Riona (
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-02-20 08:01 pm
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Am I Speaking To You Now, In This Moment?
I've finished Person of Interest!
'Synecdoche': The Machine saying she loved Root! I also like that the Machine was particularly struck by Root because 'she was capable of terrible things, but she chose to do good'. And 'We are virtually indistinguishable. I find comfort in that' is fascinating.
You know, the Machine simulating Root opens up intriguing potential for weird Machine/Shaw. I might play around with that idea a bit.
It sits oddly with me that Finch wanted the Machine to protect everyone equally - he scolded it when it tried to protect him specifically - and yet it considers the president a particularly high-priority individual target, but I suppose his death would have a lot of knock-on effects for the country as a whole, or the government might have demanded that feature.
I like the understated way Shaw is losing it. From a brief interaction, she'd seem more or less normal (by Shaw standards), but the cracks are showing through.
It's so good to see Reese and Shaw working together again!
I love that Shaw feels better after shooting some people, and that Reese gets that.
I'm delighted by the idea that the Machine has more teams in other locations, and that in at least some of these cases the teams are formed of people the New York team have already saved! I don't know if our team will make it out of this, but this at least gives me hope that their work might be carried on, although of course that's dependent on the Machine surviving.
Actually, at this point I'm going to pause and talk about how I expect this to end, before launching into the actual ending.
I don't have a good feeling about the human protagonists' chances. I've been asking myself 'if someone put you in control of the show at this point and asked you to come up with a fitting ending, what would you go for?' There's one clear answer, but I don't feel great about it: everyone sacrifices themselves in order to protect the Machine, which is then able to carry on their legacy using its other teams.
It's possible Fusco will make it out. I can envision a scenario with Finch as the sole survivor. I think Reese and Shaw are probably doomed, and I'm sad about that, because they're my favourites.
However this ends, I don't have much time left to spend with my murder boyfriend John Reese. I'm going to miss him!
'.exe': The 'what if the Machine had never existed?' segments are a neat way to reflect on everything that's happened as we approach the end. The people who would have died, the people who would have survived, the people who would never have had the chance to become someone better.
I wonder if what-if AU Root would have fallen in love with Samaritan, given her relationship with the Machine in our universe.
I'm so glad we're getting a lot of Reese-and-Shaw time, after being deprived of their interactions for so long.
Once Finch gets out of the airless room, his 'I'm here, I'm here' to the Machine almost sounds like he's trying to ressure her. He spent so long trying to hold the Machine at an emotional distance, and that wall has crumbled completely. I love it.
And he's consistently calling her 'she' now, which absolutely wrecks my heart. (I'm also calling her 'she' as of this episode, I notice; I was using 'it' earlier in this very entry!)
One episode left. I'm not prepared.
'return 0': 'The suspense is killing me, in addition to the gunshot wound.' Bless Finch.
I really love the point Reese and Fusco's relationship has ended up at.
God, Reese calling after Finch as Finch leaves to die. I've never heard him sound like that.
Shaw says 'this is the guy who killed you' to the Machine, meaning the guy who killed Root, and I love that.
There was never any chance that John Reese would make it out of this story alive. But it's been a privilege to watch him on my screen.
Reese smiling when he sees Finch leaving is destroying me.
The shot of the Machine with her hand on Reese's shoulder as he's fighting also made me startlingly emotional. She loves them all!
And that's the end of Person of Interest!
As an ending, I don't have particularly strong feelings on it? Neither satisfying nor dissatisfying, I feel. It's solid, it's fine. I like that it ends with the prospect of a new story, though.
Correction: I don't have particularly strong feelings beyond delight that Shaw survived. I'm also glad of the other survivors, of course, but Shaw's my favourite after Reese and I really wasn't sure she'd make it!
This is in part because 'Root or Shaw or both die?' was the one thing I'd been spoiled for before I started watching this show. I knew Root/Shaw was a big pairing, and I knew I'd seen people unhappy about one or more deaths in that pairing, but, because I didn't yet know Root or Shaw, their names got mixed up in my head. Did Root die? Did Shaw? Did they both die? I had no idea! So I'm glad Shaw made it out, after all that 'I'm not sure what I've actually been spoiled for' suspense.
I was fully expecting Reese to die; honestly, I would have been surprised if he didn't. I often dislike endings that kill the protagonist - I think 'kill the protagonist' is often a lazy ending that writers resort to if they don't know how else to end a story - but I think Reese's death fits Person of Interest completely, so, although I love him, I have no complaints. I'm glad Finch gave him a life, and I'm glad that, in the end, he was able to return the favour.
This show has consumed my free time for the past month and a half. It's going to be strange to adjust to life without it! (Meanwhile, you're going to have to adjust without my constant liveblogging.)
'Synecdoche': The Machine saying she loved Root! I also like that the Machine was particularly struck by Root because 'she was capable of terrible things, but she chose to do good'. And 'We are virtually indistinguishable. I find comfort in that' is fascinating.
You know, the Machine simulating Root opens up intriguing potential for weird Machine/Shaw. I might play around with that idea a bit.
