#Liveblogging my reading: the least effective liveblog

[elegyofthemoon]

reading springfest now after everything in nagazora is making me crave more fu hua and mei interactions. i feel like thus far in my go through, i've never actually seen them interact, but it's kinda fun that the person who made the recommended reading order put springfest after nagazora (though of course this is probably in preparation for whatevers going on with senti/fu hua rn in ch 19)

but the way that the empyrea isolates herself so she doesn't have any attachment to those who she will outlive and how she winds up becoming lonely as a result threw me back to mei isolating herself in world serpent so that she can protect kiana and just... idk..... i think the two talk about that isolation would be interesting

also. i love fu hua. she's still at the top of my list for best character so i'm just a happy little guy getting more fu hua content now in the story :> yippee fu hua

[qtubbo]

Awww Pac’s offering to walk Sunny back to Tubbo but she wants to be independent so he’s just watching them from afar and asking if they’re sure. 

I read this as Sunny being angry and sad after one too many bad things today more than wanting to be independent. Pac was sweet but it definitely seems like she’s taking after her Pa with how she’s handling possible conflict 🙁

Ramon told them to ‘i feel like u should go to ur dad’, which he probably didn’t mean anything by but she definitely took it as her brother wanting her to leave. Before that there was suspicion thrown around about their bodyguard, driver, accountant, and friend as possible thieves. They overheard Fit questioning why Foolish would want to team up with their Pa. They watched their Pa moping around and feeling useless all day. She had a lot of lowercase signs and angry reactions. She didn’t wait for her Pa before going to bed.

A lot of small things but today was definitely not a good day for Sunny. At least It seemed like she was getting along with Tallulah, and Ramon did give her an invite to the birthday party.

twas a liveblog so I wasn’t thinking hard on it, but I think her rejecting Pac who is their driver, that in her own play pretend world his job would be to walk them back to Pa, from taking her back had more to do with Ramon’s sign. Ramon intended, I saw you waiting earlier and I know you want to go to him you don’t have to stay here and it was most likely read as leave me to my family time and go to yours.

As a callback to Ramon’s letter, he talked a lot about how Pac being his Pai is really important to him, how he needs Pac to fell like a full family. You can tell they really took that letter to heart since it queued Sunny’s later obsession with the idea of having two parents, a happy family like Ramon’s with her Ma and Pa. Sunny has been recognizing the difference between Ramon’s inner family Fit and Pac, versus his outer family Sunny, Empanada, Tubbo, Dapper, and Leo.

If Sunny were to go with Pac or Fit back to Tubbo that would ruin the point, because Ramon wanted to be with his family and they can’t ruin that so Sunny couldn’t go with Pac.

I don’t think Sunny doubts Ramon loves her, but I do think their drawing a greater line between her family and Ramon’s family, which before as could been seen by their reaction to Fit saying they aren’t family Sunny thought were the same. Sunny’s very young and developing pretty much everyday is going to effect her, so good things like Tallulah might like me and Ramon invited me to Fit’s birthday party is going to get balanced by things that may seem small but are big to her with Pa keeps leaving me behind and Ramon doesn’t want me intruding with his family.

[yurisorcerer]

I'm not gonna pretend I have anything super new or innovative to say about Mobile Suit Gundam. It's one of the most-analyzed anime ever, and I pale in comparison to some of the people who *have* analyzed it, but here I am, thinking about it regardless.

For context, I am watching this as part of a---as she called it---"comet swap" with my good friend @charaznablespeteevee, where I watch a mecha anime she is obsessed with (Gundam) and she watches one I am obsessed with (Code Geass). I'm not sure if I'm going to write a big long post like this about every episode (since I'm going to *try* to watch at least one per day, that would get quite exhausting), but I am liveblogging it more informally over on the worst website on Earth, if you're willing to put up with that Nazi-infested hellhole long enough to read some posts from yours truly.

In any case, Gundam and Code Geass. are many differences between these, the main ones being that Code Geass is more recent and also not widely hailed as a masterpiece of its form. It does *draw* notably from Gundam though despite having very different artistic aims and a different tone, so watching this makes sense in a way. I spent way too much of my teenagerhood obsessed with Lelouch, and now I'm watching the anime that his archetypal grandfather came from. (Goddess have mercy on my soul.)

My experience with Gundam as a franchise prior to this is very limited, but I do have some. For reference, I have seen all of:

Gundam 00, back when it aired on the SyFy channel when they had an anime block many years ago. I really liked this as a teenager but I don't remember it super well.

The Witch From Mercury, lesbian space combat, with a notable Code Geass staff connection. WFM was not perfect or anything but I loved it a lot and Suletta is very dear to me. I actually bought an Aerial gunpla a few months ago that is currently sitting unassembled in my closet.

the first Gundam 0079 compilation movie. Now, it might seem weird that I've seen this and am now going back to watch the TV series. But, while I remember the general outline of what happened, I was SUPER sick when I watched it, and I only remember what happened really, really vaguely. While I have some idea of the general outline of what's to come, I'm mostly going in genuinely blind.

like 4 or 5 episodes of Victory Gundam, which I liked but kind of fell off of. So we're giving the franchise a proper second go here.

I'm a mecha fan more generally, and I'll get into some of that as I write these, but for now that's the relevant stuff.

Anyway, my main impression of 0079's first episode is actually a structural one. It's REALLY well put together. We introduce the setting, we introduce our main characters, and we introduce the main conflict, all very economically and with a lot of style---more style than some shows with significantly less room to work with manage, in fact---and I'm immediately invested in the fate of our main character, Amuro Ray.

From what I gather here (and a little bit from outside information), my impression is that of a kid who loses his innocence very, very rapidly over the course of this story. Here, the space-hab-thing he lives on is attacked, and he ends up in the cockpit of an experimental superweapon called a Gundam (maybe you've heard of them?). I LOVE how the Gundam is framed here, like some kind of genuinely scary war machine. It's an intentionally othering effect i mostly associate with later mecha anime, especially those with outright monstrous mecha like Evangelion or even The Big O, so to see it here in such a comparatively early series in the genre is impressive.

The episode's climax sees him kill two soldiers from the enemy nation of Zeon, but it's not a triumphant thing, really. He's portrayed as kind of not really knowing what he's doing, flailing around inside this gigantic walking tank / mechanical war god. But then when he *does* figure things out, well, he has to deal with the fact that he just killed two dudes. Going by the cliffhangery ending here, it doesn't seem like his troubles are over, either.

[onlyhereforghosttrick]

A painting- or at least, a photo of one.

There's a letter attached.

Dear Makoto,

How are you?

I'm sorry you had to miss out this year.

We got a Smeargle to take a little sketch of us to send to you instead, hope this makes you feel better.

He said that it'd be better if we were all fully in frame next time, but I don't know what he meant by that... We're all there, aren't we? Regardless, though.

I do hope Aigiel's getting better... I know you haven't gotten an update in a while, but I'm sure she's fine- the girl's taken a fair few falls, and gotten up anyways.

For new additions to the group this year, though...

Ephim finally convinced Minato to tag along. (I don't know what they're doing in the photo either, but I think some part of him was enjoying it too.)

A new pair- Safira and Higashi, bottom left of it. I gave talking to them a try, and they seemed familiar somehow nice. Apparently they helped stop the natural disasters of the air continent.

There's also Feysara, the Eevee girl- that's her talking to Auren on the right. She's polite, if a bit quiet at times. I have a feeling you'll like her.

Well, hope you're doing alright, partner.

Happy New Year. I'm glad we made it this far.

With love,

Minami

Well. Happy New Year!

This post has been set to go up at sometime in the afternoon/evening of the 31st, meaning this is some of this year's last hours.

So, I'd like to thank you while I still have time.

Thank you all for everything you've done for me, for being so friendly, for caring as much as you have- I don't think I'd be here without all of you.

Now, for some more fun stuff- I don't have refs or anything but I can at least give a lowdown on the picture.

Chronoconvergence is my current idea for a collective name for my PMD stuff, likely to be replaced once I think of something better, but it stands for now. ...I am still too lazy to update tags though.

As said in the letter, Ephim the Lucario is doing ...whatever that is with Minato (Bulbasaur) on the left, with Safira (Skitty) and Higashi (Wooper) talking with Minami (Grovyle, yes, The Grovyle PMD2) right below.

Taking center stage are Everus (Fraxure) and Spark (Ninetales), my Gates team, with Ephris (Mew) hovering close by alongside Serri (Celebi, again, yes, The Celebi PMD2). also nearby is Feysara standing far off to the right

Lastly, is one that might require a bit of explanation- Auren (Dusknoir, you know the drill) talking with... Feysara, the Eevee mentioned in the letter. Just one small problem. Feysara is someone else's name.

Well, Feys (as I've effectively renamed her) is the protagonist of the fic I've been trying to write for a while now called An Empty Reflection which is also meant to serve as the opening act to a grander story called New Future's Dawn. Her story is yet to be told, but I hope to do so soon!

I want to promise when my next big thing or whatever will be but really, I'm probably gonna end up liveblogging Vivid/Stasis Chapter 5 for a bit so I might be occupied with that. As this goes up, I'm probably just finishing up what is effectively meant to be me re-familiarizing myself with the game as a whole.

But just know that writing is not abandoned, and art is not abandoned, both just planned to be pushed to the side as I write this. I'm probably at least thinking of writing by the time you're reading this, so not all hope is lost.

And as a last note... This combination of characters being alive and such is not canon, even if we all (or at least I) wished otherwise. Well, Happy New Year. It's been a hell of a ride so far and I can only hope it gets better from here.

[iguessitsjustme]

Love Sea Ep 1 Thoughts

Okay. I know I said my next liveblog would be She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat because it won my poll BUT I decided I’m gonna be liveblogging Love Sea as it airs each week. And I will be liveblogging She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat later today. Or at least starting the liveblog. But liveblogging Love is the only way I think I make it through this series. I got my snacks I my got a diet coke. Pray for me watching a MAME show. Keep in mind that I am not a fan of MAME generally (and I have now finished this episode and this show is no exception. Don't get mad at me if you click the read more and don't like what I say). Under the cut as per usual:

I do like water so the water effect and sheer amount of water at the very beginning makes me extremely happy. I want more water forever.

FISH!!!!

“Dive and go get it” is not an appropriate response to dropping a pen in the water. Accept your loss.

DON’T PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF BOATS. DO NOT PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF BOATS. I DO NOT CARE. DO NOT PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF BOATS. HE IS NOT WEARING A LIFE JACKET. HE IS NOT PREPARED TO BE IN THAT WATER AT ALL. DO NOT PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF BOATS.

