big bad birtha's suggestion box 2: secret passions unveiled

[big bad birtha]

Double post fury!

Dororon Enma-Kun is fucking dropped. Even if it gets better later down the road, I'm tired of this shit. Most of the show is filled with some of the most obnoxiously bad jokes I have ever seen. Seriously, who the fuck do the creators expect to amuse by having a character moan for 10 minutes? The same question goes for having a character say "You're hot, now I'm gonna grope you!" over and over again. It wasn't funny in the hundreds of shitty ecchi otaku pandering shows like To-Love-Ru, and it isn't funny in this. What pisses me off most about this is the fact that this show has potential to be amazing.

[Talon87]

Hanasaku Iroha:
Episode 04 was good. Not quite as magical as episode 01 was: but then again, that was the magical episode that launched the fairy tale in the first place so I guess it'll be hard to top until we get closer towards the end of the season. But Episode 04 was definitely better than Episode 03 from last week, so that's good. Loved the bunkbed scene with Ohana apologizing for what she'd said in the shower. Pooooooor Ohana.

Moshidora:
Watched the first episode. It's good. Not great yet, but good. An interesting premise. I would probably be loving it if I loved baseball, but as baseball is one of my least favorite sports ^^; ... Still, I think this one has potential. And if the first episode has set up predictable plot milestones for us rather than a slew of red herrings, then it's certain that Moshidora will be causing a veritable downpour of tears. Haven't read the source material so this is 100% speculation based on episode 01 alone, but ...

Spoiler: show

It seems like Yuki, Minami's best friend, is probably going to die before the team can make it to Koushien and that Minami is then going to tearfully try her best to fill in the shoes that Yuki had dreamed of filling and manage the boys in their Koushien debut. What I mean is, it seems like the show is going to do the following:
(1) have Minami manage the team in Yuki's absence, with the understanding that Yuki will be coming back
(2) the boys will get better as a team and may even be good enough for Koushien! Minami will excitedly share this news with Yuki in the hospital
(3) Minami will dream about handing the reins back over to Yuki and letting Yuki achieve her dream of managing the boys baseball team, but ...
(4) Yuki will prove too ill, so instead Minami will dream about giving Yuki the next best possible gift: the gift of the miracle of taking the boys to Koushien
(5) The boys will defeat the second-to-last or the last team they need to in order to qualify for the national championship game when ...
(6) Yuki will either die, or else will go under the knife for surgery and will then die. Either way, she'll die before the championship game.
(7) So Minami will be determined to see the boys win "for Yuki", and so ...
(8 ) How could they not win at that point? Show would be too realistic and too depressing if they dedicated the game to their now-deceased former manager and then lost. So they'll win. But it'll be a bittersweet victory for Minami. She'll have rediscovered her love for baseball only to want to hate it again because she now associates it with the death of her best friend. She'll be really torn up inside.
(9) The guy she likes will help her to sort out these emotions. The end.

Let's see how specifically my predictions come true.

[big bad birtha]

I've started on two shows, and I'm pondering another.

Gintama- I'm 15 episodes in, and it's not bad so far. However, it's not as amazing as I remember it. I enjoy it, but I don't think I'll be able to watch 200 episodes of it without getting bored. Only time will tell.

Shugo Chara- Well, since I'm watching a bunch of girly shows anyway, why not go ahead and watch a shoujo with a magical girl theme? Might as well, since the characters in shows for little girls tend to be way better than the ones in otaku pandering stuff. Anyway, I've watched the first 4 episodes of it. So far, it isn't bad. There seems to be room for quite a bit of development on the main character's side. The main character is pretty interesting anyway, so I look forward to whatever this show has to offer. I like the "chara-change" thing as well.

Keroro Gunsou- I haven't watched it, but it's something I'm considering. For the most part, I'm clueless on whether it's good or not. I've even forgotten what caught my curiosity on this show, but something is telling me to check it out. I might check this show out later on down the road.

I said I was going to watch The World Only God Knows 2, but I can't bring myself to watch it. The first season was such a disappointment, that I don't think I'll bother with the second.

[Doppleganger]

But the manga is still really good. I'm caught up with TWGOK's manga, and while the release schedule is indeed erratic, the manga is making a lot better pace now and it's still fun and fresh.

Started G-Senjou. It's a mix of cool and coy, but I've yet to be spellshocked. I expect that to happen far later than where I am.

