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tmae3114 · 2 years

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Hello!

I see you post about Dragonfable and MechQuest a lot, quite passionately, but I haven't managed to wrap my head around what it is--is it a webcomic? Game? A bit of both? Would you mind pitching the general summary?

Your passion is delightful and I'd really like to know the gist of this thing that gives you joy.

Hello!! This was a lovely ask to receive!! And yeah, I can absolutely give you the general pitch!!

DragonFable and MechQuest are both indie flash-based single-player rpgs made by Artix Entertainment (you may or may not know them as the AdventureQuest people). They used to be browser-based games but run from a launcher now that flash is dead. They're also both free-to-play, with an optional one-time-payment membership that unlocks more content! The memberships do unlock a lot for the games but all of the main game storyline is available for the free versions! They launched in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The developers are very fond of both puns and references, so there's a lot of fun easter eggs to catch if you pay attention.

DragonFable is a fantasy rpg, set in the world of Lore, and updates with new content on a weekly basis. It has two completed main story arcs (Book 1 The Orb Saga and Book 2 Elemental Dissonance) and one ongoing (Book 3 The End of Magic).

Book 1 follows the origin story of how you become the Hero of Falconreach and battle against the forces of Sepulchure, in a race to gather the eight Elemental Orbs before he gather them all and use their power for evil. Also alongside this plot is the hanging sword of the Prophecy of the Dragon Boxes, which says that the dragon born of the egg from the White Dragon Box will be the saviour of the world and the dragon born of the egg from the Black Dragon Box will destroy the world - except Sepulchure has the dragon from the White Dragon Box and the player has the dragon from the Black Dragon Box! There's also several side stories alongside the main Elemental Orb quest chains, which introduce other characters and expand upon the world. By far the most popular of these is the Ravenloss saga, which follows the story of fan favourite character Tomix!

Book 2 follows the aftermath of the end of Book 1, with the elements knocked out of balance because of the conflict with the Elemental Orbs, and you doing what you can to help the alien (as in, literally, aliens from space) refugees who have just arrived on Lore, fleeing the destruction of their homeworld.

Book 3 takes place after a timeskip, due to events at the end of Book 2. We follow the hero as they adjust to a world that has changed a lot in a relatively short amount of time, reunite with their friends, and try to reckon with new powers that have arisen - most prominently The Rose, an organisation supposedly dedicated to "protecting people from magic" but who's leader seeks to end magic entirely. It is by far the most expansive storyline so far!

So that's the basic rundown of DF! However, there's one additional aspect of DragonFable lore which is important to establish here for transitioning into talking about MechQuest - the Reset! In an early DF questline, we meet Kordana, the operational AI of a gigantic crashed mech. She tells the hero of an event which happened thousands of years ago, in the final battle of a massive war, called The Reset, which led to all of reality being rewritten. This establishes that the fantasy world we know is the post-apocalyptic successor to some form of sci-fi world, which has left mysterious remnants scattered across the world!

Which brings us to MechQuest, which serves as both a standalone game and a prequel to DragonFable.

MechQuest is a sci-fi rpg, following a new student of G.E.A.R.S University, the foremost educational facility on the matter of mecha piloting as their world is plunged into war upon the invasion of the mysterious Shadowscythe and a betrayal from within leads to the students of G.E.A.R.S having to step up as the primary fighting force. The game is primarily based out of Soluna City on the planet Loreon, with different storylines taking you to new planets as you battle the forces of the Shadowscythe and seek to build alliances so you can all fight off the invasion. The main storyline is completed and the game is not currently receiving updates but there’s still a lot to play in there! (And, if you are also a DragonFable player, in my experience, a big part of playing MQ is the constant awareness that it’s a matter of when, not if, the Reset is going to happen and what exactly will lead to it)

So, yeah! That’s DragonFable and MechQuest!

#ask #anon #anon ask #also even though the official names have the multiple capital letters (DragonFable and MechQuest) most of the fanbase kinda just #opt not to do that when typing (Dragonfable and Mechquest)#but we still take them into account with the shortened versions (DF and MQ)#I deliberately did everything with the Official form for this because if I'm pitching it I'm gonna use the Actual Name yknow?#I've tried to be as minimally spoilery as possible #though if you've been seeing my df & mq posts you're probably THOROUGHLY spoilered anyways XD

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katy-l-wood · 3 months

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Let's talk cover art!

Firstly, here is the first official look at the full jacket for my new book!

Camp Daze has had a really wandering path to publication, which I'll talk more about later, but back when I still didn't know what I wanted to do with it exactly, I got this crystal clear image of what I wanted the cover to look like. So I created that cover, just the front cover at the time, as more of a portfolio piece than anything. But even though it was meant to just be a portfolio piece, I loved it so damn much, and it stuck in my head hard. When I did finally decide to self publish the book, I knew I had to use this cover.

Usually, I go through a lot more iterations for my covers when it comes time to finally publish things, but this one has just stuck with me over the years as I tried to bring this novel out into the world. Back in 2023 some of you may remember I tested another cover featuring two of the main characters, and did some tumblr polls to see what people liked most, and the tent cover won by a LANDSLIDE each time. (That other cover, or the art from it anyway, will still be available other ways! Just not as THE cover for the book.)

I think the very stark, simplistic nature of the cover fits the themes of the book really well. It's do or die and all they've got is the resources in their camp--represented by the tent, the resources of the wilderness--represented by the mountains/forest, and the looming/hovering threat of a nuclear war that they don't actually know that much about. When it came time to create the full wraparound version of the cover, I added in a little archery target on the back cover because archery plays a major roll in their survival as well.

Colors wise, everything was built around the green tents. The tents are based off of the ones at my own childhood summer camp, and they play a big roll in how the camp manages to create better shelter for themselves. I think found a purple that worked well with the green because, well, they're in Colorado and "purple mountains majesty" and all that. Then it was just filling in other areas with colors that fit within the scheme. I kept everything a little more muted mostly because I just like more muted color schemes.

For the back cover I picked a few lines from the book that, I think, capture the overall vibe of the book which is "if we try, we MIGHT die, but if we DON'T try then we WILL die, so we may as well try."

And shoutout to @gallusrostromegalus for helping me write a new author bio while I was flailing around in the discord chat having a minor identity crisis, lol. The new bio kicks ass, even in this shortened version.

Something that is very important to me is to make sure cover artists are always credited, so I do have a credit for that under my author bio even though my cover artist is also, ya know, me. Just trying to set precedent so more people will start doing things like that.

So yeah! That's how this cover came together. I think it's one of my favorite covers I've ever done.

You can back the Kickstarter here to get your own special edition copy of this book!

