#let's go steal a liveblog

[protect-namine]

funny that when kaido and tsukasa wanted to steal kisa, neji was like, "yeah, go ahead and try! we can even get approval from the principal so it's official! :P" because he knows they can't do it, that kisa will win that individual award and stay in quartz, and it's a great opportunity (in his eyes) for kisa to improve and build confidence by having her participate in activities with other classes

but the moment chui asked kisa to be his jeanne, neji stepped his foot down and was like, "how rude! chui, you can't just demand a student from another class!! the rest of univeil already went over this last summer, you're too late for that!!" likeeee, hypocritical much, neji?? which, chui also says to his face lol. how come you get to transfer to another class, neji-senpai, but kisa can't?

wasn't neji also the one who said that by treating kisa like an object (to borrow sou's wording), kisa herself gained high value?

but I guess it didn't register to neji that chui might take an interest in kisa. which. lol. come on neji, you should've seen that one coming.

I find it interesting how he's suddenly like, "tachibana-kun! from now on, start running for the hills when someone wants to steal you from quartz!!" completely ignoring how he encouraged this specific behavior from other classes in the first place. but, well, amber is just that special, after all

what'a the harm in letting kisa intern in amber for a little while, just like how she joined class practice with onyx and rhodonite for a bit. do you not trust that kisa will stay in quartz after that. do you think chui can actually convince kisa to transfer out of the class tsuki was famously a part of

neji we all know that "just kidding" is codeword for "I'm actually serious but I'm playing it off so no one takes me seriously" boyyyyy you started all of this!!!

#mine musings #liveblogging jj #neji is like. yeah kisa kinda like me. i got more creative when i left amber and decided to try another class #bc i need to see and absorb different experiences and amber only really gives me one (1) source of inspiration #by this logic kisa will become better by participating in other classes! she'll have many sources of inspiration to steal from! #brilliant plan there neji. so are you ever going to let kisa intern in amber any time soon #neji: nope!!!!!!! kai please become kisa's bodyguard from now on

[lonepower]

that's rough buddy

#chi plays gow #chi liveblogs #not spoilers #I can't believe nobody made that joke with the number of memes in this game #there's still time i guess? anyway let's go steal the moon

[incesthemes]

i think the ideal setup for season 8 would have been for benny to travel along with sam and dean because then sam and benny could try to kill each other in every single episode while vying for dean's attention. let the girls fight

#liveblogging: supernatural #sam getting bitchy about sitting in the front seat bc that's His Seat #benny literally just standing there being normal and sam draping himself over dean to steal his attention away #benny tries to have a normal conversation with dean about whatever and sam cuts in and physically puts himself between them #benny: 🧍‍♂️ sam: i don't like you. i'm going to kill you and you will die #let sam be a bitch. let the girls fight over dean #i think whacky sitcom shenanigans should have happened with them. that's all i'm saying #.txt #the winchester gospel #spn8

[bearsinpotatosacks]

Rewatching star trek beyond so liveblogging it

God this film feels like coming home. Let me be a pharmacy assistant on the Enterprise please my life would be fixed

So does Bones just steal from people's lockers? Also they have lockers?

Oh LoRDy

I wish I could’ve been into star trek when this came out

Someone medicate Bones, man's so stressed out honestly

This film really makes me want star trek 4, make it a motion picture, getting the band back together thing

Love the way we see yorktown as massive and impressive then zoom in on the spaceport to make it seem lived in

Sulu's daughter has a toy enterprise

Fuck, prime Spock’s dead

The parts where they show prime spock really make me want a crossover between tos and aos, and it hurts that I'll never see it, guess i'll have to live in fanfic

Love the practical effects of this film

Also is Jim’s outfit in this scene, grey with yellow shoulders, the formalwear? If so I like it

Lovr Uhura's communications panel

Chris Pine's reactions, the cinematography, the set design, the sounds, fuck I love this film

Gonna start saying "i can't engage the warp drive" when i stall a car

Would love to see the borg in aos

Love the character consistency of Bones not carrying a phaser but spock is

Love Bones' portable scanner, i would watch a fake documentary about star trek tech

Does anyone wonder what happened to all the personal belongings that were destroyed on the Enterprise?

Jaylah’s coming soon 😆

There she is!

How many languages does she speak? English, her own and whatever those people she beat up were speaking?

Notice how Bones is still cut on the forehead while he's helping out Spock

Also why does Jaylah know about Krall’s plan? Is that why he shoots people down, try to find the Abornath then kill them to be immortal?

Just realised that Jaylah’s tech was probably from her ship before she got to Altamid, that's why she knows how to use it, her stick, her traps, the parts she got for the franklin (as well as other ships), makes me want to know what her people were like

How long has Jaylah been there?

Love how Bones is ready to throw hands

Bones dancing to achy breaky heart when?

Also Jaylah isn't introduced to Spock and bones, they just get beamed aboard and then spock collapses

Oo Krall’s looking more human

"You gave your girlfriend a tracking device?" Spock’s face 🤣

I really want to know about Jaylah’s family

This film literally proves that my "Jaylah is actually really fucking traumatised and definitely has (c) ptsd" agenda is canon

Also Scotty has his grandma's china hc

Love how Jim respects his crew

Also jim kirk is so Maverick/tom cruise coded it's insane. Bikes, dead dad, cocky attitude, shipped with someone who’s "ice cold"

Uhura has got to be traumatised after seeing a crewmate literally eaten in front of her

Jim Cruise is here! Tom Kirk!

After getting into top gun, the star trek navy inspired titles are funny to me, at least in aos by how quick they get them and how young they all are

Not sure why Jaylah’s fighting gives me kill bill vibes

Also jaylah has blue blood!

Love how sulu gets the dramatic line "they're going to destroy yorktown"

How long did it take to get the ship ready to fly? I mean, it's been at least a day and a night, the day they arrived, nighttime then they all got rescued and brought back together the next day just wondered how long it all took to happen

Also seatbelts!

Sulu would’ve won top gun

"I acknowledge and respect your concerns" Someone's been to therapy

"How do we get them to stop talking" is spoken so shatner

Just realised why certain jobs are the colours, yellow: anything running the ship (captain, pilot etc), red: anything about how the ship runs (engineering, communications, security), blue: science and medical

I love how the end of this film is similar to battleships where they use an old ship to defeat an alien ship

The picture of the original crew! He took it with him! I need a crossover now! I love how they used a more brassy theme there, makes it sound more original, more nostalgic

They had the chance to do futuristic dress but they just look like dudes from 2016

If they could just do an animated series for the aos crew...

Also the og theme at the end 🥲

#aos #star trek #star trek beyond #star trek aos #aos star trek #star trek alternate original series #jim kirk #captain kirk #james t kirk #leonard mccoy #dr mccoy #spock #s'chn t'gai spock #montgomery scott #jaylah #hikaru sulu #pavel chekov #nyota uhura

[starplusfourletters]

I read vision of the future (hand of thrawn book 2 aka Who Scams the Scammers)

(spoilers) and once again it turned into a liveblog, apologies

Hold up are we doing Warrior Cats? Is this Warrior Cats Planet??

What base is “arm around your waist to serve as a psychic translator conduit”

Omigod I WISH my Warrior Cat name were “Jaded of Mara”

Everything I know about Soontir Fel I learned from x wing but I would not have guessed his primary motivation to be "dirt"

@ luke and mara: the girls are talkingggggg

North Barris Spaceport has me twitching

Ghent not remembering who the president is and just assuming it’s probably Leia. I mean fair

What base is "holding hands to brace yourselves over a swarm of flesh eating insects"

So we’re finally asking why Mara ISN’T actually dark side and the answer is… shrug emoji?

Man Zahn really is stuck on “character bonding hike” as a device huh. But consider I eat that shit up

Oh No Lando is racist

LMAO at “so oblivious you need a child pterodactyl to tell you to just kiss already” to “besides I don’t want my life to be like spiderman three I hated that movie” to “kissing with dubious consent” ALL ON THE SAME PAGE like Zahn finally realized he really needed to get this show on the road

LMAO at Ghent getting a free pass from Pellaeon to hack the empire. Like you’re just going to get the thing you need and not steal all of our military and political secrets right? Riiiight? Even more LMAO at the fact that that would probably not even occur to Ghent

When everyone assumes they're the protagonist so finding this one macguffin is their job personally. Like guys I like the energy but maybe we've got enough different plans to do the same thing (the exception, hilariously, being Luke) (and Oh No it turns out Luke is the one to find the macguffin because You Have to Follow Your Heart and Let the MacGuffin Come to You. I eat that shit up also)

Mara’s just... So great.

Not to make everything about my blorbo but absolutely to make everything about my blorbo I do wonder to what extent Ahsoka’s characterization post-Rebels doesn’t click for me is because a lot of the more obvious directions for Oldsoka overlap with Mara, and the powers that be didn’t want to reinvent the Mara Jade wheel. Not to say they have similar characterization – Mara has terminal sam coded dean girl syndrome – but idk, in dynamic range maybe? Calling out bullshit, weaponizing her own abrasiveness, covering insecurity with humor, being Kind of a Lot with a side of trust issues at any given moment – there are modes Mara and Youngsoka share that didn’t pass to Oldsoka apparently. Idk possibly all this is just me wanting them to TALK

Establishing that you can do evil things for selfless reasons without necessarily being in any danger of falling to the dark side is... Philosophically interesting

We interrupt this tale of political espionage to bring you Jedi Relationship Counseling (spoiler alert: communication is key)

"That part of her life [Mara’s time with Palpatine] had died unmourned" I mean mourned a little bit. Mourned for at least a book and a half

I've been willing to suspend my disbelief on everything in this book until "both Luke and Mara forget that ysalamiri exist"

I will never not be a sucker for The Movements and Transferred Ownership of Emotionally Significant Weapons

Oh No thrawn made a second foundation

The Aing-Tii seem OP but whatever

Oh No the second foundation forgot to close the garage doors

(Re: The Jade’s Fire) I know Mara’s having a Moment, and I promise I’m taking it seriously, but when the warrior cat asked “What is it you want, Mara Jade” my WHOLE BRAIN responded with "I want Hermione Granger! And a rocket ship!"

Moranda has real Kevin from home alone energy and I'm living for it

Is it bad that I’m actually kinda happy the Imperials’ Bothawui shield plan worked? Like, they had a really interesting plan and I’m happy for them. They earned it

WAIT IS MORANDA DEAD FR?

What base is “full mind meld while you’re fighting for your lives”

Who would win: ~1.5 Jedi, 2 sentinel droids droidekas, or Artoo with a sauntering gun

If I had a nickel for every time this duology explicitly established Jedi can’t go completely without oxygen, even when in a trance, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but which makes me feel like the Ahsoka show had a weirdly specific axe to grind with the source material

Luke’s proposal to Mara is Just. The. Funniest. Thing. That’s some Anakin-level cringe and the prequels aren’t even out yet. He truly is his father’s son.