A nice, tranquil place being called heaven on earth makes sense. Our protagonist showing up and immediately calling it hell on earth because ???? does not make sense. Maybe see more than two feet of it before declaring it to be hell?

Calling someone that speaks a different dialect an idiot when you are on their island…bold. Dumb. And bold.

Do not steal his phone. You’re just an asshole. You’re both assholes. But you pushed a man off of a boat so I hate you more. All the other guy has done is been uppity and snobbish. He hasn’t actively endangered anyone’s life for a laugh.

And now purposefully speaking a dialect he doesn’t understand. Yes, he was an ass about it, but you knew he didn’t understand and did it anyway. And now he has explicitly said he doesn’t understand and you’re rubbing it in his face. You can speak a dialect he knows and understands and you both know you can and yet…

Oh I got it. He behaves like a teenager. But like the kind of teenager that needs a good life resorting. He’s a bully but no one really calls him out for it because he disguises it behind class clown behavior. He needs a swift kick in the pants considering he’s an adult that’s behaving this way.

I dislike how these shows always portray women as incapable of talking about the hotness of these guys. It’s not just BL. Other dramas are just as guilty if not more so. But c’mon. Having women characters does not excuse your portrayal of the other women in the story as only caring about some random dude’s hotness. Mut is hot? Not my taste but I can see why people consider him hot. But I guarantee most women on vacation, while they talk about hot guys, are also doing other things and talking about other things. Like the books they are reading on the beach. And how hot they themselves are. And the next activity they’re doing. They aren’t laser focusing on Mut. Except that the show says they are. Because they have no identities outside of a weak plot device to convince the audience of how hot Mut is. If he was really that hot, this tactic would not be needed. It would be conveyed in the rest of the show.

See how differently it’s framed for the men? Women are the ones interest in Mut, but when it’s for the men, it’s that Mut is open to them. The attraction is his. This is definitely setting the tone for the relationship that’s being built. Cause our other lowkey asshole (I’ll learn his name eventually maybe) is a man. He is not interested in Mut. But he is apparently Mut’s type so Mut will be attracted to him. It’s a different way of taking away agency but here it is on a character level and not removing agency from an entire gender.

They better be delivering this to me I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA get em

This montage of people interacting with Mut trying to tell us what a good person and community member he is feels like such lazy writing. Incredibly lazy writing. Like makes me angry because despite her faults, I know MAME is capable of better than…that.

DID HE JUST LEFT HIMSELF INTO THE ROOM BECAUSE HE HAS A KEY. ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT.

Romance *gags* aside, this is incredibly poor customer service. He didn’t knock. He didn’t announce he was coming in. I’m hoping it’s not early in the morning and that our lowkey asshole is just sleeping in. He’s cleaning the room and going through not-his-things. HE TOOK PICTURES. Someone call the police. Or call the me. I’ll go kick his ass.

Also also also the fact that he had that key that he was supposed to give to lowkey asshole means that HE SHOULD NOT HAVE USED IT TO ENTER THE ROOM. HE SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD IT.

Okay I need a break. This scene has gone on entirely too long with just the two of them standing on talking. There needs to be some movement on the screen and the tiny amount of body movement is not cutting it. Lowkey asshole should be walking away during this conversation. That would be in character and provide the necessary movement. But as it is…this whole scene feels stale and stagnant. So I’m gonna go make some food. Maybe I’ll be less pissy about this whole scene when I come back.

Okay. I am back but I am not less pissy. Tell me, how did I manage to mess up pasta? Truly is a skill I must say. And I’m not that bad of a cook. I swear but…I digress. Let’s just get back into it *grumbles*

That was the weakest punch I’ve ever seen. And I have weak little noodle arms.

Even the GL part of this is toxic. Miss secretary ma’am. I have an idea. Send her all of the shit on your plate. Email her all of the shit you have to do. In the email tell her what hours you are actually available and if she cannot work with that, then that’s unfortunate but that is her only option.

You don’t call the owner’s secretary to fix a light bulb. You call maintenance. Girl if you don’t grow a spine and tell her no….

I had to mute this damn show because the music is trying to convince me this is romantic and I am not a fool. I have eyes. Also stop using flashbacks of things that happened earlier this episode. This is the first episode. We know what Mut is thinking about when staring at his hand. We were there for that scene five minutes ago.

If someone started reading what I was writing over my shoulder without being explicitly invited to, I would pour hot sauce in their eyes.

This hug makes me mad. I’ll leave it at that.

Okay. It’s time for something I can’t believe I’ve never done before! Rae’s hatred scale. Where I rank the characters on how much I hate them:

Vi - 2/10. Honestly give this girl a raise. She isn’t paid enough to deal with this. I do need her to get a backbone though. C’mon my girl you can do it. You can learn to stand up for yourself. I believe in you.

Rak - 5/10. Look I learned his name! I think. He’s lowkey an asshole but honestly he just wants to be left alone but was sent on this trip that he didn’t ask for and is now being harassed by this guy that he doesn’t like because his “friend” paid for it.

Mook - 10/10. Girl what’s wrong with you? I hope someone slaps you in your face. Learn how to treat people.

Mut - 1000000000/10. DO NOT PUSH PEOPLE OFF OF BOATS.

[earlgraytay]

So I know what you're thinking. Why is TGAA 2-2 worse than Turnabout Big Top? How can this be possible?

Well, the answer is simple: there's problems with this case that a good editor would have caught right away. The problems with Big Top are ... intentional. Turnabout Big Top is a simple but compelling mystery wrapped up in an overcomplicated and uncomfortable dressing.

.... TGAA 2-2/Memoirs!Kokoro has great dressing. Olive Green is one of my favourite Ace Attorney characters; Shamspeare is wonderfully punchable, it's always great to see Natsume and the Garridebs again, and Lady Quinby is one of my new favourite minor characters; I hope she comes back.

But the mystery is deeply flawed. If you've been reading my liveblog (which you don't have to to understand my point here) you'll know what I'm getting at already- I've been yelling since the first Kokoro case that the solution to What's Up With Natsume is carbon monoxide poisoning. Natsume is forgetful, jittery, and paranoid, and immediately seems to snap out of it after a few months back in Japan. Even on the witness stand, he seems a lot better! He wrote a whole book!

.... the SECOND that the gas pipes were mentioned, I knew that the solution was simple. The victim was poisoned with carbon monoxide, so no strychnine was necessary, so Natsume didn't do it. (Especially since he woke back up!) It's elegant and straightforward.

They then proceed to lampshade this fact throughout the entire case- the meterman and Lady Quinby! The whole subplot about Shamspeare stealing gas! Two people on the jury mention that gas is poisonous repeatedly! Van Zieks makes fun of us by saying we must have breathed some bad air!

-- AND THE GAME, MADDENINGLY, INSISTS THE POISON IS STRYCHNINE. There's no option to bring up that it might be the gas until the very bitter end, and so you feel like you're yelling at a character on a beloved children's TV show. "MR. NOODLE. YOUR HANDS, MR. NOODLE. THAT'S YOUR NOSE, MR. NOODLE. GODDAMMIT, MR. NOODLE."

...and then when they finally let you bring up the gas, when they finally look like they're letting you be Clever and finally FIGURE OUT THE MYSTERY...

there's poison. on the gas pipe.

there's. poison. on the pipe. that's already. full. of poison. that the murderer. was already breathing into. for pre-established convenience reasons.

GODDAMMIT, MR. NOODLE.

Like, Turnabout Big Top is loathesome, but you can follow the chain of cause and effect there, and it doesn't make you feel like Phoenix is stupid. Nobody wants to be here (including the characters!), but nobody is stupid about the events that are happening. In Memoirs of a Clouded Kokoro, it feels like Runo took a hit off the gas pipe and forgot how to lawyer. (And when Phoenix forgot how to lawyer he at least had textual amnesia.)

And the really maddening thing is that these are all problems that could have been fixed if an editor had looked at this and gone "Takumi-san, why do we need three different poisons in this case?" I have no real knowledge of how the dev on TGAA went other than what the devs have chosen to make public. But I know what writing for games is like, and I know Shu Takumi gets ... silly with his substance use when it's time to crunch. This case feels like it was either written under the influence and never edited- or drafted to just be about carbon monoxide poisoning, someone on the production team decided it needed to be more complicated, and the rewrite was never edited.

Because it would be so easy to fix this. You could even keep most of the elements in the canon case(s) -- it's not even like you need to add more assets or anything.

So here's how I'd fix it.

So 99.9999% of TGAA 1-4 /Adventure!Kokoro is fine. The Garridebs, Olive Green's near-death experience, the introduction of Natsume and the building- all just fine! It's fun! It's a lil silly! It's a good breather in between the fucking McGilded cases and the chain of logic works. The events in the chain are silly, yes, but the chain itself is logical. It leaves open a couple of very important hooks- the window tax! the "neighbours" fighting! Why Olive Green was there in the first place! - but it works as a standalone case and it ends satisfactorily enough. Our main concern at the end of the case is that Olive and Natsume are gonna be okay, and we get that resolution!

Untilllllll... we flash back to Memoirs, and after another ~!brilliant!~ deduction by Sholmes, we've put Natsume back in jail. The opening to Memoirs - basically everything until we get into court - is fine! If you cut down on the foreshadowing of the gas- leave one or two mentions maybe, but don't go nearly as hard on it- it works to set everything up.

Day one of the case focuses on proving that the tea couldn't have been poisoned (and therefore that Shamspeare is stealing his gas), and most of the elements of that still work too- there just needs to be a little more textual focus on the fact that step one of any court case is proving the prosecution's opening argument wrong. before we are allowed to prove that something else occurred, we have to prove that things couldn't have gone down the way Van Zieks says they did.

it's once we've done that that everything starts to fall apart in the canon case-- the canon case tries to set up poison on the gas pipes, but we can do better. First rule of mystery writing is don't hang a gun on the wall you don't shoot, right? We've hung so many miles of gas pipe in these walls, it's a crime not to use them.

In the investigation interlude between days 1 and 2, we should get two pieces of information before we go back to the Garridebs:

Natsume explains that he's almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning once, when the pilot light on his stove died. He thinks that this is the curse, of course, but it's obvious that something's wrong with the building.

Olive Green is getting discharged from the hospital, and plans to go home and end her life. We stop her from doing so, but she's too rattled to tell us why.

