#and they were PARDNERS.... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seat-safety-switch · 7 months

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"Hold on there, pardner. This here's a cognition hazard." said the holographic cowboy in the corner of my vision. He then took a series of poses that the designer must have thought looked heroic and protective, before flickering back to his original position and repeating the process. My artificial ranch-hand was not incorrect: the thing I was attempting to do would cause me unpredictable amounts of psychic damage, likely impacting my relationships with those around me and even my mental state at rest. Even so, I pushed the button and waited.

Software development used to be a sort of reckless task, undergone without care. Decades ago, hundreds of folks would cram themselves into a single building and then work hard on their computers to develop computer programs. Originally, these programs performed useful but difficult tasks, speeding them up dramatically for the varied needs of government and industry. At first, life improved. And then, as with every prior machine in human history, we looked for harder jobs for it to do.

A funny thing happens when a computer program gets longer than about a page of typewritten code. You have to hold a lot of it in your head. The best programmers could commit an entire system to memory, gliding through it like barracuda through a disreputable motel's swimming pool. We didn't know then how much trauma it caused. The doctors had no idea what was happening with all those isolated burnouts freaking out, moving into the woods, and hunting men for sport.

Watching the old newsreels now, seeing the 20th-century equivalent of coal miners delving willingly into fold-out charts of MFC inheritance diagrams, it's a little hard to stomach. It only took about twenty years of continued exposure to this kind of thing before the human mind rebelled, the manmade logical constructs providing a kind of sharp edge that ripped through sanity like a hot wire. Thing is, it still had to be done, and the folks who did it seemed to enjoy it up until The Void caught up to them too. So the government did what the government does best, and compromise. We'd all have warnings that what we were doing was insanely dangerous and life-shortening, and our employers would keep demanding that we heap more complexity atop ever-increasing mountains of irreducible cruft.

A good deal for all involved, especially the folks who got the contract to make the warning holograms about fifteen years ago. They must have loved their jobs, putting the little cowboy hats on them. You can tell in all the little complex details of his haunted face, begging me to turn back from my route to oblivion. One day I'd like to make something cool like that.

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owwllly · 8 months

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If I don't see some art from you of A) Wolfwood petting Vashs pretty wings while Vash melts from the attention or B) Wolfwood picking him up by his ridiculously small waist and twirling him, were gonna have a problem pardner xD

here is one of him patting his feathers („ಡωಡ„).

like my work? if you want to commission me: CLICK HERE

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#my art #trigun #trigun 98 #trigun stampede #vashwood #nicholas d. wolfwood #wolfwood fanart #wolfwood my beloved #wolfwood x vash #owwllly

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askengiecow · 2 months

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“Alright, safe word is Spook, no more than two friendly shoulder pats a day and no stories about killing, maiming, arson, or unethical procedures or anything that I couldn’t tell Dolly Parton.” Dell continued to mumbled nervously as he continued to “look” for something in his pack.

He wasn’t sure of bringing the wedding ring was a good idea, the closer they got the more he was compelled to check and make sure it was still there, and it wasn’t even like he was going to ask until they were well on their way back.

After finishing reciting the rules for what felt like the 100th time in the past ten minutes Dell finally stopped and nodded to himself just as he pasted a sign confirming they were but 5 minutes away.

Seeing this Dell felt his panic welling back up but this time for a different reason. “Pull over somewhere secluded, I want to kiss ya one more time… again.”

Taurie couldn't help the amused smirk that rested on his face as he listened to Dell nervously talk himself through the rules the two of them had came up with. The longer they were in the truck the more restless Dell had become. Taurie couldn't deny his own nerves were making butterflies in his stomach, but being it was his own parents house helped.

"Sounds about right. We're just engineers that so happen to design and build weaponry." He nodded, chuckling as Dell asked him to pull over.

"Again? Ya act like ahm taken ya to death row, Dell." He teased, though Taurie did find a pull off that seemed empty.

He gave Dell a reassuring pat and offered his bottle of water after taking a quick sip. The air was hot and dry just as he'd remembered it.

"Try not to panic. Yer just a buddy that needed a break from work so ah let ya tag along." Taurie smiled, glancing around to confirm they were alone before leaning in to give his boyfriend another 'final' kiss, one of many over the past hour.

Patting Dells cheek he pulled back into the road. Taurie's excitement to see his family after being gone for several years outweighed his apprehension. After another minute or so of driving he nodded to the rolling pastures on the left side of the road.

