't!), Indiegogo, and Seed & Spark and so on, you're helping someone (s) get a short film/feature film off the ground or onto another stage of production and to me, it's fun to follow the journey. I'm very big on journeys!

One of the reasons why I love the Beatles music so much is they went from a Buddy Holly-knock off band from their earlier days to creating their own by their mid-point to sounding like a 70's band by Let it Be and Abbey Road. Their journey is endlessly fascinating to me.

How stuff gets made interests me very much and it's frustrating when these crowdfunding projects don't give their audience that. And then, almost doubly worse, downright odd to me, is when there's a crowdfunding project on like Seed and Spark and they don't provide a social media handle on their page. I thought it was a classic gimme but not anymore it seems on a lot of these pages. But again, what do I know because I did notice despite not having a social media page or doing the updates thing, a few of these projects were either close or had already crossed their set financial goals. And that's good.

Ultimately, I root for that kind of thing because it's nice to see people create art and if they have to go through the crowdfunding route then that's awesome! I'm for anyone and everyone to get their art made and done but I do side-eye these projects a bit who don't have a social media page or do updates. At least, pitch videos haven't completely died so there's that and I love those too, when they're done well. It's like omg, I wish I could win the lottery, and you know...oh well.

OH, and this off-topic but I updated Twitch on my phone and it might be one of the worst app updates ever. You log on and right away, a channel is playing, like wtf! Let me pick something first, don't do that!! Grr!!!

OH, oh and one last thing, I almost subbed to Audible, almost bought like an audio set of versions of Neil Simon plays, and then I checked my Libby app one more time to see if they had these plays because LA Theatre Works were the publishers. And I've listened to them before, they do stage plays with prominent actors, and you listen to the performances and I've listened to a couple. The stand outs are David Auburn's Proof with Anne Heche (never seen the movie but hearing her do the play with the other actors was wonderful.) and Noel Coward's Design for Living with Douglas Weston (google him, you've totally seen him in things), Claire Forlani (Mallrats), and Hamish Linklater (another google him dude, he's in so many things including the recent Batman that just came out on Amazon Prime). Anyways, so I've been wanting and needing an audio change of pace for my bus ride to and from work instead of music and podcasts. I was in the need for staged radio plays again. This happens to me every now and then. I got very, very lucky. I checked the LAPL web site and they said they had the Neil Simon in the eAudio section (FYI, they also have the CDs just in case you want them too.) and I was like whaaat???!! I had checked on Libby and couldn't find them and the reason why I couldn't find them was because I had been doing my searches on the app for books without even knowing it! Just dumb, dumb, dumb! So I clicked out of only books and boom, there it is! Neil Simon plays! I did another search and boom, there were more Shakespeare plays. So I'm a happy camper right now. I found what I wanted and I got to save some bread, whoopy!

Being an LAPL card carrier has saved the day again, go support your local library, become a member and take advantage of the free stuff they have access to, it's so good!

[castle-dominion]

5x13 recoil

OOH PLOT HEAVY

I love the editing in the clips here, we get the info we need, but also while I'm sure we all remember that some ppl were killed, like roy montgomery, we also get to see the dramatic clip of him getting shot & lockwood with blood on his face & these things are mostly for the drama, not the recap, really really well done bc we still get the recap.

I also like how she hits him immediately after he says he has the power.

Garbage can fire babey. gonna be a dead body. See? Plenty of people throw up when they see (& probs smell) a dead body burning!

RC: Well, I haven’t met him or approved of him yet, so it can’t be serious. All suitors must be met and intimidated by me personally before they can be considered for official boyfriend status. So true

Ew yucky

no dental records then... Ryan looks nice lol. & esposito's jacket is nice

Ryan pretty but meh. Esposito perfectly fine but meh Castle also pretty enough. Becks looks shiny shirt dc!? multiple times in just 20m? Might as well stay on the line.

Why would the boyf have an unlisted number? oh no ooof oof oof ooooooof she left a message hhhh

the phone falls & clatters... oof that is the best... except how would she end the recording? AFTER the phone clatters? the audio changes during "happens" like she moved to a different area, or passed a wall

Yeah smth falls & then like a ring hits the wall zippo? Or maybe he was ALREADY burning the body

Yeah lol u can't remember ppl when you are seeing a hundred a night, or more. unless she comes here often! She was a high end prostitute! BRACKEN? oh of course it was him, this is a plot heavy ep.

No wonder the phone call. & also dealt with OTHER people too! He did not just kill melanie & johanna & attempt beckett, & also raglan & montgomery & mccallister & possibly those other two lawyers or whoever beckett nice coat lol.

ESPOSITO NICE JACKET (& nice scarf on ryan) JE: You know, I was really hoping the next time I saw this guy would be down the barrel of my gun.

*fidgeting with his hand hanging by his legs* Met her there works for you non-paid consultant *stops* I know where I've seen you. I can't believe that he doesn't already have pics of beckett's close circles: friends, work, family,, gym

of COURSE he wouldn't do it himself! Ooh y'all got the fbi to do analysis? Nice! My grampa was able to tell what car, make model, year, idk, just by the sound of the engine.

Why do they need sirens on? They Ooh audio. Echo, loud, yells, I love it when ryan yells beckett's name. Why would they draw a diagram of the gun & do that sort of thing?

