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#pretty sure i made a liveblog post of this exact moment that's how much i love it
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This is still one of my favorite conversation starters at the table.
Jester: Are you a turtle?
Matt: Do you approach him?
Laura: Yeah, I’m a shithead.
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neuxue · 4 years
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Wheel of Time liveblogging: Towers of Midnight ch 1
A wind passes through an apple orchard, and the world is changed.
Chapter 1: Apples First
Dragon chapter icon – does that mean we get to see Rand post-Dragonmount? I am… very curious.
Though apples in this story just make me think of Perrin, what with his entire family buried beneath the apple trees.
But first, the Wheel, and the wind.
Crisp and light, the wind danced
That’s a marked shift in tone from how the wind has been introduced in the last few books, as a darker and more violent or vicious force. It is entirely possible that I’m overthinking this. But the wind has always felt like something of a binding thread in the whole idea of ‘the Dragon is one with the land’ and it would be fitting for the wind to change as Rand does.
Then again, it does accelerate somewhat in the next paragraph or so.
Are we starting off in Seanchan? That wind sure does get around.
These were towers meant for war. By tradition they were unoccupied. How long that would last – how long tradition itself would be remembered in a continent in chaos – remained to be seen.
That’s an excellent line. It reminds me of another one from an introductory wind sequence: Trade slowed for winter and wars, and the Dragon Reborn, but it never really stopped, not until nations died. I’m not sure why, really; there’s not a huge amount of similarity there beyond an abstract concept of socioeconomics phrased in a particularly lovely way, but there you go.
Beyond that, though… how long tradition itself would be remembered in a continent of chaos is applied to Seanchan here, but it also touches on a rather central theme of the series overall: the tension between past and future, the weight of story and tradition, of myth and legend, against the inevitability of change and the passage of time.
The wind continued eastward, and soon it was playing with the masts of half-burned ships at the docks of Takisrom.
I like the contrast here between playfulness and violence, between caprice and destruction.
The Fields of Peace were aflame
Well that’s… an image. Okay. Damn.
Semirhage really did do her work well. She may be dead now but before she died, I think she made a pretty solid case for herself as one of the most effective Forsaken. Throwing an entire continent into utter chaos, even while helping that empire bring chaos to another continent? Driving Rand across the last of his own thresholds? You could even argue that her death was itself a triumph, because in pushing Rand to the point where he was willing to kill her, she achieved precisely what she needed to.
I mean, Moridin’s nihilism certainly played a role in Rand’s ‘none of it matters’ on Dragonmount, but Semirhage played a rather starring role in getting him there, and for that she deserves some villainous accolades in whatever terrace of hell she’s now decorating to her tastes.
Eventually, the wind encountered another continent, this one quiet, like a man holding his breath before he headsman’s axe fell.
Well. Depending on the exact timing of this – and I certainly have my guesses – that’s… exactly what’s happening. The land waiting, breath held, for the Dragon to decide its future. Salvation or destruction. And so of course the wind arrives to bear witness.
By the time the wind reached the enormous, broken-peaked mountain known as Dragonmount, it had lost much of its strength.
No, I’m not having emotions about wind, you’re having emotions about wind.
But…yes. Because by the time Rand reached Dragonmount, so had he, for all that he held more power than ever before (but power is not strength; the last several books have been a testament to that). Rand is the wind and the wind is Rand and the land is one with the Dragon and the wind both represents that and carries it outward and I just love how this is done.
I love how this sense is created of everything looking towards Dragonmount, and of this silence as the world holds its breath to learn its fate, as the whole dance that’s been spiralling out from Rand at its centre for so long now pauses, draws back towards that centre, and it all turns on the edge of a decision, a perspective, a single choice alone on a mountain that represents at once death and rebirth.
Hi, I’m Lia, and we’re like two pages in and not even done with the wind sequence and I’m already having a Situation about it. Anyway, what else is new?
An orchard of apple trees rather than a grove of olives at the base of Dragonmount. I mean. That works too.
Two figures stood there: a youth and a sombre man in his later years.
Tam? And Rand?
Oh wait no.
Hang on, Almen Bunt? As in, the NPC cart driver from all the way back in The Eye of the World? Wow. That’s some true dedication to conservation of characters right there.
The boy of thirteen had golden hair from his father’s side.
Uh oh, you’d better keep an eye on that one, Almen; sounds like a potential future protagonist and possible long-lost scion of a royal line you’ve got there.
And during the night, every single one of [the apple trees] had shed their fruit. Tiny apples, barely as large as a man’s thumb. Thousands of them. They’d shrivelled during the night, then fallen. An entire crop, gone.
Damn it Rand. (But also… how appropriate. Apples for innocence, and all of them lost).
‘I don’t know what to say, lads,’ Almen finally admitted.
I think in this situation, ‘…fuck’ would not be inappropriate.
So their storehouse looks about like a grocery store’s shelves during lockdown. No grain, no fresh fruit, probably no toilet paper.
Almen’s determined to make the best of it, but it’s hard to make the best of ‘cosmic shenanigans turned to possibly destroying the world with a stray thought because there really is only so much pain a person can stand and when that person happens to be tied to the fate of the world, things get a bit dicey’. But best of luck to you, Almen. Hold on a few minutes and things might get… better.
In all his years, he’d never seen anything like this. This was something evil.
And yet it’s caused by the one who is meant to be the champion of all that is good and bright in the world. He never turned to the Shadow, but with what he had become by the time he reached Dragonmount… he didn’t need to.
I like the way we see this, as well, not just by watching Rand directly in the latter half of TGS, but also in these brief thoughts and viewpoints of complete outsiders, who really don’t know what’s going on. I like that, from that perspective, there isn’t even any doubt. That it’s so obviously something evil, something wrong, something terrible. It serves to highlight just how far wrong everything had gone. Because watching Rand, book by book, you see it happening, but it’s slow. Gradual. So easy, a step at a time, to justify and understand. But then you take a step back and look through a pair of eyes with more distance and see only what he is now – or rather, what he was right before that realisation – and that realisation is terrifying.
The land is dying all around them and at the centre of it is the Dragon Reborn, who is one with the land and yet dying himself even as he lives. Who, at this point, no longer wants to live. And so the land obeys his will. It’s a slow suicide of a world because the weight of that world is too much for the one who has to carry it.
Staring down those neat, perfect rows of useless apple trees, Almen felt the crushing weight of it. Of trying to remain positive.
Rand your nihilism is contagious. Well. Moridin’s nihilism. Which sort of proves the ‘contagious’ point.
I like this as well, that Rand’s own despair is mirrored and echoed not just in the land, but in the people who inhabit it. Like a very slightly less literal wind; the wind is the land’s version of ‘something that reaches everywhere, far beyond where it originated’ and this despair – for now – is the more metaphorical.
This is it then, isn’t it? He thought, eyes toward the too-yellow grass below. The fight just ended.
Well. Yes, very possibly. But not quite in the way you might think.
This is so well done: the way you can tell precisely where we are in Veins of Gold by the thoughts and despair of a single farmer. The way it shows so clearly the reach of Rand’s… self? Effect? I can’t think of the right word, but it’s like how we see the wind brushing across Almen’s shirt, and now Rand’s despair brushing across his mind. Land and Dragon, and it’s all tied together.
Maybe it was time to let go.
He felt something on his neck. Warmth.
Oh no this is beautiful.
It just tracks so perfectly to Veins of Gold, and none of that even needs to be shown. And you can see the precise moment where that despair (‘none of this matters!’) turn to hope.  Which is entirely the point, in a way: it may just be one lonely broken hero on a mountain finally trading despair for hope, but it touches everything. He may be alone and unwitnessed, but the entire world feels it. The sun, the wind, a change.
And I think part of what I love about this is that it’s not dramatic. Neither the despair nor the warmth. Instead it’s this soft almost aching gentleness, because that’s all any of it is. It’s not a battle or a dramatic pronouncement or a cheering crowd or a display of power. It’s just… a thought. A shift.
A gentle warmth rather than a… well, a force of light, if you will.
Which serves as the perfect contrast, really, to one of Rand’s darkest (for all that it was blindingly bright) moments. At Natrin’s Barrow he shone with all the cold brilliance of the Light’s power bent on destruction; all light and nothing of warmth. Now, though, in the moment that truly matters, the moment where everything changes, it’s as simple as the sun emerging from behind the clouds, a warmth on the back of a farmer’s neck, a quiet, unseen but all-encompassing realisation that there is something left to fight for.
He hesitated, then turned weary eyes toward the sky. Sunlight bathed his face.
I just… I love that such a simple statement can carry so much weight behind it. It’s the mark of an extraordinarily well-crafted plot point, that this is all it takes to invoke all its effect, and to convey that effect so perfectly. We know what this means, and it’s neither subtle nor heavy-handed; it’s just… right.
And I still can’t get over how perfect it is that we’re seeing this through the eyes of an utterly random and otherwise unimportant character, because that’s the whole point. That’s what Rand, finally, realises he’s fighting for. The chance for people – any people, random people, villagers and farmers and merchants and monarchs alike – to just live. And so of course we see this through the eyes of, to borrow another chapter title, just another man. Because that’s all any of them are.
The apple trees were flowering.
Oh.
I’m.
This whole scene is just hitting the exact tone of gentle yet powerful beauty-in-simplicity, little-things-that-mean-everything that just gets me.