I mean POV there’s this guy and for a couple years you want to kill him, and then you realize that’s more of a You Problem, so then you’re friendquaitances for a decade mostly because you don’t approve of the shit he’s getting into, and then you have one (1) honest conversation and get caught in a death trap and he’s like “so I think the next step for us is marriage”

LEIAAAAAA! Full Jedi Knight Leia is both terrifying and hot. I would run.

“So it is treason” – Some random guy

Lando needs to be on the New Republic payroll simply for being willing to speak to any of the other characters and also he needs a raise. This poor guy getting called on to command the entire New Republic fleet mid-battle and he’s like “I’ve been a civilian for 15 years and also I knew you would pull some horse piss like this steve”

Mara Jade, Imperial protege. Skills include: Identifying load-bearing walls. (Now all I want is Property Brothers: Sith Edition)

Mara please. Luke please. These absolute idiots. This is some pear scene shit. I hope nothing bad happens to them ever

The whole back half of this book has been an emotional rollercoaster for me specifically because I wanted Flim to be Thrawn FR soooooo baddddd. And now I’m sad. His name literally means scam don’t do this to me Zahn

I’ve been amused by all the Star Wars universe idioms but I gotta take a moment to specifically showcase “burned your sky-arches.” Karrde is a delight to have in class

Having an independent intelligence agency that’s supposed to work for both the New Republic and the Empire seems absolutely unhinged but go off I guess

When the New Republic and Empire sign peace accords and Luke can’t even be bothered to show up

Mara is great and her arc is fuckin hilarious to me. The narrative has identified her as The Damaged One and I’m like???? She came to terms with her troubled past, drew her own boundaries regarding the Dark Side, recognized that there are people who care about her instead of pre-emptively pushing them away, and resolved to form deeper emotional connections. Smash cut to ROTS Anakin whose physical and psychic damage has literally turned his brain into oatmeal

Again I know this was before the prequels Mad points for explicitly saying Mara needed to form attachments to become a Jedi. Zahn being pretty gangsta there

OH NO THEMB

#long post #hand of thrawn #vision of the future #star wars legends #mara jade #ghent #timothy zahn #ahsoka tano #because ahsoka just sneaks into all my mental processes sorry

[mantisgodiveblog]

Twenty whole posts! Wow! The big two-oh! That is A Lot of posts for a liveblog that's still on Act Two Of Six and only on Loop Two! Let's call this a milestone. Our backup document for the text of this liveblog currently logs at around 30k words, and we ain't getting any less wordy. Now, let's get back to it, shall we?

(Part 19 is here)

We are, of course, starting with this beautiful piece of flavor text. Considering how many times we double back on ourself and have multiple characters occupying the same space, we kind of wonder how that looks in-universe. Less overlapping, we assume. It's probably less pathfinding work to do it this way but the fact that this, too, is more literal than originally assumed, is... very good.

We're walking in file. Organized. It seems strategically unsound to do this instead of grouping up so we can have things like actual battle positions that are not a line vulnerable to attack in almost any direction but it is funny to imagine.

Dialogue for selecting "creepy" - same exact spy dialogue as every other Sadness in this particular set. This one reminds us of a turtle.

...skipping straight from III to Alpha V? Seems odd to us, but okay.

And - well, we've been running into these destroyed statues enough that we feel we have to ask. Did the King just go through the House and smash every single Change God statue in here? That seems like a lot of effort for apocryphal depictions. Do you have some sort of superstition thing going on or something? Are you afraid that having a Change God watching will disrupt your unchanging time stop? Surely, there are better ways to do this.

...then again, we're talking to the guy who chose to set up his unchanging, time-stopped reign in a House Of Change, so maybe he just has some religious problems going on. Doesn't seem very fond of the Change God, regardless.

Is it a crime to steal from the House if everyone inside is frozen? We say no. They're not using it. When they get unfrozen, it might count, though. For more steaming hot takes on morality, follow our BandCamp.

Intended for us, clearly. We can find no reason that we would be any less romantically viable than the intended recipient. Besides the fact that we're aro, of course. We're always open to love confessions, we just don't have enough romance in us to love you back the same. Or enough general allo-ness, actually. You know how it is.

#we speak #liveblog #in stars and time #act 2 #loop 2

[nortism]

doctor who liveblog pt 20

s4 ep3 planet of the ood

- yayay ood episode, my fav aliens

- GET HIS ASS OOD

- the doctor spends so much time fiddling with the tardis and yet he can do nothing to make the journey more comfortable

- i’m obsessed with her coat

- does he just carry a stethoscope around with him?

- omg the poor oods

- lets go ood revolution

- “doctor. donna. friends :)”

- omg the mega ood brain

- the brain ate him

- YOOO THE OOD WAS POISONING HIM

- HOLY FUCK

- HES AN OOD

- well at least they’ll take care of him?

- very ominous from the ood at the end

s4 ep4 the sontaran stratagem

- saw martha in the promo, i hope her and donna are best friends

- AWW SHE GOT ENGAGED TO THE NICE DOCTOR MAN

- aww they’re talking shit together <3

- she’s a doctor!!!

- oh she’s perf to me

- oh no there’s a man in the soup

- why’s the robot sexist?

- aww donna no

- ok i’m also a great big outer space dumbo

- nooo martha

- MARTHA GET AWAY FROM THE SOUP

- he’s such a nerd i love him

- fucking grammar police over here

- “intruder window” made me laugh

- omg they’re cooking a martha in the soup

- oh protective granddad i love him

- NO GRANDDAD

s4 ep5 the poison sky

- yes then donna’s mum

- “that’s my girl!”

- i need them to calm down with the sexism

- omg they nicked the tardis

- nooo ross

- yes then donna noble !!

- ayyy empty child reference

- the marthas are unionising

- yayay ya donna!!!!!!

- bro is fuming about those guns

- oh fuck the kid died

- nooo the tardis is stealing martha

s4 ep6 the doctor’s daughter

- i’m glad we’re getting some answers because the doctor saying he’s a father has been bothering me i won’t lie

- donna and martha my sillies

- ok they did not answer my initial question, this is a new daughter

- also very bizarre to watch when you know that’s his wife irl

- he’s a dilf and a milf?? what can’t he do??

- the one day year old is fucking brutal

- also crazy how she was born with eyeliner on

- yes then dr martha jones!!!

- is she a baby timelord??

- aww a baby timelord

- martha and her hath friend

- ayo she’s got way more rizz than her dad

- NOOOOO NOT THE HATH

- what happened to his other kids???? wait the war stupid question 😭😭

- does that mean he’s had sex?? how do timelords reproduce??

- yoooo the war has been going seven days???

- ooo pretty garden

- OH FUCK JENNY

- can she not regenerate??

- can’t believe the invisible bullet wound killed her

- donna u are not gonna travel with him forever

- DOCTOR JONES

- HOLY FUCK

#nortism liveblogs doctor who #doctor who #doctor who liveblog #doctor who s4 #doctor who series 4 #tenth doctor #donna noble #martha jones #the ood #jenny doctor who #planet of the ood #the sontaran stratagem #the poison sky #the doctor’s daughter

[turtlesocksv2]

Liveblogging Dead Friend Forever ep 3

It's Saturday and you know what that means! That's right, it's time for our weekly look at Gay Teens Stuck In A Cult Murder Woods While A Serial Killer Who Might Be A Ghost Is Out To Get Them!

In the recap I JUST noticed that Phi is the one like "Nah you're friend probably just moved! :) It's Fine :)" before he convinces them to remake the movie and I just....Sus King.

Phi doesn't want Top to go for help alone and like...he's right! Not only is Top a coward who will probably abandon them, it's also just a dumb idea! There is a serial killer out there! If Top is alone, he is going to Get Got. Phi is being smart, actually! And Tee just straight up asks Phi if he wants Por to die and my poor Sus King stays silent. I support your murder agenda!

Tan getting Top to spill some secrets! So Top and Non had issues, you say? 👀 And the road to town is conveniently blocked you say? 👀 i feel the killer getting closer lmao RIP Top you will not be missed.

Fluke is the only one who realizes that they shouldn't disturb a crime scene. Tee is the one who says "well then let's just burn it and get rid of the evidence!" and like....what on earth did y'all do three years ago. you absolutely killed someone for the Forest Cult didn't you.

Oh ewww i really didn't need the random dog licking the corpse with gross noises. but also, don't shoo away the dog! The dog can alert you to the killer lurking! The dog will be your friend! Nothing better happen to the dog or Be On Cloud and I are gonna have Words

White didn't even want to come! He wasn't supposed to be there! It's supposed to be his day off! I like how Phi tells White to stay behind while they go try to rescue Top and Tan - because White's not involved in this. It also keeps one of the non-involved trio with Fluke, One with Top and Phi has the other group. Each group has a non-involved person to keep an eye on their shady, potentially Non-Murdering asses.

Tan made it all the way back to the Valley Mansion by himself? 👀 Ok, Sus King, we still on board the good ship Phi And Tan Are The Killer.

LOL Tee really keeps calling Phi out, it's so funny.

Tan must have hit his head or something for them to but the "by the time i got up Top AND the motorbike were gone!"

Fluke you KNOW you cannot be shaking Por like that. You are absolutely trying to kill Por before his dying guilty conscience spills the beans on what you guys did to Non. And Ooooo White stealing the hard drive with the movie on it because Fluke made him suspicious. Way to go, pulling the innocent act. You might just survive. Ah, but it's broken.

The shrine and al lthe blood is very well done very creepy. Tan's asthma is absolutely gonna get him killed tho.

Oooooh White found a gun under Por's mattress. Interesting. and he's keeping it because he doesn't fucking trust Fluke which is so smart of him.

Lol love them quadruple-teaming the masked killed. like, yes! there's way more of you than of him! But then they run away like...no! just tackle him and unmask him! there are four of you!!!

dying at Phi and Jin trapped in the box/coffin together and Phi saying he'll protect Jin.

"it's nothing why would you want to watch it hat much" because you are SUSPICIOUS as FUCK, Fluke and White is not actually stupid maybe??????? Fluke has lost his damn mind.

So we have confirmation that Por took money from someone he shouldn't have - Non, probably? Weird.

Por's rich ass family has a mansion in walking distance to the Cult Murder Shrine. So Theory: Por's rich ass family are cult members who sacrifice people. the friend group got sucked into three years ago and tried to sacrifice Non, who thought he was their friend but was basically their bullying victim. Non escaped and is now Out For Revenge and I am eagerly awaiting Unhinged Barcode. Pretty sure Phi and Tan are also Team Revenge, but it could also just be that they and Phi especially are Nosey Bitches. I support them either way.

#dead friend forever #dff the series #dead friend forever the series

[silviakundera]

Joy of Life Episode 10 liveblogging

This is my first watch, so don't tell me secrets ;)

Tagging silvia watches jol so you can block

Second Prince just salutes his partner in trial crimes & leaves like the shit stirrer he is

Si Lili is part of team Second Prince, right?