#Camp Daze #Camp Daze Kickstarter #My Art #Illustration #Cover Art #Kickstarter #Signal Boost

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lu-lus-duckies · 2 months

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Idk what to call this so you make up the title

@huskers-bar x @nunalastor

Tags: enemies to lovers, angst?, eventual fluff, yearning?, soft huskers-bar, both mods are separate people, no beta we die like i do in this fic (not yet though), minor character death, ooc, au: hellaverse (hazbin hotel), nunalastor is head of the marketing department of the hazbin hotel (lucifer grabbed them randomly), jealousy?, huskers-bar is an employee at voxtek, lulu and angie as villains, lulu is a dog

chapter: 1/? Word count: 1,431

Featuring: babygirl anon and (eventually) @xxx-angie . I may add more along the way depending on who wants to be added. I can probably shoe-horn-in a few more characters

For the sake of not tagging people a million times, I will call nunalastor as a single entity nunalastor, traumatized mod dickmaster and cursed mod nun. and huskers-bar just husk. babygirl anon will be babygirl anon. i will be shortened to lulu but I don't appear in this fic yet. Angie doesn't appear yet, but he will be angie.

A/N: anyway this is 100% going to be a huskers-bar harem fic because i can write whatever i want. This first chapter kinda boring but it gets better (source: trust me bro). Lemme know if you'd like to see any changes. Anyway, goodbye for now. I have uni to get to so less frequent posting (sorry dickmaster, you'll have to live without any of my horrid art for a little while)

"Did you know that Alastor made a happy deer squeak during this scene?"

Ah, yes, the words that twist people's dreams into nightmares. Innocent innitially, and maybe even amusing for a good while, but the longer one lingered, the more their skin would crawl with irritation and burn their insides. Especially when one knew the context surrounding this particular phrase. And boy, did Nunalastor know the context.

"Another day, another inbox to slay, another heavenly lord to betray" Dickmaster accessed their and Nun's shared blog, unsurprisingly to hundreds if not thousands of asks invading their inbox, all of which were echoes of different variations of *thumps* and *squeaks*. If Nunalastor hadn't already grown accustomed to such deviancy, they would be horrified. Still, the depraved ideas these people came up with never failed to send shivers down their spine, and not the pleasant kind.

And why do they subject themselves to this? you may ask. It was simple. In exchange for free housing, food and supplies, Lucifer Morningstar, the devil himself and father of Charlie Morningstar had requested their help. You see, originally their blog was not this unfortunate cesspool of deranged demons who wanted to see the devil, overlords and sinners squirm under immense sexual pleasure. It used to be a simple marketing tool for the Hazbin hotel, but as all things in hell, it never goes smoothly. It wasn't like they had a choice in the matter anyway, refusing the king of hell's requests was not an option! His commands were absolute.

Dickmaster took one deep breath, running both hands through their hair and clearing their mind, preparing for probably several hours of torture that was going to be their asks. They poured themselves a drink, setting down in front of their screen. Taking a few moments to relish the silence, they closed their eyes and listened to the soft hum of their beaten up 1950's style computer, courtesy of Alastor's ban on Voxtek products at the hotel. Clicking on their inbox tab, they mentally braced themselves. even if they knew, they could never truly predict the horrors hell had to offer.

"time for #housekeeping" They declared, stretching their fingers, getting their reaction images on the ready and sifting through their own version of digital hell. It would only get worse from here.

As Nunalastor started to clean their digital home, erasing one cursed ask after another, responding to one alastor circus theory after another, One ask in particular caught their attention. It was definitely a surprise, and a welcome one at that. It stood out like a sore thumb, simple yet elegant, divine and a blessing among heaps of cursed messages that would have asmodeus and satan themselves shaking in fear.

"hi dickmaster" - anon

Nunalastor couldn't explain it. They don't know what came over them, but they felt a strange sense of attraction to this one particular anon. They were sweet, they gave them a place of solace from the dread that was piss kink headcanons and cursed deer facts, equivelent of the clogged up plumming disasters alastor had to fix with his bare hands at the Hazbin hotel. It was the piece of gold nugget hidden in a swamp full of moss and dog urine.

Dickmaster stared at the message for a good few seconds, really taking in the plainness and beauty of the two words before their eyes, appriciating all that message was as a small smile made its way up their face. This called for a special occasion. Dickmaster gripped their keyboard, nearly smashing it with the force. Their fingers danced along the keys and crafted a response like no other, one worthy of this random anon that managed to make their day a bit brighter.

"Hi babygirl" - Nunalastor

On the other side of the pentagram, a kind, sweet and not at all deranged huskers was scrolling through hells version of tumblr. Voxtek devices had proven to be quite useful in the underworld. It served as the main source of entertainment and escape for the lonely, not only for husk, but other sinners alike. Besides, being an employee meant he had extra privileges with Voxtek. Regardless, it introduced husk to the nunalastor blog, which was the best moment of their life (or lack thereof, considering they're dead).

They'd quickly grown accustomed to the undeserved hate thrown their way upon their first ever interractioin. Though they didn't understand, they could play along. They found strange comfort in the twisted logic that any form of attention was better than none. After all, being singled out meant they were special in the eyes of Nunalastor, right? that's how husk comforted themselves anyway. And they haven't seen Nunalastor actually reply to anyone with actual love before.

That is... until it happened. Someone who would later reveal themselves as babygirl anon, husks worst adversary and the unfortunate victim of lulu's slander showed up on their feed.

"hi dickmaster" - anon

"Hi babygirl" - Nunalastor

Husk stared at the screen in shock, their eyes widening and heart growing heavy. Countless questions and conflicting emotions swirled within them, each clutching their hold for attention. 'Is nunalastor serious? Do I not want them to be serious? Why can't I be treated the same? What did I do?' And amidst the chaos, one thought rose to the surface, crystal clear in Husk's mind.

'I want to be loved like that'

The frustration of being at the end of every one of Nunalastors verbal spears finally caught up to husk. Every small jab they'd written off as jokes suddenly felt like small pin needles scraping their skin. Unable to deal with the whirlwind of emotions and the confusion of it all, Husk sought solace in the one place they could always trust, the bottom of a bottle.

So they took a swig. And another. And another. Intil there wasn't a shred of emotion left to feel. Not a single thread of frustration left in them, not a nerve of anguish, not a line of confusing verbal spewage...

And not even a speck of self-restraint

"THEY JUST KEEP COMING" Dickmaster exclaimed, more like yelled as their inbox was flooded with more cursed asks at a rate faster than they could answer. At this pace, they'll be there all day, answering these asks like a poor overworked minimum wage employee at a call center.

"They'll run out of ideas eventually" Nun responded, nonchalantly, leaning against a nearby wall, sipping on a drink of their own. Nun watched as dickmaster struggled to find another reaction image fast enough so they could call it quits and leave the rest of the struggles for future Nunalastor to handle, or more accurately when it would be nun's turn to answer all the unhinged people in their inbox.

