magistrate

A while ago, I watched Markiplier play Presentable Liberty, which is quite possibly the worst-constructed game I've ever seen. The graphics are (I think intentionally) terrible, the sound design is generic at best, the writing is clunky and heavy-handed, the gameplay looks excruciating (and is at times so incredibly boring that Markiplier just cuts it out of the video entirely), the plot is entirely composed of plotholes (which the game mechanics actively make worse) and hackneyed, obvious tropes, and...

...and despite all of this, Markiplier finds it – and I find it, watching Markiplier – an inescapably affecting experience.

So anyway, a bit ago, I followed rionaleonhart into Detroit: Become Human fandom-adjacency, because Riona is an excellent person to vicariously experience fandoms through. And... okay, Detroit: Become Human is not as bad as Presentable Liberty. Or possibly it's worse, because it reaches higher and thus has farther to fall.

Unlike Presentable Liberty, it's extremely well-executed. The graphics are good, the acting is good, the branching decision trees and their effects on the narrative are ambitious (though the game still looks extremely railroady at points), the soundtracks – three soundtracks, one for each playable character – are utterly gorgeous, the characters are frequently engaging, the environments are frequently lovely, much of the scene choreography is captivating and moving, the script... has numerous, numerous issues, but also frequent sparks of excellence, and...

Aaand the plot is made of plotholes, and structured upon a thematic scaffold which pokes through the skin of the story like a horrifically broken set of bones, in a way that's really quite excruciating to see.

( If you don't see where this is going, you may lack familiarity with my fandom habits. )

All in all, Detroit: Become Human is a game which raises fascinating questions, then fails to answer any of them. And then attempts to engage with questions which its worldbuilding consistently fails to support. I hate it, I love it, I desperately wish it were better, and because I am me and potentia is potentia, I seem to have been bitten hard by the braintic bug. Goddamnit.

...but that may be an entirely separate post.

Finally got around to making carrot soup tonight, which was a process which started quite some time ago when I came home with ~2 pounds of carrots and a white onion, which progressed through soaking some chickpeas and then simmering them with a sprig of rosemary, and which culminated in me staring at this recipe for a while, then going "Fuck it" and making something up as I went along.

( FUCK YOU I'M A CAT, basically. Except I'm only metaphorically a cat. Because cats don't cook. They have people to do that for them. )

So on occasion, when you deposit a check at Wells Fargo on some reasonable day like a Wednesday, the deposited amount will show up in your account on Thursday or Friday, stay there over the weekend, and then abruptly disappear on Monday for no reason you can discern from their online interface, and when you call up their 24-hour information line, an automated voice will inform you that it's being "held for verification" and will be available eight days later.

...

Fail, Wells Fargo. Hard fail.

At least I vaguely suspected something like this might happen and didn't touch the money just in case, but really, when you find yourself building the expectation that your bank is going to jerk you around into your routine...

[ETA] To be fair, I wouldn't blame them for holding it for verification, as this is a check I redeposited because it bounced the first time. It's the letting it hit my account for half a week and THEN pulling the funds that pisses me off.