We then go back to the Garridebs, and pointedly ask Mr. Garrideb about the maintenance and upkeep of the gas; is it really in such good condition that he can use it to spy on people? He's said the pipes are leaky. He bitches, at length, about how he's had to replace most of the piping after a tenant died. We get the story of Duncan Ross (and get it repeated if we investigate Shamspeare's place and show Olive the photograph).

We investigate Shamspeare's place, get the stuff he stashed under the floor, discover that he's been getting really familiar with the wall under the gas pipe (and I would have them make a joke about the Romeo and Juliet showdown being, uh, lewd), and discover the letter Olive sent him. We also get the Selden case file from Gregson.

Day two in court is where things really start to change. In canon, it's a mess of proving that there's poison on the gas pipe- but there's poison in the gas pipes already. It's dumb. You've been listening to me yell about this for several thousand words now. So instead:

Day two is about proving that someone else could have entered the flat. Day three is about proving that something else could have entered the flat.

Day two, we get the results from Scotland Yard that there was no poison in the tea. When we examined Shamspeare's apartment, we found the letter from Olive Green; she's our next lead, and besides, the gang is a little worried about her all things considered. Unfortunately, the only way to check up on her is to accuse her of attempted murder. This is an Ace Attorney case, and we're obligated to be in court today. If we can't go to her, we'll bring her to us. Ryunosuke is pretty sure she didn't try to kill anyone- look at her! She's so wet! - but he is pretty sure she was in the apartment when she shouldn't have been, and if she could have gotten in there, who's to say someone else couldn't have?

So, in an attempt to find the real killer, he accuses Olive. In the cross-examination, it becomes clear that:m

Olive initially thought that her boyfriend was cheating on her with someone in the building- obviously not the elderly maid, she clearly had a thing for the landlord!, but that only left Shamspeare.

(wow, he's bisexual! I didn't know that gif goes here.)

Olive was furious with Shamspeare- especially since her boyfriend was found dead shortly after he moved in. She was convinced that Shamspeare killed him in a crime of passion, and wanted revenge.

Her plan was to use strychnine to poison some food in the apartment. Unfortunately, as we've established previously, there's no food in the apartment.

Furthermore, on her way in, she gets caught by Mrs. Garrideb-- who assumes she's there to see Mr. Garrideb, and who gets Incredibly Jealous. Olive gets turned away, but no matter- she waits til the shouting starts, and sneaks back in. It's easy enough to get into the crappy apartment with the broken locks, and easier still to find Shamspeare's not so secret hiding place.

She goes in and finds nothing to poison, and decides that, while she's here, she's going to try to find some evidence that this man killed her fiance. Or, at the very least, if she can't murder him, she can steal something he values.

She finds nothing linking Shamspeare to Duncan. Instead, she finds information linking Shamspeare to Selden, and she recognizes the name from the papers. She steals the evidence, and decides that Scotland Yard should prbably have this- even if it implicates her in a crime.

(I would probably make Selden a much more notorious criminal for this to work- maybe some serial murders on top of the burglaries, maybe stole something belonging to the Crown.)

On her way out, she turns to go down Briar Road... and is promptly hit on the back by the knife falling from the window above, and rushed to the hospital. No one searches her pockets beyond looking for her name, and she's out of commission for several days.

This is also where she puts together for us that she's had an absolutely rotten several months, she's so depressed that she decided to kill herself, but she has enough of a spine and a conscience to want to see justice for Duncan - one way or another! - before she met her end.

We prove all of this... but that doesn't answer the question of who poisoned Shamspeare. There's a very annoying moment where Van Zieks convinces the jury that Olive is perjuring herself and poisoned something anyway, even though we've proven there wasn't anything to poison- but we talk them around. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes, and while Olive's (probably) going to get tried for theft (haha spoilers), it's clear by the end of the day that this lead is going nowhere.

So if the poison wasn't in the tea and the poison wasn't brought in by someone else, it had to already have been in the apartment. Day three is dedicated to figuring out where it could have come from and what the killer's motive was. And there's one really obvious source...

It's the gas. Instead of bringing back Bruce fucking Fairplay, I'd make the foreman of the jury a doctor. Not a hack surgeon- a Broad Street doctor, comfortably middle-aged and rich and not prone to nonsense. He's well aware of what gas poisoning looks like, and by day three of watching us cross-examine Shamspeare and Natsume, he can't help but step in. Both of these men are clearly suffering from chronic carbon monoxide poisoning.

Van Zieks- to his deep and profound displeasure- can't disagree, and has a frustrated rant about wasting the court's time on an accident. That, of course, he blames us for. Ryunosuke goes, "Ah, but it was no accident", and we call Mr. Garrideb as a witness.

This is fairly short, but Mr. Garrideb just replaced the pipes. (He has reciepts! He bitches about it at length! But not too much length because we have a lot to get through today and Quinby Altamonte threatens him with her umbrella. She's not a maid so he's not interested.)

Speaking of Quinby Altamonte, she contributes information about the process of installing certified Altamonte pipes and meters, and specifically, about how you can blow into a pipe (and turn off all gas flames in the rest of the house) to check the gas flow.

The piece that looks most important right now is that we have Mr. Garrideb's record of payment and the Altamont records of certification- the pipes are less than three months old and have no leaks. .

The workman on the jury corroborates this, as he's worked on the house- and he points out that you have to be exceptionally careful in tenements like this, because the tenants use their gas stoves for heat. You have to leave it on all night, so you don't freeze to death in the cold London winter, and you wouldn't want to risk poisoning someone by blowing out the pilot light on their stove.

We now have all the pieces. Or, almost all. We can prove now that the killer could have blown into the pipes to turn off all the flame in the building. This wouldn't affect the Garridebs upstairs, as they use a fireplace for heat and go to bed early, turning off all their lights... but Natsume stays up all night reading, and has complained that the pilot light on his stove has turned itself off before.

If Shamspeare wanted to kill Natsume, he could have blown out the lights- and gotten a mouthful of gas if he wasn't careful doing it. After all, he isn't a trained technician- he's an out of work actor.

"My learned Japanese friend- SURELY you aren't suggesting that this - ugh- upstanding young actor is the murderer and not the victim."

Yes, Mr. Van Zieks. That's exactly what we're suggesting.

The prosecution pitches a hissy fit, drinks heavily, and insists that we need a motive. We've got most of it, but we need one final piece- it's contained in the evidence against Olive Green, which we had to coax dear Gregsy into giving us before we got to court today.

The law of conservation of characters suggests that if you bring up a master criminal who "died" three months ago, and bring up an out of work actor who appeared from the void ... three months ago... they're the same fucking person. I thought that this was where the case was going, and I thought the writers were so clever for setting this up- obviously the prancing git with exaggerated mannerisms was hiding his true identity! But they made him his cellmate and that's ... workable, I guess, but not as fun.

If I was writing this, Shamspeare is Selden, putting an antic disposition on to cover his tracks while he tries to get his treasure back. He thought it would be easy- move back into his old apartment, no one wants to live there anyway, and it wouldn't be suspicious to have someone come out of nowhere and leave much the same way in a few months. No one lives in the Garridebs' building for long. But noooo, someone had to move into his apartment and someone had no intention of leaving until he was happily married in a few years.

So on top of whatever other crimes Selden- I mean Shamspeare- committed, he had to get the other lodger out of the way. And he figured out how to do it without being detected- using the gas pipe to blow out the pilot light on the stove upstairs. He killed Olive's boyfriend, and planned to swap apartments- but he wasn't allowed to, due to the pipe replacement. In the meantime, Natsume signed a lease, and as soon as work was completed, he moved in.

Shamspeare had to get rid of him, and figured the same trick would work twice. No one noticed the first time. The pipe replacement was a kink in the plans, but you can always blame a tired workman, a faulty installation, or a careless foreigner not understanding how a gas stove works. He's been trying for months, now, but he has to leave the apartment sometimes-- and Natsume, not sleeping at night and getting increasingly paranoid, keeps turning off the gas before he goes to bed.

The asshole just doesn't have the decency to die!

So Natsume has been slowly getting poisoned for weeks, but it's not to the point where it's even remotely lethal- it's just enough to make him incredibly twitchy, paranoid, and depressed. Great! Even better when he gets accused of murdering Olive- and gets taken out of the apartment and thrown in jail for several nights. Shamspeare at first assumes that this is his cue- he's on trial for murder at the Old Bailey against the Reaper! He's not coming back!

But Natsume doesn't have the fucking decency to die! He's acquitted thanks to us-- and Shamspeare decides he's had enough. One way or another, Natsume is going to die the night he comes home.

And then Natsume has the gall to try to be friendly.

Without the treasure that's stashed in Natsume's room, Shamspeare has no money. His plan to invite Natsume over for a meal (to poison him) falls through before it can begin because he can't buy food. Then Natsume brings his own tea- and of course would notice if it tasted wrong; he can't even put soap in it. (If I were writing this, "eating soap" would be a proper running gag, and this would be the ultimate payoff.)

Okay, time for plan B. Exhaust Natsume, make him go home and go to bed, and try the gas thing again. One very interesting literary-themed seduction-slash-argument later, this seems like it's succeeding. Until, when Shamspeare (in his own exhaustion) screws up the routine he's been doing for months and accidentally breathes in a mouthful of gas.

But Shamspeare gets an idea. Natsume's already been accused of murder once. The guy looks shifty as hell. (Mostly because of the gas poisoning, but that's neither here nor there.) If he gets acquitted of a murder and then a day later gets accused of another murder, surely the Reaper will get him this time, right? The Reaper's probably already mad that one of his victims has gone free-- he'll relish the chance to put an end to this properly.

(Van Zieks, in the background, is deeply offended at the idea of being used as a murder weapon.)

So Shamspeare fakes his own murder. He just barely manages to stage the crime scene before he passes out, and figures that either he'll wake up in a few hours (this has happened before while he was figuring this method out), or they'll both fucking die, one way or another.

But thanks to us- and Olive Green's little theft- not only does he get exposed as a murderer, his identity as Selden is also uncovered. He's going to go to trial very shortly, for 1) attempted murder of Soseki Natsume, 2) murder of Duncan Ross, 3) So Much Gas Fraud, 4) escaping prison, 5) perjury, because we feel like it.

Soseki Natsume is NOT GUILTY!

(he's also fed up with England, the English judicial system, English racism, and gas heating. He's going back to Japan, perhaps also to the seaside, for his health.)

Gregson tells us that they're granting Olive clemency because she provided evidence to the Crown. She gets to go free. We have one last conversation with her where we give her the letter we found at Garrideb's place- which got entered into the Court Record. It's a love letter from Duncan. We don't ever actually use it in court- but we use it now. She gets her closure that Duncan wasn't cheating on her - and she's satisfied with Von Zieks taking over her quest for revenge.