The hurried clicking of the keys on a keyboard could be heard throughout the entire room, bouncing off the walls, reflecting exactly how much infestation was actually happening in nunalastors inbox by the minute. "it would be great if you could answer a few you know, my fingers are dyin-"

And then it suddenly went quiet. The clicking died down and the unbelievably loud buzzing of their computer, along with the hitched breathing of Dickmaster was the only sound bouncing around the room. Nun of course raised a brow at this. "what's the holdup? we can't afford to take a break you know" they said, as if they were the one answering all of the asks in the first place.

nun walked over, curious as to what exactly had stopped dickmaster in his endless pursuit of emptying their inbox, considering they were always the more enthusiastic one of the two. "are you okay?" nun asked, half sarcastically. Their eyes landed over the current ask in their inbox.

"I wish you'd love me" huskers-bar

and suddenly the silence made sense. the pause had been a justified one.

dickmaster inhaled, followed by a deep and saddened exhale. they didn't want to take their eyes off of those five words. they could stare in awe and amazement at them for hours. it wasn't even the fact that it was just another ask that wasn't cursed, but because it was huskers-bar that sent-

a hand on dickmasters shoulder snaps them out of their daze, being brought back to reality, the pitiful reality. they were in hell for a reason, they reminded themselves.

"you remember our deal, don't you, dickmaster?" nuns voice cut through the buzzing, sounding deep, gruff, threatening and slightly saddened.

"yes of course" dickmaster turned back to the monitor, giving one last look at the ask before typing out what nunalastor has agreed would be the appropriate response.

"you'll get over it. #we are a huskers-bar hate blog"

#i'm kind of sorry but i cant take writing seriously when i called one of yous dickmaster askfdjaslkdfjoasidjgf #huskers-bar x nunalastor #i hope at least. idk i dont read this shit back to myself. my self esteem is low enough already #lulu is delulu #nunwhiskers

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fayoftheforest · 8 months

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human kite & antisemitism

In the notes of my recent meta on Vampire Kyle AUs, a user reflected on how similar antisemitic stereotypes might overlap with his TFBW character as well. Since I also have some thoughts on this and enjoyed putting together the last lil post I thought I’d do another on this subject too :)

South Park Fandom Wiki states that Human Kite is heavily inspired by Superman, “being a faraway alien with the ability to fly and to shoot lasers out of his eyes, even wearing a costume with the color red, yellow, and blue and a symbol in his chest to match.” I think this is pretty cool! Superman was created by Jewish immigrants and is very Jewish-coded in his origin story, being “a refugee with the Hebrew-inspired name ‘Kal-El’ who escaped a dying world and fought Nazis during World War II” (JewishUnpacked). I don’t know if Tratt were aware of these roots, but either way, I think it’s pretty neat :)

South Park Fandom Wiki also claims that Kyle playing an alien character “may be a reference to how Adolf Hitler did not consider Jews ‘human.’" This is. Uh. Less neat.

Similarly upsetting is the name itself, Human Kite, which is a play on words with the horrific ethnic slur “kike.” American Jewish Committee posits that the term “is derived from the Yiddish word for circle, ‘kikel,’ a reference to how Jewish immigrants at Ellis Island signed their entry forms: a circle as opposed to an X, which Jews associated with the cross of Christianity. Immigration officers described those who signed forms with a circle as ‘kikel,’ eventually being shortened to ‘kike.’”

Did Matt and Trey really create his entire character just so that Cartman could call him Human Kike that one time? I can’t say for certain, just in the same way I don’t have a direct quote from them confirming the reasoning behind their selections of names for Kyle and Ike. But I can tell you that if you put ‘em together and you get… yeah. Yep. “Kike” again. Thank you, Tratt, very cool 👍Get a new joke maybe :/

Now, let’s talk specifically about his laser powers. Up until researching for this meta, I had presumed that Kyle’s ability to shoot lasers from his eyes was a direct reference to the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy popularised to the public by terrifyingly influential political figure Marjorie Taylor Greene. In 2018, Greene wrote a Facebook rant speculating that the California wildfires were caused by a giant laser floating in space, owned by the Jews. Very normal thing to believe :|

However, during my research, I realised that these timelines did not match up. As mentioned, Greene’s rant was shared in 2018, but didn’t go viral until 2021. Meanwhile, South Park’s The Fractured But Whole was released way back in 2017! What I had initially assumed was another antisemitic reference is in fact just a dreadful and ridiculous coincidence. Nonetheless, It’s still a commonality that’s worth pointing out, I think.

Just as an aside, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to cousin Kyle’s version of Human Kite. Everything about him is an egregious Jewish caricature, from his irritating, snivelling voice to his long list of health issues. It’s not my fault that the limited Jewish gene pool has fucked me over, Tratt! Leave me alone! A meta about antisemitism within Cousin’s Kyle characterisation would be a mile long, so I’ll spare you that for now.

Anyway, what does this all mean when we’re creating fan content around TFBW? Must we just chuck the Human Kite persona into a blender and never speak of it again? Not necessarily. Speaking as a Jewish fandom member, I quite enjoy reading and writing Human Kite. It’s a fun character to play around with! Despite his unfortunate roots, I don’t believe including him is innately antisemitic. It just depends on how you go about doing it! If he’s not secretly running the world, controlling the banks and Hollywood, or consuming the blood of innocent Christians, you’re on the right track.

You could even go for a little meta-commentary and acknowledge the antisemitic coding within the text! Here’s an example of how I did that in my upcoming TFBW reality swap fic (don’t question why there’s two of everyone, it makes sense within the text lmao)

“Wait, you’re telling me in an alternate reality we’re all aliens?” Kyle gawks at this funhouse-mirror version of himself, who’s busy gawking right back. “No, Kyle, just—just you,” Kenny says. “Oh.” Kyle narrows his eyes. “You know, it’s difficult not to interpret this with antisemitic undertones.” “What, like the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy?” Cartman asks. Mysterion frowns. “Jewish people have space lasers in your universe?” “No,” Cartman sighs and shakes his head forlornly, before muttering, “it’s a made-up rumour to perpetuate mistrust and hatred towards the Jewish community.” “Alright, don’t sound so disappointed,” Kyle huffs. “Guys!” Stan says. “Can we not start this argument again?” “I never said it was a cool rumour, Kyle!” Cartman snaps defensively. “Obviously it’s super harmful and whatever. All I meant was that it would have been cool if it were real. Because, like, space lasers are awesome! Right?” He looks to Kite, apparently presuming that they’re an authority on the matter. “Um.” Kite blinks, then says hesitantly, “I can shoot lasers… from my eyes. And once I did sort of fly up into space and magnify the lasers to destroy Chaos’s tin foil factory. So, uh. Does that help?” Cartman’s face lights up and is split in half by an enthusiastic grin. “It helps a lot, actually.” Kyle groans and pinches his nose. “You have no idea how much education you’ve just undone, dude.” He opens his eyes to glower at Kite. Kenny glances at Chaos. “Tin foil factory?” Chaos waves a hand dismissively. “Outsourcing proved more efficient.”