The apples fell and famine seemed certain and yet here they are, flowering once more, a second chance. A rebirth, if you will.
OH NO OH NO HERE HE IS I’M NOT READY FOR THIS
Almen spun to find a tall young man walking down out of the foothills.
Coming down from the mountain like a benevolent wind and bringing flowers with him like the Aiel and the Nym of old, bringing life back to the land like a goddamn messiah and it’s all done so gently and I’m fine.
‘Ho, stranger,’ Almen said.
I don’t even know why this gets me but it does. Stranger, and yet he is the centre of everything. The centre of everything, and yet at the end of the day he is just another man, another stranger.
It’s been a long time since Rand has walked unrecognised. Maybe that’s it.
‘Did you… did you get lost up in the foothills?’
Well. That’s one way to put it. But the point is: he found his way back.
Or his way forward.
Or something.
‘No. I’m not lost. Finally.’
I’m FINE, this is FINE.
Maybe what really gets me about this scene is that it’s hard to remember the last time there was a scene involving Rand that wasn’t overshadowed by pain and desperation. And now it’s… yes, the pain is still there on some level, but it’s like this weight has been lifted, and so the gentleness of this scene stands as a – well, not sharp because the whole point is it isn’t – contrast to everything that came before, and it’s only in the absence of that pain and despair that you realise how heavy it was.
‘There’s nothing back there of use.’
Except for everything.
‘There are always things of use around, if you look closely enough. You can’t stare at them too long. To learn but not be overwhelmed, that is the balance.’
Ah. And so at last he understands. The importance of balance, but also in this specific circumstance which, I think, is in reference to his memories of his life as Lews Therin.
Because at last, at long last, he has accepted those. He has learned to accept them without losing himself, without fear of losing himself, without feeling as if it is an existential struggle, as if he must keep a barrier between them, as if accepting those memories means accepting that fate.
But now he understands: that he can remember, and learn, but still move on, move forwards, grow. Try again, try differently. Have a second chance, informed by but not bound to the doom of the first. To be himself, but to accept the entirety of what that means. Who he was, who he is.
The man’s words… it seemed they were having two different conversations.
It’s okay, Almen, you get used to him.
Perhaps the lad wasn’t right in the head.
No, see, the thing is, he finally is.
‘Do I know you?’ Almen asked. Something about the young man was familiar.
‘Yes,’ the lad said.
Okay, I love this? On so many levels.
Because sure, there’s the literal: Almen has in fact met Rand before, and Rand answers honestly. And then there’s the next layer down: Rand is the Dragon Reborn and therefore known to most at this point, and he answers that honestly as well.
But then there’s this sense of something even more figurative, less tangible. The Dragon is one with the land, and Rand stands as the Light’s champion and the land personified and the centre of the fight and the wind that brings the apple trees to flower. He’s a part of the world and so Almen knows him, as all know him, as all will know him, even those who have never met and never will meet him.
And finally, I love that Almen has to ask. That there’s still this sense of anonymity, for all that it’s threaded through with a familiarity deeper than any acquaintance. That Almen looks at him first and sees a man, a lad, a stranger, rather than the Dragon Reborn: saviour and destroyer, rather than a monster or a madman or a force of nature. That they’re just two strangers in an orchard, and yet they’re not.
Honestly any kind of play on names and naming and identity gets me every time, and when you combine it with my other fictional love of the space between humanity and divinity and monstrosity, you get a very happy Lia.
‘Gather your people and collect those apples. They’ll be needed in the days to come.’
I mean, for projectile weapons you’d be better off sticking with Aludra’s fireworks, but sure.
‘Gather those apples quickly. My presence will hold him off for a time, I think, and whatever you take now should be safe from his touch.’
There’s just this almost startling and yet utterly peaceful sense of calm to him, that we haven’t seen since… honestly ever. Calm and accepting of who and what he is, and for the first time since he left the Two Rivers, not fighting himself in some way. And what a difference it makes.
It's also remarkable how differently it comes across compared to the icy emotionlessness he surrounded himself with after Semirhage. Because that, too, was conveyed as a perfect calm – but there was a wrongness there that’s lacking here. It’s only a few lines of dialogue, and yet it’s so clearly different.
‘I do know you,’ Almen said, remembering an odd pair of youths he had given a lift in his cart years ago. ‘Light! You’re him, aren’t you? The one they’re talking about?’
HE FINALLY REMEMBERS HIM AND IT’S AS THE BOY RAND AL’THOR FIRST, RATHER THAN THE DRAGON REBORN. I’m sorry, but everything about this just gets me. That for once, he is the person first, and the role second. That the true recognition is of a boy from a dusty road.
It's a lovely kind of irony – rather than cruel, for once – that it’s only after he truly comes into his power and accepts it and stops fighting himself and his role and everything he was and is, and is finally ready to face the world as the Dragon Reborn as the Dragon Reborn is meant to be, that he is at last recognised as human by a stranger who sees him.
Meeting those eyes, Almen felt a strange sense of peace.
Well that’s new. And a welcome change. How long has it been since people looked at him and felt anything but fear, or saw him as anything but dangerous?
‘It is likely,’ the man said. ‘Men are often speaking of me.’ He smiled, then turned and continued on his way down the path.
Peaceful and wise and making his way through the orchard like the wind, knowing and acknowledging but not forcing his place in the world. A force of nature still, but this is worlds away from ‘I am the storm’.
He just… is. And he understands that. And accepts it not begrudgingly, or out of duty, or despite the pain it causes, but entirely and unreservedly and with the understanding, at last, of why.
‘Where are you going?’
The man looked back with a faint grimace. ‘To do something I’ve been putting off. I doubt she will be pleased by what I tell her.’
I would bet actual money that means he’s going to see Egwene, and I had to laugh at how even this new wise, calm, peaceful Rand is fully recognisable as the boy from Emond’s Field in this moment. Because those two are never going to be anything but at least a little exasperated with one another at all times, and it’s such a perfect childhood-friends-turned-sweethearts-turned-basically-siblings dynamic and the faint grimace really sells it. (I would not be remotely surprised if there is name-calling. ‘Woolhead’ and ‘stubborn’ will likely be thrown around)
But it also serves as a reminder that, for all his newfound wisdom, Rand is still human. Which... even that little touch is perfect, in this scene. To ground him, just a little. I just love everything about this entire chapter.
Almen thought – for a moment – he could see something around the man. A lightness to he air, warped and bent.
WHERE ONCE THERE WAS DARKNESS. Because he is who he is meant to be now! The champion of the Light in truth! There is finally light to Rand, in more ways than one, and it’s really kind of surprisingly beautiful.
Everything is different, even if no one but Rand will understand why.
I still just love the way such an absolute change came not from a battle or a crown or a display of power, or even an achievement, but purely from… himself. So much played into creating that moment, yes, and so much was focused on it, but ultimately it was just Rand, alone on the mountain of his suicide and birthplace, coming to terms with himself and seeing something in the world worth saving.
And I’m struggling to express precisely why I like that, but I think it’s something about, I don’t know, the power of the individual, I suppose? The way something so existential can come from something as simple as acceptance? The way nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed, and the cause of it all is finding a purpose, a reason, a last decision to choose a chance at hope over the certainty of despair.
I mean, so much of epic fantasy is about the magic and the power and the politics and the battles, about everything taking place on a grand scale, about the fantastical. But sometimes you also get moments like this, where balanced against all of that you still see the importance of just… a person, and a choice.
Next (ToM ch 2) Previous (ToM prologue pt. 3)
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TMA: Episode 13, “Alone”
Summary: Naomi Herne dictates her statement regarding “the events following the funeral of my fiancé, Evan Lukas.”
Our first in-person statement! So exciting! Not as exciting as the ones towards the end of this season for sure, but it makes sense to introduce the idea prior to them being necessary, and it was a nice change of pace.
That being said, I really didn’t like the voice actor in this one. There were a few moments that felt stilted or where it felt like she was over-acting, and it bugged me. At the beginning of the series, I didn’t like how Jonathan seemed to be speaking dramatically on purpose, and my annoyance here was for similar reasons. Since I’m more or less neutral towards the character herself, I’m kind of glad this was her only episode this season, and I’m hoping she’s not in future seasons either.
Because this was recorded “live”, we finally get confirmation of how the in-universe date relates to the real-life date. Naomi gives the date as January 13th, 2016, and this episode was aired on April 20th, 2016. It’s close, which is nice, but not exact, which would have been cooler IMO, but it makes sense that they might not have known the air date when they recorded it. It doesn’t throw any huge wrenches into the timeline I have going though, which is all I care about in the end.
First off, it’s a little suspicious how quickly she goes head over heels for Evan. They meet while waiting for a job interview, and when he had to go in to the interview, she “felt a pang of loss like nothing I’d known before, all for a stranger who I’d met barely ten minutes ago”? When she was always pretty content on her own in life? On its own, I could chalk it up to an extreme loneliness that she’d underestimated or was in denial about. But she says that “he was so unlike anyone I had ever met before”, and his family was some of the creepiest people in any of these stories yet that weren’t explicitly monsters. I don’t know whether the family isn’t human or if it’s something else, but there’s definitely something not right about them, and I’m really expecting them to show up again at some point.
