Part 14
Zerovirus
i'm a bit lsleepy rn but whatever. it's time for another goaround on the rail of mobius.
last time we learned the TRUE IDENTITY of S.
for the second time.
there better not be a third.
jjjqance
maybe everybody is S
Zerovirus
can't believe i've played this game for a month now
i didn't spend this fucking long on umineko
that's what happens when you stop to liveblog a game line by line i guess
jjjqance
i'm pretty sure it took me a month to get through umineko
Zerovirus
took me two weekends i think.
#mangagang
Zerovirus
anyways.
so se yue's whole 'being possessed by her past self for fifteen minutes' thing finally comes to an end
but that doesn't mean she's forgotten anything, because from her perspective she experienced all this hours ago
jjjqance
oh! so she already had the realization that she's S before
Zerovirus
so now she's having an even bigger big sad. again. i am not even going to bother translating because at this point, se yue's big sads are getting really old. i'm sorry but it's true.
yep. she realized it 'now', brought it back to 'the past' and has been stewing about it for hours.
jjjqance
yeah sorry se yue but u aren't sympathetic enough for me to be sad about your sad
Zerovirus
Se Yue continues having the big sad about how Wu Shi is dead and Ji Hengsheng is sad and she's actually S and she's the worst but then,
Someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind...
fade to white!
jjjqance
i feel like "being S" has become a fairly nebulous concept
Zerovirus
feels like a hope spot. odd place to have a hope spot though.
we're swapping BACK to wu shi's perspective now???
Deleted User
oh more mobius?
jjjqance
i guess originally it just meant "the person who starts the thing"
Deleted User
count me in
Zerovirus
narratively, se yue's talking about how awful it is that wu shi is dead and she might as well have killed him with her own hands, it's all her fault blah blah blah,
and then someone taps her from behind
that's... the obvious followup is 'hi! it's me! i'm perfectly alive and fine!' right?
like that's what you'd expect.
but i can't see HOW wu shi could possibly be alive, we saw his corpse a few minutes ago, in the story.
jjjqance
twins
Zerovirus
anyways uh
we're here again
the drowning capital of the universe
avunvain
ji hengsheng put on wu shi's jacket and inherited his will
3i'd name a more distinctive feature wu shi has
but he seems almost completely generic in his mode of dress
i can't remember a single signature thing he wears
Zerovirus
my platonic childhood friend of opposite gender is gone! but in my heart, and on my back, he lives on as a part of me!
avunvain
VEST
jjjqance
he's got a tie
avunvain
in my heart, and on my vest
jjjqance
which he wears OUTSIDE his vest for some reason
avunvain
choosing to inherit your dead love's will but to signify it you have to put on his dork ass sweater vest
Zerovirus
okay okay okay all of you chumps shut up there's plot happening all of a sudden
avunvain
and it's like
ok maybe i'll inherit the will of someone who knew how to fucking dress himself
Zerovirus
Wu Shi: I'd seen this ending so many times it'd gotten stale for me. Half a minute ago Se Yue dumped the dormitory car and all the cars behind it, just as we'd planned.
Wu Shi: Everything has been prepared.
I clutched a certain object tightly with my hand.
Wu Shi: If this hypothesis is correct...
Then I might be able to save my own life.
I hadn't told this to Se Yue before, because
of the unspoken plan narrative guaranteeI wasn't certain it'd work either, and I didn't want to get their hopes up.
okay so
uh
...i have no idea what his plan is.
what other macguffins ARE there left at this point in the story???
is it time for the story to do MORE bullshit asspulls?
who am i kidding of course it is
jjjqance
isn't it obvious? he's going to hold the ring so tightly he can't possibly drop it
Zerovirus
it's always time for the story to do more bullshit asspulls
jjjqance
in which case he'll have beaten fate
and he won't die
Zerovirus
HE GAVE THE RING TO SE YUE
jjjqance
oh uh
Zerovirus
IT IS PHYSICALLY NOT ON HIM ANYMORE
jjjqance
i dunno then
wait what's the object
i have no idea
Zerovirus
I DON'T KNOW
avunvain
crest?