The second season of Tegami Bachi is awesome so far. Season one had a lot of "filler" eps, but they helped to get one accustomed to the characters, like in GaoGaiGar and Muv-Luv Extra. Season two has been nothing but incredible, moving the plot along and making really fun "filler" episodes (I use quotes because I'm not sure if they're real filler or not).

[Talon87]

Keroro Gunsou gets old at around the Season 5 mark or so (around the 120s), but it's a good show and I definitely recommend anyone check it out with the intent to watch the first two seasons (1-52) minimum, even if they don't end up doing so (say because they dislike it). 1-52 provides a solid story arc, and the way it ends is pretty much indicative of every future Keroro season (which I can say confidently given the other seasons I've watched). Btw, may not be episode 52 on the dot, may be like 53 or 51 or something. Don't have the episodes handy right now so I can't say.

[Talon87]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
Watched the first five minutes of Episode 01. Given what I already knew, stuff that I'm sure most people had no way of knowing when they first saw this scene, I can oh so totally say that (a) this scene is totally prophetic of things to come and (b) holy cow was this scene symbolic. It's amazing how there are so many clues nested in the intro video sequence as well: hidden amongst the seemingly-innocent and happy transformations and other magical girl things Madoka does are tears and an embrace with an adult-looking form of herself, ...

Spoiler: show

One I imagine is her witch self, though maybe it's some other character I've miraculously managed to avoid being spoilered about

Spoiler: show

And I should say: I don't actually know whether Madoka becomes a witch or not so don't spoil that for me. I just know that that's part of the plot, and it certainly seems like she'll ultimately accept Kyuubei's contract, at which point she'll pretty much be doomed to becoming a witch -- despite the lies Kyuubei fed her about being the one who's powerful enough to maybe possibly change fate.

Then, as if by magical luck, I happened upon a new thread on gg's website. In it, some troll posted an informative image which directly compares gg's sub for Madoka with yesy's. And I was flabbergasted by some of the translational flubs gg made. I got pretty angry with myself since I'd already wasted over 2 gigs of bandwidth (five episodes x an average file size of 450 megs) on the gg release but I said, "No point in being angry about it" and headed over to yesy's site. There I got even more angry -- well, more like disappointed + frustrated than angry ^^; -- when I discovered that they've only done subs for the transport streams through Episode 07 and they've only done subs period for episodes 01-10. Even more aggravating was the discovery that, as some posters on their blog had warned me about, there are two annoyances with yesy's releases:
(1) they poorly encoded the video and, as a result, it often breaks inside VLC and MPlayer. This is uncool. Break inside one or the other, fine. Break inside both, you're the one doing something wrong, not me.

(2) they chose a really bad way to encode these subs. >_>; I'd be better off if I could simply use the default sub encoding in my video players (bold, yellow) since these are pretty much (in visual look and feel) default video player subtitle font except illegible (not bold, white).

That stated, I can live with it. Hard to complain about a free delicious lunch and not sound like a jackass, so I'll quit while I'm not too far behind, I hope.

[Doppleganger]

It's a shame you've been spoiled for that, it's one of the more major twists in the story. Madoka itself isn't as tough a cookie to crack as the KID titles, but it still offers some deductive challenge.

I don't think Kyubei has ever lied outright, but he's definitely not fully honest.

[Talon87]

Nah, that was the twist which got me wanting to watch it in the first place. Catch-22, sure, but nothing that could be helped.

[Doppleganger]

This is relevant to our interests. All the more oil on an already raging fire of fear.

[Talon87]

While I really don't like not having the data on hand (for easy access in the future, near or far), I have to admit that the streaming situation isn't all that bad. I dislike that Crunchyroll has a snobby, profit-seeking policy of saying that only paying customers can watch the videos as they come out and that everybody else has to wait a week -- a kinder competitor needs to come out and drive that business strategy into extinction, fast, since CR are just being greedy fuckers who aren't content to make money from commercial advertisements alone -- but other than that they do a good job with the translations, the video quality is fine (on my tiny 20" widescreen computer monitor; can't speak for others' situations), and the selection is pretty wide. Also, it's incredibly generous that they allow full access to older shows -- from what I can tell, I have complete access to all 201 episodes of Gintama and not just episodes 01-52 or 01-26 or some such.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I think it's going to be the hardest for our generation to quit pirating anime. For all the newcomers, the decision is ridiculously easy. And I think the intrinsic easiness of this decision is what will see us too moving that way bit by bit.