See, what a nice mysterious woman who I hear is SINGLE 🌼

Loser bro!!!! Showing up with his killer scissors ! <333333333333333 It's not too late! There's a really nice romance misunderstanding that IS NOT HAPPENING.... but IF IT WAS, I'm just saying, you would be perfectly suited. A little... switcheroo? eh? ehhhhh?????

ML stealing candy from a toddler. I like his style.

The emperor absolutely terrorizing that judge was incredible stuff.

And yeah, the emperor IS terrifying (as all effective ones would be). But we can't say he's wrong that the judge had obviously boarded the crown prince's ship. It was so clear in that court room how much he was treating CP as the emperor in waiting. This is exactly why the emperor wants ML in play: to stir up the waters and reveal everyone's allegiances.

See, I like Si Lili. She's smart. She and ML both benefited from that brief alliance. So why not again?

OH. MY. GOD. AGAIN -- no. I'm on strike and refuse to acknowledge that the forced romantic misunderstanding is happening.

I'm going to let this rage pass through me. It is the mind killer.

Uncle Wu reference! I miss him ❤

Assassin bro Teng Zijing is going to stay FOR THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

but he really needs to stop trying to kneel to his bestie. bro you're making it weird.

"The play has not ended yet. I should leave the stage as it is and let them continue singing." Emperor really enjoying these playoffs and hopes it goes to 5OT in Game 7

I feel like the Crown Prince is both helped & hurt by the Royal Princess as his main supporter. She's become so narrowly focused on eliminating Fan Xian and it's blinding her to the variety of paths before them. CP is RIGHT that Fan Xian hasn't picked a side. (Though we are teetering on a Forbidden Bromance.) I'm feeling like maybe CP wouldn't even be determined to making an enemy of this new player if his aunt wasn't forcing the issue constantly. He wasn't going to interfere at ALL in the trial until she made a big deal about it... and then blames him when that goes wrong? It's honestly not doing him any favors to be making all this noise.

I'm on strike and refuse to acknowledge that the forced romantic misunderstanding is happening.

MAYBE JUST TAKE 30 MINUTES A HORSE TO THEIR FUCKING HOME AND ASDFGHJKL no. I'm going to let this rage pass through me. It is the mind killer.

#joy of life #silvia watches #silvia watches jol #cdrama

[gerbiloftriumph]

Floating Castle Liveblog (first read)

The King's Quest series has been graced with a very silly and very wonderful trilogy of adapted novels, and of them all, the first is my favorite. I have read it more times than I should, and liveblogged my musings on Goodreads in real time, er, multiple times.

Below is my first readthrough. Follow along with my initial, baffled, but ultimately delighted, self. Obviously, spoilers for an objectively terrible but subjectively amazing video game novelization from the 90s.

(and if you want to read the Floating Castle yourself, well, [I'm sure there are avenues online] but you didn't hear that from me)

May 7, 2018 –

page 0

Let it be officially known: I am terrifically excited to read this, and a little nervous, too. Please be good. Please be good. But please don't be SO good that I want to break my wallet trying to get a copy of See No Weevil. [side gerbil note: at the time, one of the only copies of See No Weevil, the third book in the series, available for purchase online was selling for $8k. No, that's not a joke.]

page 6

I miiiight be wrong, but wasn't Merlin's Mirror blank for all the years Alexander was missing, too? I have a feeling I read that somewhere...eh. I should read the actual game manuals sometime.

page 9

It's a touch on the fluffy side. A whole paragraph is dedicated to Alexander getting out of bed. But, let's be clear, that fluff worked really well a few pages ago with the storm, so. Plus, it's from the 90s, so. For some reason fantasy from then seems to be fluffy

page 10

You out of shape magician boy, you. Then again, 4 deep flights of castle steps (probs rough flagstone, rather uneven) is probably hard to climb, so. Fair.

page 14

Graham is such a good king. Like. Really really good.

page 26

Come on, magician prince. You can think of somethiiiing.

page 18

Sir Brian of House Blessed, I presume.

page 40

A: Oh, you stuck Graham's soul in a crystal? Very Ocarina of Time of you. What year did this come out? B: ...why is this actually kind of a good book? Like, from an honest fantasy novel perspective, not just a King's Quest adaptation perspective, it's actually not that bad. Slightly dated with its fluffy descriptions, but I've read plenty of worse fantasy before.

page 47

I didn't expect to enjoy a magician turning into a tree as much as I am, and I love Alexander being all good and diplomatic and not swearing anyone out for Cyril's complete uselessness.

page 49

I wonder how old Alexander is. I don't think it's said. How far past Manannan are we? Has KQ5 happened yet? These are not crucial questions, and yet. I'm curious. Do we know about Crispin? He's probably fractionally more useful than Morowyn. But only fractionally, cos he's still mostly useless.

page 54

Alex (paraphrased): So. All I have to do is sneak into Telgrin's evil doom castle, figure out where he hid a crystal of undetermined size with King Graham's soul in it, steal it (it had better not be car sized), sneak out without getting caught, and get home before his empty body dies, and you can put the soul back in? Cyril (quote): Oh, yes. Almost certainly. Probably. I think. Sounds like a PLAN, guys. Let's go!

page 54

Addendum to the above REALLY AWESOME PLAN. Do it before Telgrin tortures Graham's soul into hideous unrecognizability. Y'know. No pressure or anything.

page 58

I like Cyril. Road trip with the boys!

page 65

What sort of spooky ringwraith nonsense....

page 74

That’s....that’s just lembas bread. Literally just lembas.

page 81

Okay, there’s a thing I don’t like. Little episodic things periodically happen but so clumsily. I think it’s to give Alexander “items” to solve later puzzles, like the games. Direct quotes here: “Good apple,” Cyril said. “Very good.” “Sweet.” “Mmm.” And that’s the end of the exchange. Like. I get it, apples will probably be important later but. That dialogue is less than riveting

May 8, 2018:

page 87

"He’s going to try to ride a kelpie. I’ve never been so excited about a plot development in all my life!

page 108

I very much enjoyed that bit with the ogre, and now we’re hiding in barrels to sneak in. This book is like, nothing but all the best possible Fantasy Highlights.

page 123

Also, I’m fond of this exchange: “You are an evil man.” “So it has been said.” Telgrin shrugged. “Personally I’ve always found that such abstractions do not apply well to the real world. They make matters that are by their very nature complex seem rather too simple, don’t you think?” “Evil,” Alexander repeated."

page 133

Ewwww what is that thing. That’s a horrible beastie.

page 139

Where was he? Yes. Who was this beside him? Yes. Alexander those are not answers to your questions.

page 146

“All I’d have to do is wait until Telgrin is out of the room, step through the mirror, reclaim my father’s soul, and return through the mirror.” Alexander *liked* this plan."

page 162

It's absolutely just The Best Parts of Any Fantasy shoved together in one frantic ball of fury, with maybe three pages at most devoted to each new Fantasy Segment. I'm so into it. It's not a challenge to read by any stretch--I'd say it's middle grade fiction level--but, like, yo. It's crazy fun so who cares. (darn it, book, you broke my theory about where Telgrin had stuffed Graham. Boo. I was enjoying my guess.)

page 163

If my baby boy has broken his arm punching this ringwraith there will be hell to pay from me. I will protect this scarf-wearing lad at all costs. I say, when he's probably my age and knows at least a little magic and how to use a sword and has no problem crawling around dungeons and enemy castles.

page 165

Alexander is SUCH a pile of snark. Yeah, this is going well, he thinks. Now we have *four* knights chasing us.

page 168

“Cyril, I really don’t think—“ “*Enough.* there’s no time for discussion. Prepare yourself.” “No, Cyril, I— Aieeeeeeee!” Boys please

page 170

Are you KIDDING. It took us ages to get INTO the castle. And now we’re stuck outside again. P sure Telgrin is going to raise security after that debacle and kerfuffle you just caused.

page 175

Cuss the ever loving frick out of that tree root. You’ve earned a little less-than-princely reaction after this hell day.

page 181

Graham’s been soul-less for about a week at this point if I’ve added up right. He can wait a bit more, probably.

page 183

THIS IS NOT A HELPFUL SOLUTION TO THE MANY PROBLEMS AT HAND.

page 185

“Did you speak, Sir Frog?” “That’s Prince Frog to you.” Alex, please reign back the sass a little bit. You’re not helping matters.

page 194

We’ve found a princess, convinced her to smooch, he turns human again, and the first thing she says is “but....you’re *beautiful.*” Agreed, yo.

page 204

He’s been walking around with a hat this whole time? I hope it has a feather in it.

page 219

My baby Grahaaaaaam. Sorry about the week of agonizing torture. We came quick as we could. That whole scene with you and Telgrin was so cool and you’re so brilliant and I love your stupid regal face. Also. This exchange; “What happened?” “I’m not exactly sure. All I know is that Telgrin came uncomfortably close to killing me.” Y’know, no big deal.

page 223

"It opened its eyes, blinked, and said, “Hmph. What’s happening? Where am I?” “It’s all right, dear,” the first head said. “Go back to sleep. I am just going to kill this man here.” “Oh, that’s all right, then.”

page 228

I’m amazed Telgrin hasn’t raised hell and panic after losing Graham and his staff. Like. This isn’t a good event for our villain but we everyone seems remarkably calm.

page 231

“Is *everyone* in Daventry this obstinate?” Yes. You messed with the wrong royal family, tbh.

page 234

I love this. I love this book. In ways I cannot express because truly it is not a good book and yet. And YET. The setting is phenomenal, the cast both old and new entertaining, the language occasionally dips beyond melodramatic into actually decently lyrical, the action is relentless, and EVERYONE IS SASSY. Be it Alexander, Graham, this new princess, Telgrin. Everyone.

page 243

“I don’t suppose that you’ll tell me what you were up to.” “I don’t suppose.“ The sass is too strong. It’s blinding. I don’t want this book to end.

page 248

“You know, Alexander, I am not normally given to strong emotions. I do not often make declaration of animosity, for these do not agree with my usually thoughtful and scholarly nature. I must, however, tell you that I hate you.” The sass.

page 249

“The wonderful thing is, I have the power to make it all come true. All of it – the pain, the disfigurement, the death. I tell you, sometimes it’s a truly marvelous thing to be me.” Stars above I’m dying this is so good

page 250

This book is amazing. I am dying.

page 252

No, seriously. I am actually laughing out loud at this point. I love this. “She shall marry me unwillingly, or not at all!“

page 255

“Oh, I see the way of it. It’s blame-everything-on-Telgrin time, is it?” It hurts. My joy hurts too much. I’m crying with joy.

page 260

Cool guys don’t look at explosions.

page 269

This castle even has murder holes. Like. This is actually a good solid piece of fantasy, with accurate castles.

page 273

“I could attempt to fly you down.” All in all, Alexander thought he would rather just jump."

page 293

Graham is such a flirt.

page 297

No there’s no more page to turn!!!!!! Nooooooo I want moreeeee. .....aahHahdhsbdjdhdbuebfjxi.