Zerovirus
THE STORY LITERALLY SAYS 'A CERTAIN OBJECT'
jjjqance
what other objects have we encountered
why would he have a crest
Zerovirus
ring, crest,
avunvain
crests r handheld
Zerovirus
uhhhh... fuck, i don't know, turtle keychain with the missing head?????
jjjqance
oohhhh
Zerovirus
the power of turtles will save us????????
avunvain
syringe...
nightpool
WHY COULDN'T HE COME UP WITH THIS ASSPULL WHEN IT WAS JI HENGSHENG'S LIFE ON THE LINE......... COME ON
jjjqance
S's phone
nightpool
he's gonna knock himself out
avoid fate's dread hand by deadheading himself through the critical moment
Zerovirus
anyways the alarm's happening as usual
pretty wild that the train's still doing the same emergency notification even though they're physically disconnected now
i guess the warning systems on this train work via wireless
Not yet, gotta wait just a bit longer...
Wu Shi: NOW!
alright what's your plan
Zerovirus
wu shi swims to the top of the train car.
oh god fuck this is going to be so stupid isn't it i can already feel itMaybe because of the fact that I had no intentions of leaving the train car, none of the items flying wildly about in the dormitory car hit me.
Wu Shi: You want my life? FINE! Take it! But you can't have my consciousness with it!
he says the magic words.I opened my hands; in it was the shining Se family crest.
I learned about it from Qian Yuan, after all.
By burning the excess 'time', I could send my consciousness to the future.
and he... detaches all the train cars behind the dormitory car
avunvain
knew it was a crest
jjjqance
where is his consciousness gonna go
Zerovirus
so now the dormitory car is alone
jjjqance
like into his dead body and then he'll wake up again??
avunvain
hawaii
boy needs a break
Zerovirus
hey, you. you're finally awake. you were trying to cross the border, weren't you?
2jjjqance
cause i think a lot of shit happens to your body after you die
Zerovirus
wu shi starts the zombie apocalypse
so, wu shi's reasoning here, approximately, is,
'this is a long shot and i'm making it as fucking weird as i can'
'i have no idea if this is going to work or not but why not try right'
'put as many weird variables on it, maybe some of'em will add up and make some kind of glitch or exception to the rules or something'
'we've never had the original fuel become a time-traveler in a train the length of a single car, right?'
avunvain
Fucking Around With Time Technique
Zerovirus
'that's really weird! maybe it'll save me!'
Zerovirus
exactly
on top of it he does a little prayer to the Time God.
y'know.
that thing that
the game is
still
going on about
avunvain
it just kills everyone but wu shi
and he becomes a philosopher's stone accumulation of all their time perception
nightpool
time god time god time god time god
Zerovirus
he acknowledges that this might leave him a consciousness stuck in a dead body, unable to act or perceive the world
avunvain
and becomes time god by absorbing them
Zerovirus
but, and here's his logic, not mine:
my cause of death was drowning, not external injury.
it was the kind of thing you could theoretically recover perfectly from.
and such a thing was surely within your bullshit fate-bending power, right? god of time.
that's his prayer.
'please skew my rolls in my favor for once.'
Deleted User
what designer drugs were the writers on when they wrote this shit?
avunvain
"god, please intervene to change the laws"
1Zerovirus
he's seeeeing the liiiiiiiiiiight
avunvain
"ty, wu shi"
jjjqance
he's about to meet time god
it's probably a hot girl
Zerovirus
wu shi thinks about how much he wants to live, and how, above all else, he's motivated by the desire to see se yue again so he can tell her that she didn't fail and that everything is going to be okay.
big spirally fuckoff effect
you know what the worst fucking part of this is
jjjqance
THAT'S who he's thinking about???
Zerovirus
it looks like it's going to work
it looks like it's going to work and that means that the se yue ending is just 'wu shi survives and lives happily ever after with se yue'
while the ji hengsheng ending is 'wu shi and ji hengsheng die horribly fuck you'
avunvain
this game doesn't understand which of its characters is charismatic and likable
jjjqance
the old money wins every time 😦
Zerovirus
right. he's burning his loop memories. so now he has literally no context for what he's doing here. also text box color change.Wu Shi: ...Weird.
Wu Shi: What was I doing here?
And why were my lungs full of water?