Naomi never gives us any real impression of Evan’s personality either. She talks about him enough at the beginning of the episode that by the end of her rambling we should have had some kind of idea of who he is, but all that we really know is that he seemed perfect for her. It’s like he’s this blank slate, and whatever she needed, he was. (For any Animorphs fans who might be reading this, her starry-eyed description of their relationship reminded me a lot of the way Peter describes the last year or so of his marriage before Eva “died” in book 10. So you can understand my concern.) Their relationship is too perfect and harmonious. It’s not real. And when she conveniently decides not to contact any of his friends after he died? The paranoid part of me wonders how real any of it was.
It is interesting that the reason he gives for his apparent schism with his family is religion - specifically, that they were religious and he wasn’t. In and of itself this is normal enough - a common occurrence, even. But I am officially suspicious any time religion (especially Christianity or Christian-coded religion) is mentioned in these statements. Naomi mentions towards the beginning of her statement something that a pastor told her about humans being “creatures of community by nature”. This same pastor told her he was “worried I’d get lost” - which, if you recall, is exactly what almost happened in that foggy field after she crashed her car. She was lost for a time, and, we’re led to believe, was almost lost forever.
She describes the mist in the field as seeming malicious, and that it made her feel “utterly forsaken”, and although she didn’t think there was any particular presence in it, it seemed to swirl around her deliberately and eventually tried to pull her into an open grave. But Jonathan says at the end that there couldn’t have been any fog where she was, “given the incredibly high winds during the storm that night.” And he couldn’t find any graveyard/chapel matching the description she gave anywhere in the area. So where was she, and how did she get there? And who or what was controlling that mist? The field, the mist, the chapel, and the graveyard are all obviously Not Quite Right, but then again neither was the Lukas family earlier that night. So when and what was her first supernatural interaction that night?
I think it’s obvious by now that I don’t like the Lukas family at all and I think they’re up to no good. But it’s worth noting that Evan apparently somehow helped Naomi out of that mist (despite being dead) by his disembodied voice telling her to turn left. It was a small thing, but without that direction she might never have gotten out. So is he really not evil like I got the impression the rest of his family is?
On a completely unrelated note...someone needs to talk to Jonathan about his bedside manner. Between his condescending tone and him telling her to her face that she should probably see a shrink, I’m only surprised that she didn’t storm out on him sooner. Whose bright idea was it to let this guy interact with the public? I love him but he is not a people person at all lol.
Fortunately, before she left, Jonathan asked her to leave the broken piece of stone from the graveyard with them - although I wonder if anyone even gave it a second glance after that, or if it was just shoved into a corner somewhere and itself forgotten. The word “FORGOTTEN” on the stone was of course supposed to be creepy to us the listeners, and is almost certainly some kind of clue in the bigger mystery, but as someone who has come to frequent cemeteries (as part of an interest in genealogy, not with any involvement in the supernatural, thank you very much), it was probably just the end of a very common phrase on headstones: “GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.” Which is, ironically, the exact opposite in meaning to “FORGOTTEN.”
One last thing. This is either a complete coincidence, or a very big clue, and I can’t decide which. In episode 11, “Antonio Blake” first sees his father in one of his “death dreams” 10 days before his father actually dies. In that same statement, “Antonio” says that he first saw Gertrude Robinson in a “death dream” on March 12th, 2015. Evan Lukas died on March 22nd, 2015 - exactly 10 days after “Antonio” first saw Gertrude Robinson in one of those dreams. I have no idea how the deaths of Evan Lukas and Gertrude Robinson could possibly be related, but the timing is a little too perfect for me to dismiss it out of hand.
This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!
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prongsmydeer · 4 years
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Ayesha Liveblogs Tiger King 
“I think it would be fair to say that Carole is the Mother Teresa of cats” now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear
“I’d never been a person who had friends” statements like this always perplex me because surely there had to be ONE other person in however long you quantify childhood that you identified with. Like not one whole ass person? You’re not the only person who loves cats Carole
The juxtaposition between Carole Baskin’s “Animal Print for Animal Rights” and Joe Exotic’s “Tiger King underwear is our bestseller” is poetic cinema
Okay this isn’t a reflection of my opinions on this man but I Saw a Tiger is a good country ballad there I said it 
“When I first met Joe, I was like a month out of high school” well that’s not good
[Joe Exotic voice] Some people have tigers to cope
Doc Antle has only been on screen for 30 seconds and already he has made himself memorable by directing the film crew
Is Bhagavan Antle Indian in some way or did he just have a really intense Eat Pray Love journey with his guru
Also is he really a doctor orrrrrrrrr
“I am out there in the forefront so known of being this guy that is in love with big cats and has them love him back” please don’t tell me this guy does anything weird to his animals
“People only care about saving what affects them” 
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“You can’t put a price on holding a baby tiger” but you did and apparently it’s $625 
The fact that multiple tigers have had albinism is probably a sign of major inbreeding practices at these zoos
You know, even if I ate meat*, there is no way I would be able to handle any kind of early prep stage of it bc seeing these cow carcasses is A Lot
*If u r reading this I don’t care if u eat meat leave me alone
“Animals just wasn’t enough, okay? So then I started adding magic” well that took an unexpected turn
I don’t know if it’s for real fair to criticize every person who has brought a big cat out in a public venue/talk show because I know at least like Dave Sal/moni is always going “THESE ANIMALS MAKE TERRIBLE PETS” 
As a sidenote from what I understand this Saff person keeps being deadnamed/misgendered throughout this documentary and I do not appreciate it 
“I grew up a professional cowboy in a family of professional cowboys” every sentence on this show is a journey
WHO is letting their ONE-YEAR-OLD lay on top of a tiger cub I know you’re at a zoo but BRUH
“It’s going to be a small Waco” to say this ON THE NEWS
This 2 minute stretch of episode is all the PSA anyone ever needs to never own a gun
Well I think we can all agree that PETA is a fucking mess
God this is like battle of the people who are terrible at doing anything good for animals
“What do you carry that gun for?” “People” AHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!!!!?!?
“I sleep with an AK-47 under my mattress, loaded, ready to roll” WILL SOMEONE HELP THE U.S. OF A
I was warned about this show and yet I was still not prepared for the level of UNHINGED it would be 
How in the FUCK does a place like this not have an on-site medic
“Why don’t you come back on another day” he said, after telling the public an employee had his arm taken off 
“I am never gonna financially recover from this” SURE JOE THIS IS ABOUT YOU
To go back to work a WEEK after getting your arm amputated... BRUH
“Any law that you think’s unfair or unjustice, it is your obligation, it is your responsibility to stand up against that bullshit law” well Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner so clearly the injustice thing was relative for him
Traditionally don’t drug addictions fuel people choosing extreme paths with their life rather than the other way around? 
JKHGKJHGKJH this whole exchange:
Interviewer: What kind of doctor is he?
Maria: Mystical science.
Interviewer: Mystical science?
Maria, nodding: Yeah.
“How many wives does Doc Antle have?” I didn’t expect this but somehow it tracks
I’m gonna bet none of these people with subcontinental names have a single bit of South Asian heritage like okay “Moksha” and “Rajnee” did Bhagavan name you
On a more serious note: It’s really fucked up that these men keep meeting literal teenagers, making them their employees, and then also get into relationships with them. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough THIS IS NOT GOOD OR HEALTHY
It’s pretty weird that Doc Antle keeps emphasizing so frequently that one of his partners is Italian 
“I’m gonna go be a yoga animal trainer” ah, white people bullshit
“Goodbye. Don’t fall in love with your boss.” Good advice, Dad
I was not expecting all this subcontinental imagery to get under my skin this badly but what’s your problem dude can’t u be normal for like a second 
“You’re this garbage person, but if you listen to me, I’ll make you great” again this tracks but gross
Again, on a more serious note: if a partner ever talks to you this way please call a domestic abuse hotline 
Not that India is at all in a good place right now but I personally ban Doc Antle from ever entering India. Banned. Forever. I will not be accepting constructive criticism at this time
“I didn’t really know any better” is a really good way of summarizing what all of these younger partners have been through
Wow Carole is really explaining this abuse issue succinctly 
Antle’s indignation at being implied to be a cult leader despite the fact he is most definitely a cult leader
Joe’s story in his documentary is constantly “is this going to be a humanizing moment PSYCH it’s still terrible”
HOW IS THIS LEGAL PAY YOUR WORKERS A LIVING WAGE
Why is this husband-killing thing JUST A FOOTNOTE AT THE END OF THIS EPISODE OH MY GOD
We have deviated so far from the tiger thing oh my god
Why is the only man in this documentary who is faithful to his spouse the man that smuggled drugs inside of snakes
Every time I learn a new thing about a person in this documentary I have to reorient myself
This whole episode has been about this murder and I’m concerned that its title, “The Secret,” hasn’t even been revealed yet
GOD I take back what I said about I Saw Tiger, the concept of this song/music video for Here Kitty Kitty is so disturbing that this man deserves no credit whatsoever as a musician 
CAROLE WHY ARE YOU GIGGLING ABOUT THE MEAT GRINDER IT’S NOT FUNNY
Well I don’t have much to say about this episode other than yikes
I guess if you’re really out to spite someone stealing their brand and posting exactly the opposite of everything they stand for is an effective if weird and petty way to do it
Do you think the whole throne footage moment was a “Frankenstein realizing what he has wrought” kind of thing for Kirkham
This is really like watching a sports game of two teams you can’t stand except the sport is murder and other miscellaneous crime
If we’re all being real with ourselves the documentary filmmakers themselves MUST have had some issues going on to be able to walk into this situation and not do anything about it
This series really seems to present a compelling case for why every major figure in this documentary has potentially committed at least one terrible crime
Ah there’s the judgment from the woman in Florida I guess it’s two crimes with one stone
God these poor animals they do not deserve anything happening to them
While obviously people are enticed by the prospect of someone they’re into having an animal JUST GET AN ALREADY DOMESTICATED ANIMAL LIKE DOMESTICATED CATS AND DOGS EXIST OH MY GOD DO NOT USE EXOTIC PETS AS DATE BAIT
 It has been so long since we heard about Travis ngl I already forgot about him 
Why is every single person in this show SO OFF THE WALLS I mean I know why but also WHY
This documentary is also a treatise in the flaws of the U.S. prison system and how it sets up people up to fail or re-offend upon release
Take a shot every time a middle-aged man in this show mentions that he casually bought himself a big cat as a teen
“Joe was the entertainment director.... by title” I don’t think this was meant to be a burn but what a burn
I am almost certain I WATCHED that Last Week Tonight episode during that election and if u told me that 4-5 years later I would be rewatching that clip in a documentary about this man’s journey to being convicted for murder then I cannot say I wouldn’t be surprised but I would probably believe it 
Also I have to wonder what John Oliver thinks about being part of this 
[“Beyonce?” voice] Shaun Majumder?