May 8, 2018 – Finished Reading

five stars out of five stars

#the other liveblogs for the exact same novel will be coming--that's less a cheerful promise and more like an intimidating stare #please understand how heavily i fall in love with telgrin's bad emo villain game in future readings #this is but a taste of how fiercely he grabs my attention #yes i'm mostly doing this because goodreads is fed up with my liveblogging and is overwriting my status updates and i find that offensive #king's quest #kings quest #alexander (king's quest) #rosella (king's quest) #king's quest novels

[icebluecyanide]

Alex Rider S03E05 Reaction

Once again posting my unspoilered reactions to the episode as I continue to go 😻 at Yassen being Alex's tutor.

Liveblog

They’re going to agree?? I guess in this case they don’t have to rely on the Americans to agree

“We do not negotiate with terrorists” ashdfhsldh Scorpia is very funny for that but also what is their plan?? I can only assume that they do actually want to cripple the UK or just get at the Department because I don’t believe Scorpia gives a damn about the debt

“He’s out there being a teenager because of us” lmao yes Alex doing normal teen stuff joining a criminal organisation to take down the government Department that blackmailed him

They just figure out it’s inhalation?? Well that’s easy lol

Why is Alex the one bringing him in ahsldfhs. What is the point of involving Alex in the meet and greet lmao

Max Grendel calling Julia Rothman out on it being personal 👀👀 I mean, yeah, definitely, but also what’s with his changing motives lol

They just find the tubes?? Lol I guess they will not need Alex for any of it

I wonder if Syl will be the one sent to kill Alex at the end, if the shooting happens like in the book

How did they send the package??

Love Yassen implicitly calling Alex’s handwriting illegible lol

Why does Alex think they will tell him what he’s stealing ahsflhd get with the program Alex, this is not a safe space for questions

“I don’t want you to fail. I don’t want you to die” 😭🥺 Also I assume Yassen is gonna kill Grendel lol

“You wouldn’t have a clue” gosh the horror with Alex not knowing he could die at any moment

Lmao that smoke was some bad CGI, but I do love Yassen and Alex working together

Yassen being there to kill was very unsurprising but still a nice plot twist, he’s so polite offering to let Grendel finish his drink 🥰 Alex is so shocked lol

I was cruelly torn away from the ep right as Alex told Tom to leave and Yassen walked out, this tension is unbearable 😭

And then nothing happens lol I need an AU where Yassen catches them

Alex yelling at Mrs Rothman about getting him involved in murder… Alex bb I love you but you joined the murder organisation, you cannot be surprised when they commit murder in front of you like they did several times before

Though in fairness to Alex it’s probably more that he feels culpable and that he thought Max was on their side that bothers him

Ohh so we are blaming Mrs Jones!! Excited to get the assassination attempt, but really no idea how Scorpia thinks Alex is going to take the shot in this universe

Overall

Lots of Yassen and Alex scenes which was great! Loved the mission and Yassen shooting Grendel as he did. I’m a bit sad that Alex is no longer the key to dismantling Invisible Sword like in the book because they seem to have been able to work out the weapon pretty easily. Very excited to see the assassination attempt and more Yassen and Alex.

Thoughts/predictions

Noticed the students all sleeping together in bunk beds, and gosh it’s such a difference from the luxury in the book, where Scorpia is all money and the good life and even the killing is there, but it’s talked about like it’s very understandable that Alex is having trouble, he’s young, he just needs to see that it’s not so scary. While here they are a lot harsher on him, and I do miss the contrast with Alex’s experiences with the Department. Although I suppose Yassen is providing the ‘nice’ side of Scorpia here, along with Julia Rothman’s manipulation.

So we get confirmation that Julia is doing this for revenge against the UK and the Department, like Mrs Jones brings up, they don’t care about the aid. And like no offence but why did it take them that long to work that out ahsdlfhs. We also get told as a viewer that Alex already has the particles inside him (and no mention of it passing out of his system here), but Alex himself doesn’t know yet, which is a shame because I loved that in the book Alex is the only one who knows and he doesn’t tell them.

Gosh Alex telling Tom that he messed up was good, and I love his desperation in telling them to get out. I’d love an AU where Yassen does catch them and things go horribly wrong and tense.

I’m guessing Alex can get home pretty easily in this and that’s when we get the scene at the grave that was in the trailer and him telling Jack he knows who killed his father.

Questions

Once again, what does Yassen know?? He wants Alex to live so he’s clearly not on board with Mrs Rothman’s scheme, or at least it seems highly unlikely. But why assign him to Alex when Alex seems to be someone he cares about if they plan to kill him?

What’s the transmitter going to look like? Will there be a Church of Forgotten Saints? Given that we got Mrs Rothman walking around that miniature of a church in the first episode, I’m assuming there might be something like in canon, but perhaps not with the air balloon.

Is Kyra going to think that Alex was more involved with the murder than he was? She definitely saw they went in there to kill someone, so that could lead to interesting angst.

#alex rider tv #alex rider spoilers #alex rider tv spoilers #alex rider s3 #cyan watches alex rider s3 #alex rider #alex x yassen

[kanerallels]

AHA YOU DID PUT THE ASK GAME BACK UP

I humbly request something with Saville and Galen because my beloveds 🤲

I DID and took so long to respond to this lol. But! Since you didn't specify an AU I decided to explore a concept I came up with in the shower the other day: Valiant Cinderella au (featuring Ever After vibes, The Flight Of Swan characters, and one subtle reference to my liveblog)

I’d only taken my eyes off of Will for a second. We were in the market— he and I and Corbin, my stepbrother who hadn’t been convinced to hate me, despite my stepmother’s best efforts.

Will was family too, after a fashion. I’d found him, just a street urchin fighting dogs for food, and brought him home under the guise of a servant. Really, I’d just wanted to keep him safe, even if I couldn’t protect myself.

He was a hard worker, but too eager to rush ahead. I’d only looked away to barter for bread for a minute— one minute! And then I heard his voice shouting my name, and turned to see soldiers dragging him away.

King Eldin was supposedly a weak king, weaker than his hard-headed brother had been. He wasn’t a bad man— but he was easily manipulated, a fact that had been taken advantage of by Lord Leymonn, one of the top advisors in the castle. And Lord Leymonn had little tolerance for the parentless urchins wandering the streets. Which Will wasn’t— but clearly the soldiers didn’t know that.

Dropping my basket, I bolted towards the soldiers, ignoring Corbin shouting for me to be careful. I couldn’t let them take Will. I couldn’t.

The soldiers were shoving him into a cart as I approached, heart pounding with terror. I hated being scared, and that fueled me enough to shout, “Stop! What are you doing?”

The two soldiers paused, one still keeping a firm grasp on Will’s arm as the two of them looked at me. The older of the two, brown eyed with a beard, lifted an eyebrow at me. “Arresting this thief.”

“He is not a thief,” I protested, glaring at them. “Do you arrest all children you see because you suspect they may be thieves? He’s a servant in my stepmother’s household. Let him go.”

“Lord Leymonn has ordered that street urchins—”

“Hang your Lord Leymonn,” I spat out, and was surprised to see a look of amusement cross the older man’s face. The younger looked affronted, and was opening his mouth to respond when a third voice cut through our conversation.

“Orion, Hayden, what’s going on here?”

I turned, ready to fight— and the words shriveled up in my mouth.

Fine Coat. Sky above, it was Fine Coat— the noble who I’d met six months earlier on the road to Reggen, traveling back home with my father. Before he’d remarried a witch woman and then fallen ill, leaving me in her hands.

He wouldn’t remember me. He couldn’t. No matter how much I may have annoyed him at the time.

“Lord Verras,” the younger man said, straightening a little. “We’re arresting this street urchin. Lord Leymonn’s orders— we’re to keep the streets as free of thieves as possible, sir.”

“He’s not a thief,” I broke in, my fear for Will overwhelming my fear that Fine Coat would know who I was. “He’s a servant in my stepmother’s household, and he wouldn’t steal anything.”

“He’s a street rat,” the younger guard said.

“He’s a child,” I snapped, glaring at him. “Or is that an instant sign of guilt in the eyes of your precious Lord Leymonn?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lord Verras and the older man exchange a look that I couldn’t read. Hardening my heart against fear, I turned towards him. “He’s just a child. He hasn’t done anything, you can’t arrest him. Or have the nobles already forgotten what justice is?”

The younger guard gaped at me, as shocked by my audacity as my pounding heart was. Lord Verras regarded me, with eyes that almost seemed to look through me. I held myself straight, refusing to look away. I wouldn’t back down.

“You have such a low opinion of our royalty?” His voice was calm, curious.

“I have a low opinion of anyone who would lock up a child,” I told him, and he nodded.

“Fair enough. Release the boy.”

“But Lord Leymonn will—”

“I will deal with Leymonn,” Lord Verras said, and I didn’t miss the look the two guards exchanged. The older one nodded to his companion, who let go of Will’s arm.

He scrambled free, tumbling into my arms, and I pulled him close, trying to hide my trembling. “Thank you,” I told Lord Verras.

“You were right,” he said simply. “If the boy hasn’t done anything wrong, he deserves to go free.” He paused, frowning a little. “It’s rare to see someone around these days who’s so willing to speak up against one of the king’s advisors. Particularly among the nobility.”

I almost snorted. “I’m no noble.”

He didn’t seem surprised, just curious. “Really? You mentioned your stepmother’s household.”

Internally, I cursed. I was supposed to be a nameless servant, not the daughter that witch didn’t want. If I let anything slip about her, or her plan, Will and I were done for, to say nothing of my father. And despite our differences, it was my responsibility to protect him.

Though if it came down between him and Will, I’d hand him over in a heartbeat.

Lord Verras was still watching me with those keen eyes, waiting for an answer I didn’t know how to give. “Um. I—”

“Saville!”

Corbin was heading my way, holding the basket I’d dropped, his frown deep. For a brother who wasn’t blood, he was plenty protective, and his scowl deepened at the sight of Lord Verras. Glancing between me, him, the guards, and Will, he seemed to put together the pieces. “We should get home,” he told me. “Mother won’t be pleased if we’re out too late.”

“Saville?” Lord Verras’s voice was quizzical, and I saw a furrow appear between his brows. He’d realized something was off, or familiar, and my heart lurched.

Time to go.

Grabbing Will’s arm, I said, “Thank you for your help,” and forced myself to walk away, not run. Despite the urge to do so, twisting in my chest. It was time to get away from this nobleman and his eyes that saw far too much.

I didn’t breathe easy until there were several yards and a few turned corners between me and him, and Corbin gave me a confused look. “Who was that?”

“Someone who met me on the way here,” I told him. “Someone who could find out who I am, and destroy your mother’s plan.”

Scowling, Corbin muttered, “If only he would.” A heartbeat later, remorse smoothed away the scowl, and he shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry. I know you’re as stuck as I am.”