He coughs up the water.
nightpool
honestly my entire opinion of the game right now rests on whether this is true or not
Zerovirus
I feel like I was in ... some kind of accident, at Terminal Station? But, honestly, maybe because the impact was too much, I barely had any coherent memories of the trip at all.
nightpool
literally the only possible way this game could redeem itself for me is by having the se yue route be just as tragic as the ji hengsheng route.
avunvain
god, same
jjjqance
he's forgotten all about se yue now
Zerovirus
also hey what happened to the whole, 'actually you can't end the loops with just one person dying, you need two people to die at minimum' thing
jjjqance
she's going to broken up about it
Zerovirus
y'know
nightpool
oh although if he survives and completely forgets hitting on se yue that might be fine also
Zerovirus
that whole, ji hengsheng, thing,
that law that was established in the other ending
nightpool
he can just go marry ji hengsheng then it's fine
Zerovirus
is that just not true here
jjjqance
then in the epilogue, he's going to dramatically remember everything cause love conquers all and then he'll live happily ever after with se yue
1Zerovirus
wu shi sees a beautiful girl call out for him.there might be hope for a tragic ending after all!!
It's se yue. Wu Shi doesn't recognize her.???: Wu Shi! Are you alright?!
avunvain
let's go tragedy!
Zerovirus
Se Yue's all like 'oh my goodness you're alive' and wu shi's like 'uh yeah i am. do... i know you, lady'
jjjqance
wait
Deleted User
only ji should get the good ending
avunvain
let's go marrying ji hengsheng
jjjqance
isn't she from his class??
how does he not know she is
Deleted User
naw wasn't she from his year?
Zerovirus
i mean yeah he knows her but only as, like, vague acquaintances
i bet you couldn't have named every person in your college classes
jjjqance
ok but she's like famous right
i thought he at least had known what she looked like
Zerovirus
se yue's all like 'but- we went through dozens of loops together' and wu shi's like 'lol what the fuck u talkin about you crazy princess heiress. time travel??? you're a nutter.'
avunvain
"oh it's the girl who eats those fucking biscuit straw things all the time"
"you realize those are for five-year-olds, right"
Zerovirus
actually we don't know that about her
if we did that'd be evidence we retained some loop memories
we learned she likes biscuit straws while we were looping.
avunvain
"oh, it's the girl with no opinion on biscuit straws"
Zerovirus
and wu shi's then like, 'it's weird why i had this impulse to come talk to you, actually. like it was super important i talk to you again but now that i'm here talking to you i have absolutely no idea what i wanted to say or why i came here.' and there's quiet sad music in the background.
'so uh sorry to waste your time princess imma head out bye'
jjjqance
wow she's just gonna have to keep wondering why he is still alive
Zerovirus
she's figured out that he's burnt his loop memories to go forwards in time, that's not a mystery
jjjqance
oh
Zerovirus
se yue tells him to wait the fuck up you little shit.
Se Yue: ....Wait.
Wu Shi: ?
Se Yue: I told you to WAIT, DAMMIT!
ah, it's the se yue CG
Wu Shi: booba
Deleted User
booba
Zerovirus
se yue finally decides to get around her se family blockers and confess to him
in the most
blunt way possible
jjjqance
why does she like him again
i seriously have no idea
Zerovirus
homura-style codependency
nightpool
because he's rude to her
Zerovirus
get saved by someone a few times and that's what happens
also that
nightpool
Wu Shi and Se Yue have a pretty mutual tsundere thing going on tbh
Zerovirus
"i am definitely not saying to you that i love you" "i am also definitely not saying to you that i'm apologizing profusely to you for everything i did to you" "i am also definitely not at all saying that i'm so happy to see you alive again i could cry" etc. etc.
possibly the most tsundere of all possible love confessions
nightpool
and then he leaves
and he never talks to se yue again.
Zerovirus
wu shi feels in his heart emotions of love stirring for her and he's like 'what gives' and he remembers someone saying something about how repeated loops wear grooves into your heart so that even if you forget the loops you still remember the emotions or something and yeah it's that trope. emotions are more powerful than physics!!!
avunvain
"i love you because we both went through a traumatic situation together and it turns out i have no other concept of relationships with people besides 'aware of the same kinds of suffering'"
nightpool
then how come JI HENGSHENGS emotions weren't powerful enough HUH GAME????
avunvain
"but i am in love with a version of you who you specifically had to kill in order to survive"
jjjqance
"i love you because you are the first guy i have ever talked to"
avunvain
"so like. fuck off, shell of wu shi, empty of the person i really love."
Zerovirus
Wu Shi: You, uh, know that saying that is basically the same as, y'know, saying those things directly?