It sits oddly with me that Finch wanted the Machine to protect everyone equally - he scolded it when it tried to protect him specifically - and yet it considers the president a particularly high-priority individual target, but I suppose his death would have a lot of knock-on effects for the country as a whole, or the government might have demanded that feature.
I like the understated way Shaw is losing it. From a brief interaction, she'd seem more or less normal (by Shaw standards), but the cracks are showing through.
It's so good to see Reese and Shaw working together again!
I love that Shaw feels better after shooting some people, and that Reese gets that.
I'm delighted by the idea that the Machine has more teams in other locations, and that in at least some of these cases the teams are formed of people the New York team have already saved! I don't know if our team will make it out of this, but this at least gives me hope that their work might be carried on, although of course that's dependent on the Machine surviving.
Actually, at this point I'm going to pause and talk about how I expect this to end, before launching into the actual ending.
I don't have a good feeling about the human protagonists' chances. I've been asking myself 'if someone put you in control of the show at this point and asked you to come up with a fitting ending, what would you go for?' There's one clear answer, but I don't feel great about it: everyone sacrifices themselves in order to protect the Machine, which is then able to carry on their legacy using its other teams.
It's possible Fusco will make it out. I can envision a scenario with Finch as the sole survivor. I think Reese and Shaw are probably doomed, and I'm sad about that, because they're my favourites.
However this ends, I don't have much time left to spend with my murder boyfriend John Reese. I'm going to miss him!
'.exe': The 'what if the Machine had never existed?' segments are a neat way to reflect on everything that's happened as we approach the end. The people who would have died, the people who would have survived, the people who would never have had the chance to become someone better.
I wonder if what-if AU Root would have fallen in love with Samaritan, given her relationship with the Machine in our universe.
I'm so glad we're getting a lot of Reese-and-Shaw time, after being deprived of their interactions for so long.
Once Finch gets out of the airless room, his 'I'm here, I'm here' to the Machine almost sounds like he's trying to ressure her. He spent so long trying to hold the Machine at an emotional distance, and that wall has crumbled completely. I love it.
And he's consistently calling her 'she' now, which absolutely wrecks my heart. (I'm also calling her 'she' as of this episode, I notice; I was using 'it' earlier in this very entry!)
One episode left. I'm not prepared.
'return 0': 'The suspense is killing me, in addition to the gunshot wound.' Bless Finch.
I really love the point Reese and Fusco's relationship has ended up at.
God, Reese calling after Finch as Finch leaves to die. I've never heard him sound like that.
Shaw says 'this is the guy who killed you' to the Machine, meaning the guy who killed Root, and I love that.
There was never any chance that John Reese would make it out of this story alive. But it's been a privilege to watch him on my screen.
Reese smiling when he sees Finch leaving is destroying me.
The shot of the Machine with her hand on Reese's shoulder as he's fighting also made me startlingly emotional. She loves them all!
And that's the end of Person of Interest!
As an ending, I don't have particularly strong feelings on it? Neither satisfying nor dissatisfying, I feel. It's solid, it's fine. I like that it ends with the prospect of a new story, though.
Correction: I don't have particularly strong feelings beyond delight that Shaw survived. I'm also glad of the other survivors, of course, but Shaw's my favourite after Reese and I really wasn't sure she'd make it!
This is in part because 'Root or Shaw or both die?' was the one thing I'd been spoiled for before I started watching this show. I knew Root/Shaw was a big pairing, and I knew I'd seen people unhappy about one or more deaths in that pairing, but, because I didn't yet know Root or Shaw, their names got mixed up in my head. Did Root die? Did Shaw? Did they both die? I had no idea! So I'm glad Shaw made it out, after all that 'I'm not sure what I've actually been spoiled for' suspense.
I was fully expecting Reese to die; honestly, I would have been surprised if he didn't. I often dislike endings that kill the protagonist - I think 'kill the protagonist' is often a lazy ending that writers resort to if they don't know how else to end a story - but I think Reese's death fits Person of Interest completely, so, although I love him, I have no complaints. I'm glad Finch gave him a life, and I'm glad that, in the end, he was able to return the favour.
This show has consumed my free time for the past month and a half. It's going to be strange to adjust to life without it! (Meanwhile, you're going to have to adjust without my constant liveblogging.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2023-02-25 11:24 am (UTC)(link)That Ori and the Will of the Wisps ending sounds extremely weird out of context! It does seem to strange to completely ignore the narrative drive. You'd think if that's the way they wanted to go they'd at least go "also your sibling also changed into a tree, you can be their neighbouring tree". Then you save a forest and get reunited!
The Bunker Diary sounds extremely upsetting!
The easiest way to explain The Bunker Diary is it's like a death game, but if the mastermind buggered off midway through to leave everyone to descend into chaos and for those who survive that initial chaos to starve to death. There's less play for your life but more psychological torture. (I haven't read the book in years, but as an example, I think at one point they work out that the clocks have all been messed with to completely compromise their sense of time.) There's lot of scope for some good fanfic exploring what happened to the kidnapper or an outside investigation but unsurprisingly there is no fandom. I think I even requested it in Yuletide, once! I thought it was really thought provoking but as I play lots of murder game genre stuff I suppose I'm more tolerant of 'story about random kidnapping of individuals' than most general readers, haha.