“At least I don’t have to marry any princess.” Breathing deeply, I glanced at Will. “Are you alright?”

Nodding, Will said, “Are we in trouble, Sir?”

Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t think so.” As long as we don’t bump into Lord Verras again. With any luck, that would be the last I saw of him.

#thanks for the ask!! #valiant sarah mcguire #saville gramton #galen verras #king corbin #will (valiant) #okay context for this au: #saville's dad met and married this evil witch lady from flight of swans. he then either got injured like in canon or she put a spell on him #the witch's goal here is to marry her son corbin (love that dude) to princess lissa so she can take over this kingdom #after failing to take over the last one she tried to take over (corbin's dad's kingdom) #so the witch is pretending to be royalty along with her son using the money saville's dad made as a successful tailor here in reggen #saville is reduced to a servant and rotates between servant girl servant boy avi and apparently now the daughter of a noblewoman #hmmmm anything else? oh yeah no giants in this au #they shall appear as random characters here and there #for instance! you may recognize the two guards who arrested will (not by name but by description) #i think that about covers it! now to resist the urge to not write so much more of this au cause it's so freaking fun #writing stories is a kind of magic too #valiant cinderella au

[salty-dracon]

Honkai Star Rail 2.0 Trailblaze Mission Liveblog

Everything I write includes four things- cool cities, found family, the most horrifying plot points I can possibly squeeze into a story, and angels with dubious intentions. Naturally, I'm PUMPED for Interstellar Fantasy Cool City Vacation with Found Family + Dubious Angels + Player Tears. Liveblog under the readmore to keep people unspoiled.

---

Foreword

This is not my first liveblog rodeo. I've liveblogged plenty of murder mystery games. But I promise to make this an entertaining experience for anyone who wants to read this.

You're probably wondering why everything I write is about killing angels. It's been a running theme in my work ever since high school, where the villain of a superhero story I wrote was a man who built himself metal wings. He was themed around control- if not by breaking bodies, by breaking minds through mind control powers. He was fucked up like that.

And I've written a lot of angels since then (a lot of them just straight up divine beings), most of which in some way have powers that are used to control others, with the protagonists fighting against them to free themselves from control. So yeah, killing angels, whether they're child-kidnapping supervillains, instigators of amatonormative authoritarianism (fellow aroaces this one's for you), or digital gods who have killed millions and would kill millions more for the sake of vengeance against everyone that hurt their human pets- it's basically standard for me at this point. No doubt whatever WIP I write next is going to involve kicking the ass of another angel.

(I didn't keep up with marketing. I have no idea what Robin and Sunday's personalities are like. Going by the trailers, Robin seems like the nice and friendly sibling and Sunday's the less nice one who has to keep her out of trouble.)

Anyway, I keep hearing theories that Firefly and/or Himeko will die, and if that happens, I'll be sad. Firefly is the closest thing Trailblazer has gotten to another girlfriend (the star rail trio are siblings, ride-or-die besties, or a polycule depending on what's funniest at the moment) and Himeko is just right up my alley being a tall, beautiful woman with red hair in a big dress and a black leather coat who beats up enemies with a CIRCULAR SAW. Still, they can't hype Firefly up as Trailblazer's closest thing to a planet BFF and not kill her, right?

Also if this happens I'll laugh, but if Welt dies. Like they're saying it's Himeko but what if.

Other theories I have, for other reasons:

Someone will attempt to steal or acquire the Astral Express, and they will succeed until a later patch.

There will be a quest involving breaking down the Family's supposed hivemind.

Social media will explode with outrage over a specific enemy that felt intentionally kept out of marketing (it's the one with the blue head sitting on a dice box, only briefly visible in certain scenes in the music video).

With Genshin being my first HYV game I was really surprised to see Tingyun die also. Unlike many other gacha games (Epic Seven comes to mind) Genshin has a really clear criteria for which characters are and aren't going to become playable, and those criteria are basically just "be alive and have a reason to aid the Traveler for the foreseeable future" to avoid plot breaking. HSR has proven that that criteria really does not apply, w/ Tingyun, canonically dead, being a potential party member, and Dan Heng having both a 3-star and 5-star version that can be in the same party if the player feels like it. (there has to be someone out there who runs "team plot breaker".)

Also, I have been spoiled on exactly ONE thing due to leaks, and I will say nothing more on that fact.

Begin Quest!

Let's get started squeeeeeee

I'm not sure whether Dan Heng just typed "..." to show that he's around, or because that's actually what he would say if they were all together and they needed to talk.

I'm having flashbacks to FFXIV Endwalker's "You may exhibit a light touch of VIOLENT AETHERIAL SICKNESS".

Oh, that's exciting. Some of the Nameless went on to live here. Tiernan the guard, Legwork the mechanic, and Razalina the surveyor.

I'm imagining the final preparation for this vacation was March zipping all over the Express gathering all of her necessary (unnecessary) things, Dan Heng diligently packing his suitcase neatly and carefully, and Trailblazer filling up a plastic bag until the other two scold them for it and tell them to at least pack a backpack or something so their stuff doesn't get thrown out with the trash. Meanwhile Himeko and Welt have had their suitcases packed for a few days already.

WHATTTT. NOOOOOO. I was really excited for the whole Astral Express family to let loose together. Noooooooo. (I mean if my theory that someone will try to steal the Express is correct, at least he'll have someone to hit with a lance.)

UHHHHHH. WH. WHERE'S THE PLANET. WHY'D WE GET SCLORPED INTO ANOTHER SPACE ENTIRELY. WHY WERE THERE MONADO VISIONS

Acheron: oh god motherfucking dammit how do these fuckheads keep getting in- Come with me.

multiplayer dreaming

Acheron: This is the border between dream and reality, mind and matter...

she's so not impressed with anything the trailblazer does lol

oh look it's everyone we'll meet here.

:/ so looks like the stellaron hunters will actually be crashing the party themselves.

Listen, I don't play that many RPGmaker games or visual novels, but red text is usually a bad and/or scary thing. So am I supposed to take this as bad and/or scary?

"Have you met Acheron before?", "Would you fear losing any of the friends you've made over the course of your journey?", "If you could stay in a dream where you could experience none of this loss forever, would you?", and "If you already knew how the journey would end, in tragedy, would you still trailblaze a path?". Fuck, these questions are hitting. And we're going to witness some kind of tragedy, that much she says.

Black, white, and fleeting red. I'm pretty sure these are the colors in Acheron's splash art. I wonder what that means.

Acheron Casts The Spell: Freshly Chopped Raw Onions.

Wait, so is it a planet, like a round planet, or is it like Asgard from the MCU where it's just a flat plane?

auuuuuuuuuugh front desk troubles i hATE them

aventurine shows up, and himeko and welt just look at each other like "who's this jackass". then himeko expertly deals with the jackass in question. how much experience has she had dealing with ipc assholes if she could verbally square up with two of the stonehearts on a turn of a dime?

I think it's really funny how the marketing keeps saying "listen the IPC aren't bad guys and they aren't unreasonable, they have a reputation to uphold" as though basically the entire Belobog Topaz quest wasn't Himeko, March, and Trailblazer giving a giant middle finger to the IPC for outright lying and manipulating Bronya. And then this guy starts complaining that we wasted ten minutes of his time.

Aventurine: This is Sunday, the most handsome man in Penacony! And that's his sister Robin, the singer renowned across the universe!

Robin: Hehe he called you handsome~

Welt and Himeko: *either heterosexual judgment or just plain confusion*

If you called my OC Grey, the Angel of Illusion and main antagonist of The City of Hands, whose ability is weaving dreams, "handsome", he'd probably just try to ignore you.

Oh, interesting. I sort of assumed that Robin was part of the Family like her brother, but I guess not...

WHICH DAY WAS HE-

There's a hotel in Disney World (World? It's the one in Florida) that looks just like this hotel. But it's supposed to be the super luxury version.

My brain has to do so much of the legwork here (> <) but i'm imagining March and Trailblazer skipping off to their rooms, full of excitement, while Himeko and Welt have a quiet, ominous chat over some drinks.

"Witness the impossible in the realm of dreams, find the legacy of the Watchmaker, Father of Penacony, and thus find the answer to the question 'Why does life slumber?'."

What...? A distress call from one of the Nameless, having arrived relatively recently since both March and Dan Heng were on the Express at the time they received it. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!! MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ARC!!!

Based on my knowledge of Genshin, which will be a lot less useful than I hope it to be, I think most of the factions are remaining quiet because they need the help of the Nameless to clean out whatever's causing their societal issues. Plus, I'm not sure how the Annihilation Gang ties into everything. They can't be the ones who sent the invite, right?

Today I learned that Trailblazer is canonically possibly or possibly not old enough to drink! (There's rum in the Galactic Voyager!) Actually wait, I think I've had this drink before.

Himeko always just sits wherever. And she sits so RADIANTLY.

We might as well be plunging ourselves into VR heaven at this point auuuughhghg i'm so excited

We're visiting the Golden Hour first, so that means we'll be separated from the other three noooooooooo. i mean, "history and culture enjoyer", "atmosphere and people enjoyer", and "shopping enjoyer" match the other three to a tee but :(

March you're so right, this is an intergalactic live-action detective saga.

Okay, let me note this down for foreshadowing reasons. Family feuds, tragic losses, worlds torn apart, espionage situations, rivers running red with blood (acheron lol).

THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE

I don't trust you! :)

(Doesn't TB already have the Preservation's protection? Lance, forward, and all that?)

danger. danger. danger. danger. danger. danger

thabks acheron O_O

Aventurine: How did you make this friend so fast?

Trailblazer: Oh, uh... she called me funny in a dream once?

It will be really funny if Aventurine isn't actually an antagonist here (he's trying to "reclaim" something that's in Penacony, and we all know how bad that went in the case of Belobog) and Acheron is warning us for nothing.

*bass boosted* I think it's really funny how the marketing keeps saying "listen the IPC aren't bad guys"-

I can imagine myself walking into this dream pool while fully-clothed. I keep my socks on, the bottoms of my feet touch the water, my face recoils back like I ate a sour grape. Wet socks are the worst, and I have had my fair share of wet sock troubles. Even stuffed plastic bags into my shoes to avoid them.

Mikhail.

Aventurine: Hey, Ratio, where's that bust of yours?

Every single Dr. Ratio/Aventurine shipper: WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN

... So his endgame is to basically bring Penacony (penal colony) back into the IPC's hands. Or something like that. How is another question entirely.

*stares at trailblazer flying through the air like a ragdoll in dream space* weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

FUCK YEAHHHHHH MIDTOWN MANHATTAN!!! (I should go visit again one of these days...)

ehhh, she's freaking out for no reason, she'll be fine, elio never foresaw a future where she died from falling 100 stories in a dream world- SHE GOT YAMCHA'D!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA

[scene where robin checks on trailblazer who just smashed into bare concrete] my guardian angel and her friend wondering whether they should carry my soul to the afterlife after i drank too many blue raspberry slurpees and passed out behind the 7-11 at 2am

OH THANK GOD DREAM TEXTING SERVICE.