Sidenote: Until this exact moment I thought of Shaun Majumder as Ben Mulroney even though Brian Mulroney is white as hell I guess I have faceblindness but only for Canadian talkshow personalities
I have been aware of this before now but the fact you can buy a GUN at a Walmart what in the FUCK is U.S.A. doing
Man does this campaign manager really want to take ownership of anything Joe Exotic has ever done
Ngl I was wondering why someone who had at one point clearly had a lot of money seemed to have such poor dental care access but meth certainly does explain it
I mean people can be attracted to both men and women (hello) but since Joe was fuelling their drug addictions since they were teenagers attraction is at best a null factor and at worst an added layer of terrible to this whole mess
It’s hard to even respond to this in a meaningful way because this is so fucked up. Don’t own guns.
“That was a big fucking mistake,” he said, right after someone explained that he was driving large groups of people in an enclosed space in a busy city with wild animals that could maim or kill them
Padlock penls piercing really does not seem like a first date bombshell
“We went to dinner and he never went home” well if that doesn’t set you with a sense of foreboding
TWO MONTHS AFTER WHAT IN THE HELL OH MY GOD also I hope Dillon is okay
“It wasn’t about the animals anymore” you THINK
“It was sort of funny when they started but it’s gotten really dark” how meta
Of all the reasons Joe could’ve abandoned his zoo, I really didn’t think embezzlement would be what pushed him
“He won’t tell anyone where he’s at, not even me,” said Dial, with no acknowledgement of the fact that Joe is also theoretically still married and would maybe tell his husband???
Oh Dillon spotted??? Yikes get out dude
Take a shot every time a white person who really doesn’t understand where the word “karma” comes from starts talking about karma as if it is the Law of Revenge
The fact this man brings a film crew out with him while he’s on the run evading a federal investigation..... incomprehensible
“Joe just wanted to put it in somebody’s name and continue to be the tiger queen, I mean king,” really REALLY of all the reasons to object to Joe you’re going to choose homophobia wow
Is this about an attempt to have someone murdered or does something happen to Baskin it is very unclear
This documentary has an interesting format of switching focus from crime to crime to crime 
“I’ve never been as proud of being married to anyone as I am being married to you” It’s weird to compliment your husband by comparing him to all your other husbands
How is the lesson for Jeff Lowe in this “let’s build another zoo” surely at that point it’s better to just cut your losses
[Garretson voice]: You should pay me for being a bro, dude
“I’m a libertarian, so technically, fuck the Feds,” I’ve never heard an intonation that better suits a conservative millennial 
I mean I don’t think it was advisable but honestly why are people surprised Joe took the stand isn’t delusions of grandeur kind of his thing
Sometimes it’s just that they’ve added in other moments to break up the awful immoral crimes with just run of the mill douchebaggery like the nanny/gym thing huh
I guess the silver lining in this is that potentially these big cat zoos will shut down but like where do these animals who have been raised in captivity go??? I don’t trust anyone in this documentary to not exploit them in some way ugh 
“Not a single animal benefited from this war,” correct, Saff
“I was wrapped up in having a zoo,” not really an excuse but ok
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sieben9 · 5 years
Text
“murder most foul” impressions
{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}
So there’s ghosts now?
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I’m not complaining, I’m just surprised. When did we get ghosts? Why is this not a bigger deal? Snow and David couldn’t even be certain their son could hear their disembodied voices through the only haunt-phone in the Underworld, and now we have a whole entire ghost?
I have to say, as “filler” episodes go, this one was actually pretty nice. Good pacing, excellent acting in all the right places, and some quality comedy. I’m not entirely thrilled with the resolution, but mostly because I’m worried how it will be handled in future episodes, rather than disliking it for its own sake.
And now, the cut, before I get even more long-winded.
As mentioned above, there isn’t much of the main plot going on this episode. Hence the “filler” comment. Still, I greatly liked the stuff that was going on, though I have to say, they took their sweet time resolving that particular mystery, didn’t they? And I’m also annoyed that Hook instantly becomes a more interesting character when he’s not busy being Emma’s Boyfriend™. It’s like a glimpse into an alternate universe where the guy actually had consistent character writing from s3 onwards, and I wasn’t annoyed half to death by him.
Ah, the world that could have been… Anyway, back to actual reality.
The present-day plot and the flashback are definitely well-connected. As David and Hook get closer to uncovering the truth about the murder of David’s father (whose name I may or may not have had to look up on IMDb…), the flashback gets closer and closer to that point, too, and shows him as… well, not a totally different man than David assumed he was, but different in vey important ways. Mostly in that a lot of his actions in life were driven not by indifference towards his family, but by deep regret over the “choice” he made to give up one of his sons. (Please note the sarcasm.)
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And is it just me or is Rumple’s behaviour in this scene notably different from that in “The Shepherd”? I mean, David was a grown man, perfectly capable of making his own choices, but he seemed much more guilt-ridden for taking him from his mother than taking little James away. Which may just be indifferent writing, but I can’t help but think that he was hiding very far behind the Dark One mask to go through with this.
The whole flashback is obviously heading for tragedy—we know how this story ends, and it’s not with Robert returning home with little James in his arm—and the writing really leans into it. Considering I’d never even seen the man before, I sure got invested in Robert’s plight and struggle, and seeing him stand up to George made my stomach twist with genuine regret, because… yeah, like I said. We all know how that ends.
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Or very nearly. ::glares at Hook:: So, I had to check twice, but I’m pretty sure right up until he saw that page from August and recognised the scene, he didn’t know that this was a case of “Oh, so I’m the asshole.” Still, I’d just... like to ignore the guy and it looks like that won’t be an option. This, plus the pending proposal promise quite a lot of Hook-time in the coming episodes.
It also somewhat sours that nice moment David had at the docks when he threw away the coin and finally laid the past (and his father’s ghost?) to rest. It’s not awful, I’m just not entirely happy and more than a little worried.
Going back to the murder for a moment... I’m not sure why Hook would be worried about witnesses to his killing of the king’s men. He’s already a pirate, which makes him hostis humanis generis, if I’m not completely confused about how piracy worked, and he lives in a spooky otherworldly realm where nobody can find him unless Pan wants them to. What, pray tell, is the worst that could happen even if Robert did talk? ::annoyed grumbling::
Oh, and apart from all the other things in the flashback plot that hurt my heart (so, nearly everything that wasn’t Pinocchio’s incredibly “convincing” lying), there was this little standout moment:
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I’d ask “why are you like this”, but at this point I pretty much know and I’m afraid of more answers
Rumple’s complete indifference turning to sympathy in pretty much the blink of an eye when Robert confessed his deep regret and announced that he was determined to find his son… damn. Why. My heart. And the whole drama about exacting a “price” that meant absolutely nothing in the end, because sparkly Rumple is even worse at being a human than current Rumple. I just… guh. It was a really good moment. And “May be all reunited with our sons” killed me, because Neal, and then it killed me again when I remembered that Rumbelle are in a very similar situation with Gideon. Please, show, just let them be happy.
Contrasting with the very in-the-feels flashback, the present-day search for the murderer was surprisingly lighthearted and even fun, right up until the very end. Standout moment was the potion brewing scene, because… well “turn counter-clockwise”. Also, I’ve seen some of my friends trying to cook for the first time, and the similarities were highly amusing.
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And then… then there was that last scene. Goddamn, but Josh Dallas can act. And Alan Dale clearly knows how to give someone room in a scene; that duel, and really the entire “conversation” leading up to it was excellent. And the amazing acting just kept coming after Hook pulled Charming off the man he was about to murder. I’m… still not happy with how Hook’s entire story arc was handled (e.g. that the narrative insists that there was some great big redemption arc that I must have missed), but scenes like this make me wish so much that he had been handled better. Because him all but begging David not to kill George, because revenge won’t make him feel better, won’t bring back his father and will only ever make him miserable was such a good moment. Especially since it didn’t come from a position of faux moral superiority. Hook’s main argument was “don’t do this, because I have and it sucked”. And David breaking down in tears was just… ugh. Buddy. Doubly awful, too, because you realise that he can’t just go home and tell Snow about this, because they can’t both be awake at the same time and everything is awful.