Se Yue: That's fine. You know what? If my status prevents us from being together then to hell with the status.
Se Yue: I'm sorry if that disappoints you.
avunvain
"i'm not saying to you that i love you because i don't."
they should have let me write rail of mobius.
nightpool
avun if you wrote rail of mobius would you give me the 20 hour se yue/ji hengsheng cat & mouse game killer & detective to lovers I deserve
jjjqance
or maybe even that, but with a reasonable time travel model
avunvain
fuck yes. oh both of them are the killer and detective at different times thanks to their mismatched loop memories
Zerovirus
se yue repeatedly asks wu shi to not just leave her alone again, not to just abandon her like this, without even knowing what he means to her at all.
Wu Shi: ...Okay, then. I won't go anywhere.
I had no idea why I said those words. The emotions overflowing in my heart took control of my mouth and spoke for me, in that moment.
Wu Shi: Even if I don't remember anything anymore, I'll always tell you that same thing.
Wu Shi: No matter what kind of person you become- as long as you're Se Yue, I'll always like you.
god this scene is unfair is what it is
this story is unfair
nightpool
oh god they are aren't they
Zerovirus
FUCK
IT'S A FUCKING KISS
3jjjqance
this is the most devestating ending
this ending is a crime
Zerovirus
Se Yue: I've spent so long asking myself who I am.
Se Yue: Now, I finally have an answer.
Se Yue: I'm the Se Yue that won't hesitate to abandon everything else I am and everything else I have, so long as I can be together with you.
avunvain
"ultimately, resurrecting wu shi... saving him... it was just a pretext. the se family rules were always just a justification for me to get what i really wanted. i wanted to see you again, ji hengsheng. you at your best, and brightest, and most beautiful. you who could force me to break my own rules in order to succeed."
Zerovirus
i-
wh
avunvain
fuck do i have to write this fic
Zerovirus
FADE TO BLACK?!
avunvain
WHAT
THERE???
Zerovirus
NO
HOW DARE YOU
YOU CAN'T DO THIS
avunvain
THERE???
Zerovirus
WU SHI HASN'T DIED TRAGICALLY YET
jjjqance
what
Zerovirus
WHAT THE SHIT
nightpool
what
avunvain
rail of mobius what the fuck
Zerovirus
well, don't worry
jjjqance
is that it
nightpool
there's gotta be a post credits scene right
Zerovirus
we always have
jjjqance
are we done
Zerovirus
a post-credits sequence
nightpool
copium
Zerovirus
IT'S THE JI HENGSHENG DEFENSE FORCEAt the moment where Se Yue and I kissed-
for some unknown reason, a loud alarm began blaring.
PROTECTING BEST GIRL'S SECURITY INTERESTS
jjjqance
... what
Zerovirus
JHDF, DEPLOY
nightpool
obviously the entire station floods and they all die
avunvain
ok now tragedy pls
jjjqance
please be a reveal about the real reason Ji becomes S
Zerovirus
I didn't know why, but something about the sound of the alarm sent a terrible chill down my back.
Wu Shi: Uh... princess, what's that sound?
Se Yue: What sound?
Se Yue: I don't hear any sound.
avunvain
what
jjjqance
whaaaat
nightpool
lmaoooo
his time is up
he only gets 15 minutes
jjjqance
oh
right
wait LOL did we just all forget that until now
avunvain
we all forgot that until now
nightpool
I remembered but I assumed the game had also forgotten
Zerovirus
I turned to look around.
Nobody else was reacting to any such alarm, either. My classmates were just looking at me and Se Yue with completely undisguised jealousy.
And even though I pushed my hands over my ears, the alarm didn't stop.
nightpool
also he's first fuel special time god thing etc
jjjqance
how dare you underestimate the continuity of the story
avunvain
what
Zerovirus
the game previously implied that if you didn't manually reset the cars then you could just stay in the future indefinitely
avunvain
an alarm no one can hear but him?