She's not sure she has the heart to go back to art school- so many of her happy memories with Duncan are there- but she says she wants to do her best. Susato suggests that with her passion for justice, she'd make an excellent judicial assistant. Perhaps even an attorney in her own right? Are women allowed to do that in England? Well, Olive Green has enough guts and heart to do it even if she isn't technically allowed- it's not like she was allowed to burgle Shamspeare's apartment either.

The case ends with another art student becoming a law student thanks to a doomed lost love! Happy endings all around. Tune in in two to five business years for the spinoff game, Olive Green: Ace Attorney. (She defends a lot of people who are technically guilty of a crime, but not THAT crime, or not under THOSE circumstances, or The Fucker Had It Coming, You See.)

So yeah, that's how I'd rework the case. @raymondshields - eat well.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 6 thoughts

today's adventure with our favorite agents didn't really do a lot for me but. at least it wasn't super sad? so let's go? i guess?

liveblog begins NOW!

this episode sounds like it is gonna make me squeamish. extremely so. and also i just read the rest of the episode descriptions for the season and i’m sad so i really hope this is SOMEHOW a happy one. hey, listen, it’s possible!

author’s note: sometimes i hate being right. sometimes i hate thinking, boy, this sure looks like it’s gonna make me feel lightheaded, and it does.

oh, how i look forward to diving into the fluff fic recommendations from my last post…. <3 

but we must suffer through canon, no?

we open with someone about to undergo some liposuction, a thing i have never wanted to see. the patient is being wheeled in and the doctor is being informed of what kind of appointment he has next. the doctor is really really scrubbing his hands to the point i thought he was shaking and OH! his hands are very bloody. oh. i do not think that is clean. 

oh god i’m in for a rough ride this episode aren’t i, i realize as we see him bleed through his gloves and begin the surgery. OHHHHH an incision. I AM NOT LOOKING I AM NOT LOOKING. i am looking a little OUGH is THAT what this procedure looks like from the doctor’s end??? oh my gosh. oh man. the… sucking…

deep breathing.

the nurse goes to see a different patient and explains she doesn’t know where the doctor is. the doctor is… currently REALLY going ham on the sucking. WHAAAA we see the blood fill up the tube and oh man i’m not joking like straight up being so honest w you i can feel my body growing faint. i actually did not look at the screen until the intro because that was too close for me. and yes i understand he was….um. going TOO hard.

oh mein gott… the things i do for these two agents….

save me intro. save me pretty picture of scully. and that scene where they burst in with the guns and flashlights. save me.

okay. i’ve regained most of my feeling in my head. now the doctor is here, very sorrowfully explaining how he was watching himself do those things without having any control over it.

ah, he is speaking to mulder, who suggests that it may be spirit or demon possession. 

so mulder and scully are here talking to the doctor, but the lawyer says he did NOT want mulder talking to him lmaooo. 

scully asks what meds he’s taking and the lawyer again shuts them down. rude as hell. she wants to know about his sleeping pills. let her doctor as needed tf

oh…. scully going straight into a detailed explanation of how his medication worked <3 i just love her… this is why i suffer through the fat sucking (which has now occurred multiple times??)

why is mulder eyeing this nurse. don’t think i didn’t notice that…

this doctor was taking more than a sleeping pill a day, and she says it has controversial effects, so maybe that could make a guy do such a thing. it’s a good start to a theory.

she seems mad as hell that this space is being used for cosmetic surgery and not as a hospital and i love that she has some righteous rage going on there… let her save some damn lives!! 

“everyone’s doing it… or so i’ve heard” <- the thought of mulder getting plastic surgery is so silly… like is he not already the most gorgeous fellow alive

mulder’s on the floor looking at some weird marks and drawing a pentagram in the victim’s blood. average behavior for a guy like him. not convincing to scully, however.

scary facts with scully: deaths due to doctor's errors are upwards of 80,000 a year! that’s horrific and for my own sanity i’m not going to google how those stats have changed 

“i don’t think it’s a simple possession, scully, i think it’s sorcery or black magic or something like that” (said with his hands on his hips in the standard mulder pose) love him so bad…. please recite to me the different levels of magic in order of complexity

they run into the nurse who was on call at the time the sucking incident went down, and she is like idk how it could happen… but when mulder tells her the doctor is claiming he was possessed, she says “i guess it’s cheaper than malpractice insurance” LMAO i like her… don’t tell me she was the one doing the sorcery or something, let us have one nice side character who makes it out alive 

(author's note: ...)

then the agents try to talk to a doctor, but she says the patient can’t wait, which sparks more scully bitterness. mulder is watching the surgery stream. weird fellow

cutscene to a table with a conspicuous pentagram on it. someone is saying they need to keep calm. it seems they are the doctors at the facilities?

okay, so another procedure is going on. the patient says she’s getting a skin peel but the nurse is putting LEECHES ON HER?? man what the hell is going on here. and it’s the nice nurse who is doing it too 😭😭😭

mulder is making faces in the mirror now, seeming to mull the possibility of getting rhinoplasty over LMAOOO but scully knocks at his door… it’s video time!! woohoo, pop that bad boy in the VHS player!!

aww, it’s not a fun time video. it’s the video of the killing, and mulder claims to see a pentagram. scully is gagged that the doctor stabbed/sucked the dude to death, but i’m choosing to focus here on her beautiful freckles…..

he’s saying that a pentagram is for protection, so it wouldn’t even make sense, BUT “it does make sense that witchcraft or black magic would find a theater in a place like this, preying on the weak and vainglorious” <- woah... he's a philosopher

get yourself a man who can explain the positive connotations of pentagrams and other nerd stuff with 100% sincerity

oh my god, mulder is sitting on the bed and looking up at scully here, and i need it FRAMED. do you know the scene i’m talking about? i’d give you the time stamp if i had it. the way he’s looking at her…. oh my goodness... my heart. 

the stomach pills the doctor was taking had an ingredient used in hexing rituals. live scully response: “well, if it’s that simple, why don’t you put out an APB for someone riding a broom and wearing a tall black hat?” <- LMAOOOO get his ass

he scrunches up his nose at this comment and oh my gosh. oh… i want to hold this grown man.

BUT he is saying the ritual might not be over yet, while he stares up at her so adoringly, and man… i’m so sensitive 

okay back to the hospital, where this shady coalition of doctors seems to be debriefing. the nurse is there, who i am now suspicious of for engaging in leech-related activities. 

oh! one of the other doctors went into a patient’s room and started burning their face with a laser. luckily, this is visually unrealistic enough for me to not nearly faint this time.

so this doctor who did the face lasering- dr. ilaqua- is now being seen by scully. and he is on the same sleeping medication as the first guy!!!

back at a computer, mulder is looking at before and after rhinoplasty pictures. NO... i love his nose… he had BEST NOT DO A DAMN THING to it. and he’s holding a pencil up to test how straight his nose is and MY MAN. STOP. you are beautiful. who told you otherwise. i love his nose.........

oh! the leeches were used to make a pentagram on the victim’s body. this is not a good sign.

this creepy panel of doctors is meeting again when the agents arrive and do not give a fuck about their meeting. yes!! more agents walking into places without knocking!!! it is my favorite! it sustains me!

scully says she’s sorry to barge in but it’s a matter of urgency whilst not looking sorry in the slightest. which suits her!

and one of the doctors- dr. franklyn- is explaining that there were similar deaths 10 years ago… and they’re pinning the blame on the nurse!!! saying she was there 10 years ago and just transferred back in!!!

i do not believe it in the slightest that if she IS involved in this, she is doing it on her own. but the doctor says she left early. where to?

well, the camera takes us to go do some creepy chanting, of course! in a room filled with candles and statues and jewelry. and she’s naked i think too which is a risk around so many open flames. okay and now some hair is being cut. but it’s not the nurse who is doing the chanting nor the trimming. whoever it is seems to be falling asleep. 

the agents are here, and it is dark, and they are not messing around. they are going to this creepy house. with a cat meowing and a broom on the steps! i see what you did there.

mulder jokes that the broom gives them probable cause LMAO and then he starts to open the door as if it actually does… only to find a pentagram!!! dun dun DUUUUN!

it’s kicking the door down time, a good time in my opinion. where they hold the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other… yeah. always a showy move. never gets old.

oh no!! scully finds the ritual space!! what could she have been doing in here?, she asks... girl i think you know damn well lmao

dr. franklyn from the council is coming home to his mansion… and his lights won’t turn on. that’s suspicious. that’s weird. 

it’s very very quiet as he goes into his bathroom… AND FINDS SOMETHING WRITTEN ON BLOOD IN THE WALL!!

it looks like latin which i sadly cannot read :(

well, it could be blood OR lipstick, all things considered

and the tub is flowing with blood which is not a welcome sight. as he stares at his reflection like narcissus, something LEAPS out and GETS HIM!! so now there is a very bloody person loose in his house!!

he goes to call 911 but gets put on hold… as this person is going to TOWN on him with a knife. 

the agents roll up and we see that it is the NURSE who is covered in the blood and just did the stabbing!!!! she says she needs to be let go, but i’m not gonna lie, i think that would be a very bad idea. mulder wants to chat. she’s saying she’s trying to stop “them”, but they’re too powerful… and then she… chokes up needles?? oh. and blood. 

scully says get her in surgery NOW and also i’m going with her to the ER. while mulder looks at all the pins on the ground from her insides and then PICKS ONE UP???? the germs…..

so dr. franklyn got away and is being stitched up by one of the other doctors. they are not seeming to be enjoying the witchcraft theory. mulder watches dr. franklyn lay down in his bed and then when he leaves he starts to levitate!!!! what!!! and he’s smiling while doing this!!!

who are these weirdos…

it’s 3:40 AM and mulder has his demon books out, but really he’s looking at himself again in the mirror. bro is insecure and it’s making me sad. 

a knock at the door. scully!! at nearly 4 am. “god, you look tired”, says mulder, in a way that expresses concern rather than being mean. and she actually doesn’t look tired at all because it’s TV, but i’ll suspend my disbelief again. 

anyway, the nurse died from throwing up hundreds of pins. but how did they get IN there…

it has to be allotriophagy, says mulder, consulting his witchcraft encyclopedia! when you’re possessed and cough up strange and horrible things! which i shall use as an excuse next time i need to call in sick to work.

he stole the book from the nurse’s house, and also a calendar, where he found april 30th starred. and he explains it is one of the “four greater witches’ Sabbaths”, a natural thing for an FBI agent to know! /s

oh get this… the high holy days correspond to the birthdays of the victims!!! so that would be a good way to predict who is next.. but mulder says the nurse was trying to protect them with the pentagram, and she must have known something about dr. franklyn!!

so the doctors are talking about having a good thing going and people trying to take it away… i guess they're all in on this?

dr. franklyn has another procedure coming up, but the other doctor is like no dude you look terrible and you can’t mess this up, we'll get shut down, i’m doing it 

and gasp!! there is a patient going in that was born on one of the holy days!!! and that patient is going into surgery right now!