Oh, and for an extra dose of heartbreak, we had this subplot:
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I know I said that during the liveblog, but Regina…. honey… don’t do this to yourself. And at the same time, it’s really easy to see why she did it anyway. Missing someone is hard, and she’s only human. And the signs were there all along; him going out to kill Keith was... not entirely unsatisfying, but also a clear warning sign that this is just not the same person.
And the talk with Snow shows that she immediately knew that this was the wrong way forward. This isn’t Robin—not her Robin, anyway—and kissing him meant nothing, because this particular person meant nothing to her. It’s really not that different from hooking up with Robin’s identical twin—they may look the same, and they may have had a similar upbringing, but that doesn’t make them the same person. And I know what Snow means, too. It’s no fun being right about this.
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Though this should make things easier. Emotionally, I mean. I’m sure that box will only make things more difficult in general.
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sleepymarmot · 7 years
Text
DS9 season 3 liveblog & notes
[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]
The Search 1
Um... so what about that treaty about no cloaking on Federation starships, that was such a big deal in The Pegasus?
What's going on with Jadzia's hair...
"We're going to take our only warship into the territory of people who think of us as intruders to convince them we represent no threat" Logic???? What kind of plan is this?
Loaned? Ah, ok.
"When did I start thinking of this Cardassian monstrosity as home?"
If this is "one of the finest collections of ancient African art you'll ever see", what is it doing in their luggage instead of a museum? This is almost as bad as Picard and that priceless artifact in The Chase...
"Maybe it is. Maybe I'm your friend, and maybe I want you to see that you are still needed here no matter what some idiot Starfleet admiral might think." ;_;
Why dim the lights when you cloak? Just to give a visual shorthand to the viewers?
Wow Odo... I don't understand why everyone is so hard on Quark in this episode -- Sisko bullies him, Bashir insults him for no reason, now Odo is yelling at him with more aggression than he's ever shown in two seasons...
Seriously?! Cloaked ships leave a trace, and nobody in all decades of conflict ever noticed that?! I mean, even if somehow only the Romulans know, that means they can detect cloaked Klingon ships, which would mean they could as well have been uncloaked -- that'd be a massive retcon that doesn't work with anything we've seen before.
I still don't understand how replicators can produce foul tasting food... They make exact copies on a molecular level...
Poor Bashir -- it's as if Sisko picked his best friends to leave behind on purpose...
another literal redshirt dead
Class M planet with no star? What? 
Why do these changelings all look like Odo -- imperfect imitations of humanoids? I thought Odo's appearance was the result of trying to fit in Bajoran society + lack of skill to make face more detailed. These changelings live by themselves so they can pick any shape they like, and I'd expect them to have more control over details, so just repeating Odo's design looks like a lazy shorthand to indicate they're the same species -- as if their liquid state weren't enough. They even have the same hairstyle -- which he copied from a Bajoran! If the writers are trying to say "they're just copying Odo" then they should all be played by the same actor.
The Search 2
Oh come on, Kira, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a lot of questions in this situation!!!
Me: well this story is pretty bad so far, I don't have any expectations for it anymore Screen: Andrew Robinson as Garak Me: interest instantly restored
(I'm certain every person liveblogging this show made or reblogged a post in this vein...)
Alright, Sisko's plotline is definitely some kind of hallucination
Or is it? I thought it was all too good to be true, but maybe the Dominion is just tricking them
Wait, that subcommander is alive and on DS9?
Okay, I didn't like that "Starfleet security officer" and now he's more suspicious. Maybe he's a part of the Dominion. Maybe the changelings are a part of the Dominion. Maybe all these people acting strangely are changelings in disguise. Maybe everything is a conspiracy. I dunno, this entire episode feels incredibly fake. 
"It seems our leaders have simply gone insane" Garak stop reinforcing my impression that you and Sisko are somehow the only real people in this story... Well Dax and Bashir also seem to be alright, but they're a bit too passive.
Oh, Garak didn't look behind himself and got shot, guess he's not real either
FUCKING FINALLY
This is so unsurprising that I can't tell if the writing is to obvious or if I've seen this spoiler before and half-forgot. Probably both.
And they just let them all go. Sure. I wonder how they managed to gain so much power, if they're prone to dumb decisions like this..
What a shitty story. Jfc. The only amusing part was that according to the main characters, the Starfleet admirals are stupid and untrustworthy (what a surprise...), and Garak is smart enough to not only take action when needed, but seem to almost realize the world around him is wrong (but he still somehow fails a spot check in a firefight...). Bashir clearly wants him to join the team and run around having adventures (not a surprise either...). It's funny that the character who comes closest to becoming self-aware is actually one of the simulated ones.
The fakeness of the plot is obvious enough to make me unable to take it seriously, but not clear or fun enough to just relax and enjoy the ride. I don't hate simulations on principle, but I need them to be good simulations. The Federation is too stupid -- it might have worked with some new admiral, since they're often assholes, but we know Nechayev and she was obviously OOC. The editing is pretty telling: there are weird timeskips (worst offender: Sisko gets into a fight and then without a change of pace others come to break him out from the brig), plus I don't think there were establishing outside shots of DS9. And anyway, the very first scene with Sisko where he's in a shuttle even though at the end of the previous episode he was about to be captured, and then Dax and O'Brien show up and we've never seen them escape is a dead giveaway that everything about this group of characters from here on is somehow wrong. And that's 8 minutes into the episode. I thought "Well, maybe it's an editing experiment, and it'll be a how-we-got-here flashback episode" but nope. What a waste of time.
Lmao I just read this in a comment to a review of this episode: "When I first saw the The Search, Pt II I found it unusual that Bashir is in a shuttlecraft with someone and for the first time manages not to annoy his travelling companion. And then the ending reveals why – it was all a dream!" That's right! I actually thought that too! :D
I can say one good thing about this episode: Odo's love of order has always had dark undertones, and I like that it's explored and discussed here as a racial trait which made his brethren into a galactic evil force.
But otherwise I'm not very impressed with his storyline? In the first part his anger and compulsive homing instinct look offputting instead of sympathetic. At one point he makes an expression that is probably supposed to be soft and makes the viewers go "aww", but ends up just looking forced and creepy. And the tender moment with Kira at the end just didn't work for me.
The House of Quark
OUCH
I was pretty scared for Quark, since he's not a big fan of violence, nice to see he's taking this so well
A new pretty outfit for Quark! A beautiful Klingon woman!
Another beautiful Klingon with a great grey mane. Yes, my commentary is very deep today.
I just continue to be amazed by Quark's luck with the ladies. Cultural exchange with a Vulcan in the previous season, now with a Klingon.
Aw, O'Brien actually wants Bashir's opinion now. And Bashir gives good relationship advice to a married man -- compare to their conversation in Armageddon Game!
Doesn't this solve their problem? If Kozak died dishonorably, that means D'Ghor gets nothing. Which is what should have happened in the first place. So now that D'Ghor challenged Quark, Quark's inability to fight will be shown to everybody (as if it weren't obvious enough...), so D'Ghor's lie will be exposed. And then he'd not only have no right of ineritance, but presumably also become a criminal for lying to the coucil.
Quark is awesome
What a good episode. Quark acts cool and noble! Klingon vs Ferengi value clash & working together! A-story and B-story work together well because despite no direct connection, they're both uplifting and thematically linked!
Equilibrium
Oh, of course when Jadzia gets screentime, it's for her to act OOC
Aw, a J&J friendship scene
Time for the annual comment on how much Bashir grew up! I've already talked about his scene in the previous episode, and now there's this lovely, purely platonic scene with Jadzia
How can these Federation weirdos sleep without blankets?
This was okay. But can we have a Jadzia episode not about her almost dying? So far this season is disappointing -- only one good episode out of four.
Second Skin
O k a y. You got me, I really didn't expect this
This is the kind of episode I watch this show for
How do you disguise someone as a member of species for years? I can understand cosmetic surgery like in Face of the Enemy, but to change their entire body so it would show as target species during any medical examination... This concerns the episode Tribunal, too. How are agents so deep undercover supposed to work? She spent all these years helping the Resistance. How does that benefit Cardassia? 10 years ago they wouldn't have known the Federation would become involved and their sleeper agent would work with them
Niiiiice
"Just something I overheard while I was hemming someone's trousers" lmao his excuses are getting more and more ridiculous
Cardassian!Kira *is* more attractive than the real Kira
the real Garak demonstrates how much his reflexes are quicker than his simulation's :D
Honestly, by this point I'm just curious for how many seasons can the writers stretch the mystery surrounding Garak. :D They're having too much fun giving out pieces of the puzzle one by one.
The Abandoned
This beautiful woman with a really impressive chest is Jake's gf? Wow!
Why are they just taking away the wreckage instead of buying it from Quark?
Sisko holding the baby and Jadzia and Julian watching him with smiles on their faces :'))
oh my god Odo used his old bucked as a cache-pot for Kira's plant... :O
wait, weren't the Jem'Hadar much more reptilian?
"It's amazing how some people would judge you based on nothing more than your job" haha
If this boy has so much aggression, why is it only expressed as need for physical combat, and not angry verbal outbursts etc? Another genetically engineered quality -- he needs to be a brutal soldier that doesn't talk back?