I thought beckett was ryan for a sec. That shiny suit jacket, I loved it, really shows off her waist. Then I realized ryan is amab he does not have a waist that small. Becks looks great tho & I like her with her hair back like that. Castle's red jacket & dark shirt are nice too & gates looks good with her red shirt adding colour from behind her black jacket/cardigan. Oh & ryan! light purple shirt with a square pattern (love that for ryan), dark thin tie (I'd call it black but it is not that dark) with multicoloured tiny equally sized polka dots, vest, ooh he's good. I grabbed a pic but idk if it is any good. at least I got a pic of beckett. Update from later in the episode: HIS WAISTCOAT HAS A SHINY SILVERY BACK PANEL SDLKFKSJFDLSKJF & it is tied in such a way that it hugs his hips man I'm such a lesbian fot him (both men) sounds like a disguise bright red shiny tie, really pops

this guy is assassinating him. that's why he insists that the senator goes. Gates my beloved Man has a jacket AND a coat. At least they are different colours

ugh the way she gestures for him to take a seat hhhhh so gooooood KB: Senator Bracken, do you have any enemies? Is there anyone you can think of that would like to kill you? cough cough WB: A man doesn’t get to my position without upsetting people along the way. Most of them aren’t crazy enough to want to kill me. (he gestures) Present company excluded.

JE: I’ll tell you something. If I’m her, I sit in there shuffling papers until whoever it is puts a bullet in Bracken’s head. KR: KR: No you wouldn’t. Because that would make you no better than he is. (well you are just not changing the trolley path. He's the one who tied people to it.) JE: The guy murdered Beckett’s mother. Captain Montgomery. Who knows who else?. ((exactly!)) Bracken’s got it coming to him. So I say let it come. KR: *uncomfy* I mean just two episodes ago esposito threatened to kill someone.

Nice pattern on esposito's shirt. Not an actual pattern, just the weave of it making it textured almost like heather. 24 hours exactly?

RC: Man, these people need to get a life. Most of these guys it seems like their only companionship is the space alien that talks to them through their microwave. *coincidentally finds the letter just as she says that* RC: No, I did actually. I liked the way you uh, dotted the ‘I’ in kill with a little heart. It was a nice touch. Oh yeah chinese food babey Man doesn't take his mug to the break room to wash it?? wait it was not the same writing my bad. it is all caps... In fact, it is the same letter, it was a rough draft.

Senator Bracken When you sleep at night do you dream of the blood dripping off your hands leaking into the ground filling up the valleys and the craters with new lakes and oceans lake hemoglobins the red ocean rivers of blood or do you drift away to some peaceful place unburdened by the endless bodies piling on your shoulders always more bodies never ending as you count the sheep dancing over fences but it isn't the sheep that calm your icy nerves it is their destination as they leap the fence toward the slaug//hter how their bleats and screams must fill that cavity in your chest where a heart should be with bostalgic joy for the suffering you have caused so many he was a boy a precious boy so filled with hope and aspirations and you took that in and you fed on him that boy my boy in the lion's den there is no way to avoid the night calls and the roats of the fearsome loathsome ((cut off)) ((Not going back to change typos; I touch typed this & my touch typing needs work))

Ooh the music also it is late she managed an appointment at this time of night? Are you sure that he is much worse? The one you can live with oof burning...

Coffee <3 Ryan looks nice, his clothes are dark which is less common. espt is wearing some kind of zip up hoodie like that's professional. Becks nice brown leather jacket with a good shape to it. "nothing significant"

Seeing gates with the half sister she kept the eltter phew

Why is castle Sitting at ryan's desk & then ryan leaning over castle pointing the stuff out to him? *interrupts* *looks at the letter while walking back & giving directions*

JE: I’m pretty sure we left Patterson five shops ago. *smacks the badge on the door* "How you doing?" McManus

Ryan looking like my hair lol

*sees him* Oh ooh ooh ooh it's him *shoots just a bit late*

No, castle. She did not miss. (tho it's kind of messed up that when they think that this fellow is an assassin you're allowed to shoot them...) you didn't & that's the good part. *hides her tears*

Not only do you know him but you also looked into him so you know about him. People say ryan is the touchy feely one in terms of emotions & yeah he himself acknowledged the cheesiness of the toast he was giving at the double date last season but esposito is the one to approach kate & talk to her.

She's good She's revealing that!? don't you remember what happened last time you revealed personal information without knowing who is behind the glass? gates is a cop tho, she was a detective, she does interrogations, she can see becks is truthing this room is so big & empty, DP did well. he DOES control everyone lol robert points to three people behind the glass lol, he can't see them blood on OUR hands. She's right, it is in hers bc she let him go! Except if she shot him he would not be available for questioning he might even be dead.

Oh thank goodness, we all thought gates was talking to her about That

What did you say that was right about her?

RC: Check this out. What better way to celebrate the end of a difficult case then with a bottle of – (he trails off when he sees her work) – what are you doing? YEAH NO IF HE'S OFF HIS MEDS THAT AIN'T GOOD KB: And what about Melanie’s body? He burned it and he knocked out her teeth to keep it unidentifiable. Me: Schiz often comes with paranoia, he wanted to be safe KB: And then he leaves a duffle bag in a stolen car for us to find? Me: ... That is not very meticulous of him......

I don't (usually) smoke & I still have a lighter & matchbook music hhh not ALL the evidence, remember? Right, people OFTEN believe that the psychoaffected people don't know what they're doing or are dangerous or planted the bomb, nobody would look further into it

If you're right then you have gained his trust back. 41319 is her badge # btw

secondary area search? man is upset. He lost his temper, this is not normal.