Zerovirus
originally, se yue and qian yuan only stayed 15 minutes in the future
because after 15 minutes, wu shi manually reattached the cars
i imagined wu shi was gambling that if nobody reattached the cars then the universe would just... forget.
i suppose it turns out he was wrong.
jjjqance
maybe somebody reattached the cars
nightpool
oh I assumed it was bounded by loop memories
avunvain
ji hengsheng reattaching the cars
Zerovirus
se yue did say she.. recovered the cars as part of the mission to find wu shi's body
perhaps se yue unintentionally just murdered wu shi retroactively.
again.
the se yue big sad train never ends.
nightpool
lmaooooo
Zerovirus
screen flashes completely red, then black, then white, then black again.
jjjqance
whoops
shoulda told her your plan
Zerovirus
wu shi starts, uh,
vomiting blood from every orifice. eyes, nose, ears, mouth.
jjjqance
wow uh
avunvain
what
why
Deleted User
hardcore
Zerovirus
i guess if you try to cheat your own death by time skipping past your death, uh, the time god makes your internal organs explode like this is a wuxia flick or something
1Se Yue- who's still there, screams at Wu Shi to stay with her and that she's calling for a medical team immediately.
jjjqance
welli mean
this is consistent with how it's worked before
right
fate just arranges for him to die no matter what he does
although wtf is with the alarm
avunvain
water pressure from water that doesn't exist for anyone but him
Zerovirus
y'know at this point i'm not even going to bother getting exasperated with how Wu Shi uses 'time god' to explain everything he doesn't comprehendWas that what the alarm meant?
Was the alarm the Time God trying to tell me...
That my existence itself had become a glitch?
Wu Shi: Ah...
Wu Shi: So that's how it is...
i want to fucking umineko this shit
jjjqance
it was the TIME ALARM
Zerovirus
prove that nothing is caused by time gods and that everything is possible by just humans
avunvain
JI-beatrice
Zerovirus
jiatrice
avunvain
jiatrice.
jjjqance
"i'll prove that everything here is possible according to some logically consistent model of the time train that doesn't involve time gods"
avunvain
uwooooohhhh, se yuetrice!
...i appreciate having a social environment where i can just append "atrice" to whatever name and everyone knows what i'm talking about
jjjqance
"but how do you explain where qian yuan got her S costume, battler? kakakakaka"
1Zerovirus
screen fades to red suddenly again then white.
oh, right. the whole rule of, at minimum two people must die.After that, a Qian Yuan who'd lost all of her old scars and who'd forgotten the dangers of the Tour of Time appeared.
Realizing something, she began muttering to herself.
Qian Yuan: ...If, no matter what, there must be someone who uses it, then I'm the only one who could, aren't I?
guess in the se yue route, we die with qian yuan.
which... y'know, weird option, but, hey, equal amounts of tragic
works for me
ain't neither of these endings happy
jjjqance
there might still be a 'true ending'?
avunvain
"oh someone else has to die? uh, fuck it, let's say qian yuan."
nightpool
no no they both die and qian yuan goes back
avunvain
"not like anyone cares about her besides yu guang, who basically no longer exists."
jjjqance
i want to see the bro ending where he dies with yu guang
2nightpool
tbf we saw that in literally the second loop
avunvain
uwooooh, guangatrice
Zerovirus
Qian Yuan replaced Se Yue, who'd been completely broken by these events, and reactivated the Tour of Time.
The sphere of influence of an abnormal paradigm of time began at the train station, and slowly expanded outwards, until the whole world was overrun by chaos.
The mysterious disease named Lost Time Syndrome began stealing away peoples' consciousnesses, resulting in a massive decrease in the worldwide population.
When the world population had been reduced to a third of its previous numbers, the Se family head declared that they'd developed a special medicine, and took credit for saving everyone.
actual fade to black ending.In the end, the world fell into the clutches of the Se family, and there was none left who could resist them.
avunvain
FUCKIN WOW
Zerovirus
so, if we pick se yue
we thanos the universe
avunvain
JI HENGSHENG GOOD ENDING I GUESS
1jjjqance
what the fuck
Zerovirus
if we pick ji hengsheng,
only the two of us die
Deleted User
THE REAL GOAL WAS WORLD DOMINATION
jjjqance
what
holy shit
Zerovirus
Deleted User
this was the se family head's goal the entire time
Zerovirus
fucking, population reduction with time travel
aaaand i've been kicked back to the title screen.
i...
do not
know what
to do from here.
i don't know what to do at this point.
Deleted User
load
load
Zerovirus
load what??
avunvain
load
Deleted User
load
avunvain
your save prior to the decision?
i guess?