I should note, though, that the one reason I can tolerate streaming is because I don't have to sit through commercials ever. (AdBlock + NoScript = Great Wall of China approach.) If I had to, my thoughts on CR's palatability might be drastically different. Commercials suck. Especially when they're not relevant to my interests at all. (Like a commercial I saw on television for a 50+ year olds dating website while I was eating lunch today in the lounge. It was like "Silver Sensitive" or some stupid name like that. Only thing worse would have been lawyer ads or gold ads -- and guess what, those showed up too. Fucking CNN. ¬_¬)

EDIT: I should also point out that in some cases anime "piracy," as it were (and I intend the quotation marks here and not in the rest of this post very much so), is the only option you've got if you ever want to see a particular show. My favorite anime series to date, Minami-ke, still has not been licensed or brought over to the States. And it's my favorite. So it's not like I'm forcing tenuous arguments here. Best thing a legal fan can do in that situation is to purchase media related to the franchise. (Like how I bought manga volumes 1-4.)

[Talon87]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
Seen through Episode 03. It's been entertaining so far. Much more so than the other magical girl shows I've either seen or heard about. Obviously a lot of the show's awesome surprise factor is lost on me, so there's practically zero tension in these early episodes. But I'm still enjoying it and, aside from Mami, grief seeds, witches, and Kyuubei, nothing's been spoilered for me so hopefully I'll have some new stuff to look forward to eventually ... like, circa episode 11. (Yeah, I know: I've been spoilered on a lot and some pretty big things, too.)

Question: (spoiler thru episode ?? of Madoka)

Spoiler: show

When they show text underneath the witches in each of the episodes -- they've done this so far twice, once with the witch in episode 02 and once with the witch in episode 03 -- are we supposed to be able to read that text? I tried to read it but it seems like it consists of some backwards letters that are scrambled together. Like, if you read it backwards for the witch in Episode 03, it looks like it's the letters O U U S J/T/F Y C J/T/F W. I can't really make out the one character which looks like it could be a normal-reading left-to-right J or T or F. All the others are legible when read backwards, but this one's not, so it's stumping me. And even if I were to decide on an identity -- say J -- I still can't make out what on earth this word is supposed to be. OUUSJYCJW? What on Earth would that descramble to spell?

I feel like they wouldn't be so obvious about it if it didn't at least mean something. But what can it be? Is it their name? Is it their theme/element/sin? (e.g. like Gluttony or Sloth or some such) I have no clue.

[Doppleganger]

Wait, how much were you actually spoiled for?

As far as the text is concerned, no one has been able to decode anything. It could merely be something Shinbo came up with when he was high on LSD.

...

G-Senjou

Spoiler: show

Hey BBB, is Maou = Gonzou when he was young? Nothing says that Maou exists in the present, and Kyousuke introduced himself as "The Devil's Child" so I'm thinking Gonzou might be the original Maou.

Guess not. But LOL, for a second, I thought Sumika was going to burst out of the Penguin suit. Hilarious!

[Talon87]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
You asked me what was spoiled for me. Here follows the list: (ACTUAL SPOILERS)

Spoiler: show

At the end of episode 03, the magical girl with the yellow hair gets her head bitten off.

Kyuubei is the primary antagonist.

Kyuubei is an alien from another world. His cute nickname is actually short for Incubator, referring to what his role is.

Kyuubei is trying to stave off the heat death of the Universe.

To stave off the heat death of the Universe, one needs a certain something. [I dunno what.] It just so happens that that something can be gotten in highest amount from the despair of human girls. So it is in Kyuubei's interests to ensure that he can make the girls despair for as long as possible for as much as possible.

When a girl becomes a magical girl, a mahou shoujo, she signs her own death contract: because from that point on, she's fighting an impossible fight against her own corruption.

When a magical girl becomes fully corrupted, she turns into a witch, a majo. (I did not know what witches were or looked like until starting the show. I had assumed that they were maybe more adult-looking, badasser, villainous versions of their mahou shoujo selves. Obviously I was very wrong.)

In order to try and not become a witch, the magical girls collect the Grief Seeds from existing witches and extract the contamination from their own Soul Gems and transpose it into the Grief Seed. However, a Grief Seed can only take so much corruption (just as a Soul Gem can only be so pure), so eventually the Grief Seed becomes useless to the girl and she has to hope she can find another.

Since there is a limited supply of Grief Seeds, it creates competition -- and thus despair -- amongst the surviving magical girls.