So much of this is just like the Caligula games, I like it.

so today i learned that not only is pom-pom as old as akivili, but he put akivili to task too. also, "broke the train into two pieces"? so is there a second half of the express somewhere??? *soft gasp* can trailblazer finally stop sleeping on the couch

FIREFLY!!! GIRLFRIEND!!!

(this one npc has darker skin than most of the genshin sumeru characters and yes i'm still mad about that)

Thanks, Dad- i mean, man. stranger. with dad vibes

Fun fact about me: The cheat code to designing a male character I will find super cool no matter what atrocities they commit is: brown or red hair, a formal suit, caring dad vibes, and severe mental health issues for which they have very harmful coping strategies. This rarely but sometimes applies to female characters too (makima chainsawman, and a character from a game where the antagonist's file says he likes fireworks). This also applies to Welt. Yes, I do sometimes spend my days wishing I had a better father, how did you know?

Maybe Mikhail is Firefly's brother or something? And she's a local from the Iris family...

this is gorgeous...

going on dates with my girlfriend :)

girlfriend activities :)

girlfriend simulator :)

syrupism??? just sounds like an offshoot of american consumerism to me. like my dad's friend who has a $2m collection of coca cola memorabilia. which is simultaneously the coolest and most cringe thing i've ever heard

can't wait to tell march (my girlfriend) that i have another girlfriend in another server instance

If we go on enough dates with girlfriend we get to hear her tragic backstory.

O_O we're being followed??? *long sigh* okay who is it? rude gambler boy? benedict cumberbatch's sherlock? dad 2? that angel everyone keeps turning into a creepy monster in fanart? a t rex chef?

strong build? silent steps? oh motherfucker it's S A M P O K O S K I

... that is not sampo koski. he always introduces himself with his full name.

oh and he does know who march is, and while march is also my girlfriend, that's not march.

the pepeshi are just moogles. or lalafell.

UM. UM!!!

sampo. sampo what the hell are you doing. is this going to lead us to tatalov

i KNEW IT

i swear some of these trashcan lines were ripped straight from "dog of wisdom"

eris's apple- er, trash can

THERE HE IS! GIANT SAMPO

this is so stupid LOL

i mean i did have a feeling that firefly was lying, i just couldn't figure out how or why. as for how the trash can dream is supposed to symbolize penacony, i'm not sure either.

oh noooooooo i hate walking talking cartoon characters. especially ones that sound like mickey mouse

"innocence kindness, and honesty of a child"? dude, trailblazer murdered cocolia. they have the option to lie all the time. anyway, misha.

no no no no no. i want girlfriend time.

... wait. boss stone. stonehearts? that would make them the ipc, or an expy of them.

a traumatized galactic hero, a bellboy, and a pair of lesbians wake up in a dream world together

DATE DATE DATE DATE DATE

sparkle and aventurine. i guess they have a reason to hate each other

sigonia and avgin. ????

it took me way too long to figure out that "chicken wing boy" was sunday

this entire border section is like a scene 3/4ths of the way through a teenage coming of age movie

MONUMENT VALLEYYYYYYY (you should play it)

the last time i had this much fun with an ingame girlfriend was with kasumi from persona 5 royal. i know a lot of people don't like her because she gets in the way of akeshu action but i couldn't stop smiling every time she appeared on screen, and that's how i feel with firefly. like god, she's just adorable. she's just a treat. ingame protagonist, you'd better treat her well.

firefly is a stowaway suffering from entropy loss syndrome- basically, her perception and actions are slowing down and she's slowly dying on the inside and it's affecting her mentally too. a lot like something from zero escape. she has a dream, and penacony lets her realize it. and she wants to find the watchmaker's legacy.

SELFIE! SELFIE WITH GIRLFRIEND! AAAAAAA

Okay, March found Ratio in the shopping district, Welt's had some weird things happen himself, and it's back to reality for us.

fuck off sampo, i'm going to have an angsty goodbye scene with my girlfriend

yeah i knew you were sparkle. cool transition though

we've entered salvador dali street

"the real dreamscape"... i really have no inkling as to what it might be

OH. Origami bird. That's one of Clockie's friends, and if I'm right that "Boss Stone" is meant to be an expy of the IPC, then that means that the watchmaker themselves lost Mikhail.

THIS SI FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINETHIS IS FINE

THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE THIS IS FINE

such a cool monster design

hi black swan

MOM DAD BESTIE I MISSED YOUUUUUU

Huh. Black Swan wants to ally with the Trailblazers. In exchange, she wishes to experience memories. The dreamscape is collapsing, potentially exposing a lot of danger as well as the Watchmaker's Legacy. The person who sent the Watchmaker's invite is likely behind the collapse as well. The various factions on board- the Trailblazers, IPC, Family, Masked Fools, the Stellaron Hunters, the Galaxy Rangers, the Garden of Recollection- one of them is the culprit. The IPC is the most obvious, but... where is the Annihilation Gang in all of this?

Okay. Stellaron Hunter Sam is the one Welt saw suspiciously wandering around.

Acheron!!!

Acheron is so angry all of the time. I love her.

FIREFLY!!! At least she's okay! For now!

There she is! Hug girlfrie- OH NO

FIREFLY!!! FIREFLY!!! OH NO OH NO OH NO

OH MY GOD SHE'S DEAD

D,:

Moving on...

Let's see, someone killed a lot of monsters in one strike with a blade slash, and that blade was superheated.

Firefly was betrayed by a companion after tracking down some information about the Watchmaker. That companion, probably Sam since I know he's a boss fight.

oh my god that's a boss fight that's a boss fight

DID ACHERON JUST THROW HER FUCKING KATANA AT HIM-

you, you CAPITALISTIC BITCH

actually, if aventurine was the one behind firefly's murder, which he very well could be- no, no, i'm just not going to entertain that rn

BLACK SWAN WAS THE BETRAYER?! HOLY FUCK

or, they were both trying to save the trailblazer?

Acheron's an Emanator of Nihility? Who gives a shit? I'm friends with an Emanator. Her name's Herta. She has puppets.

wHAT. Do you mean. Ifrit is dead.

... Listen, I thought it was lowkey insane that they'd drop a character design as awesome as Dubra's and then drop absolutely nothing else. I began joking in chat about how badly they'd animate Ifrit's skull. But if he was never actually meant to be an ingame character in the first place, that's crazy.

I mean like, realistically I don't trust any of these people. I really don't trust the IPC since they have a vested interest in reclaiming Penacony. But Acheron stealing her invitation is interesting, since I thought she was the most trustworthy.

Yeah, thanks for putting it mildly, Black Swan. Everyone could be lying. It could be you. It could be me. It could be Mom. It could be Dad. It could NEVER be Bestie.

Okay. Let's go. Let's see the "truth" behind Penacony.

OH NO. OUT OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE TO DIE, I DID NOT EXPECT HER!!!

Hey. Hey what the fuck. What the fuck is happening what. WHAT

oh he is NOT happy about someone disguising herself as his sister

the people here are way too horny for sunday

he's pulling out the capitalized pronouns. in christianity those are the big guns.

Final Thoughts

they told me i wouldn't be ready, and i wasn't. i wasn't even ready for how not ready i was

Also my favorite kind of Big Reveal is when you know something big is going to happen, because it's being foreshadowed (Firefly death) but that completely keeps your mind off the true reveal (Robin death) until it's time, and then the true reveal hits you like an avalanche.

You really can't trust anyone in this hotel. I have a vague idea of who's allied with who, but what they want? I have no clue.

My head hurts.

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail spoilers #liveblog

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super manga Ch.68-70

It’s Granolah time.

Let me start off by saying I’ve only read the first six chapters of this arc, and I can already say that this one is leagues better than the Moro saga that came before it.  I’m sure this story won’t be flawless, but seeing how much better Granolah is makes me realize just how crappy Moro was.  I thought I was being too hard on the manga, but no, the Moro arc was just a hot mess.  

Anyway, I’m digging this Granolah story, so I feel a lot better about liveblogging it.  Let’s dive in.

We open with a moody flashback of Saiyan shock troops attacking Granolah’s home planet decades ago.  Turns out this is a recurring nightmare he has. 

Granolah’s been haunted by the invasion ever since, but there’s nothing he can do about it.  Frieza wiped out the Saiyans a long time ago, and then Frieza got killed after that, so there’s no one left for Granolah to take revenge upon, even if he were powerful enough to take revenge.  When I first heard about this guy, I was skeptical of the concept, since his vendetta would be forty or fifty years old by this time.  But with Granolah, that’s the point.  He’s been holding on to this grudge the whole time, and when he gets his chance to act, he grabs it with both hands. 

Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta are still training on Beerus’ planet. Goku learned to use Ultra Instinct at will during the Moro crisis, but Whis explains that this is only the beginning.  Goku still can’t sustain UI for very long, while Merus could do it all the time.  And Whis is even better at UI than Merus was, and the Grand Minister is even better still.  So Goku has a long way to go, which is fine by him.

Vegeta, however, has no interest in learning Ultra Instinct, since he concluded some time ago that the ability doesn’t suit his tendency to overthink things.  He wants to surpass Goku in some other way, and Beerus offers him a glimmer of hope, saying that there’s more than one godly technique that he can learn.  The angels uses Ultra Instinct, but the Gods of Destruction follow a different path.  Beerus says he’s not interested in teaching Vegeta, but then he teaches him anyway, because Beerus is tsundere.  “I-it’s not like I want to teach you how to use destruction ki or anything, baka!”

Back to Granolah.  At the end of the Moro arc, we met Granolah as he was stealing Seven Three’s remains from the aliens who built him.  Seven Three was part of a whole series of similar androids, but he was the only one who spent any time in the field, so he’s a lot more powerful from the life experiences he had.  Granolah’s client, Elec, could use Seven Three as the template for an army of unstoppable androids, but that’s not why he wanted the android.  Elec’s what you might call an information broker, and he plans to mine Seven Three’s memory banks to find some useful data.

Granolah asks about his next assignment, but Elec doesn’t have any new work lined up, due to Frieza’s return to the galactic stage.  We’ve only gotten glimpses of what Frieza’s been up to since Whis re-revived him at the end of the Tournament of Power.  But apparently his activities have upset the status quo, and that’s hurting Elec’s business.  That doesn’t matter to Granolah, though, and he immediately demands to know where Freiza is.  Elec has his associates clobber him a little to get him back in line.  He convinces Granolah that he doesn’t need to run off half-cocked, and Granolah backs down and heads home.

After he leaves, the rest of Elec’s group, the Heeters, ask Elec why he would tell Granolah about Frieza at all.  They know how he feels about Frieza, so why stir the pot?  Elec explains that Granolah’s getting too powerful, and if he ever surpassed the Heeters’ strongest member, Gas, then that might lead to trouble.  The Heeters doubt that anyone could surpass Gas, but Elec still doesn’t want to take any chances.