There we go! A lighthearted little nod, which acknowledges potential antisemitic readings of Human Kite, without justifying or excusing it. It’s not at all necessary when creating fan content around Human Kite, but just know that that’s an option to you, if you so choose. Just make sure antisemites are the butt of your joke, and not Jewish people, lmao.

I’ll finish up by returning to my general sentiment that I held in my Vamp!Kyle post. If you conduct your creations with a basic level of awareness and self-reflection, you’ll probably be alright. Just stay in the know, and you’re all good to go 😎

#south park #south park meta #sp meta #sp kyle #kyle broflovski #sp kyle meta #cw antisemitism #sp human kite #sp tfbw #the fractured but whole #i wrote this at like 1am last night i hope you guys enjoyed!#the research process was kinda harrowing so if you could spare a reblog for my troubles i would be much obliged :')

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beansterpie · 6 months

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ES21 japanese volumes - part 1/??

part 2 >>

Sooooo I recently got my hands on the complete Eyeshield 21 manga series in Japanese and as someone who's only ever read the story through fan-translations on dodgy websites online, I wanted to go through and "live" blog about it, so to speak. I thought it would be interesting to see the changes between the languages and where the fan-translations likely fail with mistranslations. (No shade btw, I think fan-translations are great both as a hobby and the fact that they're doing their work for free, but it's also a reality that the vast majority of fan-translators are amateurs, many of whom don't fluently speak the language they're translating, so there's bound to be mistakes!) Also, I wanna know what they're originally saying because I’m nosey <3

I know the official English translation by VIS is allegedly pretty decent, bar the toning down of some things (like Hiruma's language lol) so if you've had the chance to read the official version, feel free to chime in on differences with the fan-translation that I'll be referencing, or potential differences between the Japanese version too!

And finally, while I am half Japanese and grew up there, tragically my language skills are imperfect. I speak it, but my vocabulary isn't very robust, so I do look up the definitions for a lot of words and kanji, as well as more nuanced connotations or references that may go over my head. Bilingual problems <3 But again, it's good practice for me and I think it'll be kind of fun!

Right off the bat, this page. What it’s saying is essentially, “You better come out and play (in the) American Football match!” But because Japanese syntax is different from English, it’s structured like “American Football Match you better play!!” The translator was confused by the final line, because in Japanese a way to say ‘participating in a match’ is by using 出る which means to ‘go out’— sort of like ‘go out (into) the match’. Maybe a better option would have been ‘get the fuck out and play!!” or just “you better fucking play!!”. It still keeps the overall sentence structure which sounds awkward in English, but at least it gets the meaning across.

(I’m not gonna get into every little mistranslation btw, because that would take forever, but I felt that was a good way to explain how frequently there are little mistakes like this.)

Putting the rest under a cut because I imagine this will get long

Look at our boy <3 So as you know, we start our story with Sena Kobayakawa timidly seeing if he passed his high school entrance exam into Deimon High School, with his childhood friend/older sister figure, Mamori Anezaki lending moral support.

In the third panel, what Sena says is actually “I feel like I’ve been praised for the first time in 10 years—” (maybe they changed it because that was too pathetic 😭) Then in the fourth panel, what Mamori says is more along the lines of “And to think you were a total mess in math and English… It’s all thanks to Mamori-sensei!”

Also I want to point out that Mamori is a little cheekier in the first few chapters. Like obviously still kind and nurturing in personality (her name is literally ‘to protect’), but she teases Sena and feels more like an older sister than like, an overprotective mom lol. Miss that for her 😔

Then along comes our kind senpai to accost our clueless protag...

There’s no mistranslation, but I just wanted to mention that the way Hiruma talks in Japanese is so funny? Like in panel 1, he’s speaking with a dramatic affect, he sounds like some sort of npc in a jrpg giving the protag a quest. And then in panel 2, his ‘of course!’ is this shortened, slang version of the word that sounds almost cute and very modern after the previous line. Hiruma uses a lot of slang in general, though I can’t say if any of it is like, common or used by teenagers (of the time, anyway) or if it’s just Hiruma-isms.

(Look at Kurita doing the sign of the cross in panel 3 😂)

I can’t believe Hiruma managed to physically emulate the experience of contracting some shady internet virus…..

Something that’s done with Hiruma’s dialogue a lot (it’s done w/ other characters too, but most often with Hiruma) is where there’ll be a word/term in kanji that means one thing and pronounced in a certain way, but then the furigana (so the phonetic pronounciation, basically) next to it says something different. Now, in some stories (like Berserk for my pals out there), this is used to create poignant, layered meanings in the text. In ES21 however, it’s mostly used for sports manga flavor. For example, in the above page in Hiruma’s spam fax message, he uses the word 作戦, which means tactics or strategy, and is pronounced: “sa - ku - se - nn” さ-く-せ-ん. But the furigana next to that word reads タクティクス which is quite literally just the English word ‘tactics’ spelled phonetically in Japanese lol (aka a loanword).

He does this A LOT, most frequently with sports terminology, where the kanji are pretty dense, technical terms, and the furigana a loanword version of the same meaning. (though now that I think about it, it might also be because while パワー (power) and スピード (speed) are frequently used and well known loanwords to the average Japanese person, タクティクス (tactics) might be more obscure, so the kanji is there to like, clarify the meaning? 🤔)

Also I love all the early 2000’s tech we see in the early chapters— flip phones and fax machines galore! Even within the later segments of the series, the flip phones start to magically get more advanced, but in my heart ES21 takes place in like, 2003. If they ever do a remake of the anime (which is unlikely to say the least) I’d want them to maintain the early 00’s vibes. It just wouldn’t be the same if everyone had smart phones.

Skipping ahead a few pages, I remember this bit never really made sense, but I got enough of the general gist that I kind of shrugged and moved along. But!! the translation is just making stuff up here?

So for context: it’s Sena’s first day at Deimon, and Mamori (who’s a grade above him) advises him to make proper friends this year, since he has a history of only ‘hanging out’ with shitty bullies who used him as an errand boy.

In the English translation, Sena seems to get a text from a mystery number, telling him to pay up for a bet we never saw happening. He goes to meet up with the texter, who we assume at this point is a previous aquaintence, since he had Sena's number? Maybe one of those bullies that Sena hung out with from middle school? They make Sena go and get them an unspecified thing, but because Sena ran there and back so quickly, they don't believe that Sena actually went, and is lying when he says they were sold out. They drag Sena to a small shed to beat him up, and in the last panel of the third page, Sena says that he's been their errand boy since kindergarden?

So for a number of years I was under the impression that the Ha-ha brothers knew Sena from before the series, even though that never seemed to come up in the rest of the story.