In order to not run out of Grief Seeds, it's in a surviving magical girl's best interests if Kyuubei tricks others into becoming Magical Girls; if those other magical girls transform into witches first; and if one can defeat them and get their Grief Seeds from them. This makes Homura's behavior very altruistic.

Kyuubei can't die. Homura shoots him once but a clone of his (linked in mind/soul but a different body, it seems) shows up and devours his old body.

Quite a lot, really. But here are some of the things which weren't spoiled for me which I am figuring out or still wondering about ...

Spoiler: show

How long has Kyuubei been doing this?

How many cities/countries are involved in this?

Theory: things are not going to end well for Sayaka (the blue-haired girl). I have a feeling that boy she has feelings for is not going to react to his miraculously-healed hand the way she's hoping, e.g. he may be all smiles about it but wind up dumping Sayaka and dating some other chick, leaving Sayaka condemned to become a grotesque monster and for what? This is why I dislike Sayaka: stupid girl is stupid. -_-; Then again, she didn't know she was going to turn into a monster so I can't be TOO too hard on her, but still.

Theory: Homura seems like she's come from the future. She seems to know Madoka and it seems to be being hinted at (currently through Episode 05) that she may have come back to this timeline to try and prevent Madoka and others from becoming magical girls. Looks like she realizes she's succeeded with Madoka but failed with Sayaka, suggesting that in the world/time she comes from, both girls became magical girls.

Theory: given that Urobuchi Gen wrote this, and given that people have told me in non-spoiler terms that Fate/Zero is a much much darker story than Fate/Stay Night, I'm going to guess that this series does not have a happy surprise ending. LOL if it does, but it seems like Madoka will become a monster at some point, period. Dunno how much of that we'll see -- or hell, maybe she'll die before she can even get that far, like Mami -- but I don't imagine this will end well. I imagine she is at some point going to make a contract with Kyuubei and that she is basically going to doom herself to destruction at that point.

Currently through Episode 05. So far, so good. Much more interesting than CCS was. ^^;

[Doppleganger]

Yeah, you've been spoiled for half the mystery already. I'm shocked that so much of the plot got leaked to you, but it's not a lost cause!

Your speculation is good. I can't tell how much is influenced from what you already know, but you're on track if not spot on for a number of things.

I'll pose a question for you - Why is Kyubei so interested in Madoka? The answer should come naturally. But if you ask why again, you may notice you're making an implicit assumption that may not be right.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Yeah, you've been spoiled for half the mystery already. I'm shocked that so much of the plot got leaked to you, but it's not a lost cause!

It's not that it got leaked: an irl friend was watching Madoka, he wanted to discuss it, and I'd already decided I wasn't going to watch the show. And it's not like I even learned all of this in one sitting. I learned the Ep03 spoiler right as it happened (i.e. between Ep03 and Ep04 airing), I learned about Kyuubei probably right when that one happened, too, etc. He and I hang out multiple days a week, so it's easy for you to see how I might have piecemeal-wise gotten spoilered on this show week by week by week. And eventually got intrigued enough that I said, "Y'know what? I'mma watch it."

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I'll pose a question for you - Why is Kyubei so interested in Madoka? The answer should come naturally. But if you ask why again, you may notice you're making an implicit assumption that may not be right.

Well, I can try and answer that, sure, but I've got no thoughts outside of raw logic:

Spoiler: show

Presumably Madoka stands to offer the most despair of any human girl Kyuubei has ever discovered. Already she's an absolute teary-eyed wreck and she hasn't even learned the truth about the witches yet! Or Kyuubei! She's just distraught (a) over Mami's death and (b) over the fact that she's reneging on her promise to Mami because, and who can blame her, she doesn't want to die and being a mahou shoujo means being in danger of dying. But yeah, that'd be my guess: Kyuubei is interested in Madoka because she'll offer the greatest energy return (or whatever the hell it is that he harvests) to help him stave off the Universe's inevitable heat death.

The other possibility is that Madoka might make the wish that the Universe not die from heat death. I dunno if Kyuubei can grant such a wish, but if the premise of the series is "So long as you wish it, I can grant it," then all she has to do is wish for the heat death of the Universe to not occur, to become just the stuff of science paper musings and science fiction novels, and it won't happen. Sure, she'll turn into a hideous monster in the process, but it'd be a (relatively) small price to pay if it meant saving the entire goddamn world in the long run, not to mention saving hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent little girls the world over from Kyuubei's schemes in the short run.