So he wants Granolah good and riled up, so that when the time is right, he can manuever Granolah into a fight he can’t win, and Frieza will finish off Granolah for him. 

Meanwhile, on the way home, Granolah gets ambushed by one of his fellow bounty-hunter guys, who wants to steal the big payday Granolah just scored.  But Granolah has him completely outclassed.  First he uses his eye-piece/computer, Oatmeel, as a decoy, and then Granolah picks off all of this guy’s allies with his sniper technique.  Granolah’s species, the Cerealians, have a specialized right eye that gives them exceptional vision. 

So Granolah’s powerful, sure, but he’s no match for Frieza, right?  Well, Granolah plans to do something about that.  As he schemes, the Oracle Fish on Beerus’ planet has a prophetic vision that the “strongest warrior in the universe will soon rise up.”

Back to Granolah, we find that he’s still living on Planet Cereal, even after the rest of his people were wiped out by the Saiyans.  Since then, the planet has been re-populated by another species, the Sugurians, who lost their own homeworld at some point.  The Heeters brokered a deal to settle them on Cereal, and their domed cities are built right next to the ruins of the Cerealian cities.  I really like this imagery.  Like I said, I was kind of wary of the idea of an alien seeking revenge after so many decades, but this story really uses that passage of time to full effect.

Meanwhile, Beerus talks to Vegeta about the Saiyans, and Vegeta admits that their destructive tendencies led to their downfall.  Frieza accelerated the process, but his own father, King Vegeta III, is the one Vegeta holds responsible. 

I’ve often noted this, but I find Vegeta to be an unreliable narrator for Saiyan history.  In most stories, he’s literally the only one who remembers the Saiyan race, so his perspective is treated as gospel simply because there’s no one else to dispute it.  In this case, I think Vegeta’s putting too much blame on his dad.  I’m sure Vegeta I and Vegeta II bear their own responsibility, and it probably goes back even further than that.   But Vegeta III is the leader he remembers, so it makes sense he would see it that way. 

But he’s still wrong.  Remember the Super Saiyan God legend from the Battle of Gods movie.  The hero of the tale was trying to wipe out the wicked Saiyans, and he failed.  That story was so ancient that Vegeta didn’t even know about it, which just goes to show that the Saiyans’ problems are far older than his dynasty.

And I guess this is what sets off Beerus’ bullshit-meter, since he dismisses Vegeta’s answer as ridiculous.  He accuses Vegeta of putting the sins of his people on his own shoulders, and even if he were responsible, why do those old crimes have anything to do with his life now?  He then reveals that he was the one who gave Frieza the idea to destroy Planet Vegeta all those years ago.  Vegeta flies into a rage, but he can’t beat Beerus any more now than he could when they first fought on Earth.

Beerus’ point is that Vegeta will have to let go of the past if he hopes to master the style of the Gods of Destruction.  This is kind of like what Toppo had to do when he transformed into a Destroyer in the Tournament of Power.  He had been trying to avoid that step for a long time, but when he got desperate enough, he finally crossed the threshold, and Vegeta mocked him for it. 

And now Beerus is mocking Vegeta for failing to understand this.   Toppo got stronger because he put aside the irrelevancies and focused on what mattered.  Beerus says he only focuses on destruction, which keeps him sharp.  His advice to Vegeta is that he’ll have to destroy his own stray thoughts to build himself into something better.

Meanwhile, the Heeters go through Seven Three’s memory records and learn what they wanted to know: the location of Zuno, the galaxy’s greatest information broker.  But they also learn about Moro and the Dragon Balls, since Seven Three was involved with that business before he got captured.  Elec realizes that the Dragon Balls might explain how Frieza came back to life, and Macki recalls that there used to be Namekians on Planet Cereal before they got wiped out.  But Elec knows that there’s one left: Granolah’s housemate, Monaito.

Back on Cereal, Granolah discusses his latest job with Monaito, and informs him of Frieza’s return.  The two of them live in this remote house, far from the Cerealian ruins and the Sugurian cities.  Even though they’re on friendly terms with the Sugurians, they prefer to be removed from their tragic past.  I find it off that their house doesn’t look much like the Cerealian or Namekian architecture.  Maybe the Sugurians built it for them. 

Anyway, Granolah considers using the Dragon Balls to become powerful enough to defeat Frieza, but Monaito warns him that the Dragon Balls aren’t meant for revenge.  Besides, they don’t have a complete set on planet Cereal.  One is in Monaito’s house, but the other was lost a long time ago.  Wait, what?

To explain how Monaito has his own set of Dragon Balls, we cut to a lesson on New Namek, where Moori explains how Namekians have settled on other planets.  Those communities would have their own elders, just as Moori is the elder of New Namek.  And those elders would be empowered to create and maintain Dragon Balls. 

This isn’t exactly news, since this is exactly how we have Dragon Balls on Earth.  The Son of Katas came to Earth as a refugee, then eventually ascended to the role of Kami and created a set of Dragon Balls without remembering where he learned to do it.  Monaito’s basically the same deal, except he had a whole group of Namekians with him on Cereal, and he’s the only one who survived the invasion.  This story just confirms that there could be other Namekian communities in the universe, and any of them could have their own sets of Dragon Balls. 

What I find more troubling is that Monaito’s set of Dragon Balls is just a pair.  I guess there’s no rule that their must be seven, but it’s kind of weird how we’ve always seen them in groups of seven before, and yet this one is just two. 

Anyway, as fate would have it, Granolah turns on the local news and learns that some Sugarian kid just happened to find the lost ball and took it to a lab for study.  And maybe this is why they went with just two balls, in order to simplify this moment, but they could have just as easily put six Dragon Balls on Monaito’s shelf. 

So Granolah immediately makes his move, stealing the second Dragon Ball and sneaking off to make his wish.  I like the design for Cereal’s Shenron, or whatever he’s called.  The dragon is willing to grant Granolah’s wish to become the greatest warrior in the universe, but Granolah’s body isn’t sturdy enough for that kind of power.  However, the Dragon can make it possible, if Granolah is willing to accept a compromise in exchange.  Granolah doesn’t even wait to find out what it is.

Meanwhile, Vegeta has finally achieved some success in using the Hakai technique.  He can only destroy little grains of sand, but he can destroy them, which is a big accomplishment.  And he’s not going to rest on his laurels.

Satisfied that his wish has been granted, Granolah immediately heads back to the Heeter’s HQ and demands to know where he can find Frieza.  The Heeters don’t understand what’s happened to him, but Granolah quickly defeats Oil and Macki in combat, and Elec realizes that Granolah’s not just blowing smoke.  Maybe he really can defeat Frieza, but he can’t just tell him where to find Frieza, because if he loses, Frieza might take revenge on the Heeters.  So Elec asks for some information on how Granolah got this strong, and Granolah explains the Dragon Balls and the condition he had to agree to.  Normally, Cerealians live for two hundred hears, and Granolah’s 50 now, but in order to get his wish, he had to let the Dragon shorten his lifespan.  Granolah now has only three years left to live.

Elec convinces Granolah to wait on Planet Cereal while they track down Frieza’s position.  In reality, Elec hatches a scheme to neutralize Granolah first.  Elec wants Frieza out of the picture, but he’s worried that if Granolah does the job, he might wipe out Frieza’s goon squad, and Elec wants to take them over for his own organization.  Wait, why didn’t the Heeters take over the Frieza Force before, when Frieza was dead? I mean, it’s just as well that they didn’t do this, since Frieza would have returned and killed them, but they didn’t know that at the time. 

So how can Elec stop Granolah from wrecking his plans?  Simple, he’s going to get Goku and Vegeta to do it for him.  Having studied Seven Three’s records, Elec knows that the Saiyans fought Moro, and they should be powerful enough to defeat Granolah, and Granolah won’t turn down a chance to fight Saiyans, since he wants revenge against those guys too.  Elec is confident that Goku and Vegeta would win that fight, but what if he’s wrong?  Well, I guess he’s got nothing to lose by trying...

So yeah, to repeat what I said at the top, this is way, way better than the Moro arc. There’s a lot fewer characters, and their motive are more complex, and their plans aren’t nearly as convoluted.  We’re not sending Goku and Vegeta on a wild goose chase to like five different planets for this one.  No dead-end subplots about Majin Buu or those space crooks who tried to rob that space train. 

I also really like the way this story uses Frieza without featuring him in the plot.  The problem I’ve always had with bringing back Frieza is that he just does all the same stuff he did the first time around.  The only novelty to Frieza these days is less about what he’s up to, but how everyone else reacts to his return.  The Heeters, Granolah, Monaito, and the Sugarians have been trying to build a life for themselves in a post-Frieza universe, but now he’s back, and that upsets everything. 

Also, it’s refreshing to see Goku and Vegeta actually learning something on Beerus’ planet, as opposed to just sparring there as an establishing scene.  I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out. 

#dragon ball #dragon ball super manga #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #vegeta #beerus #whis #granolah #elec #oil #gas #macki #monaito #moori

[no-side-us]

Letters From Watson Liveblog - July 23

The Three Students, Part 1 of 2

Watson and Holmes spending weeks away from London makes me want to know how exactly Watson's practice is going, if he is even still doing it. The academic setting is also interesting, we haven't had a lot of those aside from that one about Holmes' early days.

Colleges wanting to avoid a public scandal and so not calling the proper authorities. A tale as old as time, evidently. I wonder what the incident is, stealing money? Bribery? Or something worse?

Oh, it's just cheating. Albeit, it is for a seemingly very prestigious scholarship so I get why Soames is so worried, but I was expecting a less mundane issue at hand.

Why does Holmes presume Watson won't come along with him on this mystery? Watson loves mysteries! And especially with the reasoning that it's not a physical issue. Maybe he just doesn't think it's interesting enough.

How ironic, Soames' desire to quickly get Holmes to help find the culprit is what allowed the culprit in question to escape.

Alright, let's look at our three suspects. First is Gilchrist, who while seemingly a "fine scholar and athlete" is also quite poor at the moment. So he has that motivation for wanting to win the scholarship.

Then we have Daulat Ras, the Indian student, who's apparently quiet and methodical. His Greek isn't very good, so while that would be a motivation to cheat, I think it's less convincing than Gilchrist's. He was in the room earlier this day, so there's the most support for him knowing about the papers beforehand.

And finally there's Miles McLaren, who is the most obvious suspect. "Wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled," it seems like he would be the most desperate of the three students to succeed at the examination. But what if that obviousness is a red herring to throw us off?

I definitely think Bannister is involved in some way. Him leaving the key in the door is too convenient to be coincidental. And what Holmes says here about him feeling faint, but deciding to sit in a chair that's farther away. Almost as if he wanted to draw Soames' attention away from the bedroom where the culprit was.

As of now, I think it's Gilchrist, who somehow roped Bannister into helping him. McLaren is too obvious, and unless Doyle decides to use the fact he's Indian somehow, there's not really enough to suspect Daulat Ras. Fortunately, this story only has two parts, so there's less time to wait for an answer.