THE LIGHTER I play with em like that too lol WHAT IF THE LIGHTER IS A DETONATOR btw I was right! It IS the assistant person (no they are both just nondescript white guys)

He was BESIDE the car, even if beckett was NOT there he would have been fine

Castle just TACKLED that guy

Five years, long play. Or paid money lol CASTLE ADMITTING HE WOULD HAVE STOOD & WATCHED

Ryan nice light grey jacket, pink shirt, possibly striped, dark tie to contrast, ugh he's so good. Esposito just wearing the kind of "I'm at home today" clothes I wear "just like you would have done" WB: Someone who’s gotten rich making powerful people promises that I need to keep. ((PARDON ME?)) What does a kingmaker do when the king no longer follows orders?

WB: You saved my life. KB: (rolls her eyes) Yeah well, you can’t win ‘em all, can you? a friend? He's right when he says "If I said no, would you really believe me?"

Nice transition to watching tv at home Benjamin Moss? Ah kingmaker. "plane crash" or "car accident" better story. oof.

Wow I'm half an hour ahead of schedule! I started watching at 9.30, so I should have been done the day's first ep by 11 but I was 20m early, now I should have been done by 12.30 & it is only five after, I'm doing well!

[ruinikaidoexplodedbadly]

MAX max hiiii max did i mention how much i love spoilers . what happens to shiho rui and sakura‼️

OK ill put it under cut so dont look if you dont want movie spoilers

so shiho doesnt get arrested or anything even though she says her part of the story completely honestly this is because she makes it clear that she was literally forced into doing everything so she avoids prison (yayyyy) and she just gets rlly happy and lives a goodlife like we see her hanging out with the rest of teh good guys and talking with shirakawa and shes also just very cute we see her human form for the first time she looks crazy young and very adorable it actually made me more sad. her interview part is also the saddest and yamamoto completely dismisses everything she went through in his part and just blatantly lies about how shes to blame for everything and how “she and her boyfriend had an argument” and how “we dont interfere with the personal lives of the mystery kiss members” or something like that meanwhile we see shiho literally almost crying in her part its like AGHHH. also some point after the anime she forms an idol duo with sakura at a new agency but its for a pretty short time oh heres human shiho btw

for sakura she sort of acts really innocent and cute the whole time during her interview and in general she has a good monologue about people following their dreams that i liked it sounded so cutesy and regular but also in the context of what she did it was rlly unsettling. she basically comes off as totally innocent and the others dont say anything about her as well too up until the end part so shes free to just do whatever for a bit. she also tries to kill more people because of course she does she commits attempted murder in the audio dramas too but idk if you know that and i really liked it because theres a shot of her reaching into her backpack to get her knife and it looks really childish and cutesy and it was so fucked up and then she talked about stuff like security cameras and no one seeing her and the victim and just ominous shit like that really innocently and happy and it was scaryyyy anyway i think youcan guess what happened to her

as for rui her part also made me really sad because she is brutally honest about literally everything and shes not afraid to say what actually happened and its in her interview thats revealed that yamamoto didnt actually believe her and though rui killed yuki and called yano instead of letting rui call the police because hed rather only lose one member than lose a member and lose his favorite one too. yano and yamamoto also urged rui to leave when they were cutting up the body and shit but rui stayed because she couldnt handle the guilt that came up with it. the way she talks about yuki is also very interesting where instead of blaming her and getting mad at her she just talks about how mad she was in general she literally cant blame her specifically its so. and i thought it was interesting that both shiho and rui said that mystery kiss was over but yamamotos the one that said theyre doing just fine it was fucked up

[shotorozu]

hiiii! i was wondering if you could write some headcannons for kirishima, bakugou, and kaminari with a s/o with braces? i got mine on a couple days ago and i’m in quite a bit of pain🧍‍♀️

their s/o gets braces

character(s) : kirishima eijirou, bakugou katsuki, kaminari denki (bnha)

legend : [Y/N = your name] they/them pronouns used (gender neutral), quirk not specific

headcanon type : fluff, crack if you squint, mainly comfort (x reader)

note(s) : ahh i feel bad for you. it literally felt like my jaw got ripped off by a wendigo when i got braces for the first time. anyways, it’ll feel so satisfying once you can eat again!

»»————-　♡　————-««

kirishima eijirou

he was told to get his teeth fixed when he was younger, but he heard how painful it was— so he never actually went through with it.

moving aside that, he immediately goes to find you when he finds out that you’re out from the dentist

and oh— you have braces now.

“does it hurt?” he asks, when he glides through the soup isle. he doesn’t know why it hurts, but he heard that it helps.

“nope.”

but it did hurt. precisely, it felt like your jaw got bashed in by power similar to midoriya’s quirk.

he’s alarmed, because one, he hates seeing you squirm in pain, and two he made the foolish mistake by giving you one french fry when you asked him to

and your reaction wasn’t very pleasant

so, what can he do? he has no knowledge on this!

but wait, youtube exists. eijirou ends up binge watching on a bunch of braces videos, and he practically comes back a natural expert at taking care of new braces

eijirou lets you at all the ice cream he wants, at the same time- he manages to make yummy, but healthy and chewable meals for you for the rest of the week

when he sleeps in your bed, he makes sure not to turn in sleep— surprisingly cautious of his movements

trust me, when my brother didn’t have his own room yet, he almost elbowed my jaw in his sleep— and i only had braces for 6 hours then. so he’s surprisingly?? cautious.

fawns over the fact that your lips looked really swollen because of the new braces, “are you comfortable, cutie?” is what he says when he checks up on you

reminds you to brush your teeth, AND floss. sometimes he’ll do it for you just because he just so happened to walk in when you were flossing LMAO ITS SO WEIRD BUT 💀 its eijirou

has his way of keeping you away from foods like popcorn and bubble gum “Y/N! if you put that down, we can eat this OTHER chewable thing together!”

anyways— he’s the perfect caretaker in my opinion. but eijirou ends up overdoing the research

“have you ever considered buying a water floss?”