OH MY GOSH HE BURNED HER FACE OFF. THERE IS NO FACE LEFT. WHAT. WHAT DID I JUST SEE. 

so now they’re talking to another doctor, dr. shannon. they’re talking about how they successfully covered up the death cases from 10 years ago because they have made a TON of money doing plastic surgery. she says 4 patients died and a doctor named dr. cox worked himself to death. hmm...

mulder says to run dr. cox's photo through a cosmetic program… and it makes dr. franklyn… woah… spoooooky……

now we hear some labored scraping as dr. franklyn is doing knife twisting. carving… something. very sweatily. gross.

mulder’s theory is that dr. cox killed those patients in order to become dr. franklyn through some blood sacrifice to make himself pretty. i mean... did it work? let’s discuss. he looks fine, but not "i killed four people to look this good" fine.

now he’s getting some more tools… and he’s hurting the other doctor, dr. shannon!! with his mind! he didn’t even touch her!

mulder is at dr. franklyn's house with scully and they have their guns. god they’re beautiful. and she’s standing on a pentagram!! that has been inverted!!! 

“they represent the goat of lust attacking heaven with its horns”, he says about the pentagram <- he’s SUCH a nerddddd omfggg

and he wrote in all the names of the patients he killed in his carving!! including dr. shannon!!! uh oh...

and they’re bringing dr. shannon in for surgery, saying she swallowed something.

dr. franklyn is…. cutting into his scalp. i am not looking so don’t worry. 

mulder says do not let them operate on dr. shannon!!!!

oh my goodness, franklyn is just. cutting into his face. and i’m not looking but i am HEARING. the noises that are being produced.

they’re cutting into shannon and bleh. blehhh.

scully bursts in and says stop the surgery NOW!! and they’re all, who tf are you, get out of here!!! but she says i am a DOCTOR you need to LISTEN TO ME!! i love when she does that!

mulder is on the prowl for dr. franklyn. and he sees that he made a pentagram in blood. OH MY GOD HE CUT HIS OWN FACE OFF?? and left it there like a snake shedding it’s skin 😭😭

they pulled a ton of surgical instruments out of dr. shannon… so mulder says franklyn must have failed to complete his ritual….

but he managed to kill some other person who was born on halloween…. okay, that wasn’t a happy ending….

OH! dr. franklyn has a NEW FACE and is now getting a job in LA!

so… he’s just gonna… keep doing successful surgeries for 10 years and then take a little break to go on a killing spree, get a new face, and dip?

well. at least he sticks to a schedule?

um. okay. so what am i thinking here….

well, i did nearly faint many times. i am not looking forward to editing my notes and reliving that. i do not think this is an episode i would give a rewatch based on how i reacted to it.

but, the last few episodes have been super dark, and this one somehow felt… lighter? despite everything. we got some jokes in there and some silly time. and even if it ended on a “oh no, he’s still out there!” reveal, it was somehow less emotionally draining than the last few. 

was it ridiculous? yes. but was it also kind of refreshing after the last two episodes? also yes! which i think is a testament to how dark things have been rather than the quality of this episode. 

it was fine. it didn’t really do a whole lot for me. i mean, interesting to think of plastic surgery as devil worship, i guess, but potentially a reductive take. idk. i guess i don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about these things. 

things i DID like in this episode: that conversation mulder had with scully, where he was sitting on the bed looking up at her like he was going to ask for her hand in marriage or to be best friends forever and ever or talk about the meaning of being alive or some similar topic. it was so terribly tender. also, facts with scully! tell me about controversial drugs!! and mulder, tell me about the symbolism of a pentagram! i love these nerds! that was kind of it, though.

it was an episode. an episode with some good things and some meh things. that’s sort of par for the course. just… next time, less surgery. please. for me?

[strixcattus]

Happy Pristine Cut day!

I will be liveblogging my Pristine Cut playthrough. These posts will not be tagged with #slay the princess due to spoiler reasons, and I'll keep them long and relatively far between for spam-avoidance reasons. (I understand there's some sort of daily image limit in effect, so I'll try not to hit it, either... even though I'm not sure what it is.) They will be tagged with both #pristine cut spoilers and #scpstptpc (Strix Cattus Plays Slay The Princess The Pristine Cut, previously #spstppc which should then be self-explanatory), so those'll be the tags you want to block. I'll also be putting every one under a cut, so no one should be caught off-guard. For anyone who does want to see these posts, read on.

Again, the game plan:

My first run is going to be me, roleplaying as though it's December 25th of last year and I'm playing the game for the first time. Not exactly—I'll cut out the bit where I thought it'd keep overall run progress if I quit and lost a piece of my third route, and just pretend I wanted to do it the second way from the start (unless I see a better option?). The relevant routes here are Tower -> Fury and at least a hint at Sp3ctre.

The second run is where I hit on all the new and expanded chapters. Expanded ones first, ending on either Dams3l or Sp3ctre depending first on whether I've already gotten Sp3ctre and second on last-minute whim.

The third run is to fill in all the gaps. Adversary -> Fury, maybe. Stubborn!Den. (Or should I do Stubborn!Den first, and save Skeptic!Den for the end of this run, on the assumption that it will probably make a good final route? Or should I just do Skeptic!Den first like I'd planned, because it's more honest to what I did on my own the first time around?) Any other Voices to any new chapters, if I can figure them out. (If Prison3r is a guts trio chapter, that's one!)

If I need a fourth run to check out things like Skeptic!EotN, Moment of Clarity, and even more Voices in, say, Adversary -> Fury or the new chapters, I'll do one. I'll try to do as much of these runs in a day as I can, but I will admit this is a rather large amount. (Ha! The naïvété of youth. Is that too many diacritics?)

And, of course, I'll be keeping my bingo card updated:

(Link to my previous pinned post here so I can find it once I'm done with this)

[batking-lich]

i have a fanfic take, idk if it might be too spicy tho

i wonder how much of the "no one comments on fanfic anymore" thing has to do with the state of author/reader relationships these days?

like *actual published authors* are out here bullying and harassing people for giving them a 4 star review instead of 5, and god help you if you only give them a 1. so many booktube videos i watch have some kind of "reviews are for readers, author dni" disclaimer due to how common it is for authors to harass reviewers, or anyone who has anything less than 5⭐️ to say about their book. there are whole discussions surrounding whether authors should even be allowed to read reviews these days given that they can't be trusted to not go after people.

it feels like there's just this inherent hostility between readers and authors now, and a more concerted attempt to separate reader and writer spaces, and i can't see how this doesn't have at least some kind of effect on the way people interact with fanfic authors when fandom already has a reputation for toxicity, earned or not; especially when so many posts i see from people who write fanfic are some flavor of "psa if you say anything critical about a fanfic you're a dick, people are doing this for fun for free and how dare you say anything critical about something you're getting for free"

i do book liveblogs here, and it's always in the back of my head that the author could find one, not like my off-the-cuff thoughts, and decide to ruin my life over it. it's an anxiety i'm only able to look past due to the fact that i'm an internet nobody; a max of like 3 people will even see it depending on how i tag it, and nobody really pays any attention to my rinky dink neocities website. if i got any kind of notoriety i'd probably stop doing them.

i admittedly don't read much fanfic, but the idea of leaving a comment on a fanfic, no matter how positive? just putting myself in the wolf's mouth like that??? absolutely not! while there IS a way to comment anonymously, basically all the fic writers i know of are fandom olds who have become veterans of ip wizardry; i have no faith that just commenting anonymously would help much if a writer really had a bone to pick with me. and if i had say, a discord server, where i could talk about said fic without worrying about the author seeing it and saying anything, and then i found out the author had found out about it? i would be mortified!

this is obviously not a complete explanation, like this definitely doesn't explain the people who do comment but only to bitch at the author for not updating enough, but idk. just something i've been thinking about lately.

[pichlive]

Main

Hello! I'm Pichu/Peaches.

This is my liveblog-- currently liveblogging Lily's Well.

The way this will operate is I'll mainly focus on one media at a time-- if I want to explore said media more, or finish up extra content, I'll be putting those on separate blogs dedicated to said media. I'll still be using the tags I used here though.

I'll also review things once I've finished them, and give my final thoughts on them-- or at least as they're finished so far. Some stuff I'll play on here will be technically incomplete.

I'm always happy for suggestions! Just be patient. It can take me some time to get through stuff. Some things because of the category they're in or length may go onto a different blog-- more on that below.

My policy on any content that could be spoilery for a tag is that I'll put it behind a read more, and then after a month or so, it'll be unspoiled-- if it needs more time behind a read more, please tell me!

My tastes on this blog will vary a huge amount, and thus, i cannot guarantee that everything will be sfw (anything too nsfw/nsft will be warned and behind a readmore). Minors can follow, but at your own discretion.

I'm also going to say that if you don't like something that I'm liveblogging, that you either filter that particular tag or block the blog in general. Otherwise, for the most part, I'm not down to be bullied or lectured about for what I'm playing on here. There may be some exceptions here and there, but they're more likely to be very circumstantial (ergo-- more likely to be more indie projects wherein the creator is doing something extremely harmful and I feel like my liveblogging is spreading their influence further-- but again, extremely niche situation).

No strict DNI, will block if needed. Bigots blocked on sight.

Some content is segmented into different blogs-- usually because the length of said content would make it very hard to focus on other things on this blog, or because I just find that other blogs make it easier for me to focus on other content I'm also curious about.

They are as follows:

Archie Sonic

One Piece

Ultrakill

Slay the Princess

Undertale Yellow (other than True Pacifist)

Webcomics

Chao Garden

Past liveblogs (to be catalogued-- many of my past liveblogs are tagged in such a way that it makes it difficult to find them due to not using the tag systems I do now. I'll try and find and catalogue as many of them as I can)

Lily's Well

My tags are also as follows:

#pichlive is my general tag

My liveblogging tag for things will be #pichlive [name of media]-- if you want to filter out my content in the media tag, just blacklist that if you don't wish to block.