Zerovirus
which decision????
jjjqance
i mean there were 2 choices, we've seen 2 endings
Deleted User
it'll prob go to the ji route
avunvain
now that you've hit both presented options, se yue and ji
Zerovirus
there was only one decision, which of the two girls could 'save us'
jjjqance
but hey maybe we need to explore a different train car back in loop 0 or something
avunvain
will it change now that you've seen both endings?
Deleted User
is there a guide?
Zerovirus
i have not seen such a guide
let me check the steam page i guess
avunvain
checking the steam page rn
Zerovirus
maybe someone wrote a guide for it in chinese
Deleted User
steam page where the real shit happens
avunvain
...cannot read any of this, probably should have anticipated that
Zerovirus
lex_luthor_meme
...i don't think there are guides.
Deleted User
maybe click all the buttons?
Deleted User
or maybe there is gonna be a DLC?
Zerovirus
oh, yeah, that is a guide
jjjqance
maybe those were all the endings
Zerovirus
...oh god
Deleted User
don't spoil
Zerovirus
to get the good ending i need to not lose a single heart
jjjqance
rip
nightpool
LMAOOOOOO
Zerovirus
and the only way to regain my hearts
Deleted User
😂
Zerovirus
is to replay
the whole game
avunvain
oh my god
Zerovirus
and do a perfect run
avunvain
oh my god
Deleted User
asdfkajfds
jjjqance
can you like ... fast-forward?
Deleted User
this is the time to install cheats
Zerovirus
yeah there's a fast-forward option
so i can do that
still, it's kind of- like, diegetically? this is completely unfair. what is the relationship between the hearts and the time shit?
there is none.
it's just such a clearly game-mechanic-y game mechanic that exists because that's how visual novels do things.
it's just silly.
but i'll do it anyways!
because i love y'all and also i am susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy.
2nightpool
YOU TOLD YOURSELF SO
jjjqance
the way visual novels work has always been odd to me
avunvain
perhaps for another session, since this one's gone on a bit and also it's going to be a lot of re-answering questions
god and hearts persist over saves
Zerovirus
gosh, has it?
avunvain
who does that
or, rather
b/c redoing every choice in the game
will presumably take some time
Zerovirus
also i'm still missing 3/16 CGs
maybe they're gated behind the true ending
Deleted User
👀
Zerovirus
tell you what i am going to fastforward through everything
and i'll see how long it takes
if it's taking too long i'll do it all off-camera
and i'll resume it when we hit the crucial decision point again
avunvain
blame past zero!
nightpool
we should have done it immediately when we first fucked up lmao
or if anything else changes I assume
I mean, we lost hearts a long time back
avunvain
i'll take the time to write that ji hengsheng/se yue fic i guess
3nightpool
entirely possible that like, the whole Se Yue loop changes
Zerovirus
back when the first hearts question hit, and only because i wanted to fuck around and see if the game punished me for it
turns out: the game did punish me for it
avunvain
...i wonder if this game has extant fanfiction
Zerovirus
not a single hearts question was actually legitimately difficult enough to cause loss of hp
nightpool
hey at least we got to see both of the bad endings lmao
maybe Se Yue acts less OOC in the real ending
I bet there are both good and bad endings for both Ji and Se Yue, huh
Zerovirus
hey by the way
remember back at the very start
when the game gives you options
nightpool
yeah the turtle thing?
or something else
Zerovirus
'follow the heiress' or 'don't follow the heiress
i clicked the 'don't follow' option this time
out of curiosity
nightpool
OH RIGHT
Zerovirus
you know what happens:
avunvain
dead
Zerovirus
the game straight up says:
nightpool
literally nothing changes right
Zerovirus
'i consider not following her... but i ultimately follow her instead.'
nightpool
i called that
Zerovirus
i'm fucking dead yes
i'm dead from laughing
this is so stupid bullshit god
stupid stupid bullshit asdfg
Deleted User
why is this even a visual novel then?
nightpool
well, it’s visual
Zerovirus
every single choice other than the very final choice, at the very end, railroads you
avunvain
more of a kinetic novel, really
Zerovirus
i guess that's why it's called rail of mobius
nightpool
you can’t argue with that
Zerovirus
there are no split paths except the endings
Deleted User
G R A N D F A T H E R P A R A D O X
nightpool
that’s not true some of the dialogue choices are different
it’s just not branching
Zerovirus
watching this visual novel in fast forward is actually epilepsy-inducing
all the fade-to-black-fade-to-red-fade-to-white stuff happens in milliseconds
flashing lights warning, wow
jjjqance
omg
they could at least have something external prompt him to follow
nightpool
it would have been funnier if it was just like “the trip ends and nothing happens”
game over end 0
avunvain
"the trip ended. later, wu shi married ji hengsheng."