... “eijirou, regular floss is fine, y’know?”

bakugou katsuki

this man- omg. [que shiny teeth and me]

his teeth are perfect. he has no history of cavities, and every single tooth grew in correctly. he brushes, and flosses regularly too.

if you don’t tell him you’re getting braces AT LEAST the day before, he’ll be really mad

he’s probably the one that accompanies you to the dentist. he’s willing to inhale that oddly satisfying and weird dentist office smell, and sit in a chair for a hour, staring at a weird soap drama

just so he could accompany you back.

listens to the dentist’s instructions, because he must. know. everything. and besides— you’re probably too bugged out to pay attention.

he knows that it doesn’t hurt around the first 20 minutes or so, but he’s still going to take some extra precautions.

first of all, no more begging for the usual food cravings, because if you do— oh boy.

he’ll stare at you like you’re crazy “what? and you think you can eat that shit? no.” he says, as he gets a spoonful of soup, blowing on it, so it’s not too hot

second of all, he’ll watch you brush your teeth. he might even scold you if you brush too fast.

watches you floss, and smirks when you finish

“don’t be so down about it,” he’ll say in his usual manner “you can have all the disgusting meals you want after the first week”

that makes you smile

“,,just no more gum, popcorn—”

oh, and he’s really strict about that. he’ll yank it out of your hand if you dare to eat anything that’s in the list of ‘the forbidden’

he’s a mean caretaker :,) but he does an excellent job at being one. on the good side, he’ll kiss those lips for yours after the first week has been completed

“don’t be so down about it. your teeth will be perfect just like mine in [insert year of braces removal]”

kaminari denki

denki probably had a few cavities here and there, but his teeth are okay.

he was sort of left in the dark about it :,) because you thought it would be a great idea to surprise him.

you told him you were going to the dentist again which was weird to him because who goes to the dentist 3 times in one month??

denki’s appalled when he sees your eyes tearing up, as he happily waltz into to your room.

“oh no! what happened?” his expression falls, “are you hurt? what can i do?”

“surprise?” you show him your teeth, now fixed with braces

and he’s just :0 what’s that on your teeth?

“you didn’t tell me!” he whines, since he was left in the dark, and while you sheepishly smile at him— he observes your teeth

you open your mouth to answer him, but he shakes his head “don’t answer! i’ll go fix something up for you, even though i’m mediocre at best with cooking— oh well, want anything?— oh wait, just nothing chewable, right?”

similar to kirishima, he doesn’t know why it’s so painful— but he can imagine the pain with the way you’re describing it.

he distracts you by making you laugh, since laughter is the best medicine— but he makes sure not to go too overboard (because he thinks stretching your jaw out would be too much)

ends up replacing your toothbrush with one that had softer bristles, as he tends to get side tracked with the monitoring thing rip

oh, but he does watch you floss your teeth. y’know— what if you accidentally bump your hand against your jaw? he’s thoughtful of that.

for once, it looks like he actually knows about taking care of your braces, even more than you (it looks temporary but hmm.. we dont know)

but after that excruciating week, he DEADASS asked you if he could touch them 💀

“pleasee? what— it doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

“denki, don’t even try—”

when you get your braces adjusted, he’s always the one that picks your colors (if you could pick the colors., if that makes sense.)

gets sad when you don’t choose the color he wanted because they ran out of that color. its not even your fault whkdwks

denki was really sad to hear that yellow made your teeth look yellow, and black made it look like you had cavities :,)

overall, he might’ve had some moments where he absolutely missed on the care taking part. but he did his very best! please know that.

the bakusquad is surprised to see his search history— which namely had the keywords ‘braces’ in all of them. they teased him for it

»»————-　♡　————-««

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works for audio readings without permission

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS Animate Kuji B Prize Tokuten Drama CD [Reiji・Kanato・Subaru]

Original title: B賞ドラマCD (カナト・レイジ・スバル)

Source: Diabolik Lovers Animate Kuji Tokuten Drama CD [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Katsuyuki Konishi, Kaji Yuki & Takashi Kondou

Translator’s note: Reiji suffering hours never end in the Sakamaki manor. Honestly, for how serious and low-key boring his HDB route is, Reiji is by far the most entertaining character in the early era tokuten CDs. He’s the only character who is actually trying to keep everything together but chaos just breaks loose every time lol.

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

Subaru enters the kitchen.

*Thud*

*Rustle rustle rustle*

Subaru: ...!? The fuck’s goin’ on in here...?

*Rustle rustle*

Subaru: ...Ah, fuck! ...Where am I supposed to walk...!?

Kanato: Subaru, is that you? 

Subaru: Uwaah...!? Kanato! Where the fuck did you just crawl out of...!? ーー Or rather, what are you doin’?

Kanato: Can’t you see? ...I’m looking for sweets!

Subaru: Haah...? Didn’t you have a cake of some sorts for dinner just earlier? 

*Rustle rustle*

Kanato: ...I’m hungry...but I can’t find anything to snack on...Uu...Even though I’m starving...So why...? Uu...Sob...

Subaru: Argh...Geezー Shut the fuck up...I only came here to fetch a drink! Oi! Did you happen to across a bottle of mineral water?

Kanato: Don’t ask me. Look for that yourself.