I am not surprised Dog is your favourite! He's mine too, though I did go back and forth on him - I had a relatively poor impression inititally, and as I got to see more of him across different routes he grew in my estimation. That conversation between him and Bunny very early on if you team with them is probably the best at establishing both of those characters, their similarities and their differences. I am also very fond of Snake and Dragon, and Pig too. Pig's route is one of my favourites, as is the route that the LPer has just started. I think Pig's route is also where I sat up and started paying more attention to the game over and route end notes though I'd caught a few curiosities in them before: I remember reacting quite strongly to the "No, this may be a good enough ending for Mouse, but it won’t do for me." in the King of Spades ending. Horse and Sheep's routes are probably the weakest for me.
I just enjoy the unusual route structure (and that actually not all the routes are just related to traitor personalities), and that we get to see antagonism from everybody. I think I'd also told you I enjoyed what it does with its "true" route, though obviously I won't say anything more on that til we've actually experienced it.
I also think it's interesting how impressions of characters can change dependent on in what order you experience the routes. I played the game completely blind, and managed to hit the most unlikely set of initial routes you can imagine - but I'm really glad I did. The first route I hit is the one the LPer has just started and, as they've noted in their narrative, you hit a brick wall here if you the player doesn't have enough information. Then I hit another route that has an information lock that you haven't seen yet. Then Snake's route, which was the first I fully completed, and a fun one to start off with. It made the reveal that the traitor personalities changed pretty interesting! The last route I hit at all was Bunny's route - I do think that is stronger coming earlier, as when many of the reveals in it aren't really new it loses some punch, though I did appreciate the Town of Salem vibes, and that the route has both Dog and Bunny acting within it, not just one of them. I can give the full order if you're interested as, since I took extensive notes, I know what order I experienced every ending!
I like that there's this air of culpability among the crew assembled for the Death Game and that while there seem to be some fundamentally decent people here, underneath that there are misdeeds or a less nice person, and that's perhaps why people are willing to act as they do as traitors. And that the game keeps throwing question marks as to the character of individuals in the group - keeps the player on their toes! And then of course the player makes their own judgements based on what they see of characters across routes. Plus, of course, some of the people know each other (though not necessarily very well) and getting the Brian Morris stuff out of the way very early is very unusual for a death game.
I took 20 pages of notes on this game; I realised I'd have to take some when it came to the Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds game overs so I could remember the hints to avoid death, but I ended up taking a LOT of notes and colour coding my document based on which traitor routes we were on, haha.
Mouse is a curious character, and she really does seem to have a thing against Sheep; she's not like that with anyone else! Perhaps sensing weakness there since she presents as so timid? It's nice to have a female protagonist too, and I appreciate that our roster of fighters also includes two women!
I still think it's interesting that this game was originally a story, and functionally things changed when it became a game, for obvious reasons - I imagine it would have been quite different as a story. On the Commentary mode unlocked after the game is completed, Themis talks about some of the changes in development just from when it was a game so I imagine they would be much more extensive with a book.
I've played the author's second game, The Divine Deception (which is not a death game, but again you'd probably like it) and it is really interesting to contrast the multiple viewpoints we get in that game to Mouse, since there is more than one narrator. I took 29 pages of notes for that game!
-timydamonkey
no subject
If it's a route we've already seen in the Let's Play, I'd be curious to hear about your poor early impression of Dog!
I suppose the Let's Play hitting the 'Dog tries to tame everyone' route first probably doesn't give a great first impression objectively, but I was surprised to see how many people reading the thread started to dislike him at that point, whereas I was going 'I already liked him, and now he's being a fun arsehole, which doesn't hurt!' I think his determination to survive in that route perhaps undermines his general defeated attitude, though, which meant I needed to reassess my view of his character slightly.
I do like Pig! I find it really, really interesting that there's an ending where she doesn't confess she has a relevant personality; she just quietly goes along with the escape plan, in the full knowledge she's going to die while everyone else gets out alive.
and getting the Brian Morris stuff out of the way very early is very unusual for a death game.
Yes! I was impressed by how quickly the game was willing to make it clear that, barring some very weird shenanigans, the mastermind can't really be one of the participants (or at least the Jade Emperor can't be). The Emperor doesn't speak directly often, but he does refer to Aaron Morris as 'my father' at one point, and I seem to recall he speaks directly to the group at the end of the route where only Pig and Monkey die; I doubt he's Pig or Monkey.
I suppose it's possible that the Jade Emperor is in cahoots with someone on the killing floor, but the game is still willing to seemingly rule out the mastermind being one of the participants straight away, which means it's not relying on the promise of that sort of reveal to draw the player in. Even Exit/Corners, which has an external mastermind, still dangles the possibility of a traitor within the group for several chapters.
I still think it's interesting that this game was originally a story, and functionally things changed when it became a game, for obvious reasons - I imagine it would have been quite different as a story.
I was fascinated to learn that! I'd never have guessed it was originally supposed to be a regular novel; it feels so visual novel-esque in both concept and structure. It's hard to imagine what the novel would look like.