But in the original version, Sena is actually getting a text from Mamori-- which makes sense because it was established earlier that his cell phone is brand new and he only has Mamori's number in his contacts. Mamori's text says: "If someone tries to make you run their errands, tell them 'let's decide by rock-paper-scissors!'" Sena is understandably kind of embarrassed by this, and mutters to himself that he's not a kid anymore.

Then it cuts to Sena being picked on to be an errand boy lmao. Presumably this is because Sena just looks like an easy target to bullies, not because of any previous aquaintence rip. The blond bully tells Sena to go buy them bread (which might sound weird, but Japan has a lot of tasty snack breads that they sell everywhere). In panels 2+3 of the second page, Sena timidly tries to bring up the rock-paper-scissors thing, but is intimidated into giving up and just doing what he's told.

Again, they don't believe that Sena actually went all the way to the school store and back with how quick he was, so they decide to beat him up in the shed. As he's being dragged, Sena says, "It really was sold out! I've gotten used to being an errand boy since kindergarden, so I've just gotten fast--!"

So yeah, if there were any other people who've only read fan-translations and were confused by this bit, there you go.

oh you just know it smelled like ass in here.....

(I never noticed the shotgun propped against the desk on the right before lol, idk why I'm surprised, but Hiruma really just left his Actual Guns lying around huh?)

(2nd pic - Kurita: "New club applicants!!?")

There he is!! Our boy Kurita!! I do miss when he occassionally had like, more human features lol. As much as I love his big ol' smiley face, it does rub me the wrong way when the fat characters (because Komusubi falls into this too) are the only ones with anpanman faces.

(anpanman, for the uninitiated)

(Kurita: "To literally clash with the opponent in order to pursue a goal together with everyone-- that moment is exhilerating!")

Aw look at Sena feeling inspired! Honestly I really love how Kurita is Sena's first friend he makes in the series, and that vibe in the early chapters where it's just Sena, Kurita and Hiruma is so much fun <3

(P1: Kurita: "Way to go Sena!" Imaginary Coach: "It's thanks to you that we could participate in the Christmas Bowl!" Mamori: "You're so cool Sena!"

P2: Mamori: "You have to make the first move!" Sena: "U-um!"

P3: Sena: "Can I... be the team shumu*?" Kurita: "WHAAATT!? O-OF-OF COURSE!")

*Ok soooo I don't fully understand what a shumu is lol, or how you'd translate it to English. The word itself apparently means 'person in charge' so? The fan-translation just calls it the manager, but based on something Hiruma says later, I get the impression that the shumu and the manager are technically different roles? But when Mamori becomes the manager later, she takes on a lot of what are allegedly 'shumu tasks', along with Hiruma, so idk. If anyone's read the official VIS translation, feel free to chime in on how they did it, because I'd be curious to know!

That being said, adorable of Sena to think he could have handled that responsiblity at all 😂 our boy has many talents, but being smart and organized is not among them.

Ok fun feelings are over, it's time for pain.

(Sena looking at his contact list, having just added Kurita's number, then wham D: )

The three bullies from before were waiting to get revenge. The dialogue is a bit different in the original. Juumonji (the blond one) actually says: "That fatso a friend of yours, Sena? Tell me his contact info-- if you do that, we'll let you go." To which Sena timidly and reluctantly agrees. Then Kuroki (the dark haired one) says: "But do you think one bat will be enough? With that brute strength..." In the final panel, Juumonji says: "It's better with just one, since we're gonna call the police beforehand." Togano (with the glasses): "The police?"

Juumonji: "As long as we get him wrapped up in the fight, it'll be fine. We'll say we got these wounds from being assaulted by the fatso with the bat -- We'll get him disqualified from the American Football tournament." One of the others: "Ooohh, smart!"

I guess the overall sentiment isn't that different, but knowing that the initial demand was for Sena to hand over Kurita's contact info with the promise that they would spare him if he obeyed-- and that at first he agreed-- makes his change of heart feel even more significant.

(Sena: "IF YOU'RE GONNA HIT ME, THEN HIT ME!!! I'LL NEVER TELL YOU (Kurita's info)!!!")

Tell 'em Sena!! A part of me sort of wishes the story maintained this serious story beat instead of undercutting it with humor in the next panel (not shown here) but at the same time, ES21 is overall a more lighthearted, comedic story which I love it for, so I don't think I'd like it getting too angsty. I'll always have Berserk in my corner if I want some actual angst lol.

(1st pic: various sounds of surprise or pain, and in the last panel: "Oi, don't let him get away!"

2nd pic: Sena -- "No way!!!" Hiruma: "Hm? Oh it's that guy" )

Lol I do love the little details Murata included, like Kuroki taking a swing at Sena as he's biting Juumonji's hand but then totally missing in the fourth panel because Sena's so fast. Also I'm always on the lookout for the kinds of stuff Hiruma buys, snack wise. We know he loves sugarless gum, obv, and drinks coke based on that one time he bought some for himself, Kurita & Sena, but what else are in those bags? I want to know!!

--------

And lol apparently I'm only allowed 30 images per post rip, so I guess I'll end this here. I guess I can.... reblog and continue? Or I might just make another post for the next part 🤔 Besides this got way too long, so I'll have to be more brief in future posts lol.

I'm honestly not expecting more than like, five people to interact with this lol, but if anyone is interested in specific points of the story they want me to look at, please feel free to ask!

#eyeshield 21 #es21 #yeah this is not meta it's just.... stream of consciousness #as i ramble about eyeshield lmfao #and japanese practice that I'm inflicting on others #eyeshield 21 japanese readalong #is what i'm gonna tag it for my own sake #i guess #excuse any typos. *gun emoji* you didn't see any

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copperbadge · 2 years

Text

strictly-script

Hey can you backwards engineer some gender neutral version of sir/ma'am

I can! And I will. But I’m going to walk you through it because you guys can do this too. I have no special skills other than having taken Latin 20 years ago. :D

Bit of a plug first: this is a technique that I am using to de-gender a number of royal ranks in my books -- for example, the retired king has declared his nonbinary partner “Caez”, shortened from Caesar, to replace king/queen. In a book not yet published, his granddaughter is offered prince, princess, or the gender-neutral princeps when she’s adopted, and although she identifies as female, she chooses princeps because she doesn’t like the word princess. Ledan came about because I was trying to decide what one character, a duke known for his irreverence, might call a person at the rank of lord or lady if he wanted to make fun of himself a bit for not knowing their gender.

Okay, now that I’ve got the obligatory “Hey look, queer romance novels” out of the way, let’s dive in...

So, what you want to know is the origins of the words Sir and Madam. With Lord and Lady they came from the same general place -- Old English derived from the Germanic -- so it was easy to just go “Bread watcher? Bread maker? Sure let’s find something else you can do with bread” and go from there. This will not always be the case, and it isn’t here, but that makes things extra-interesting.