Subaru: I can’t because you flipped the whole damn kitchen upside down!

Kanato: I can’t help you if I don’t know myself. ...Right, Teddy? I wonder why he’d lash out at me like that when I clearly said I don’t know? When he could make an effort to search for it himself, he just takes out his anger on me instead...That guy should just drop dead already.

Subaru: Che...! This is such a pain in the ass!

*Thud*

Kanato: Hm...I wonder why he’s there losing his cool in the corner by himself. Right, Teddy?

Subaru: Che...!

*Rustle rustle*

Subaru: Haah...Ugh...Huh? ...Tsk.

*Rustle rustle*

Kanato: Ah! Found something!

*Rustle rustle*

Kanato: Oh...Crackers? ー Ugh.

He chucks them to the side.

Subaru: What’s the problem? You were searching for food, right?

Kanato: You really don’t understand, do you? I’m looking for sugary treats. I finally found something, but it turned out to be these bland-tasting crackers...Haah...Are the people in this house trying to starve me to death!?

Subaru: Ahー Everything has to be loaded with sugar for you, doesn’t it? Hm...?

Subaru walks over to the counter.

Subaru: The fuck’s this? A small container and a bottle...? There seems to be some sort of white powder inside? Sugar, maybe?

Kanato: ...!! Give that to me!!

Kanato snatches the bottle away from Subaru.

*Rustle rustle*

Subaru: ...Uwah!? ...Oi, aren’t those the crackers you tossed away earlier?

*Rustle rustle*

Subaru: ...? D-Don’t tell me...!?

Kanato rips open the crackers and starts pouring the sugar on top.

Kanato: If I do this...Then the crackers will become sweet...Fufufu~ 

Subaru: No, wait! I said it might be sugar! But what if it’s something entirely different...?

Kanato: Haahn...

*Munch munch*

Subaru: Listen to me!!

Kanato continues eating.

Subaru: ...How is it?

Kanato: Fufu, it’s sweet...~

Subaru: Which means...It really was just plain sugar? The fuck. There wasn’t a label on it, so I thought that maybe Reiji left one of his shady concoctions laying ‘round. ーー In that case, I guess the liquid in this bottle is just plain old water as well. 

He opens the bottle.

Subaru: It’s transluscent and has no scent so...It should be fine, right?

*Gulp gulp*

Subaru: Haah...

Reiji enters the kitchen.

Reiji: What are the two of you doing in here this late at niーー 

Subaru: Che...Geh, Reiji!?

Reiji: Ah...What happened in here!? 

Kanato: ...

*Munch*

Kanato: I was only looking for some sweets.

Reiji: Ah, geez! I’ve told you before that your snacks are in the shelf over there in the back, haven’t I!? Your searching method is to blame here! ...Wait, Kanato...What is that you’re holding in your hand?

Kanato: I poured all of this sugar over the crackers and ate them. ...Fufu, it made them at least somewhat palatable, right, Teddy?

Reiji: All of it...!?

Subaru: Oi...Did we make a mistake?

Reiji: ...Why do you people always put everything in your mouth straight away!? That medicine is still in its testing phase, so I cannot predict the effeーー

*Cling*

Subaru: ...!? Ugh...

Kanato: Uu...

Subaru: My headーー!

Kanato: ...It hurts...! It feels like my head’s splitting in two...!!

Subaru: ...Aaaargh...!!

Reiji: ...And that’s exactly why I keep on telling you lot not to eat everything you see...

*Thud*

Reiji: ...?

Kanato: Ehehe~ Such lovely weather we’re having today~! It’s like Mr. Sun is smiling brightly at us~!

Reiji: K-Kanato...?

Subaru: Yeah, mate! On days like these, I just want to go for a nice, long run!

Reiji: Subaru!?

Kanato: Ooh~? Rei-pyon, didn’t see you there! ...What’s wrong~? Why are you making that strange face?

Subaru: Kanato! Rei-rei’s face always looks weird, remember? You shouldn’t tell him straight-up though.

Reiji: R-Rei...pyon? Rei-rei!? 

( Is this the medicine taking effect...? )

Subaru: Rei-rei! If you keep on making those troubled expressions, you’re only going to get even more wrinkles, you know? If somethin’ is weighin’ heavy on your mind, why don’t you join me outside for a round of soccer?

Reiji: ...I have no worries! I refuse to play soccer as well!

Kanato: Rather than playing soccer, why don’t you join me and Teddy and bask in the sunlight~? I’m sure it’ll be a blast!

Subaru: No! A healthy mind in a healthy body is key! You should play some soccer as well, Kanato. Ah! I guess the more, the merrier, right? I’ll go call the other guys as well! Hehe~!

Subaru runs towards the door.

Reiji: Ah...! Subaru! Halt!

Reiji stops him just in time.

*Rustle*

Reiji: ...Either way, we have to sort out this situation first. If you insist on playing soccer, please wait till later.

( If I let the other brothers see these two in their current state, things will only get even more troublesome. For now, it is most important to get a good grasp on the situation. )

I’ll start with you, Kanato.

Kanato: What’s wrong, Rei-pyon~?

Reiji: ...! ...Please stop using that disgusting nickname at once.

Kanato: Eeeeh~?

Reiji: ...

Kanato: Ehehe~ 

Reiji: I suppose I should retrieve the drug first and foremost. ...Kanato, please hand me those snacks.

Kanato: Eh...?

Reiji: ( I suppose he is still reluctant to hand over his sugary treats. However, the usual Kanato would most likely throw a tantrum here. I suppose I should push him to the very limit. )

Kanato. Hurry up and give them to me. I’m confiscating these! 