Maybe Kyuubei anticipates this. Maybe he figures, "If any girl I've met so far might wish for the Universe to not die of heat death, it's this one."

But, uh, Madoka isn't exactly the physics brainiac type. So ........ for now, I'm leaning more towards the first theory I told you (he's pursuing her for the tears!) than the second theory (he wants her to make the universe-saving wish).

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

Presumably Madoka stands to offer the most despair of any human girl Kyuubei has ever discovered. Already she's an absolute teary-eyed wreck and she hasn't even learned the truth about the witches yet! Or Kyuubei! She's just distraught (a) over Mami's death and (b) over the fact that she's reneging on her promise to Mami because, and who can blame her, she doesn't want to die and being a mahou shoujo means being in danger of dying. But yeah, that'd be my guess: Kyuubei is interested in Madoka because she'll offer the greatest energy return (or whatever the hell it is that he harvests) to help him stave off the Universe's inevitable heat death.

You've fallen into the trap, but you don't have complete information yet. You need to know more about Kyubei (one of your earlier questions) before you're fully equipped to tackle the puzzle. To be fair, I don't think enough info was provided for people to unravel the truth more than an episode in advance. I figured it out right before the explanation was provided, but I wasn't thinking too hard about it beforehand. I'm unsure if I coud have worked it out an episode in advance.

Spoiler for after you've learned Kyubei's history -

Spoiler: show

Incubators have lived for millions of years and yet no girl has had as much magical potential as Madoka. Madoka was a target of Kyubei even before she learned about the witches, but if you look at her life, where's the source of stress? She actually lived a peaceful and loving life, she wasn't a suffering orphan like Mami or heartbroken like Sayaka. Her parents aren't wrecks like Kyouko's were. And yet she'd supposedly be far, far, far more powerful than any of them. Why?

...

OK, I've got a theory about Tsubaki.

Spoiler: show

I trust Kyousuke's assumption that people only care about money. Given Tsubaki's family situation, it's obvious that she didn't gain interest in Kyousuke until learning he was loaded. She wants to marry him and have him provide for her brothers and sisters. I'll have to wait and see for Kyousuke to gain access to her diaries, though.

[big bad birtha]

I never bothered making guesses with Madoka. I merely enjoyed it for the atmosphere without thinking about it too much.

As far as Kyubee goes

Spoiler: show

I never thought of him as evil. I'd say he's about as evil as every other magical girl mascot who almost ruins a girl's daily life in order to do what they have to do.

______________

Doppel, for G-Senjou, do you plan on hitting the characters' paths as you go along with the story, or do you intend on going back after you've finished it?

I would honestly branch off before going to the main path, but I'm a guy who likes to leave the most delicious part of the meal on the plate until last.

______________________________

I'm quite a bit further in Shugo Chara and Gintama.

Shugo Chara- So far, pretty interesting. Though, this isn't doing much more for me than keeping my interest. I like the alternate character thing. I also like the cast. Other than that, it's sorta meh. This is probably a silly complaint, but it always bugs the hell out of me when the main girl comes in contact with a guy she likes. It always either has an image of him in a background of flowers and sparkly noises, or it has her blushing with a flowery background and sparkly noises. That has always annoyed me in shoujo and magical girl titles. Precure has a tougher atmosphere, so there isn't any of that. Maybe I just need to get used to that being used for something other than a joke.

Speaking of Precure, Shugo Chara has quite a few similarities with Heartcatch Precure. Other than magical girl cliches of course. For one, the "Heart egg" thing in Shugo Chara is alot like the "Heart flower" thing in Heartcatch. They're both used to create monsters when a character is depressed about something, and they both end up making the character happier after the heroine purifies it. The main difference is that heart eggs hold a would be self, while a heart flower simply represents what the person is like based off flower language, and that's almost a similarity.

The other is the fact that the main character badly wants to change herself. They both wish to be more open towards others. Amu from Shugo Chara builds up a reputation of being "cool and spicy" and can't be open towards everyone because she finds it difficult to break that reputation. Tsubomi from Heartcatch is incredibly shy and introverted, and isn't able to say what she wants to due to her shyness. Amu's likely going to get more focus on that due to the character theme in Shugo chara, but her way in changing seems similar as well. Amu seems to be changing to her newfound friends, while Tsubomi was helped through the impulsive and almost insensitive Erika.