#pichlive answers is for answering asks

#pichtalk is, for, well, general talking

#pichreview is for whenever i review content, typically after i've finally finished it/done a general playthrough or whatever or whatever.

#pichstop is for any mid-reviews of what i've done so far of the media i'm consuming.

#reblog

more will be added as needed.

Current To-live-blog list:

immortality

The Heilwald Loophole

Memoralysis

in stars and time

great god grove

romance the backrooms

amanda's adventure 2

I cannot Drown

Lost Cartridge: Cold Read

penthos

shipwrecked 64

bastion

Catboi game series

dialtown

hi-fi rush

caligula effect: overdose

caligula effect 2

I Was A Teenage Exocolonist

my friendly neighborhood

ghost trick

needy streamer overload

Milk outside of a bag of milk outside of a bag of milk

Oxenfree 2

chants of sennar

Ddlc +

Scarlet Hallow

Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms

spec ops: the line

utena

sorry we're closed

Paradise Killer

30 birds

american arcadia

pizza tower

f is for family

Infinity Train

Amphibia

Mob psycho 100

Will add as I find even more stuff I wanna experience

[rose-reads-visualnovels]

bells toll as the seagulls cry

After much badgering from my friend and now ask-screener @nauseating-nostalgia, who lately has been obsessed with @pochapal's comprehensive liveblog of Umineko (still at chapter 1), I've decided to read this work myself and then maybe branch off to other visual novels afterwards.

First off, I am not an expert in the mystery genre. I've read my fair bit of Sherlock Holmes and even a few Poirot novels when I was a child, but it was never my instinct to solve the cases myself - which I am told is the entire point of said novels. This read through will be a personal challenge to not simply consume this work as entertainment but also to figure out the who-dunnit before the final reveal. Since there are 8 Episodes and just the first 4 are over 600k words long, I'm quite curious how the murder mystery aspect will handle itself.

What I do consider my area of expertise though, is witches. Or at least the anime kind. I've poured over a decade of my life to Revolutionary Girl Utena, and dipped my feet into the stormy waters of Madoka and soaked myself in the lake of Princess Tutu. Witches belong in fairytales, and little girls live there in their dreams until they're forced to wake up. I wonder where exactly the Golden Witch will take me.

DISCLAIMERS

These are the things I've absorbed about Umineko after making the mistake of befriending a fan:

+ Battler (the MC) is actually a trans girl if you think about it really hard

+ Battler is incompetent

+ There is an old man sorcerer in this story which I consider to be absurd in the magical girl/witch genre. What the hell is he doing here? Get out old man, no one likes you.

+ Magic may or may not be real. Who knows? Maybe the Golden Witch is simply special effects produced by a state of the art planetarium in order to fool people into killing each other. We'll see

ANYWAYS

I'll start the liveblog soon. I'm using the ryukishi07 sprites and no voice acting because I want an experience as close to the original as possible

[jellieland]

Ok, so I haven't really done this before, but with the level and quality and effort put into this thing I would very much like to give it a proper read through. So.

Hotguyzine liveblog under the cut, starting with:

The Most Epic and Heartwrenching and Harrowing Battle of the Turn of the Century

I mean, literally from the first page this is all just so incredibly well presented. It looks so good.

And it's Joel and Lizzie with cat ears. I love it already.

"You can be average guy. Mediocre guy." Mean to him. Probably warranted! But also. Mean to him.

Wait, are Joel and Lizzie just known as Guy and Gal? That's great.

"I'M GAL!"

("and i'm. guy.")

I love them.

Oh, Scar is SUCH a reliable narrator. For sure.

"Give me all your cats[h!]" Sooo reliable. Also is that Gem with the animal control van or just someone with red hair?

Right. Right yeah of course he has a camera crew. Why wouldn't he?

I love watching Scar and Lizzie talk about their OCs together.

Wait. Is being an unreliable narrator literally his superpower? Is this is a representation of post-production editorialising, or literally what's happening? Because those have quite different implications.

HUH.

"Knocked both of the dangerous villains to ground in one hit!" What do you mean BOTH Scar, you just erased Joel from the narrative.

Ok! This is quite alarming!!

"With great hotness comes greater guy?" I'm going to choose to ignore everything else that's happening and say yes, you should definitely go with this one, Scar, for sure.

---

Meet Cute

Now first of all, I see that pun in the title. I see it, and I appreciate it!

"I should've figured it was you." I really love the visual representation of the phrase "dripping with malice", there. I also love the Cuteguy design!

"That was kinda rude" Ok that. That's way less extreme than I was expecting from the initial reaction.

"Anyway byeeeee!!!" Oh so they're BOTH annoying weirdos. Perfect.

---

King for a Day

Oh hello Bdubs. This should be fun.

Ren: "You're

Hotguy?"

Bdubs: "How did you do that with your mouth."

"Yeah. What if." Oh Bdubs is TIRED tired huh.

I love how Ren is just immediately fully on board. Like. Yeah he would be like that wouldn't he. He's so enthusiastic it's great.

I-85 box??? Iskall crumbs???? Ooh, and Cub! And... maybe Doc?

Hey there Grian. Have some flowers (and also some dangerous paperwork but don't worry about that part)!

"I'm not joining your little king's court." Oooh, I see. I see. Hey, at least he kept the flowers, right, Scar?

Getting Pearl to publish a hit piece immediately is maybe a little extreme, but fair enough I guess!

"They're gonna throw TOMATOES at me in the town square, man!" Don't worry, Ren. In another life, they already did.

---

Mumblr. Incredible.

Shoutout to teeth dog. My new favourite superhero.

Oh no. The discourse. The discourse. It's too real.

Maple Prince. Etho is a cryptid. Amazing.

"so if heroes are showing crafted personas to the public, don’t you think hotguy and cuteguy having matching names and outfits at least verges on queerbaiting?" I don't. Really have anything to say about this. But I feel like I have to include something that dealt me this amount of psychic damage in the liveblog.

---

G-Team

"I'm off to visibily protect the public." Yeah, that sounds about right.

Oh, the gala was hosted by Doc! And he even made sure to specify that there were DEFINITELY NO ulterior motives! Well I don't see how anything could possibly have gone wrong then!

"wearing his lab coat to a gala?? sus af." No I think that's just Cub, Grian. Although to be fair, "sus af" is maybe his default state now that I think about it.

Ah, it's Sherlock Grian! I love it.

Oh is this conversation taking place in Grian's mind palace? That's great.

Eyy, Permit Manager Grian coming in with all his considerable power, that being opaque bureaucratic processes and hold music! It seems pretty effective.

This is such a good chase scene. The broken heart symbol on the jacket is interesting!

And there's some sculk leaking into the drain. That seems. Fine. That definitely won't come back later to cause problems, I'm sure.

---

The Case of the Missing Cub

Oh, I'm sure this isn't going to be related to the sculk at all. There's definitely nothing on the very first page that would suggest otherwise. (I'm very excited about this one, I always love sculk related stories.)

The sculk snail is actually so cute, I love it.

Uh oh, there's Cub! And he looks like he's maybe having a bad time.

Oh dear, and Grian immediately gets sculked. That's slightly concerning.

"This fight fucking sucks." You know what, that's fair, Grian.

Yay, mutually agreed upon arson! And they both looks so happy about it!

Grian. GRIAN. WHY.

The realistic notes app t-shirt with Scar's actual minecraft face, followed by the deadpan "I want this." It's perfect. It's incredible. It's definitely how Cub would react to being shown that image upon waking up in front his burning house after being possessed. It literally made me laugh out loud.

"Oh, that reminds me. Why is my house on fire?" How. How did that remind you of your house being on fire.

"I used it to season my pizza." ...Yeah. Yeah that sounds about right.

I loved this one a lot. All of the stories have been great, but I especially enjoyed this.

---

Hotguy! Has One New Mail

Oh we get the one sided Bdubs and Cub rivalry from season 7! Excellent!

All the character voices are just so perfect. Bdubs' "Founding Principles" followed by Cub's "Yeah man cool this all sounds great" are just so perfectly in character for both of them.

I want some of Cub's cool space facts, and honestly if I emailed a celebrity/superhero and they sent me a link to cool space facts in return, I would be ecstatic.

Scar sold Doc a none existent bridge. Amazing. Sorry, Beef's proxy, but the list of things you're saying Scar shouldn't have been doing certainly isn't going to convince Cub, of all people, that anything needs to change.

"why have you sent me a list of top supernovas!" WOW, Grian, ungrateful much? Enjoy your supernovas.

"he is rescuing kittens from tragically falling into rivers, an activity that has fully occupied him for the past eighteen months." To be fair I feel like if Scar could do this, he would.

"everything is completely under control" Yeah, Special Officer #49, everything I've seen about this city so far really suggests that you've got it all under control. For sure.

"Hotguy is currently in Canada fighting smallpox by shooting individual bacteria with a special crossbow, for which he has received a commendation from their Prime Minister." I love Cub's excuses for Hotguy, they're all great. Also love how Pearl's main problem with this one is apparently the lack of smallpox in Canada, when obviously the actual main problem is that Scar is banned for Canada.

"casting_directors_bdubs_is_not_feuding_with" Well I'm glad there's at least one. And of course Scar's recording a snack commercial while all this is going on.

NOOO, GRIAN'S PIZZA! This is so sad.

---

The 30 part thread by Doc is amazing. As are Bdubs' ill-advised replies.

Ooh, a good old classic Doc disproportionate twitter threat! Always love those!

Carol the zombie mention! AND she's a movie star! Let go!!

Jellie... I love her the picture is perfect. She deserves that quarter of a million likes and more.

---

Ok, this is 100 pages into the zine and has got fairly long, so I'll probably continue this in another post!

[tarisilmarwen]

It is deeeeeaaaaaad at work right now, I am going to Do Research (AKA watch the BBC miniseries production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair and liveblog through it) to take notes for my Ahsoka Silver Chair AU fixfic.

Under the Read More in case people want to go into that fic blind without any kind of spoilers.

I love the opening theme they did for the BBC Narnia stuff, it's just so warm and wholesome.

Ah Experiment House, I remember tumblr weirdos complaining that Lewis criticized English boarding schools like it for their hands-off "soft parenting" approach, which basically meant that the teachers did nothing while bullies ran rampant.

Or maybe they were weird about how Lewis seemed to imply the sex integration and female head were both bad for this particular school idk.

Anyway, enter Jill Pole, being bullied and having a crap time.

"I thought this was supposed to be a modern school where everyone was tolerant and respectful of other people's rights!"

It is a modern school, Jill, that's its entire problem alas.