"Property starts about out here. These fields are used later in the year, after the ones the cows are in now have grazed the grass short. Used to come out to the woods just yonder to explore when ah was little." He said, finger popping up from the steering wheel to point at a thicket of trees.

Looking over he lightly nudged Dell with his elbow, offering him a smile.

"Just breathe pardner. You've been through worse than this."

@dirty-dell

#dirty dell rps

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unpretty · 14 days

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Hello! I am the tumblr anon who keeps getting you stuff from your wishlists. i was having a horrid day, went to your throne selfishly to see if you had anything that would cheer me up, then realized that i couldn't think of anything to buy for myself that i wanted, so i settled on buying stuff for an internet stranger that they wanted, hoping that at least that might make things in the world somewhat brighter. hope it worked!

MY ANONYMOUS BENEFACTOR

i was actually going to post about my throne wishlist ONCE AGAIN getting cleared out, because my stuff got here

and while throne alerted me to the fact that i would soon be receiving many novelty beverages to drink while listening to a podcast about alex jones, i did NOT realize there were also AMAZON WISHLIST ITEMS

so now my desk at work finally has a matching pink cat paw mousepad, and i have a little cold roller for my aching feets, and a special serum distributor to distribute serums on my scalp. i don't actually have any serums right now so i cannot review it but now that i have a special thing i'm gonna invest in some serums.

here are my reviews thus far of NOVELTY BEVERAGES, which you did not ask for but i'm doing it anyway

so i added an olipop sampler to my throne wishlist because i was intrigued but wary. they have a health angle and stevia so it seemed like it would taste bad. but i liked their design and also i didn't mind the stevia in that apple pie tea, so i thought maybe i got over my stevia thing

olipop cream soda: this was a bad one to try first because the flavor profile of a traditional cream soda is mostly sugar. it's just vanilla sugar, carbonated. so a sugar-free version is very stevia-forward. there's not enough other flavor to overpower the weird mouthfeel. i can drink it but it needs to be chilled and sipped in small amounts, maybe in a fancy glass.

olipop root beer: tbh i may have been wrong about the cream soda because this one also had weird overpowering Something flavor. i assume it's the stevia but maybe it's their proprietary blend of plant fibers, which is a weird thing to flex about your soda having. as a sarsaparilla and birch beer enjoyer, i like more bite than a standard root beer, and this has less. you'd think with their branding they'd be able to really lean hard on MEDICINAL ROOT FLAVORS but instead they chickened out and made it so mild it's barely different from the cream soda.

i haven't tried the other olipop flavors yet, but will report back with my findings

i also got a wild bill's craft soda sampler because. it looked good. and i was right. also now they keep sending me emails like YEEHAW PARDNER THANKS FOR BUYING OUR PRODUCT HOWDY GIDDY UP

wild bill's strawberry cream soda: it's so good. you can tell it's bad for you. the strawberry flavor is powerful and candy-like. it's like one of those crunchy grandma strawberry hard candies, in drink form.

wild bill's rocket pop soda: literally tastes like a melted popsicle got carbonated. it's everything i dreamed. i cannot possible afford to drink this regularly but i want to.

i haven't tried grape or orange cream yet but i'm guessing they'll be good. their website says they have a ring pop flavor now and i wanna try it so bad.

i'm also very excited to try the hot cocoa when it gets here, and to have more of the tasty beef jerky :3

#original #THANK YOU ANON ILU #i am sipping my rocket pop with glee #and i am so glad you got me the olipop so i could try it without feeling terrible

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lafaiette · 2 months

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I've seen some people ask for comparisons between Pen's Chinese and English lines, so I made a small compilation to show the biggest changes that most baffled me.

There is a kind Chinese player, Yu, who offered the fandom much of the info and insight contained in this post, and she was the first to shed light on these differences! Without her enthusiasm, I doubt people would have started investigating Pen's original lines ;_;

Under the read more because this is long!

Brief premise: the Chinese dialogues in the game are often less "harsh" than the English ones. For example, Qi can sound rude and condescending in English, while he's pretty polite, if not a bit aloof, in Chinese. Justice's lines in English rely on the typical "hey pardner" cowboy accent, while in Chinese he's very professional, almost overly so.

That said, the English writer who worked on Pen made it no mystery that he based his characterization of Pen on Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. There is even a line directly referencing the movie: "[...] when I was a boy I ate four dozen eggs every morning to help me get large. Now that I'm grown I have five dozen eggs [...]"