I find it curious that this episode answers the question "Is it okay for a 20 year old to date a 16 year old?" with such a definite yes. That's pretty questionable territory, and it's unclear why exactly Sisko changed his mind: his opinion about the girl's job or Jake's interests doesn't negate the age difference.
I like that the show takes Odo's backstory as a lab specimen so seriously. I used to expect exploration of this theme with Data, since he must have spent a lot of time in some Federation research centers before entering the Academy.
Civil Defense
Garak AND Dukat? I like this episode already.
Why are they not asking Garak for help? I know they'd prefer other options, but is kind of an emergency! I know they'll have to, eventually, since he's in the opening titles.
"I never knew how much this man's voice annoyed me" :D I'd actually be curious to hear the announcement in full, personally!
This is such a good excuse for a Disaster-like episode?? Perfect synergy between the setting and the needs of the plot
haha of course Odo and Quark are trapped together
"The only place in the galaxy that still recognizes my access code is a Bajoran space station" So what about that code in Second Skin?
bwahaha it just gets worse and worse
I think this is a good episode to show new viewers who want a taste of the show before starting to watch it properly from the beginning: it gives a good idea of the setting and involves all major characters to some degree, but so far it has very few continuity references
"What? That you'd spend your final hours in jail?"
"Tell me, Doctor, what is it exactly about this situation that's making you smile?" "You, Garak." oh my god...
holy shit this station is something else...
Dukat shows up in person! It's strange they didn't even discuss the possibility of calling him earlier. Of course, he immediately turned this into a hostage situation, so...
Oh my god he's making himself tea in the middle of this... amazing
"If you had been on the station when I designed this programme, I would have made an exception in your case."
HAHAHAHAHA
When Odo and Quark walk out, why are so many people just chilling on the Promenade?! They were about to die seconds ago!
What a beautiful episode :D Probably not as suited for beginners as I initially thought, thanks to Garak&Dukat. But I really appreciate the dark comedy side of it
Meridian
I think I've seen this episode in TNG... maybe multiple times... Jadzia is even worse suited for this role than Deanna. 
welp this was really bad on literally every possible level. i could complain for a long time but i'd rather save my breath
the only good thing about this episode: it's so irrelevant you can easily skip it.
Defiant
I think she needs sleep, not a night out in the bar
THAT VOICE 
I think I'm spoiled about this one...
Second Chances did such a good job not villainizing Tom and then this episode comes and ruins it
ah yes tell all your military secrets to the Cardassians, including cloaked ship detection...
why the random kiss
aaand Riker spends possibly the rest of his life in a Cardassian camp? great. just great. why did someone hate him so much they deemed this necessary? they managed to make me so salty about this I didn't even care about the Cardassian stuff, that's an achievement. Will gets to continue his career and marry his imzadi while Tom, who already spent 8 years marooned alone and didn't even get a promotion afterwards, now rots in prison forever. "You always had the better hand," indeed.
it's hilarious how quickly Dukat can make Sisko sympathise with him just by mentioning fatherhood. worked even better than the last time. if he got half a brain he's doing it on purpose.
I hope Riker at least got to spend some time with Ro while they were both in the Maquis. now that's something I'd like to see
Fascination
"I'm a poor substitute for your wife" "I could have told you that 60 games ago"
do we really need the Odo/Kira/Bareil love triangle?
"I usually make it a point to drop by Quark's three or four times a day at random intervals, just to let him know that I'm thinking about him"
"Jadzia, of course. I've never understood how the two of you could be such good friends. [...] It's just that she gets to spend so much more time with you than I do." "Jadzia and I have been doing this for the past two years."  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
oh O'Briens, pls don't fight over nothing :(
so where is Bashir during all this? because I'm pretty sure he and Garak are not immune to this romance confusion nonsense, and that sounds like a much more intriguing story than what I'm watching
ah, he's with Kira, well at least this one's mutual and not sexual harassment
I understand Odo, but why is Sisko unaffected too?
A question that concerns not only to this episode: why is Kira always the object of everyone's attraction? She's dating Bareil (which I completely forgot about; when she mentioned having a boyfriend in the previous episode I was very confused), Odo has a crush on her, in this episode Jake and Bashir do too, an episode before Riker kisses her, an episode before some creep wants a blow-up doll of her, an episode before Dukat leers at her...
Well... I guess this was less gross than The Naked Now.
Past Tense
I like how Dax adjusts to this time period instantly. was she already born by then?
"Some of these people are mentally ill." *braces myself for some horrible comment* "...They need proper medical treatment." oh thank god
Jadzia looks absolutely gorgeous
surely it's not a coincidence that the only white character among the time-travellers ends up with a millionaire, while the others are locked up in the sanctuary
Sisko and Bashir's discussions are very heavy handed, it's like watching some old moralizing play
I like how Jadzia retrieved her combadge by telling the truth
there was nothing particularly wrong with this story, and it was well-made, but for some reason it didn’t really impress me
Life Support
so. Winn was behind the sabotage, right?
this is like "Ethics" in reverse
haha they want Terok Nor back
"She talks a lot for a female" Nog you used to be better than that...
"Listen to me. I don't care about your negotiations, and I don't care about your treaty. All I care about is my patient, and at the moment he needs more medical care and less politics. Now, you can either leave here willingly or I'll call security and have you thrown out."
now it's more like "The Host". (I can't stop comparing everything to TNG haha)
don't try to make this into a "grey morality" situation. Nog is objectively in the wrong here, the human culture is objectively better than the Ferengi culture in this respect. TNG intentionally wrote Ferengi values to be abhorrent, and DS9 didn't change them but somehow tries to justify them and it just. doesn't. work. Just admit you wrote yourself into a corner, and either retcon the Ferengi to be more tolerable, or set aside your "all cultures are valid" agenda for a minute and admit some things are just bad. this glorification of moral relativism is DS9's version of TNG's worst misapplications of the Prime Directive
wow, are they actually going to kill him off?
"Positronic implants"?! Um. UM. They have working positronic brain now? Since when? Last time I heard, nobody managed to make stable ones since Dr. Soong... Or are implants easier to make than a full brain? Anyway, the possibility of a mixed organic-positronic brain has never even been discussed before, this is kind of a big deal. Dammit, just putting some human skin on Data was something only the Borg managed to do! This sounds 1000 times more complex!
"Major" ah, so that's how they break up, he’s incapable of romance now
ahh, his voice, head movemens and facial expressions are just like Data's
uggh the Jake-Nog storyline went as I expected
wow I didn't expect the treaty to actually get signed!
"I won't remove the last shred of humanity Bareil has left" rude... and that's from the man who befriended Data... I'm disappointed
oh btw if he just casually talks about the possibility of fully replacing Bareil's brain, that means it is possible to create stable positronic brains at will now! this is enormous! Data doesn’t have to be the only one of his kind anymore! Lal can be rebuilt! oh wait, let me guess, this will never be addressed again ever.
Welp. You know, right before I started this episode, I was mentally complaining about Bareil, like "kill him off already". Whoops! I feel bad now. This episode didn't go as I expected, and was more important than I expected too, which is good.
Jake and Nog's storyline and the positronic stuff -- less good. Honestly, the more I think about these two points, the angrier I become and the less I like this episode.
I thought that A and B plots were annoyingly unrelated, but actually... I think they share the theme of "peace above all", on a very different scale. Because the Bajoran-Cardassian treaty doesn't sound very fair to me either. "There's even the possibility that the Cardassians will issue a formal apology"?! Is that really enough? "Even the possibility"? Meanwhile, people like Dukat not only walk free but remain at their high posts. Cardassia|Nog was the offending side, Bajor|Jake did nothing wrong, and yet rather than declare that and demand justice and apologies, the latter can only hope to achive mutual tolerance -- even that is hard enough. Well, let's just hope the show isn't going to try and justify the occupation, like it did with Nog's misogyny...
btw, since we're talking about international politics and status quo: what about the Dominion threat? everyone was really scared for a couple of episodes, and then things went back to normal. we went to the Gamma Quadrant once for no reason (nothing about the plot required that!). the Defiant, a unique warship sent here for defend DS9 and the wormhole against Dominion attacks, is regularly used as a shuttle/runabout for random trips. way to disperse all sense of danger, change and excitement.
I certainly like Bashir in this episode more than I liked Crusher in Ethics (or in The Host, lol). He can get pretty intense when it comes to saving his patient's life. Not "fly to Cardassia to face a former head of secret service" intense, but still.
It's nice to see Winn humanized a bit. The writers have spent a lot of time making Dukat likeable, she deserves the same treatment. I'm so used to mistrusting her, I spent the entire episode being confused whether she actually wants the treaty to succeed or is plotting to make it fail for some reason, whether she wants Bareil alive or dead. But I guess I was supposed to take everything she was saying at face value for once? 
I don't know what the hell is this season doing with these Ferengi B-plots that, I guess, are supposed to be humorous (???) but are wildly offensive instead. Are we supposed to just calmly accept Quark and Nog's extreme misogyny? It was played for drama pretty well in Rules of Acquisition; this is a noticeable step back.
Heart of Stone
I love Sisko and Bashir's casual conversation about a male ensign's pregnancy! Sure, he's an alien, but it's still progress for this show.