Oof this is bringing back some elementary school hurts. (I too was chased around the playground for no damn reason at least once or twice.)

Props to that one male teacher that scolds the bullies.

Hello Eustace! :D

Hinting at Eustace's prior character development from Voyage, fun, fun.

So being that Sabine and Shin are filling the roles of Eustace and Jill for the fic here (somewhat, I think Ahsoka will also partly share Eustace's role) obviously I have to have one being the cynic and one being the True Believer.

Sabine is definitely gonna take the cynic role.

(Though Shin is going to be the one that receives the Signs.)

Ahhh the big cliff! I could put that as the map-reading place on Seatos where Baylan, Shin, Morgan and Marrok are camped out when Shin gets the vision from the Force about the Signs.

These effects are super dated lol.

(Part of this series' charm, frankly.)

Aslan being a right troll to Jill here lol.

I forgot how good this dialogue was.

Right, so this is gonna be the exposition dump story beat, to get us caught up. (Probably going to go to Baylan or Morgan.)

The Siiiiiiiiiiigns. :D

The music cue right here is so cozy and lovely.

The kids bungling the first Sign right off the bat, ha ha. The running theme of the book.

I think this owl is played by Warwick Davis? It sounds like him at any rate.

Trumpkin's hearing problems lol.

Ha ha I wonder if Trumpkin hitting his head on the carriage was improved/an accident.

Plus of filming this in Britain they have no shortage of actual castles to use as sets.

Delving into the angst of Narnia Time, ow.

Huyang is going to fit right into the Parliament of Owls inspired scene. (Another Exposition Dump beat.)

Backstory time!

*musing about possibly working the New Republic bureaucracy plotline in*

Lilliandil. :(

The backstory is giving me Ideas but I'm not sure how workable they'd be to integrate into the story. Maybe just as bonus filler behind the scenes for flavor idk.

(See the problem is that anything I do relating to Ezra has to have a tight lid kept on it, because that is the source of a fairly large twist. Might be able to work something in with the Noti though.)

Rillian was not taught adequate Stranger Danger I see lol.

"Accursed no longer to me." Okay Rillian, calm down. Stop thinking with your loins good sir.

Right, so as part of my agenda to Make 👏 Peridea 👏 Weird 👏, I have decided that there are going to be remnants of some kind of civilization of giants. The ancient Nightsisters had some kind of symbiotic relation to this ancient race, when they died out so did their knowledge of how to harness the Purrgil to cross the stars, so the group on Peridea was then cut off from their sisters in the main galaxy.

So lots of ruins, giant alien bones, landscapes shaped by the movement of this ancient species.

Puddleglum!

I love Puddleglum so much.

He's such an Eeyore.

Eustace trying to hold back a chuckle.

And Puddleglum is considered flighty for Marshwiggles lololol.

Jill rolling her eyes.

Jill wanting a bow and arrows instead of a knife, girl, do you even know how to shoot?

Travel montage!

Eustace boldly going up to the dragon to give it pats awww. He feels a kinship to it I bet. (Owing to his own dragoning in the last book.)

There are quite a few encounters I didn't remember from this journey, nice to get a refresher.

This stone giants sequence makes me think of the one in The Hobbit, not surprising, Tolkien and Lewis were BFFs.

Lolol Jill picking up on Puddleglum's doomerisms and tossing them back at him I love it.

Aaaaah it's her it's the Witch!

*vibrates from the dramatic irony of this scene*

Unnnngggggghh I wanna talk about the fic and how I translate the premise of this scene into it but I caaaaaaaaan't.

This actress does such a fantastic job of making the Witch seem cordial and benevolent.

So as mentioned I already have plans for a bone field on Peridea's surface (to match the bone rings around the planet, and just to emphasize the inherent deadness of the world), that's probably going to be my UNDER ME trench equivalent I'm thinking. Something Sabine misses in the moment while she's trying to get past it to somewhere else, thus missing that Sign.

The Tower is going to also be vaguely equivalent to Harfang. Not a one to one since plot points are kind of shuffled around a bit.

Man when you know the later reveal, all the giants' demeanors are so threatening and ominous.

The greenscreen isn't actually that bad in this sequence.

Drunk!Puddleglum! :D

Ooooooof the uncomfortable feelings from the Giant Queen saying to spoil Jill.

You leave Jill alone you creep.

This nightmare sequence is also quite unnerving.

Heh. This nurse giant has met her meat and now is having regrets. XD

Aslan himself turning up to repeat the Signs to them like a consternated customer service rep having to repeat their instructions for the billionth time lol.

Puddleglum insisting he can act chipper lolololol.

Jill putting on a masterclass act of "stupid little girl", love her. We stan.

"You're a growing child, we must fatten you up."

LINES THAT HIT DIFFERENT WHEN YOU KNOW THE REVEAL.

Ah ha Puddleglum's thousand yard horrified stare when the giants laugh about the talking stag they killed for the venison.

You're overdoing it just a bit, Jill.

Aaaaaaaand there's the reveal, they gon' be eaten, fun stuff.

Flee children, flee.

Oof and now for the claustrophobia part of the story.

Hello Earthmen.

Jill absolutely not wanting to go further into the dark cramped underground hole, relatable.

C.S. Lewis just randomly throwing a giant slumbering Father Time into the plot here. Just to make you even more unnerved.

This part of the fic (the underground stuff) is going to be heavily shortened, I think.

Ooooh the design of the castle is nice.

Snake figures all over the place, very clever bit of foreshadowing that.

The stonework of this set looks like cascading waterfalls or cave formations it's really on point.

Rilliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! :D

(I mean we don't know it's him yet technically but still.)

Even under the full power of his enchantment he's defying the Witch any way he can.

Love the window glasswork of this set.

Yet more snake motifs. I'm sensing a pattern lol.

Rillian's actor does unhinged mood swings very well.

Oooooh and has a very nice Kubrick Stare too.

The subtle shift of mood when Jill mentions "Rillian" and "Narnia". Frick this is so so good, Rillian is Fighting From The Inside, I love this trope I love this trope I love it I love it aaaaaaaaah.

He's just half-sprawled across this table like he's a rabid animal holding himself back my gosh the physicality of his acting it's great.

The design of the Witch's headdress, oh man, how it fans out almost like a cobra's hood. They really gave you every single hint and foreshadowing that SHE BE A SNAKE YO.

How wickedly cruel of her spell to make him believe his one hour of nightly clarity is in fact an episode of madness.

And she bade him keep his visor down and not speak when she takes him aboveground on the slim chance someone might recognize him ohhhhhhhh what a bitch.

What a bitch.

*SQUEALS ABOUT THE IMMACULATE VIBES OF THIS SCENE*

THE WITCH INTENDS TO INVADE NARNIA WITH HER ARMY FROM BELOW AND INSTALL RILLIAN AS KING TO MAKE HER CLAIM MORE LEGITIMATE, BUT THAT'S WHY SHE HAD TO ENCHANTED HIM AND KIDNAP HIM FIRST, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE STOOD FOR IT IF HE'D KNOWN WHAT SHE WAS.

AND ENCHANTED RILLIAN HAS NO IDEA THAT SHE PLANS TO TURN HIM AGAINST HIS FAMILY AND COUNTRY AND USE HIM AS A WEAPON AGAINST THEM.

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick so good.

Rillian's actor makes him so unnerving and scary here.

"I shall rule that land by the council of my Lady, who will then be my queen too." NNNNGGHGHKJHFHFHFF UNCOMFY.

Rillian's head visibly getting clearer as we watch his expression and his enchanted self can feel the spell weakening.

I may, uh, be liking this whole sequence a perfectly normal amount.

THE TITULAR SILVER CHAIR.

Yeah sooooo, this whole iconic scene here is pretty much the inspiration for the Ahsoka fic.

And That Is All I Will Say About That.

Imma just once again appreciate all the snake and serpent design motifs here.

"We have no desire to do battle with serpents." Well, see, ABOUT that Puddleglum...

Rillian's desperation. :(

I just loooooove the "Ohhhhh shit." resignation and realization in Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum when Rillian begs them in Aslan's name. (Fourth Sign FTW.)

They're just like, "Crap crap crap crap, that was it, that was the Sign, what the hell do we do now?"

Good man, Puddleglum. Love you.

Aaaaaaand it broken. SUCH A GOOD SCENE.

"Lie there in ruin, vile engine of sorcery, lest your mistress should use you upon another victim." Go hard, Rillian.

Aaaaand there be the bitch.

Go away lady. No one likes you. >:(

And she immediately starts in with the gaslighting.

Ooooh the way Rillian flinches away from her hands as they try to touch his cheeks.

Uggggggggh I hate her so much. The false concern in her voice as she tries to get Rillian back under control.

She is giving great Seventh Sister vibes her, frankly, lol.

"There's Aslan."

*THE WITCH TWITCHES*

Ha ha love it.

And here's Puddleglum's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.

Ohhhhhh this... this effect has NOT aged well.

I mean the transformation itself is fine but the final puppet is fake as hell looking.

And of course the lair begins to collapse upon Witch death.

And they don't actually explain Bism in this adaptation, pity. That was one of the cooler bits.

Bye Puddleglum.

Bye Caspian.

And here be Aslan, very happy with his bumbling charges lol.

Oh man the thorn symbolism.

"He was pierced for our iniquities, he was crushed for our transgressions."

And hello young Caspian!

He's so bright and eager I love him.

"You're there too, in our world?"

"I am... but there I have another name."

FRIIIIIIIIICK.

*cries in Christian*

And now we get that cathartic scene where we terrify the bullies. Love it. Ha ha.

Aaaaand it done.

Wheeeee! I got some good ideas from this watch. Mostly in the realm of emotional beats to recreate. I had fun, I did not remember the excellent acting on the part of Richard Henders here, it was lovely. Tom Baker as Puddleglum was a right delight and it was a decent adaptation of the book.

Now to write down my brainstorming into the fic outline lol.

[dude1818]

Oh right, I had to switch sources (again) since the website I had been using was missing a few pages in a recent chapter. This version is a little better (also translates sound effects, for example). Let's see how it did that weird dig in my last post

Well, it reads a lot more natural at least. We do know Nazuna's priorities from when she was in high school. Anyway, onto the liveblog!