As such, English Pen sounds much different from Chinese Pen. He's more patronizing and rude, and the writer added stuff that it's simply not present in the Chinese text. So while in English Pen can sound like a knucklehead obsessed only with muscles and training, surrounded by adoring women and fans when in Duvos, in Chinese he shows a different, almost more innocent side, as if he were a very tall and big child who has never had a day of legitimate and healthy fun in his life (and that's carried across in some of the English lines - that's why his English version is a bit contradicting sometimes).

Here are some examples:

One of his lines as a Good Friend is:

Here it's implied that Pen gives the Builder a hard time not only to push them to improve themselves... but also because he likes doing it, referencing his friendship mission where he admits he doesn't like teaching people anything, he just wants to fight them.

Meanwhile, the Chinese version says:

I keep calling you a weakling just to urge you and encourage you to exercise hard and break through your limits. If you won't have me to protect you in the future, you will have to become an eagle for me!

Here "eagle" is a reference to the way Pen calls the Builder in Chinese: 小弱鸡 "little weakling/little chicken" - and the latter is a rude way to call someone in Chinese, especially if they are a man and the "chicken" character (鸡) is repeated twice (but 鸡 by itself is also slang for "female prostitute"... so if you want to read it that way, Pen can call the Builder "my little slut" when in a relationship. HEH.)

In any case the tone in this line of dialogue is much different from the one in English, and Pen sounds genuinely enthusiastic.

Another example:

At the start of the game, Pen asks the Builder to craft a Sword and Shield for Burgess, who apparently misplaced his own. It turns out Burgess hid them under his bed, so when the Builder tries to give the weapons they crafted to Pen, he will tell them to keep them.

As usual, the English version is mocking and patronizing ("Hah! That'd be rich!"). In the Chinese version, Pen first compliments the desert:

In this case, take it back and use it for yourself! Use it to explore the desert and fight those monsters - what a thrill! The desert is very dangerous, but it is also full of charm.

Then there is the line about Logan and his band:

Hey! Maybe you can still find traces of Logan's gang! If you subdue them, you will gain both fame and fortune! [Okay, see you next time] [not shown here]

Now, some romance stuff : >

This is the description for the Robo-Love Couch. In English it says:

Meanwhile the Chinese description:

Referred to as the "Love Sand Machine", Peng Hu specially built a loving sofa for you, pieced together from the remains of robot monsters in the ruins.

He specially built a loving sofa for the Builder. It seems like a silly detail, but wording is important!

And yes, Pen's full name is Peng Hu, 彭虎. Peng is his family name, Hu his birth name. Hu 虎 means "tiger", and now you can understand why Grace suspected him to be Tiger the spy. But that would have been too easy!

Peng 彭 is a common Chinese surname. Its original meaning is believed to be "sound of war drums" (sad implication), but it's also used as an adjective to mean "big". So Pen's full name can mean "big tiger" :D

Back to the couch! Lines are different during the date in Paradise Lost, too.

Come on, little weakling, come and sit next to me. Let's give this trophy a "kiss of victory"! Do you do this with everyone you date? Wait, it seems I'm regretting it a bit... Happiness comes too suddenly...... (Kiss Peng Hu)

In the English version, the Builder can ask "How many of these thrones have you built...?", implying that Pen has had so many lovers he can craft this couch in a matter of few seconds. But in Chinese, the Builder's question is much different, it's more like: "Damn, are you always so over the top when dating someone??"

One of the biggest differences is in this set of lines:

Okay.

Meanwhile, in Chinese:

Today's experience made me realize that love has used a deadly locking technique on both of our hearts. Let me no longer doubt the feelings between us. This love is true love! Now, I am even more unwilling to take my eyes away from you! Haha!

I MEAN.

Also, in Chinese Pen never mentions the infamous 12 girlfriends when the Builder and Grace question him in jail. Yu confirmed that throughout the game Pen doesn't brag about his love life or his popularity with women, probably also due to the negative way Chinese culture sees this kind of "bragging".

Not only Pen and many other characters are younger in Chinese Sandrock (Pen's age ranges from 25 to 27, while he's confirmed to be 31 in the English localization), but he's depicted as being not very experienced in relationships in general. He basically only knows how to fight, punch people, and destroy stuff. Anything else - having friends, being with someone who truly loves him and whom he truly loves, having a normal life - are something he never experienced before. He did date (see his final letter later), but he's not described being the Casanova of Duvos like he is in the English version. In fact, it seems people only liked him due to his body and status, and a remnant of this piece of characterization is left in the English text when he says:

Surely, you understand… I am quite the prize. I can’t take myself off the market just to become arm candy for you to show off at your little buildy guild awards or whatever it is! No, what I desire… is true love…

Furthermore,

In Chinese, he says during the Masterclass friendship mission: "To be honest, I never thought I'd be able to make friends, let alone with someone of your stature/body size! But here we are, with a sick relationship!"