Reiji snatches the crackers from his hand.

Kanato: ...Ah! ...Uu.

Reiji: ( ...!? He’s not getting mad!? )

Kanato: Uu...Hic...Rei-pyon...I’m so sorry. Will you give me back my sweets if I promise I’ll be good...?

Reiji: Ah...N-No...I did not want an apology from you or anything...Here.

*Rustle*

Kanato: Ah~! Thank you, Rei-pyon!

Reiji: But like I said, no more of that nickname! ーー Well then, how about Subaru?

Subaru: Hah...Hah!!

Reiji: ( ...He’s doing sit-ups...!? )

I take my eyes off you for two seconds and what are you doing now!?

Subaru: Can’t you tell? Sit-ups! Nothin’ feels better than movin’ your body! 

Reiji: ( The drug affected him in this way, huh...? )

What happened to your usual self, Subaru? While it is more than fine you decided to stop destroying everything in your sight, this is creepy on a whole new level. 

Subaru: Hm? Taking out your anger on other things isn’t good, you know? If you’re got any worries, I’ll listen to you, okay? Come on, tell me!

Reiji: ...

 Subaru continues to do his sit-ups in the background.

Reiji: I didn’t think I’d ever hear those words coming from you...

( If I have to try and reason with them any longer, I will surely lose my mind. While I am still not certain about the exact effects, I should prioritize getting started on an antidote of some sorts. )

Kanato: Rei-pyon? Is something bothering you? Want some sweets?

Reiji: No, thank you. 

Subaru: Then want to go for a run? You’ll feel reborn afterwards!

Reiji: I am fine! ...Either way, I shall prepare an antidote at once, so just drink that!

*TIMESKIP*

Kanato: Uu...Sob...I’m hungry...Uu...

Subaru: I don’t remember leavin’ my room and comin’ here at all...Although I’m strangely exhausted for some reason? ...I wonder why?

Reiji: Haah...

Subaru: ...Hah? The fuck’s with that face, Reiji? You look like an old geezer.

Kanato: He is older than us, so of course he does, Subaru. Fufufu~

Reiji: ...Who do you think is to blame for that?

Subaru: ...Aah?

Kanato: Say, is dinner ready yet? Did you not hear me when I said I’m hungry earlier!?

Subaru: Ahー I could go for some food as well.

Reiji: Aah, god, I know! Fine! Whatever you do, don’t touch any of the bottles theーー

Subaru: Tsk...I’m thirsty as well. ...Oh! There’s a bottle right here!

*Gulp*

Reiji: ...Ah.

ーー THE END ーー

[mikami]

I think every culture shapes the death note adaptation they're making. Like, it's absolutely reasonable to have a cheerleader who is edgy and helping light. Light being a loser in an American high school. Mi(s)a betraying light because she developed a goddess complex herself. & finally the germans presenting misa such in a way as she kills herself after the debate with kiyomi over light/kira. I've observed that the germans have good female portrayals in their movies and the audio books' having +

Light and kiyomi have sex makes sense. It adds maturity to the overall concept of death note. I also remember that homophobia was an issue in those audios but i think the writer -was it clements?- tries to follow the new world's topics. The world of today has lgbt+ rights more discussed than in '03. I'm not saying more people are pro lgbt+ or anti lgbt+, I'm just saying that it's more "discussed" before so it's wise of clements to have homophobic characters being b/c he's trying to catch the trend. I hope i could make my point clear. End of the ask here.

(If I ever made it seem like the German Audio Drama respects women, I am sorry. The Misa suicide scene is extremely uncomfortable to listen to and did not strike me as at all feminist. There are attempts at expanded female roles, but they are clumsy at best.)

But that aside, I just disagree with you completely on the basic principle of adaptation, to be honest.

Stories don't need to be universal. They don't need to translate well into other settings nor do they need to be adapted to them.

Death Note is not a universal story.

It's a story that is firmly rooted in Japanese society in the early 2000s and that is honestly okay. Why does it need to be filed down in all its details until its smooth and applicable to just about any situation, getting rid of all the nuance of the original context?

Like, my issue with specifically the American movie is not "this is a bad take on an American version of the story" (though it is that, too), it's "there is no added value in making an American version at all'.

It's fine if sometimes a piece of media is not inherently relatable and you need to put a bit of thought into understanding where it is coming from. It's good for stories to teach us about different cultures and different times.

Adaptations are fun when they actually have something of their own to say, but if it's just "I am forcibly transplanting this story into a different context and expecting it to still work" then... why?

[digital-dhampirs]

vnc episode 12 thoughts

The thrilling conclusion to the Vanitas no Carte anime’s first cour is out, and I have thoughts! I’m still considering doing a full season/ fill cour review, but I have a Lot of episode 12- specific opinions, so this review / breakdown / thing will focus around e12!

A warning before we begin— review will contain spoilers for events that take place in the vnc manga and not in the anime, and will most likely spoil some sections of the anime’s next cour. With that, let’s get started!

Episode 12 of the VnC anime covers chapters 19, 21, 22, and 23 of the manga.

To begin this review in a brutally honest way, this episode was… in my opinion as a manga reader… bad. It did have some ok moments, but generally devoted a lot of its time to a plotline that (while adorable) isn’t actually super important compared to what was left on the wayside. Vanitas and Noé’s fight over blood drinking is fine, I guess, but why’d we get that minute long flashback compilation and not Dante’s conversation with Dominique, or Roland and Olivier’s complete conversation, or Astolfo’s excitement to hunt vampires, or Mikhail?