Odo and Kira's storyline is so cliched... I don't even make an effort to listen to their technobabble
As viewers we all know Kira will be saved somehow at the last minute, but in her and Odo's place I'd already start discussing a mercy kill. Phaser blast from a friend >>> asphyxiation
"I'm in love with you too" ???????????????????? YOUR BOYFRIEND LITERALLY DIED IN THE PREVIOUS EPISODE
Sisko, he's just a kid. I know you're testing him, but there's no need to go that far.
Okay, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but: what about misogyny? The previous episode made a point of showing that Nog upholds Ferengi values regarding women. And that's completely incompatible with Starfleet. Isn't anyone going to mention that?
heh... there was a thought at the back of my mind that a changeling might be involved
aww, good, stand up to Quark, you two! :)
Well, most of this episode is very boring, contrived and derivative, but it does give Odo some character development (even if it includes the dreaded romance, ugh) and has a good excuse for this plot device at the end.
Destiny
"I also had Chief O'Brien reprogram the replicators to provide Cardassian food" Um, why wouldn't it already be on the menu? I assumed the replicators weren't replaced by Federation ones, and in season 2 Keiko gave a Cardassian dish to  Rugal. I went back to check, and she literally said "I found some Cardassian recipes in the memory bank of our food replicator"!
It makes sense that the Bajorans don't want the Cardassians in their Temple
let me guess, there'll be an unexpected third Cardassian and suddenly the prophecy will sound much more believable
"Now those are about the two friendliest vipers I've ever met" Hey, maybe don't make jokes like this immediately after someone walks out of the door...
Told you so
Damn, the third "viper" seems to actually deserve that name! Will she be the "bad" one, or, in subversion, the only trustworthy one?
"Men just don't seem to have a head for this sort of thing. That's why women dominate the sciences." ah yes hello reverse sexism trope
Cardassians flirt by bickering? Never heard that before... I thought this was more like Klingons.
Okay, they played it straight with Dejar
That's lovely! But "vipers will return to their nest in the sky" doesn't make sense -- how did the comet fragments return to their nest?
The Prophets don't "want" anything! They just can tell you the future because they don't exist in linear time!
Well, this was a lovely episode, if not the most engaging. But the subplot with O'Brien and the scientist was completely unnecessary.
Prophet Motive
Was! This! Necessary?! I don't need to see sex on screen! And yes that includes oo-mox!
Aw Bashir
I can't believe we're getting a story where Bashir is the one who suffers because his friends won't shut up. Karma is real...
nice job breaking it, Quark
The story is pretty shallow by itself, but makes me ask some interesting questions. Would it be ok to nonconsensually transform a bad person into a good one? Especially a person in a position of power? I know I'd be tempted to do this to some politicians... But even if we assume the ends justify the means, who would define good or bad? Sadly, this episode doesn't take these issues seriously.
After 2.5 season of Bajoran religion, it's actually nice to meet the "Prophets" in person again in all their creepy, clueless glory.
Visionary
Time to torture poor Miles with more unreality!
why are both sides being so dumb? just say "Odo was separated from the rest of his people as a baby, grew up with no knowledge of them, and only met them 1.5 times"?
"I'm always diplomatic" *cut* "THAT WAS THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I'VE EVER HEARD AND I RESENT THE IMPLICATION!"
my first thought: the transporter genuis who beamed in the device was O'Brien
this one doesn't make sense... the sleeping Miles should know about the disaster and the radiation device too...
As usual with time travel episodes, it's very fun to watch, but the mechanics break down at the end and spoil the impression. I like that, as in Civil Defense, every time you solve a problem it gets worse.
It's only season 3, and "O'Brien suffers" as a type of episode is already getting old.
Distant Voices
There's a Cardassian writer named Shoggoth? :D
"Still the man of mystery?" "Oh, you wouldn't have me any other way"
Melting Odo is a genuinely disturbing sight...
"There's hope for you yet, Doctor"
Very predictable story, but it has some character development and lovely scenes with Garak.
Through the Looking Glass
when Mirror!Garak looks in indignation at Sisko kissing Kira: honestly same
Mirror universe Terok Nor is less riot-proof than our universe's was...
Episode: boring and pointless as I feared
Mirror Kira: somehow even worse than the last time, at least watching her hit on herself was mildly entertaining
Mirror Garak: still a giant waste of Andrew Robinson -- seriously, he appears rarely enough, and for the third time in this season he's not playing his real character
Sleeping with alternate versions of friends/subordinates: incredibly gross
Well at least Bashir and Dax looked really hot with these haircuts lol
Improbable Cause / The Die is Cast
Ahh, so many of my favourite things. Odo investigates! Garak confronts his past and justifies his reputation for once! International conflict! Dominion is dangerous again!
The cliffhanger where Garak joins Tain is the most thrilling thing that happened on the show recently! But I'd be severely disappointed if he didn't do that. 
The torture scene is very impressive, but there are some things I don't understand about it:
What, "They're still my people and I want to go home" is the big secret that's worth all that torture? Seriously? Anyone could have told you that. How is this information new or relevant?!
Nevertheless, "he never broke" is a lie, right? Odo did break and confess, even if I think his revelation was completely useless. Don't the intelligence agencies of the two biggest police states in the galaxy have security cameras in their interrogation chambers?!
I could understand if Odo forgave Garak eventually, but not so soon and easily! He tortures you horribly, then you never even mention it and invite him to hang out only several hours after! Sorry, what?!
It's becoming a trend to start Garak-centric episodes with something bad happening to him. :D Oh shit, Garak's hand got bitten! Oh shit, Garak has a migraine! Oh shit, Garak's shop blew up!
Explorers
Come on, O'Brien, is this really more ridiculous than building ships in bottles? :D You of all people should understand!
"For a moment there I thought that you had been put in charge of the Cardassian Ministry for the Refutation of Bajoran Fairy Tales"
Miles, just say the word! :D 
Fireworks in space! :D I don't know what I love more -- the beautiful and uplifting moment itself, or Cardassians going "Shit :))) We gotta be really nice today :))))) Congratulations :)))))))"
After the epic intense two-parter -- 45 minutes of pure fluff :D It has so many things that are specific to DS9: Sisko and Jake's family bond, Bajoran culture and Cardassians being jerks about it, Sisko and Dukat's passive-aggressive skyping, Bashir and O'Brien's slowly developing friendship -- all leading to the celebration of the “boldly go where no one has gone before” spirit, and everything, for once, ends well.
Family Business
"If I were Curzon, I'd have stolen her from you by now" *facepalm* let's just pretend this stupid heteronormative line doesn't exist
this house looks like a Hobbit hole
Quark and Rom's mom is awesome. get rekt you misogynists!
omg Miles & Julian, how old are you? :D
Rom is so nice in this episode
I like Kasidy
Ishka is 10 times more awesome than it seemed
Rom really rocks in this episode
aaaand the ship sails :D
I wish Ishka could make a public statement, and Quark would 
Good episode: interesting family dynamics, amazing Ferengi feminist, cute new ship
Quark and women is a fascinating topic. He's a traditionalist when it comes to Ferengi women, but in daily life among other species usually manages to come off no worse than any 20th century misogynist, and finds strong and outspoken women attractive rather than repulsive. Apparently it boils can be traced back to mommy issues: Quark isn't just a "good Ferengi", he's being reactionary towards Ishka, but at the same time she clearly is a positive influence on him, even if he won’t admit it. Too bad in this episode he refused to take even one step forward as he did in "Rules of Acquisition"...
Shakaar
Shit, things are really going downhill on Bajor... separation of church and state, what's that?
"We spent so many years fighting the Cardassians. We spent so much time hoping and praying for a Bajor that was free. Now that we won, how can people just hand their freedom over to someone like Winn?" "It has been my observation that one of the prices of giving people freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice."
Why can't those reclamators be replicated?
"I wasn't aware that our relationship needed solidifying" 
Great episode! (If I set aside the question of replication... Seriously, what's the law here? The Bajorans on DS9 can use the replimat, but Bajor can't ask the Federation to replicate some farm equipment? I don't think it would be physically impossible, surely it's not made of something like dilithium or latinum.) Winn hasn't reminded me of our sad reality so much since her first appearance. The B-plot was completely irrelevant, but I always enjoy seeing this sort of thing.
Facets
Quark... are you trying to convince the station commander's 16 year old son to write porn for you? seriously?
Ah yes, people closest to Jadzia, aka all of the main characters... and a dabo girl who appeared once for 45 seconds
don't do this... especially in front of all of ur friends...
Dax has a multi-Doctor episode! :D
CurzOdo and Quark's reaction to him are beautiful :D But how can he drink?
Poor Jadzia :(
Go Rom! Quark is too much of an asshole this season...
This is messed up... 
Typical man: he's attracted to a woman, so he takes out his frustration and her and nearly ruins her life
How do Trill memories work? Why is this ritual needed when all memories are already in Dax's head? Are some of them in a .zip and need to be decompressed to be appreciated fully? How did Jadzia not know of Curzon's crush? Is it possible to hide some of your memories from the next host(s) on purpose? You know what, nevermind. Rene Auberjonois (whose name I had to copy-paste, I must admit...) clearly had fun with this episode, and so did I.
The Adversary
yes finally! :)
When they introduced the word "changeling" I was like "that's dumb, that's not what the word means" but now I understand. tbh I love them as enemy -- this story is so beautifully paranoid
why are they all assuming there's only one changeling on board
Well, they certainly know how to end the season on a dramatic line...