What you’re going to do is go to Wiktionary.org and search the terms you want to work backward from. In this case we want to search Sir, and we also want to search Madam, which is what Ma’am comes from.

On the page for Sir, we click “etymology” under English or scroll down to it, and we get the history of the word. How far back you go in this history can vary by what kind of word you’d like to use. In this case we know the history goes sir > sire > French Sire (master, sir, lord) > Latin senior (elder) > Latin Senex (old). I like to go all the way back to the Latin, but let’s hold that thought.

Now that we have Sir identified, we’ll check out Madam, from which we get the history ma’am > madam > madame > Old French madame (”my” and “lady”) > post-classical Latin mea domina, which also means generally “my lady” although it has a more specific meaning we’ll get to shortly.

So we have a couple of options!

We can take “Senex” which is more closely related to the masculine “Sir” but is in itself generally neutral, and come up with “Sen”, which has no meaning in Latin on its own but we’re not speaking Latin, we’re speaking English, which shortens everything anyway.

We can also look at “ma domina” and take that apart -- domina and dominus concern the home, the physical building, using the same root we get “domicile” and “domain”. So you could click through from domina to dominus to domus, and go with “ma domus”, since domus has connotations of household, family, etc. Ma Domus might shorten to M’us. It could also shorten to “ma’do”, but that’s two syllables and I like to retain the syllable count of the original words. And also M’us or even just Mus sounds like you’re saying Moose. Which, Moose is a pretty cool name to call a nonbinary friend, but may be taken amiss by strangers. It strikes me that M’us could be used as a term of respect specifically for someone in your family -- a parent or grandparent, a cousin or zaza. There’s a hint of familiarity there.

We could go one step further and look at the implications of the word origins -- both are addressing a superior in rank, but “sir” emphasizes age, while “ma’am” emphasizes economic power. Now, if we want to break away from both of those we could decide that instead we want to respect a different kind of power -- say, the power of a teacher we trust and look up to. Wiktionary tells us that teacher derives from the verb “teach”, and at the etymology of teach we find several variants including techen, taecan, taikijan, taikijana, and deyk (as a prefix). I rather like Deyk, because a) it shortens nicely to Dey, b) if you’re talking to someone you respect it’s sincere but if you’re talking to someone you don’t respect it’s easily sarcastic, and c) if you’re talking to someone you don’t respect you can throw a little k in, so that it sounds like you’re calling them Dey but you’re actually calling them Dick.

Of these options I really do prefer Sen. It sounds nice, it’s not a homophone for anything weird, and it implies respect for the person’s experience. If I were writing a novel with a nonbinary honorific I might go with Dey just because there’s more scope for wordplay and nuance, but in actual life I think Sen’s quite nice.

So yeah it’s fun and interesting and you get to learn the weird-ass histories of weird-ass words. I encourage everyone to make their own!

#strictly-script #gender

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adobe-outdesign · 8 months

Note

big fan of your reviews! i’d love to know your thoughts on the sizzlipede & centiskorch line, especially gmax centiskorch. (bonus sizzlie plushie attached)

I do love some centipedes, and while we already have the Venipede line, these guys go in a completely different direction with it—sticking closer to actual centipedes instead of turning into, uh. Horses. They also have a unique theme to themselves, with the rings on their body segments working similarly to radiator coils to cook prey. Neat!

Sizzlipede here is fine—I like it's silly grumpy expression combined with its little mustache fangs, and the darker areas on the back help break up the body a bit. However, I do think it suffers a bit from just being a lesser Centiskorch; there's not a lot here that's actually unique to Sizzlipede itself, though it at least looks different enough to warrant some fans. Something about the head area also looks pretty empty to me, like it could've benefited from some horns up there or something. Still, it's fine for what it is.

Centiskorch is basically just a bigger, more thematically fleshed-out version of Sizzlipede, and I really like it. The eyebrow/mustache combo really helps with the head issue Sizzlipede had, and I like how it's replicated on the last segment to reference a centipede's cerci. The solid, glowing rings also really help to get the radiator coil idea across. Other details, like the legs now being able to bend properly and the exclamation point in the, are nice touches. Overall, no real complaints with this one.

And yeah, it's g-max form absolutely slaps, let's not kid ourselves here. Mostly likely based off of the Ōmukade, a Japanese yokai that's basically just a Really Big Centipede, it also has a lot of other nice little touches with it—the "burners" on its underside are now expanded into multiple rings, and the entire underbelly has become a bright yellow with a red upperside, in contrast with Centiskorch's dark reddish-brown uppserside and red underside. As an added bonus, the eyes are now ringed to match:

The body also has little bubble-like markings on it, like how water starts to boil if placed on a burner. VERY cool stuff, and I love the overall look of the body with how thin and ribbon-like it is. My only nitpick is that it's back to having spikes for legs, and I wish it could've had just a little more of a joint there, but that's not a big deal given that it probably moves in a more snake-like manner (in fact, its attacking animation shows it curling up like a radiator coil, which is fantastic).

My only other issue with it is just that's way too good of a design to be locked behind a gimmick to be thrown away. I really wish this line were just a three-stager—or heck, keep it a two-stager and drop Sizzlipede in favor of just having Centiskorch be the base form, seeing as there's way more differences between it and the g-max than its pre-evo. I get that the g-max is a little long for a normal 'mon, but you could shorten it a little without loosing all that much.

Anyway, the point is: these are some fantastic centipedes and I love them dearly, with my only complaint being that the best form is locked behind a gimmick that no longer exists.

#sizzlipede #centiskorch #pokemon #pokemon reviews

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m0nsterqzzz · 4 months

Text

✪ In This Universe ✪

paring: Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova, and their older brother

summary: when Yelena accidently gets hurt, her older brother is there to help her have fun again. and Natasha is just laughing at her brother.

warnings: i don't think any, it's just fluff/comfort

a/n: got this idea cuz last year my class went to the younger kids school and this little girl came up to me and pulled a children's makeup kit, and asked to do my makeup so i could, and i quote, "be a pretty boy" as i trans man, I wanted to cry but like, anyway. I wore that makeup look for the entire day. also, nicknames are ones my family members call me and they are definitely my favorites that people call me. kind of a weird ending but i just wanted to remind yall the pain that is Natasha knew her family was fake the entire time she was there and had to live with that.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

With one sister on your shoulders and the other cradled in your arms, you walk away from the playground and back to your house. Yelena hit her head on a tree, and after comforting her, you put Natalia on your shoulders and picked up the little blonde to take them home. It’s easy to hold the light girls, so you do the entire neighborhood block walk.