There's also the prince character. I normally wouldn't mention this, since there's a bunch of characters like that, but Hotori and Itsuki share too many similarities for me to pass it off as simple cliche. First off, Hotori from Shugo Chara is the leader of "guardian" which is pretty similar to a student council in his school. Itsuki is the student council president. They both have similar personalities and are both very popular among the girls. Actually, Amu falls in love with Hotori, and Tsubomi falls in love with Itsuki. Their powers are similar as well. Hotori has a protection spell named "King's Crown" while Itsuki has one named "Sunflower Aegis." The biggest difference between them is the fact that Itsuki is a girl.

There's a few more, but those are the biggest 3 I felt like mentioning.

Gintama- Now I think I know why I thought this show was amazing. Gintama improves sharply when the introductory episodes are over. Though, this show is still pretty hit and miss. Some episodes are amazing, while others are incredibly dull. Though, thankfully there's less dull episodes when everyone has been introduced. Also, any episode involving the Shinsengumi is an instant win.

[Doppleganger]

Character paths then go for the main one. Haru's end is allegedly glorious - you've told me yourself and I've heard abroad, so if it's really that good, I might as well get the lesser routes out of the way because I don't think I'll be revisiting G-Senjou for multiple play throughs.

As far as Gintama is concerned, I think that hit or miss nature might be why I remember liking the mahjong episode, but didn't care for the ones Talon linked me. What people like in some episodes, others might not like, and the reverse happens for other episodes. Unfortunately, I haven't found an episode either than the mahjong one that left an impression.

If there's an episode about Go, I'll watch it just to see...

[lilboocorsola]

...Oops. I apparently forgot to download one of the parts for Muv-Luv. ^^; Sorry, Dopple! I really should've checked to see if the game worked before I left school. *sigh*

Am I really required to read ML before starting MLA? >>;

[Doppleganger]

Absolutely. Extra and Unlimited are ESSENTIAL and influence both the player and Alternative in deep ways. It becomes easier too to keep track of things, because you get terms like

"my world" / "your world"
"this world"
"the other world" / "that world"
"the previous world"

And if you have no idea which is which, it'll get troublesome. You'll thank us later, and it'll be quite amusing to go back to your old posts and look at stuff like "I hate Extra!". Oh man, I was so young. XD

...

If you're starting soon, I better get off my arse and finish that topic. >.>

[lilboocorsola]

Hm. Maybe I can make a quick trip to the library sometime this week and snag the missing piece. Hopefully my poor old laptop's screen will hold out for that long. =/

Otherwise I'm at a loss on what to do this whole summer. o.o; My mum and I are still debating over whether I should pay three months' rent for the apartment. I'd like to stay home if I can, but there's nothing to do here. x.X

[Doppleganger]

Do you need library computers to download from MegaUpload?

[lilboocorsola]

I thought I'd mentioned it enough times, but I have dial-up at home. o.o;

Are you typically allowed to download files to library computers and move them to a flash drive? I've never tried it before. If so that'd be convenient so I don't need to lug my dying laptop + mouse + keyboard. (Seriously, my laptop is basically a desktop now.)

[Talon87]

Might be a little unethical to download from MegaUpload at a public computer since the site isn't exactly 100% trustworthy when it comes to the question of illicit pop-up ads that may or may not be infectious. From a personal computer at home, you can have NoScript (denies script running to unauthorized sources) or AdBlock (blocks some pop-ups, though I've noticed the occasional MegaUpload one which slips through!), but I doubt the library would let you install these. I even doubt that it would be appropriate to install these on a public terminal (since NoScript can be more hassle than help for your average user).

It might be more ethical to download these files from a friend's house (a) if said friend is well aware of the risks of using MegaUpload and is prepared to encounter them and (b) if said friend is also interested in procuring this data.

A third option would be to ask Doppel to mail you the data, encrypted (w/ 64-character password), via the post.

A fourth option would be to bring your laptop to a wifi hotspot and try something there. (Dunno how likely one is to get caught doing this sort of thing. I never use public wifi hotspots so I don't know much about them at all.)

[lilboocorsola]

Yeah, I'm not that keen on using a public computer to download. My friend is paranoid about viruses and getting caught so I doubt she'd let me use her internet.

My original thought was just to bring my laptop to the library and use their Wifi. It's just that my screen seems to be dying (flickers a lot) so I use an external monitor. The laptop screen still works for now, but I don't know how long it will last so I try to avoid stressing it.