In English: "You know, Skinny, I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before. Furthermore, I always promised myself I’d never be friends with anyone who didn’t have an awesome cape, but… you made me break that promise."

"I never thought I'd be able to make friends" is different from "I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before." In the first line, the focus is on Pen ("I don't know how to make friends; I'm not good at it; it's not for me; how do you do it?"), in the second it's on other people ("I've been surrounded by people all my life, but I don't consider any of them to be a friend of mine; yeah, I call this one 'friend', but... they are not really really a friend")

The Chinese line is much sadder, and it shows how lonely Pen's life has been. One of his main characteristics, after all, is being "special", "the strongest", "different from everyone else"; but more often than not, being special and different also mean being "lonely". ("I must say it gets lonely at the top… What I wouldn't give for a truly talented opponent who could really keep me on my toes! Alas...")

And now, the grand finale :'>

A screenshot from Yu's playthrough, Pen's final line:

Farewell, Yu. This time it's for real. You're free.

The Protector, the bracelet Pen will leave for the Builder in the cave, is called "Guardian of Love" (爱的守卫者) in Chinese. Its description says:

A very delicate bracelet that protects the wearer's wrist. Wearing it gives the wearer a feeling of being emotionally confined. Perhaps this feeling is similar to what Peng Hu often said, "Marriage is a boring bondage".

His letter in Chinese is also sweeter and sadder:

最近在这所谓的阿塔拉最高监狱，我也多了点时间思考，没法带你一起来陪我，多少有些遗憾。罢了，这事也怪我。不管怎么说，你也算是我交往过的恋人里最让我上心的，也是为数不多分手之后我还继续挂念的。所以，我打算原谅你了。对——我原谅你了。我想我们也没有机会再在一起了，你也不过是做了你那个位置该做的事，没什么值得抱怨的。我应该一开始就努力把你“招安”了，让你跟我一起，才是最妥当的做法。当然我也没怨你，你确实很优秀。我还留了个最后的挑战给你。在某个遗迹里，有我最宝贵的几样东西，如果你能拿到，就归你了。运用我教给过你的一招半式，要去到那里应该很容易。我亲爱的小弱鸡，这是我最后一次这样叫你了，我相信你的能力。记住，不要怠慢了训练。我们，后会无期。

Dear [name], I've had a little more time to think lately in this so-called Atara Maximum Prison, and I'm more than a little sorry that I couldn't bring you along to accompany me. Well, it's my fault. Anyway, you are still the most beloved lover I have ever been with, and one of the few that I continue to miss even after a breakup. So, I'm going to forgive you. Yeah - I forgive you.I don't think there's a chance we'll ever be together again. You're just doing what you're supposed to do in your position, so there's nothing to complain about. I should have tried my best to recruit you from the beginning, and it would have been the best way to keep you with me. Of course I don't blame you, you're indeed excellent. I also left you a final challenge. In some ruins, there are a few of my most valuable things, and if you can get them, they're yours. It should be easy to get there, using the tricks I've taught you. My dear little weakling, this is the last time I'll call you that, I believe in your abilities. Remember, don't slack off on your training. We won't meet again. (but 后会无期 can also mean "meeting at an unspecified/unclear date")

And finally, if romanced, Pen will leave for the Builder 5 pieces of gold, 2 diamonds, and 1 Protector. 521 (and 520) are a cute way to say "I love you" in Chinese, because when read aloud they sound like "我爱你, Wo ai ni, "I love you". But in some cases, 521 also means "Yes, I will [marry you]" - and Pen does drop a diamond ring after his final battle (apparently he drops it only if you romanced him, but it's unclear yet. I'm pretty sure he didn't drop it during my Fang playthrough, while he did drop it when I romanced him, but I'll need to check that).

WELP, this is pretty much everything I got on this! If the kind Yu will tell us more or I find anything else, I'll update this post!

#mtas #mtas pen #my time at sandrock #my time at sandrock pen #PATHEAAAA #YOU HAD A GOLDEN CHARACTER IN YOUR HANDS #AND YOU WASTED THE CHANCE....#you can see the chinese writers DID put more effort into his characterization #they wanted to write the “bad boy who actually loves you” trope #meanwhile the english writer went for “disney villain/clown bachelor choice”#hahah such fun :')

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