I really truly wish the show had taken some of the money and time that went into the Vanitas and Noé fight from chapter 23 and put it into the arguably much more important and interesting parts of this episode. Ruthven drinking Noé’s blood, Roland’s threat, and Chloé and Astolfo’s introductions all had some very janky stills and animations. It truly irked me to see that time and effort went into making Noé’s mouth move while he’s mentally monologuing about wanting to drink Vanitas’s blood, while Roland’s fantastic threat from Chapter 22 got… this. click on image for worse quality

The episode also decided to continue E11’s habit of chopping scenes up and mashing them together. In E11 this was a very not great decision, but was ultimately somewhat forgiveable from a tone point of view. In E12, meanwhile, it’s just all out chaos as the anime tries to string five completely separate scenes into something coherent (Noé and Vanitas in the hotel, Ruthven and Jeanne in the street, Domi and Dante on the stairs, Roland and Olivier in the chasseur compound, and a flashback to complete the Ruthven and Noé encounter from E11). Suffice it to say the anime does not succeed in this endeavor.

What really irritates me about this is that the manga already provided a framework for the anime to work these scenes together into. A frantic Vanitas reunites with Noé, Ruthven meets Jeanne in the street, Roland and Olivier speak about the beast, we see a mysterious flashback of Chloé calling for Jeanne as they talk, cut to Jeanne in the present as Dante and Ruthven’s attendants simultaneously tell Ruthven and Vanitas about the beast’s return.

I really wish the anime could’ve just given us the conclusion to the Ruthven scene at the start of the episode, done the OP, and then followed this series of events to a T. But it didn’t, and the result is a bit of a mess.

The anime’s choice to omit half of Roland and Olivier’s conversation means Dante’s announcement about the beast being back has no meaning or weight; Vanitas running to the hotel before we know what actually happened to Noé at the cafe ruins the drama and irony of the scene; Noé’s lack of memory of what happened at the cafe is muddled by the weirdly placed cafe flashback right afterwards; the anime putting Olivier’s “what that man believes in isn’t god” line seconds before the reveal of Roland’s intelligent and scheming nature doesn’t give the line enough room to breathe and stew; and the transition scene with Domi and Dante just doesn’t fit. I can honestly say I would have preferred Dante just teleporting from the streets of Paris to Vani and Noé’s windowsill than have that scene smack dab in the middle of what’s already a confusing mishmash of way too many unconnected events.

Wow. That was a long, critical paragraph. one might even say it was just as chaotic and disorganized as the episode itself. I feel like I’m really living up to my fullest potential as a bitter manga simp. So! Let’s turn things around and talk about some of the good parts of this episode!!

First and foremost I want to compliment this episode’s music..! The soundtrack of VnC is just all round fantastic no matter what— whether it’s playing during a goofy scene or a fight, it’s is bound to be fantastic. I think my favorite pieces are the ones that play at quiet, ominous moments— the music during Vanitas and Dante’s conversation about the beast is excellent, adding something truly incredible to the atmosphere created by the illustrations of the beast and the eerie green light of the scene. The way the music lines up with Olivier’s “what that man believes in…” line during that one flashback is similarly awesome.

This episode also has very nice voice acting..! Despite all of its struggles in the visual and plot department, pretty much everything to do with the VnC anime’s audio is stellar. I’ve become a big fan of Jeanne, Roland, and Olivier’s voices (I can’t wait to see how Olivier’s VA works with all his screaming in the Gévaudan arc); Astolfo’s voice is perfect for him (I am similarly excited to see his clipped, polite tone take a turn for the insane as the Gévaudan arc moves forwards); and as always our protagonists’ voices are great.

My one singular problem with the voice acting this episode is Chloé. I don’t know why, but she sounds like a catgirl from a fantasy anime rather than a multiple- centuries- old vampire. I don’t know what I was expecting from her voice, but this wasn’t it. I really hope Chloé’s voice will grow on me like Roland’s did, but there’s just something about it that feels off to me.

However! That one detriment doesn’t detract from the fact that this episode does have some very beautiful moments, especially during that one last scene with Chloé at the end. Visually, Chloé is absolutely spot on— I only hope the show has the budget to keep giving her pretty, pretty scenes like this. The scene where Vanitas and Dante discuss the beast is also very very nice to look at. The monochromatic red section of Ruthven and Noé’s scene is excellent. And, while I’m still annoyed that this scene got so much love put into it and others did not, Noé’s spotlight-lit monologue is aesthetically pleasing as well.

With that, we’ve covered all of my main thoughts on the final episode of the vnc anime’s first cour! My feelings towards this episode’s plot and pacing are overwhelmingly critical, and the episode’s visuals are a toss up (leaning on the side of bad, @/ that Roland screenshot), b u t the episode’s music and voice acting are both fantastic. And honestly? That’s kinda how I feel about this whole cour of the anime.

Episode 12 might not have been “good”, but I believe it’s a very neat representation of the best and worst of what Vanitas no Carte as an anime has to offer.

Despite all my critiques I am still legally obligated to love this anime, and can’t wait to see the Gévaudan arc in the next cour!

Fun Fact

The weirdly technological background when Noé realizes he’s hungry makes absolutely no sense for an anime set in 1889, but for some reason that just makes this scene funnier to me

[bigbadredpanda]

Hello, there is something that has been bothering me for a while now, and maybe you can help me.

Do you know if it's possible for cultivators become immortal in mdzs?