jjjqance
an actual good ending
avunvain
Ending 0: "Dodged That Bullet"
Zerovirus
i'm speeding through the game rn
currently i'm working through se yue's hundred loops of hell
which i have to manually click through
because that segment is nothing but 'pick the next loop se yue does' for like, thirty segments
nightpool
i feel like it would have been totally fine for them to do like, “there was an awful train crash, but the only person who died was that weird heiress nobody liked anyway and her ... maid? who happened to be Yu Guangs crush??? huh?? Well he’s very upset about that but he’ll get over it i guess”
Zerovirus
loop 4 loop 5 loop 6
every loop requires me to click four times and wait through three unavoidable seconds of fade-in fade-out
nightpool
i’m assuming nothing has changed yet?
Zerovirus
absolutely nothing
nightpool
at least, fast forward hasn’t disappeared i guess.
it seems possible that some small dialogue could have changed without the fastforward feature noticing but i don’t generally know how that gets implemented
Zerovirus
alright, pushed past that, made it to reveal of hengsheng as S
skipping goes at a decent clip
and now at last
i am back
at the big decision:
who is it that can save me?
Deleted User
jijijijijijijijjijijijiji
Zerovirus
SE YUE
JI HENGSHENG
ME
the third option is new.
nightpool
booo no yu guang boooooo
avunvain
yu guang never mattered
Deleted User
who is me?
avunvain
yu guang is the magician arcana
jjjqance
wow the solution apparently is to not put your trust in your friends
nightpool
autocorrect really hates yu guangs name
Zerovirus
see, back when i saw this earlier,
i was really irritated when the game didn't give me a choice to say 'me'
because i wanted to say 'me' at that point
nightpool
lmaooooo
Zerovirus
but the game wouldn't let me
nightpool
i mean it’s true
Zerovirus
took us all that time to get back here
nightpool
the game should have put it there with a lock icon
then we would have known we’d fucked up
Zerovirus
and now we're back here! so. i click the me option, and, hey it's been a great rail of mobius session see y'all next session
JaxThePyro
lol
Zerovirus
next time it should be the finale.
hopefully.
i'll reserve a whole day for it.
Deleted User
W O W
real cockblock
nightpool
no this is good
gotta keep the suspense
this is why i read serialized fiction
gotta give the time to let the plot breathe
Zerovirus
if only someone could give wu shi time, and let him breathe,
nightpool
they would have to sacrifice their own time to be able to do that though
doesn’t seem sustainable
Zerovirus
they better give me a solid hour of nothing but ji hengsheng being ji hengsheng at me after the ending
2i want my money’s worth
JaxThePyro
I’ll be very tilted if the true ending doesn’t have Wu Shi accept Ji Hengshengs proposal
Zerovirus
rail of mobius just dropped a 511 MB update and i don't fucking know what for
what could there be to update???
it's a fucking visual novel it's not like they're going to add a fucking postgame dungeon or something.
dysphere
Better art? Idk
jjjqance
better story
Zerovirus
nothing's in the news so i don't even know what this update is for
JaxThePyro
Update project: Added English languages Add and optimize BGM Fix text typo Optimize image position
Zerovirus
oh, shit, there's english now?
fuck lemme check this out
OH FUCK
THE ENGLISH UPDATE IS ACTUALLY HERE
oh, not JUST english, but also simplified chinese too!!
convenient!
i... guess i don't need to translate anymore, do i.
avunvain
oh my god
Zerovirus
all i have to do from now on is just screenshot the game's own translation.
...why do i actually feel kind of sad about that??
avunvain
I FEEL SAD ABOUT THAT
i honestly feel like on the whole this server is going to feel sad about that!
JaxThePyro
We have to check the translation quality first
Zerovirus
quickly loading into the turtles scene
the translation's not bad, it's perfectly readable and comprehensible
but it only took me like ten screens to reach a minor typo
i am never going to get used to their english names
ever
i'm sorry THAT'S what you're translating Tour of Time as?
1dysphere
Bit on the nose, don’t you think
Zerovirus
my translation is way better, fuck this
5dysphere
You can still ignore the canon translation and keep doing your own
You don’t have to! But still!