Part 1 - Part 2

#letters from watson #the three students #sherlock holmes #john h watson #hilton soames #bannister #gilchrist #daulat ras #miles mclaren #arthur conan doyle #liveblogging sherlock holmes

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay, quick Taskmaster liveblogging this week. I’m fucking exhausted after a long and shitty week at work, I got home from work just after 7 PM, made myself some food, and I am now very pleased to get to sit down with a meal and the new Taskmaster episode. I do not have the energy to do what I sometimes do with these, which is take notes constantly through the whole episode. But I know I’ll want to say some things about it. So I will use this document as a thing to write down quick little things when they occur to me occasionally, rather than trying to cover the whole episode. It’s nice to have this back in my life for nine more weeks (well, eight more now, I guess).

Thoughts on Taskmaster s16e02, written as I watch it:

- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the funniest introductions are the ones where Greg pretends that Alex is right-wing for no reason.

- “Best sign” – I’m amazed that wasn’t taken already. You’d think Taskmaster would be out of the one-word ones, which is why they have to use “most < adjective > < noun >”, instead of just “most < adjective >” thing or “best < noun >”. But there’s still more stuff to do. I like that one, open-ended enough to leave room for interpretation, but still some solid boundaries they’ll have to stay within.

- It feels a bit like cheating for Sue Perkins to use her celebrity stories to garner points against people who just can’t compete with a story of the time Claudia Winkleman helped her steal a sign from the BBC. But I did enjoy that one.

- God, do I ever want to go to the British Library with Sam Campbell and steal shit. I think he wins in terms of aspirational stories, I’d rather rob the British Library with Sam Campbell than rob the BBC studios with Claudia Winkleman.

- I have seen the first three seasons of Meet the Richardsons (did not watch season 4 this year and I think I’ll probably leave it there, but I’m not sorry I watched it), and it’s definitely not the best show in the world, but one of my favourite parts was how cool that pub looked. That’s aspirational, it’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do if I had the money that they have. Make a full pub in your backyard where you can get the nice feeling of a pub but without the drawbacks, such as people you don’t know being in it and having to commute there and back (particularly bad, after drinking). Fucking lovely. The Jon Richardson I got attached to from radio 8 Out of 10 Cats/early Catsdown hasn’t existed for a long time, and that’s probably for the best and I’m glad he’s gone off to be happy even if I don’t find him as entertaining anymore, but I did enjoy seeing that pub in Meet the Richardsons like an example of success. Good for him. Nice prize, Lucy. You’re right, there is a warm feeling to it.

- Sammy C bringing his own equipment to the tasks. Following on from a couple of things he did last week, establishing a pattern of him doing things as a bit, because they are comedic, but also they happen to possibly give him an advantage in points. As someone who is backing him like he’s a sports team to win this season, I approve of this pattern.

- Listen, strange women standing around in Chiswick pulling on facsimile swords is no basis for a system of government. But I don’t know, maybe we should let Lucy Beaumont try running the UK for a year and see where they end up.

- I thought I wasn't going to do screenshots in this episodes, because these posts take so much longer when I stop to copy screenshots. But I have to say, the first proper laugh came from Sue throwing away the comment "I mean I want to go Widdicombe", then stopping, realizing what she'd just said, and you can watch the answer hit her:

Aw, I've just remembered the existence of that panel show hosted by Sue Perkins with Josh Widdicombe and Richard Osman as team captains, Insert Name Here. Slightly flimsy premise, uneven guests and execution, but three people who are so good at being on panel shows that it entertained me all the way through anyway.

I watched that show about 2 years ago when I was mainly into panel shows and thought Josh Widdicombe was a brilliant TV comedian who just happened to make not-great stand-up - now that I'm more into stand-up than panel shows, that flaw seems more significant than it used to. Also, I've given up on The Last Leg because they've gone all pro-monarchy but also if I'm honest they've been leaning toward the bland centre for a while (though I maintain that it had some years of being much better than that). But there was a time when Josh Widdicombe was one of my favourites of all these comedians, I still think he's very good on panel shows, so I'm enjoying his little cameo here (I did guess that Widdicombe was the answer as soon as Sue said "Devon", because what the hell else is from Devon?). Nice to honour both the first Taskmaster champion, and the first two-time champion.

On the subject of Sue Perkins and Josh Widdicombe existing in the same universe, aside from their endearing panel show Insert Name Here, remember that time when Sue Perkins went on The Last Leg wearing a Patti Smith shirt and one time she messed up her hair for no reason and I had to save that as a gif because I think it might be the cure for female heterosexuality?

- Watching this task for the second time, now that I know the answer. Obviously the foot that says “Greg” is a reference to Josh getting Greg’s name tattooed on his foot during season 1. “Devon” is where he’s from, as he talks about every time he’s on TV. But how does he make his hair smart? Is it just a reference to the fact that for a long time he was known for a particular haircut? Am I forgetting about something in the Josh Widdicombe canon (I say “forgetting” rather than “not knowing” because I have seen a hell of a lot of the things he’s done, including hundreds of hours of The Last Leg, arguably too many hours of The Last Leg…)? You’d think it would just be a reference to something he did on Taskmaster, like the tattoo. The main things Josh Widdicombe did on Taskmaster besides get a tattoo, I think, was count beans and fail to guess the rules of Alex Squash.

With Diamonds Come Bears was such an opaque club that they had to put it on the screen for us to understand it even once we did know the answer, but apparently the letters kind of line up. Then there’s that family tree showing how he’s descended from royalty, which he worked out from Who Do You Think You Are, and now talks about it every time he’s on TV.

- Interrupting my list of Widdicombe clues to say, why did Sam Campbell say Katherine Ryan has nothing to do with hair but “Bob Mortimer, that’s hair!” One of those people has objectively more hair than the other, and it’s not the one he described as “that’s hair!”.

- Did no one think before setting this task to check that Julian Clary has heard of Josh Widdicombe? That was pretty funny, watching Julian Clary walk around being unable to finish a task because he doesn't know Josh Widdicombe's name. Come on, Taskmaster, the small and nasally man with the short hair got a tattoo for this show. He does not deserve to have an entire task set up to emphasize the fact that Julian Clary doesn't know his name (he does, it was quite funny).

- Alex Horne, before this season started (paraphrased because I cannot be bothered to look up the actual quote): One contestant in particular put me in my place.

Julian Clary: "What sorts of people enjoy this show? Is it students?" "You're interesting, aren't you? Would you call yourself a charismatic man?"

- Susan Wokoma declaring that sexy dog subverts stereotypes made me laugh, Julian Clary referencing his dead art teacher very much added to that. I've watched most of the second task by now without stopping to write much because it's getting late and I'm tired, but that was fun.

- Lovely titled drop from Susan Wokoma. Very well delivered "Hell is here." She was kind of the quiet one last episode, is definitely making more of a mark this time.

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- Look, if I wanted to be pedantic, I could make the argument that Sam Campbell's picture was much better than everyone else's and showed off artistic skill that clearly the others do not have, even though Sue Perkins' drawing was quite amusing, and therefore Sam deserved the five points alone. I mean, technically it was the best cheeky picture, not the cheekiest picture, and no matter how cheeky Sue's picture was, it wasn't as good a picture as Sam's. And if Sam Campbell loses this whole season to Sue Perkins by one point, I will absolutely be repeatedly making that argument that he was robbed in this task. But okay, fine, the idea of Sue Perkins making a dick joke is amusing. And yes, I'm aware that I'm watching Taskmaster wrong.

- Secret task gets mentioned again. I think the funniest option would be if it does exist, but it's useless. Like if there's a secret task somewhere telling them to do something huge and difficult and time-consuming and they have several months to do it and they have to bring it to the studio to complete it, and someone does do that, and then it's worth like half a point. Yeah it's a joke they've done before, but not for a while. They've used the idea sparingly enough in recent seasons so I think they could bring it back.

- Lucy Beaumont doing mischief by being an unethical fake psychic pretending to communicate with the dead to swindle people is a bit of a weird light given that I now know she does genuinely, literally believe in ghosts.

- Hang on. Hang on. Are they allowed to do that? They can set tasks for each other? A genuine first in a Taskmaster history, I'm almost sure. Susan Wokoma is out here re-inventing the game. I kind of want to know if anyone else in Taskmaster history has tried to affect one of their competitors' games and been told they're not allowed to, because if so, that's not fair to them that Susan could. But if she was the first person to think of it, then fair play to her.

To stop watching Taskmaster wrong (like a sports fan) for a moment and start watching it right (like a comedy fan), God that was funny. Watching Sam Campbell stand up and sit down and be so earnest about it and genuinely engaged and find a workaround to draw extra mice for extra points, while knowing it was all for nothing, was very funny. It's Widdicombe counting beans again. It's the thing I think they should do with the secret task. It's really funny to watch someone try hard when we know something they don't.

- After pretending to smash up Alex Horne's phone, I waited for what Sam Campbell would say, as he's had great lines throughout this show so far. But actually, I think leaving the room after saying nothing was the funniest thing he could have done. Solid instincts there.

- Sam Campbell threatens to make a prank phone call. Julian Clary writes prank longhand letters. The generational divide, everyone.

- Well, normally in my posts, I start out writing relatively little about things, and write more and more as the post goes along, so the things I write about later in the post get expanded on way more than the earlier things. This one is the opposite, because as I said, it's late and I've gotten more tired as it's gone along.

So I've finished the episode. I enjoyed the live task. I do always like the "do something while keeping eye contact with Greg" tasks. The main thing I have to say about that live task is... I don't know if this is quite the hardest I've laughed at season 16 so far. But it's definitely the longest. As in, I'm exhausted right now, I worked long hours today and long hours yesterday and it a few really stressful days and a long week and it's fairly late and I feel like my brain is fried, and for reasons I definitely cannot fully explain (if pressed, I could explain maybe about 20% of why this happened, at the most), this exact frame made me laugh uncontrollably for several minutes:

I just paused the video, stared at the screen, and could not stop laughing. There's a cat my lap the looked annoyed about it. Every time I tried to play the video again and move on with my life, I'd look at some new part of it and keep laughing. I took a screenshot so I can have it forever. The 20% that I can explain about why that happened does, again, involve using the word "earnest" to describe Sam Campbell's expression.

I also enjoyed Sue and Julian drawing the same thing (people who are older than the other contestants and also more famous than the other contestants and also gay are on the same wavelength as each other, apparently). And I liked Lucy Beaumont's peas.

I also enjoyed them bringing in another NZ task as the tiebreaker. Well done to Sue. I always like watching the rote memorization tasks, mainly because that's a skill I enjoy practising myself and I like to see if I can beat the contestants at it. I used to know pi to lots of places, back in high school, but I couldn't do that now. Could I memorize more digits than Sue did in the same number of seconds? Don't know, and am not awake enough to try it right now. Some other time.

I'm now going to sleep for a number of hours with two digits in it. Maybe three.