In the audio drama when Lan Qiren reads the Lan Sect rules he talks about their purpose as cultivators, which is to reach immortality, Wei Wuxian too mentions it not long after. Also Xiao Xincheng, when telling his story, talks about an immortal that lived on a celestial mountain, referring to Baoshan Sanren. These things made me think that yes, it's possible, and maybe it's just very hard.

But then I read somewhere about mdzs being a low fantasy novel. That's when I get confused. I thought mdzs was xianxia, that was considered high fantasy, where there are immortals, and low fantasy was instead wuxia, where there are not.

Since I'm in no way an expert of this genre I don't know if there are specific rules or the author can mix things up and decide what to keep or leave.

I don't know if in mdzs when they talk about becoming immortals they really mean it, it's really possible, or if instead it's just some kind of myth, and they can only prolong their lifespan.

So the most important thing that I'd really like to know is if it's possible or not, in the mdzs universe, and in case how can you tell?

Hope it's okay to ask, your answers are always interesting and I've learned a lot of things thanks to you. Thank you so much if you can help me!

Hello and thank you for your words of support! The short answer is no, cultivators do not actually become immortals in mdzs.

Wuxia and xianxia literary genres have in common the same character xia (侠) that is commonly translated as ‘chivalry’ and which refers to the archetypal hero who strives to uphold justice and punish evildoers. They differ though in the first character, wu (武) means ‘martial arts’ and xian (仙) ‘immortality’. Wuxia generally depicts characters proficient not only in martial arts but also in a variety of weapons, paralysing acupuncture techniques, they also possess near-superhuman abilities such as leaping in bamboo forests and running across water. Xianxia is inspired by Chinese myths and draws heavily from Taoism from which the pursuit of immortality originates. Fantasy elements abound and deities, spirits, demons may mix with humans. It is indeed tempting to qualify wuxia as low-fantasy and xianxia as high fantasy but in truth there is such versatility across both genres that it would be arduous to draw a clear line of delineation between what constitutes low and high fantasy.

Mdzs is officially labelled as a “low fantasy xianxia”. In the author’s notes for chapter 20, MXTX quips: “In this low fantasy xianxia world, there is no mythological creatures like qilin or taotie. The only mythological creatures that to exist are spiritual dogs, spiritual rabbits, spiritual turtles, spiritual pigs. Practical and domesticated.” So even if there are undeniably fantasy elements in mdzs, their scope is limited.

The part you allude to about the Gusu Lan sect rules are an addition in the audio drama that do not feature in the novel. I went back to listen to the episode (it was a fine excuse to listen to the audio drama again) but did not find any mention of immortality. I shall make an attempt to translate Lan Qiren’s speech which is in Classical Chinese (audio drama s1e05):

夫圣贤之典，教人诚孝。谨言慎行，立身雅正，亦已备矣。修道者，养神炼身。当慎节起卧，卯作亥息。均适食饮，餐不过三。犯戒者，禁闭三日，书雅正一篇。

The texts from wise men of virtue instruct on the benefit of devout filial piety. One must be cautious in word and in deed and must behave righteously. Those who cultivate must elevate their minds and refine their bodies. Their life must be properly regulated with fixed hours to rise and to rest, awaking at 5 in the morning and sleeping at 9 in the evening. All nourishment and drink must be taken in just consumption without exceeding three meals. Those who violate the rules must remain in seclusion for three days and copy the volume of “Rightousness” once.

(Fun fact, this quote is based on an actual Chinese classic from the 6th century, “The Family Instructions of Master Yan” by Yan Zhitui)

The other bit that you indicated happens later on when Wei Wuxian is told that he must copy the “Great Justice” section of “Righteousness” three times as punishment. He complains, “Just copying it once is enough to make me ascend”. He's not saying it literally but in a “I will die” way ^^

Concerning Baoshan Sanren, I’ll put forward again my translation of a relevant excerpt (ch.29):

这位抱山散人是位世外隐道，据说与温卯、蓝安等人是同一时期出道的修士。那一辈的风云人物，如今早已魂消身散，只有抱山散人，传闻至今仍未陨落。若果真如此，该有好几百岁了，足见修为了得。

This Baoshan Sanren was a recluse who had forsaken the outside world. It was said that she was a cultivator that emerged during the same era as Lan An and Wen Mao. This illustrious figures from this generation have long since vanished and turned to dust but according to rumours, Baoshan Sanren was the only one who endured to this day. If this were true, she would be several centuries old and it would be a testament to her extraordinary cultivation base.

We learn several things from this passage. First, it’s not said that is effectively immortal, just that she may have lived for a very long time. Second, this is a rumour. It’s a running theme in the series that one must be careful to distinguish between hearsay and actual fact. Third, if these rumours happened to be true, it would be exceptional. So in conclusion, there is no confirmation that the person closest to immortality is actually immortal.

I think that the perception that cultivators in mdzs can live forever come from expectations of the xianxia genre. Although mdzs and tgcf are both xianxia, one is decidedly more down-to-earth than the other and the two do not operate by the same rules and do not share a common lore. The other important contributor to that biased perception is perhaps the definition of xian 仙 in xianxia which can be misleading. As I’ve said, it does mean ‘immortality’ but there’s a figurative sense to that, not only a straightforward literal one. For instance, what is called in English the ‘cultivational world’ is in Chinese 仙门世家, something like “The Immortal Families” if we want to stick close the original. Xian 仙 is an intrinsic part of cultivation but in the case of mdzs, there’s an emphasis on immortality being a conceptual pursuit (to prolong one’s lifespan) and not an actual end goal.