JaxThePyro
Using the canon translation might improve the technobabble scenes
Zerovirus
yeah that's a good idea
i might go revisit the bullshit technobabble scenes
see if the canon translation makes more sense of'em
interesting font choice for the screen transitions
oh, hey, it's the first time these two visit the dining car. let's see how they translated the gags about the cost of food.
hm.
weirdly enough the janky translation makes this part more endearing to me, like they're talking stupid because they know the words coming out of their mouths are stupid
okay let's jump to a technobabble scene
lol if you load into a save file that was saved in chinese,
this is what the log does
i guess the save format this game uses is that it manually writes previous lines of dialogue into the save
rather than calling up a registry of dialogue lines or something
Zerovirus
booooo. they cut out so much of the flavor.
gah.
GAH.
'chrono sickness'????
JaxThePyro
lmao that’s a good one
Zerovirus
maybe i just hate change.
Chaos' Crowl Kanigami
Luna lol
Zerovirus
i mean it's a perfectly decent way to describe the actual phenomenon
i just don't like it because it's not the way i translated it.
alright here we go, the part of the story where she's like 'herp derp we can time travel by drawing more hours onto the clock'
let's see how the canon translation translates this nonsense
jjjqance
'Lost Time Syndrome' was way better
Zerovirus
the logs have a problem
the logs assume that no single line of dialogue will be longer than three lines.
it works in chinese because written chinese (like kanji) is incredibly space-efficient relative to english
so you can fit the same message in less written space, visually
but when you translate to english suddenly some of the dialogue screens turn to like 4 or 5 lines
and the log just cuts off
(unsurprisingly this is happening with se yue's infodumps because girl talks too dang much.)
nightpool
zero we've gotten so far
you definitely need to continue translating
Zerovirus
so i have good news, and bad news. the good news is that the translation for se yue's bullshit infodumps is pretty much indistinguishable from what i did, at least for this part! the bad news is also that exact same news.
uwo....
ha ha ha oh man yep i can feel the 'canon' translator going 'i have no fucking clue how to translate this bullshit pseudotechnical term you made up here either'
oh god if even the canon guy couldn't translate it concisely then i dread to imagine what awaits us in future infodumps
Zerovirus
...there's new music tracks
these music tracks weren't in these scenes previously
i've never heard this song before.
this is a big update!
Zerovirus
typo, blargh
the story is unifying qian yuan's manner of addressing se yue under the word 'milady', which i suppose is accurate enough
same with wu shi.
they translated 'terminal station' the same way i did
oh i am PISSED
i am fucking PISSED
you DIDN'T EVEN TRY
TO TRANSLATE THE JOKE
Zerovirus
for reference, the original joke in chinese has wu shi try to repeat 'mandela effect' but saying a totally different word that only vaguely bears phonetic resemblance. that's the joke. that's why se yue cracks up.
they just straight up CUT that out of this translation.
so it looks like se yue's cracking up for LITERALLY ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.
that's shit. this translation is shit. i have officially lost all respect for this translation.
you have to at least TRY to translate the jokes and the puns and the memes!
and even if you can't, you should at least do a translator's note about it!
that settles it, i cannot use this translation
i can't trust that they haven't cut more jokes out of the text because of translator laziness
jjjqance
wow
they cut the joke but then have her laugh??
that's a continuity error on par with like ... Mobius Rail
avunvain
oh that is so doable
the macarena effect.
marinara effect.
manila effect.
Zerovirus
mandala effect.
literally all you had to do was change one letter.
jjjqance
mansplain effect
gondala effect
avunvain
margarine effect
amidala effect, star wars reference
Zerovirus
huh.
so, uh.
turns out,
loading into a scene that's not the final option
resets an invisible flag
which means
i have...
to run the whole game perfectly
again.
exhales
the shit i do for you folks.
Zerovirus
well, it's either that, or the update broke something.
either way it's not letting me load into the savefile i had of the right-before-the-final-choice.
JaxThePyro
brutal
Zerovirus
oh luckily i had a save at ji hengsheng's perspective scene, which comes right before the choice
so that was easy enough
y'know what this is an auspicious time. i'd originally wanted to do it saturday but i mean, why not go ahead with it right here and now
avunvain
christ
zero i will reiterate that i would absolutely pay for you to do translations
had i something to be translated