This season, my honeymoon phase of "oh my god, serialized Trek" finally ended, and I started thinking about whether or not I like these serialized stories. So I felt compelled to write longer notes after each episode, and don’t have any general remarks this time.
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murasaki-murasame · 6 years
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Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 11 [Chapter 3 - Trial]
I probably should have left this for tomorrow but oh well, here we are.
Thoughts under the cut.
First of all, I basically failed this trial at least three times because I kept running out of health, but APPARENTLY the ‘retry’ option just takes you back to the start of the section you were stuck on and gives you most of your health back. That sure would have been nice to know back in chapter two. I could have avoided replaying half of that case’s trial if I knew that. I thought that the retry option reset the entire trial, especially since I’m pretty sure the ‘prepare and retry’ option takes you back to the start of it. At least, it takes you back to the screen you’re at right before the trial starts. Maybe I was wrong, since in chapter two I just backed out and reloaded my save instead of making sure whether or not I really was being reset to the start of the trial, but still. Oh well. It’s not a major complaint.
Anyway, that aside, this sure was a trial. I don’t know if it’s because I decided to do it at 1am again instead of just waiting until tomorrow, but in terms of logic difficult, this was probably the hardest trial thus far. I’m not kidding when I said that I ran out of health several times, even with the skill that gives me the max amount of health.
The weird part about it is that I was more or less spoiled on this chapter in advance. Or, well . . . it’s not that I knew Kiyo was this chapter’s culprit, but I knew that he was going to be a culprit at some point, since before I even played the game, youtube decided to recommend me one of those ‘all murders and execution’ videos that had his face on the thumbnail. Well, I guess it was his sister’s face, but you get what I mean. Same difference. So I knew that he was going to be a killer eventually, I just didn’t know when. I had to awkwardly keep it a secret this whole time just in case anyone was reading these posts without having played the entire game.
Just to get it out in the open, there’s one other character who I know dies at some point [not sure if they’re a victim or a killer for sure, though], and I think I may have gotten more or less spoiled by what was labeled as a ‘spoiler-free review’ of the game, but I’ll keep quiet about that one until it comes up. I’ll continue to dance around those two spoilers I’m aware of in these posts, but I’m pretty sure that those are the only two spoilers I’ve read in reference to deaths in this game. Every other death should hopefully be a surprise to me.
But back onto my main point, I knew that Kiyo was going to be a culprit eventually, and it was a major reason why I suspected him immediately [though he was pretty suspicious anyway], but somehow this entire trial was still genuinely difficult for me to get through. I ran into so many points where I was completely unsure what the answer was, or what the game expected from me. And since I didn’t know which exact chapter Kiyo was a culprit in, I had the lingering doubt in my mind that maybe he wasn’t the killer yet. This is why I also got thrown off by the possibility of there being two killers involved, since it kinda partially invalidated by spoiler, or at least it seemed to at the time. I guess in the end there wasn’t a second killer, and my initial instincts were right, but this trial really put me through the motions of doubting those instincts to the very end.
It may have been because I held back on thinking too hard about the mechanics of the case since I didn’t want to work it all out in advance, especially since I probably knew who the killer was, but basically every aspect of the actual mechanics of how these murders happened was a real surprise to me.
I guess my main issue was that since Kiyo was so immediately obvious in every way, with the katana being from his room and the seance being his idea, and him being one of the first suspects pointed at, I just kinda assumed that he was being set up as an innocent scapegoat. So basically I got stuck in a loop of metagame-y logic, yet again, and it made me spend the entire time agonizing over whether or not my instincts were right. The game sure picked the perfect time to deviate from the pattern of the true culprit only being suspected in the second half of the trial. I got so used to that set-up that I started immediately ignoring any character who gets suspected early in the trial. But it makes sense that at least one chapter would involve a killer who’s obvious enough to be guessed at the start.
It also lead to me inaccurately doubting Kaito for a second time, but at least this time I was never super confident in suspecting him, since absolutely nothing in this entire case directly pointed at him, aside from him being kinda shady and reclusive lately. So I don’t feel TOO bad about suspecting him a bit.
Even though it’s always sad to feel like this sort of thing got spoiled in advance, I’m happy that Kiyo was the culprit. Now I don’t have that spoiler hanging over my head for the rest of the game. I would have been horrible if he ended up, say, being the chapter five killer, in which case there would have been no doubt about him being the killer then, since chances are there won’t be any murder mystery cases after chapter five. So it’s better that it happened when there was still a chance of my instincts being incorrect. Which worked out for the best, since in spite of me being sort of spoiled about it, this chapter ended up being incredibly difficult for me because of that possibility of being wrong.
Of course there’s still that one aforementioned spoiler that may or may not be pretty directly spelling out one of the final killers, buuuut let’s not talk about that one for now.
I really did get put through the motions of genuinely suspecting a wide variety of people, especially in the context of if there had been two separate killers. I suspected Keebo until they spelled out why his flashlight wouldn’t have worked, which was a concept that I hadn’t really considered, I even suspected Miu for a fair bit, I almost got caught up in the idea that Tenko killed herself, which made me wonder if maybe she’d killed Angie, and I even seriously wondered whether or not Himiko really was the one to kill Tenko, though I feel pretty bad about that one now. And obviously I always suspected Kaito in the back of my mind. Kiyo just felt way too obvious for most of the trial.
I’m not really sure how I didn’t guess the whole trick with the identical rooms, and the purpose of the missing support beam. I think that if I’d given myself more time to think about it, I maybe would have figured it out, but I didn’t.
I still feel a bit . . . iffy about the seesaw trick, since I find it hard to believe that Kiyo wouldn’t have, for example, tripped over and messed up the magic circle, or broken the floorboard. And unless my memory is wrong of how it was laid out, it’s surprising that having the entire floorboard move didn’t displace any of the salt. So that part of it still feels weird to me, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief on that one. The crimes can’t all be perfect. And at least to balance it out, I’m totally on board with the logic behind everything surrounding Angie’s death. That was all surprisingly easy. I dunno how I didn’t figure out the really simple way Kiyo set up the sword to push the lock. Maybe it just seemed too . . . simple? I dunno.
So the actual mechanics of how the case worked were a bit of a surprise to me, and that lead to the logic part of the trial being really difficult. It’s hard to remember all of it, but a lot of the different sections gave me a lot of trouble. For example, both of the hangman’s gambit games were weirdly difficult [at least the seesaw effect one was], I fucked up twice on the psyche taxi part, the rebuttal showdown parts were all kinda difficult in general, and I lost once at the scrum debate part. Though really, from what I remember, the most difficult part was when you have to lie about Tenko’s final moments. The idea of lying in trials is still so . . . weird to me, I basically never even consider it. I tried literally every single possible usage of every truth bullet they gave me, and lost all my health once, before realizing that the game expected me to lie, after I’d done every other option available to me. I kinda thought I was going nuts. But it worked out in the end, I guess.
Also I still suck so much at the Argument Armament, even with two skills dedicated to making it easier. Rhythm games are my worst enemy. Oh, and on the subject of skills, I also managed to squeeze in the one about making truth bullets faster, since I managed to get enough levels right before heading into the trial. That was good.
Oh, and before I forget, Keebo’s image recording function felt a little bit asspull-y, but oh well, it’s not a huge deal. And also I’m not even gonna comment on the reason why Miu designed it for him.
Before I talk about Kiyo, I just wanna say that I’m happy Himiko’s getting some actual development out of this. That’s good. Hopefully she doesn’t get killed off immediately after this. I’m starting to like her.
Anyway, onto the whole elephant in the room known as Kiyo. I was definitely expecting to get a killer soon who would be unanimously ‘evil’ in motive, to balance out the more sympathetic first two killers, but man was I not expecting how nuts he ended up being. His whole motive reminds me a fair bit of Tsumiki’s from DR2. It also helps that they were both the chapter three killers of their respective games.
I still kinda dislike it when murderers in games like this are ‘just crazy’, but I guess I can’t expect all of them to be sympathetic.
It was still a surprise to hear that he had no real desire to leave, and mostly just wanted to kill. That certainly was disturbing.
And on that note, jesus christ I wasn’t expecting this game to get into incest territory, and Kiyo’s delusional murder spree. Wow. I did not see that one coming at all. I don’t even know what to say about it. They really did everything in their power to make him unsympathetic and evil, huh?
In terms of that little post-credits scene of sort, I really hope that isn’t blatant foreshadowing for Kaito becoming a killer in a desperate attempt to escape from the school before he dies from whatever illness he seems to have. I was suspicious of his illness this entire time, since it obviously wasn’t just him being spooked out by ghost stories. It’d be lame if they signaled the idea of him being a killer so far in advance though, and in such a blunt way. We’ll see, I guess. Maybe it’s intentional on the game’s part, that it’s so obvious. If he does end up being a killer, maybe it’s not meant to be a surprise. Who knows.
In general, I have no real idea what to expect from here. Technically we still have nearly half of the game to go, which is weird to consider. And then there’s bonus stuff. I think I’ll probably continue liveblogging through all of whatever bonus post-game stuff we get. Depending on how it goes, I’ll try and avoid using any spoiler-y post titles.
Overall, this was a really bizarre chapter. I kinda sorta knew who it was in advance, and their motive [plus a few details of the crimes] felt a little weak, but at the same time this was undeniably the most difficult trial in terms of how much I fucked it up. It’s a weird situation. I’m not sure how to feel about it.
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