Your mother sees you guys from the kitchen window where she’s washing dishes, and signs before walking outside and taking Yelena from your arms. The little girl is always getting hurt, which a lot of people think proves your mother and father aren’t good parents. They aren’t wrong, but you got kicked out of your old middle school for fighting with other kids who talked crap way too often. It wasn’t about defending your reputation, but your younger sisters. Your reputation is long gone, being known as Strings in hydra due to your ability to control minds. But Natalia and Yelena, they shouldn’t have to deal with that yet. Natalia already has, and now that you guys can live in semi peace in Ohio you are determined to let her keep that peace.

You lean down a bit so Natasha doesn’t hit her head as you walk through the front door, following your mother to the living room and setting the blue haired girl down on the couch and making your way to the kitchen for an ice pack.

“What happened? Your mom asks you. “We were playing tag and she didn't notice the tree in front of her because she was focused on me behind her.” You say, and the older woman sighs and orders, “you need to start taking better care of your sisters alright?” you quietly scoff and mumble, “Right.” Being the oldest sibling and already in your teen years, it is your duty to watch over your younger sisters all day while your dad is at work and your mom simply does whatever she feels like doing that afternoon. You love the girls, but sometimes you wish you could go off and have fun like all the kids in your school get to do. But you would never complain, just out of fear that Melina- your mother- would send you back to Hydra to be locked up in a cell once again to only be used when they need you.

Yelena holds the ice pack to her own forehead and gives you a small smile. “I'm okay солнечный свет.” Sunshine. That's what the small blonde said in Russian. When you and Natasha first moved to Ohio- Yelena coming soon after that- the little girl's were the only ones who could get through your stone cold heart. That earned you the title, “Sunshine” in Russian from them, and they became known to you as: “Пчелка” and “конфеты”.

“little bee” and “candy”

Yelena is little bee, simply for the fact that she loves bees. and Natalia is candy because she loves to dye her hair different colors. It's basically just a shortened version of the nickname cotton candy.

Your mom goes back to the dishes, and you pick each little girl up in each arm and carry them to your room over your shoulders like they're sacks of potatoes. This earns you loud laughs from the children as you throw them down on your bed.

The girls have lots of their own personal stuff in your room, because they spend most nights in your bed, making you read them stories and watch cartoons with them. You're always happy to spend time with your siblings, and you try your best not to let the little voice inside your head saying, “they're not your real family and they never will be” take over.

Both girls get comfortable on your bed, and you open a book as you lay in the middle of them. Suddenly Yelena's little voice speaks up, “солнечный свет?” you hum in acknowledgement and glance up from the book for a quick second. “Can I do your makeup?” Her question catches you a bit off guard and you giggle. “Mine? Why mine?” She shrugs. “Because you let me run into a tree.” She states casually, and Natalia chuckles at the gaslighting. The little girl is learning so much from her two older siblings.

You sigh, sending her a smile and putting your book down. “Of course you can little bee. Go grab your stuff.” She runs to her own room with a giggle, and comes back with a sparkly pink children's makeup kit. Your mother got it for her a bit ago, but Yelenas never really been too interested in stuff like makeup- unless she's putting it on you of course.

She settles into Natalia's lap, and opens the kit. “So big brother, what color eyeshadow do you want?” The little girl asks, and you quickly reply with an answer you know she'll love, “The brightest pink you got kid.” Natalia helps her scan through the colors until they eventually settle on one. She uses the tiny brush to begin putting it on your now closed eyelids, and you try your best to not flinch away every time she presses the brush too hard into your eyes.

She then moves onto blush, and you peak one eye open when Natalia giggles. Yelena is pushing the makeup brush into a shimmery blue, and then draws a small circle on the middle of both your cheeks. She grabs one of the lipstick tubes, and you're just praying it isn't the one she used to draw on a tree the other day.

Natalia won't stop laughing the whole time, you open your eyes to glare at the eleven year old for a few seconds which only makes her laugh harder.

A few minutes later, Yelena says, “And…….done! you look so pretty солнечный свет!” She hands you a small mirror, and you take a moment to look at yourself in the blurry plastic. You have bright pink on your eyelids that messily goes onto your eyebrows, small blue circles acting as blush like an old timey doll, purple lipstick that barely covers your lip and goes onto the rest of your face, and a random red blob on your chin.

Even with this terrible makeup, you smile at your little sister. “I look amazing Lena!” you half lie, because it truly does look good because it was done by your sister. Anything she could do in life would be amazing to you.

Her smile grows, and you can't help but burst into laughter at the way Natalia is looking at you. Her eyes are scanning your face, and she doesn't say anything for a moment before she begins laughing too. Yelena doesn't seem to care, as she presses a kiss to your nose and giggles when you scrunch it.

Your mother calls for Yelena to come pick up her toys in the living room, and there is silence between you and Natalia until she mumbles, “Why do you love us? We're not your real siblings.” There is no harshness to her words, just curiosity. “Because it's real in another universe. And it's real to her.” She looks up at you confused, so you elaborate, “The multiverse. In another universe, we are all blood related. None of our pasts ever happened. No red room, no hydra, no Dreykov. Just us.” She smiles, a bit of hope in her eyes. “Is the multiverse real солнечный свет?” She asks. You sigh. “I don't know Tasha…..but if it was….would you rather spend an eternity searching for the perfect one, or stay in this one where we have okay lifes?” She takes a moment to think about it before she nods, “I'd rather stay here. Lena's happy, I'm pretty happy, and I think you're happy.” You chuckle and press a kiss to her forehead. “I'm very happy candy…..so happy.”

#natasha romanoff #yelena belova #sibling reader #marvel x you #marvel x reader #black widow #the black widow

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kaluxsims · 1 year

Text

I'm back! My surgery turned out to be kinda no big deal. The pain wasn't bad at all. I caught a chest cold around the same time, and that was worse than the recovery most of the time. Coughing when you have stitches...

But anyway...new stuff! EP12DressLongFlowing is this circus tent nightmare that comes with TS4 High School Years, but Standardheld worked her magic on it. I'll be converting a bunch more of her textures for it, but here are forty-four two-tone textures to kick us off.

They're barefoot, set as Sleepwear only. AF-EF, with the standard morphs. I saw the top of the right arm clip out of the sleeve in CAS once, but I couldn't make it happen again. I got some very kind texture editing help from @pforestsims. Thanks again, PF!

Note: The file names are pretty long, even by my standards. This shouldn't be an issue, but if you find they aren't showing up in your game, the names might need to be shortened.

Swatches:

Download:

REPO: SFS or MediaFire

Standalone: SFS or MediaFire

Credits: Standardheld/LadyFu for textures, Pineapple Forest for texture editing help, @mdpthatsme/4t2 CAS Archive for resources

I kinda regret not doing this for teens too. I might eventually, but if you want to, go for it! There will be a version with shoes. I just haven't decided on which shoes yet.

By the way, what do we think of the numbered swatches? Should it be a thing I always do?

