this is the kaitui canon consolidation doc that i've been working on over the last few months!! it has summaries of each of the 10 cases and character profiles for the main + supporting cast. better viewed on desktop!! and major kaitui spoilers inside, obviously ^^
keep in mind that it may not be 100% accurate ahahah if there's anything that i've missed, feel free to message me about it!!! here is an auxiliary gdrive folder with copies of all the images used in the gdoc + extra shots of the main casts' rooms
Notes:
as much as i'm happy to share it with everyone, this doc was primarily made for my own use; therefore, it prioritises information i would care about in my writing. that's why i have Fang Xiaomei's unit password and not, like, the exact details of each murderer's modus operandi
all the images (sans the detective teams', which are official posters, and Bamei's, which was posted on xhs by Zhou Yingjun) were screenshots taken by me. that's why their quality is mid at best 😅
'ku wuku md.' as in 'ke wuku (middle)'. i'm sorry
there are some things i may go back and add in the future, like explanations for the puns and screenshots of Apartment 11's different rooms and spaces. not doing either anytime soon tho whhdha that's scary..
still not 100% sure what's going on in the Mr Nan case i don't think the writers knew either
okay so is liu yuning's eng name seriously lyn. i've been calling him lyn as an acronym?? and it's not on his baidu or wikipedia. but it's on his yyjh poster..
although i'm a bit hesitant to post about this considering that there hasn't been official confirmation of it yet, looks like 柿子 opened an official YT channel
Disclaimer #1: i am by all means not fluent in Chinese. please forgive any mistakes!
Disclaimer #2: i am not used to writing song reviews. 本宝宝’s still learning! this is largely a collection of thoughts i have had while listening to the album on the train in the mornings.
posting this to my art blog (now renamed 'creative pursuits blog' because that's what it has become) instead of my main @chryso-of-nowhere. thank you @anambermusicbox for the encouragement!
i thought about finishing a write-up on everything and sharing it all in one post, but it's been taking forever and i have the most to say about The Giver at the moment, so i guess i’ll post them as i get to them.
反深代词 (Shenself) Album Thoughts— 警报 (The Giver):
although it’s true that 记忆商店 (The Memory Store) is my favourite song when it comes down to the meaning of the lyrics, i believe that 警报 (The Giver) is the most impressive from a construction standpoint. jeeeeeeesus christ.
The Giver is absolutely listless with desperation. every bit of it. like, the choice of 提醒 in 提醒你自救 is astounding. 提醒 isn't ‘plead’ or ‘beg’, and although it can be ‘warn’, it’s mainly used as ‘remind’. what. the. hell. juxtaposing something as heavy as 自救 (save yourself) with remind? excuse me????? it's so good; it really enforces how powerless the singer (the AI) is. remind! count! witness!
at the start, listeners are hit with the technique that i feel characterises the whole song. namely, we’re hit with a first verse composed almost exclusively of epanadiplosis.
via wikipedia: epanadiplosis is a figure of speech in which the same word is used at the end of a clause as at the beginning of a preceding clause.
using epanadiplosis, it feels like The Giver goes in circles. 感受、 感受； 请求、 请求； 成就、 成就. and even past that: 计算, and 计算 again.* it's a structural representation of not making any progress! not making a change! isn't that cool??? i’m just as (if not more) invested in the construction of this song as i am in the meaning of the lyrics, if nothing else than because of how well it mirrors the message.
*okay this one's more like diacope, sue me
in that vein, my favourite line in The Giver has to be 我不断 再计算 因为你 不计算 [还能撑多久]; my lackluster translation of this is ‘i count / because you don’t count [/ how much longer you can last]’. it doesn't rhyme, unfortunately, but the diacope is important to me because it conveys that heaving, ineffectual desperation that is my main emotional takeaway from this song. the repetition emphasises but is subtle about it, it tries to be reprimanding but can't hold onto it, it's anxious, it's hopeless. i’m on the floor
i also love 我学会痛 为你而痛 (‘i learn to hurt to hurt for you’). 痛 and 计算 serve the same structural purpose here, isn't that something. what if i died
and, in 我学会痛 为你而痛, there's also a sense of finality. (shakes fist) it's that damn epistrophe!
via wikipedia: epistrophe is the repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
Yin Yue maxed out on epistrophe’s efficacy where she chose to use it. take a look at this bit of the chorus:
从借用 到利用 到享用 到滥用
by 到享用, you can sort of tell how the line’s going to end, right? at least, you know the last character will be ‘用’. look at that! a structural representation of how the singer can predict the outcome of the subject of the song’s trajectory! literally what the shit
a bit of an aside: i’m still a bit new to chinese music in general, and this song truly hammered into me that chinese is a way better language for isocolons than english. you can count your syllables in english and make it work, but it’s so much neater in chinese. WAY more effective. but saying this makes me sound like i am a fan of the rhetorica ad herennium, which i am not. and i won't elaborate on this because isocolons are such an integral part of chinese songwriting that it feels like saying you have discovered that grass is green.
the way Yin Yue uses language outside of a medium for conveying the textual message is very inspiring. between the epanadiplosis, epistrophe and isocolons, this song is a nightmare to translate.
The Giver starts off very carefully, gingerly, and gets increasingly more pained and panicked. Zhou Shen is too powerful!!!! you can really hear that desperation in the live versions, and the high note he adds at the last line is so good ajfbwjnncncq
this song strikes me as the most personal of the album that we've seen so far. like, the fact that they chose the take that he cried after recording haunts me to this day. normally i don't cry that easily!! but that 人物 interview, man. that 人物 interview. of the 反深代词 songs that have been performed live, this one is my favourite. The Giver is incredibly well-written, incredible well-performed, and incredibly powerful!!