Oh no, when the girlfriend in Canada shows up at your school anyway

And immediately pulls him aside for a quickie. I mentioned this in my anime liveblog, but again great use of mirrors

Oh my god. Akira called Ko because she saw his bandage was off, but I completely cracked up at Nazuna waltzing back with blood still on her mouth

Real Ryo hours

Vampire eyes. Pretty obvious since Ko was just wondering if there were vampires here in Hokkaido too. He has the same "dress like a high schooler" technique that Seri used to hunt prey. At least there was a little gap between when Kyoko explained what a vampire's glamour was, since he seems to be using that too. (Although I think that power has been obvious since Hatsuka's harem in season 1)

Okay, that's a messed up cliffhanger panel. Obviously he was trying to pick off one of the girls in Ko's group for a meal, but that's giving much more date rape vibes than "just" a vampire attack

Last chapter had Ko punch the vampire once in the gut and then cut to him carrying the girl back to their hotel. Subtle, I liked it. This chapter then filled in the rest of his and the vamp's fight. Sure

But now Nazuna and crew are also headed to the same bar to talk to the "locals," i.e. this same vampire. That's too much a coincidence. Surely this guy isn't the only vampire in Hokkaido

Wait, he recognizes Nazuna's mom?? That's wild

Now the fangs come out. Nice. I wish they would finally acknowledge that they're been dating this whole time

A bit on the nose to show off your black widow fetish to your romantic partner. I'm trying to figure out when I predicted when this was Kiku's whole deal. Maybe even back in season 1?

Huh. I was not expecting it to be that. Haru I can see wanting to be human again to be with Nazuna's dad. Kiku seems to have had this MO for way longer though

That's a hilarious use of sound effects

Not posting this screenshot, but the bath scene ends with a full frontal shot of Kyoko getting out the water, and the author simply didn't draw her nipples. Not even a pretense of modesty steam or anything, just smooth like a barbie doll

This is why I love this manga. Under all her goofiness and sexual innuendos and refusal to admit they're already dating, she really and truly cares about him

They were talking about how most human myths about vampires aren't true, but may be corrupted from stories about real vampires over the years. If that's true, it would only be appropriate that the vampire myth that feeding on a human you love kills you is corrupted from the real property that feeding on a human you love turns you human. Because what is becoming mortal again except a very delayed death? Ironic, or possibly not, that Haru falling in love with a human killed her vis a vis getting pregnant with Nazuna

Baby don't hurt me. (That's basically the plot of the whole manga, huh)

[frostiifae]

(Penacony 2.2 thoughts. Like really aggro spoilers below. Be warned.)

idk like I have a habit of liveblogging (read: gushing profusely) about things I'm enjoying, at least privately to my friends, which sometimes I feel bad about. I need to put my thoughts into words to process them, a lot of the time! so, conversely, i also feel a little obligated to put disappointment and frustration into words, too?

let's be clear, Penacony as a whole was great, 2.2 was pretty great. I love the idea of the fakeout. The buildup and presentation of almost everything was excellent. I have only two fundamental complaints, but unfortunately, they kind of touch everything else. It leaves a bit of a sour final note.

Firstly, the fakeout segment is a little too long. I think it's something I'm learning about Chinese localized media that the way that they write is a little meandering, compared to "western" media? I don't know that for sure, that's just a gut feeling I have, but based on it, I want to be forgiving - it's not the game's fault I thought I could stay up long enough to get it all done and wound up going to bed nearly three hours after I intended to.

But it's not just being upset about staying up too late, the real concern is like - I was in the mindset to see what's going on for the next story beat, and I started to get the impression that Ena's Dream was going to be the next chapter. It's fine that it wasn't - I think probably for the best, in hindsight - but it was definitely... strange, to realize I was wrong about that. It felt like a lot of the buildup and tension in what should have been Penacony's finale kind of... smushed up against a brick wall, and then had to get scraped up before we could continue. Surely, there must have been a more effective way of building the sequence?

And, kind of in line with that, my second complaint would be that I think... Penacony tried to do too much at once. There were just a couple too many concurrent storylines happening, and I think some of them had to get let down in the end.

I don't want to go too long on that though because I'm sure a lot of it will get cleaned up in companion quests and whatnot afterward. Overall, it's still a massive improvement from the Xianzhou to me. I enjoyed it a lot, and the people who are most interested in my positive feelings have heard a lot about them already. I just - kind of don't understand why you would, like. Do this. As your third major story chapter. I don't know, man. How long are you expecting this game to run, even? I guess we'll see!

[sleepymarmot]

Vertigo (1958)

[Watched on August 28th]

Please enjoy a liveblog of me watching this classic completely blind and having An Experience. (But only if you’ve seen it yourself, because this is one of the films that work much better when you know nothing in advance.)

Liveblog

The first scene between the man and the woman was the height of “as you know”. They just talk and talk in exposition while I spend several minutes trying to figure out whether they’re a couple or father and daughter.

I decided to watch this film right now because I know it was brought up in Laura Mulvey’s article about male gaze and wanted to read it without getting spoiled, and I don’t know what exactly she said about it, but I immediately noticed how the man is filmed “objectively” but the woman is shown through his eyes, following his line of sight.

Glad I know nothing about the plot because I’m genuinely intrigued.

Has she really not noticed an extremely obvious trail even once?

Oh my god I misread the dates on the headstone as the 20th century instead of the 19th and kept thinking Carlotta died just before the events of the movie. Well, this makes more sense now!

Really pretty shots with the Golden Gate Bridge.

My late grandmother must have looked a lot like the main character when she was young… They were probably born around the same time, she wears her hair in a similar way to what I remember...

Bro I know she’s the other main character and the two of you are probably going to have at least some romantic tension, but why are you grabbing her hand like that, she’s married to your friend…

I am hoping more and more that we’ll get a recap of the entire film from her POV at some point. Like her hiding in the hotel room when he came in to check, or listening in to his conversation with her husband on the phone.

This black-and-white outfit slaps

I’m glad I know nothing about this movie because I genuinely have no idea whether it’s going to be supernatural or not

I didn’t expect her to die so soon. There’s 45 minutes left! So what now? Has the husband been driving her mad to take possession of the inheritance? Is the film going to be about him from now on?

Damn, the effects in this dream sequence did NOT age well

I like how the film draw attention to the 50s pretty women looking indistinguishable. I kept wondering whether Midge and Madeleine were played by the same actress!

Huh, I suspected that she threw a fake body, but didn’t think she wasn’t alone!

Oh, so the dead body wasn’t fake, the living one was.

The film really shifted POVs, and not in a way I expected. Now we know what she’s thinking but have no idea what the fuck he is.

Oh I bet there’s class commentary on this too. I can see where the gender commentary is. I thought the perfect alluring image of upper class white femininity, mysterious and vulnerable, was just a patriarchal cinema convention, but it’s actually constructed even within the fictional universe! What a pity, to know that a man does not want a real you, only a mirage designed to be as stereotypically attractive as possible. “If I let you change me, will that do it? If I do what you tell me, will you love me?” “Yes. Yes.” “All right. All right, then, I’ll do it. I don’t care anymore about me.”

Either he has figured it out and is trying to set up a trap for the murdering husband, or he’s oblivious and poor Judy needs to grab her IDs and run far far away asap

Like, I have to be fair to the dude. From his perspective, he found a woman who is somehow an exact copy of an innocent who’s been murdered by a ghost. He’s living in a fairytale now, as far as he’s concerned she might as well be some magical changeling and if he believes enough he can bring his beloved back or something.

It’s amazing how makeup can change a face — she’s a great beauty as Madeleine and barely noticeable in Judy’s garish facepaint

Oh no is he going to push her into the bay now

“One final thing I have to do.” Nooo motherfucker

“And then, I’ll be free of the past.” Noooo

Oh he’s not pushing her into the water, he’s pushing her off the top floor

Can she push him off instead? Please Mr Hitchcock

Noo why did she kill herself at the last second??

What? That’s the end? He didn’t even jump after her?

Well this was a great movie until literally the last minute. RIP

Why are women so in love with this below average guy anyway???

Rating: between 8 and 9, I think.

[End of liveblog]

Full disclosure: I am publishing this “review” months after watching the film itself, because after reading Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” I fell into a research rabbit hole, got my hands onto a bunch of academic writing on the film, and didn’t want to post my thoughts on the film until I went through it all, in case my future self wanted to make this movie review double as literature review.

I read “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” immediately after watching the film (fighting for my life throughout the psychoanalytical sections, and skipping the paragraphs about the films I haven’t seen yet). Turns out, the analysis of Vertigo takes up only two and a half paragraphs, but it spoils everything so I’m glad I watched the film first. These paragraphs are, of course, quite insightful, except for one weird part where the author describes Judy’s acquiescence to Scottie’s demands as “exhibitionism” and “masochism”. I hope these words had very different connotations half a century ago, because this sounds like downright victim-blaming to me. The current day meaning of these words would imply that Judy enjoyed what was happening, and she made it very clear that she didn’t.

Another essay, “‘The look,’ narrativity, and the female spectator in Vertigo”, written by Karen Hollinger more than a decade later, is a more thorough analysis of this film alone that takes into account the shifts in POV I mentioned in the liveblog above, but to my disappointment, it also describes Judy’s attempts to mollify Scottie as “masochistic”. For the sake of my own sanity, I’m going to assume that word really meant something else in old academic writing.

“The Critic as Consumer: Film Study in the University, Vertigo, and the Film Canon” by Virginia Wright Wexman is a much more grounded essay: it does away with psychoanalysis and talks about the film in the context of its production, which was pretty informative, as well as provides the class commentary I wished for in the liveblog. It was enjoyable to read an analysis based on the material realities of the world that actually exist, and not on someone’s fever dreams. This might be my first dive into this corner of academia, and I was unpleasantly surprised to see people spend so much effort on a methodology that seemed so obviously inadequate to me.

I went through 5+ more articles in addition to the ones I named above, but that reading had diminishing returns. The more I read, the more familiar with the material I became, and the less interesting it was to read other people’s analysis, especially because I kept disagreeing with it. Broadening my horizons in this way was pretty fun and I don’t exactly regret it, but the process wasn’t a great use of my time and energy, and actively demotivated me from watching more films because after months and months I still wasn’t done with this one.

Here’s something I learned from one of the articles: there doesn’t seem to be a singular canonical explanation for whether Judy fell accidentally or jumped to her death on purpose. The initial screenplay, which I found online, indicates it was an accident; Kim Novak herself said in an interview that it was suicide. Not only did Hitchcock not show what happened, he didn’t seem to bother to either inform the actress of his interpretation or come up with one at all. That's how little he, and therefore the film itself, cared about the main female character. Nothing matters but the man and his trauma. Scottie’s storyline is concluded poetically regardless of the reason why Judy falls, but Judy’s own storyline is literally dropped as if it was never there.