Edit: Dammit. EP13, not EP12. Force of habit after so much Cottage Living stuff? Bulk renamer tripped me up, I think. I'll fix the image soon, but I'm not changing the file names.

#sims 2 download #ts2cc #the sims 2 cc #sims 2 cc #sims 4t2 #sims 2 clothes

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lafemmemacabre · 1 year

Text

I need normies to understand that a lot of subcultures don't derive their names in straightforward ways. Some do, like metalheads and rivetheads -- and even then most of you are... Extremely ignorant on it anyway. The amount of times I've had to explain to people that "emo" comes from "Emocore" which is a shortened version of "Emotional Hardcore Punk" is astounding -- but a lot of the time it's not like that.

Sure goths are labelled goths AND a lot of our subcultural sensitivities are derived from gothic literature and we think gothic architecture fucking rules but also? Neither the literature genre nor the architecture are where we got the name from.

We got the name through an internal joke between artists that are now considered goth, about how Andi Sex Gang from Sex Gang Children was a ridiculous gothy troll too obsessed with the macabre who lived in a building literally called the Visigoth Towers, so if he was a goth, then his fans were goths too.

Even then, the label "goth" was a pejorative when it first spread and most of our iconic bands hated being called that because they associated "goth" with the tackier, less serious contemporary bands that they considered basically low brow campy horror fanservice for losers obsessed with old and bad horror movies (Specimen, Alien Sex Fiend, and so on) while they were Serious Musicians just going through a Tormented Artist phase. There's a reason why Dinah Cancer from 45 Grave (a campy, "low brow", horror fanservice band) embraced the goth label immediately (and still does), while many of her contemporaries from more "serious" bands didn't and to this day won't.

Now, going back to the lolita subculture:

Do Americans realize that American literature classics aren't classics everywhere? Each cultural region and even country has its own literature classics. I wasn't made to read Mark Twain or Hemingway in school because I'm Chilean. I was forced to read Don Quixote, some people were also forced to read El Mio Cid, I had to suffer through fucking Subterra. I had to read María Luisa Bombal, García Márquez, Marcela Paz, and many, many others. AND I'M SOMEONE FROM A CULTURE THAT SHARES AN ALPHABET WITH THE ANGLOPHONE WORLD. Chilean culture is also undeniably more directly impacted by American culture than Japan is.

Lolita, the book, wasn't that old by the time the lolita subculture started, I'm going to assume it wasn't that widely known in Japan since it was relatively new in the US itself, and Japan has its own literature to occupy itself with. Not that there's no translations or that Japanese people don't read Western literature, of course they do, I can also easily find translated copies of The Great Gatsby if I go to any mainstream bookshop in Santiago, but what I'm saying is that books that are ubiquitous in the US cultural landscape aren't necessarily so everywhere else, much less in diametrically opposed geo-cultural areas that are highly culturally isolated, AND there's cultural influences in other countries that ARE ubiquitous in those countries that foreigners have no clue about. If any piece of Western literature has been greatly influential in the lolita fashion subculture it wasn't Nabokov's Lolita, but Alice in Wonderland, in part because lolita fashion's whole point was escaping sexualization.

I think we're all aware that Japanese pop culture, especially in anime, has a lot of issues with the sexualization of children (not like that's a problem unique to Japan but, whatever), BUT I think it's also pretty fucking racist or at least orientalist to perceive any embracing of childish cuteness as inherently sexual and pedophilic or otherwise perverse as soon as it comes from Japan (especially when the fashion itself literally has you covered from head to toe AND WAS DESIGNED PRECISELY TO ESCAPE BEING SEXUALIZED BY MEN, BY YOUNG GIRLS, NOT BY PEDOPHILIC MEN OR GROWN WOMEN WHO WANTED TO APPEAL TO THEM).

Stop talking about shit you don't know anything about with authority, for the love of fuck.

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13slovergirl · 2 years

Text

Class 1-A's Nicknames Pt. 1

ft. Aoyama, Mina, Tsuyu, Iida, Ochako, Ojiro, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Shouji. Their nicknames for you.

Yuga Aoyama

This dramatic bitch

I think at some point he will have called you literally possible nickname

But he still has favorites so lets list those:

"Mon Amour"

"Mon Chou"

"Mon Chéri"

And a bunch of stupid attractive French shit like that, but those are his favorite.

He does put "My" in front of every nickname so have fun

Mina Ashido

"Queen". Even if you aren't a girl, it's just constantly "YAAS QUEEN" whenever you do anything.

If you're a guy she does sometimes call you "King", just not as much as she says "Queen".

However if you are a girl she will call you "Mommy". In public. She has no shame.

Besides that she probably comes up with some weird ass nicknames that are endearing, but strange? Get used to it because you're getting a new one at least every month.

But back to regular nicknames, probably loves "Babe" and "Sweets"

Tsuyu Asui

I don't feel like she'd particularly enjoy calling people pet names?

She'd probably just use your name, maybe a shortened version of your name

But you can tell there's love behind it so it's fine

Tenya Iida

"Dear/Darling" are big ones

The very occasional "Prince/Princess"

He also uses "Love"

And the farther along your relationship the two of you are, the more comfortable he is with adding "my" in front of nicknames.

Ochako Uraraka

She loves the nickname "Sweetcheeks" for both of you. You swap it like a child who's parents are divorced with split custody.

But when she doesn't have custody of "Sweetcheeks" she settles for "Sweetheart". She just loves talking about how sweet you are <3

And when he's feeling extra protective and ready to kill someone flirting with you she'll pull out the "Baby"

Mashirao Ojiro

He's cute but probably doesn't use nicknames that much smh 🙄

But when he feels extra flustered, loving, or comfortable that's when he pulls out the nicknames

I asked some friends for their opinions for all of these and we mostly agreed on everyone but Ojiro was the first rift

They said he seems like a "Sweetie" guy but I hate that nickname so our middle ground is "Sweetheart"

He also likes "Love" n "My Love" which I am super on board with

I love him, he makes me doubt my lesbianism. Look at his cute lil smile and his big bonkers ugh I wish he was real

Denki Kaminari

Has he forgotten your name? It sure feels like it sometimes.

You don't remember the last time he's said your name

Mina's nicknames are endearing and a little weird, his nicknames are either very endearing or VERY weird. No in between.

But in situations where he's nervous or a bit uncomfortable he just sticks to "Babe", he doesn't use the weird nicknames.

Probably gets you guys matching couples shit to wear or just use in day-to-day life. It's so cringe but he finds joy in it so just deal with it ig

Eijiro Kirishima

100% a "Babe" man.

The other characters here use multiple nicknames but I feel like he just sticks to "Babe" no matter what. As much as I enjoy "Pebble" I just don't see him saying it for some reason. "Babe" just feels perfect for him and nothing else, just like you <3 Aww anyways

Mezou Shouji

He's usually too nervous to call you buy any nicknames when you're near other people, maybe just a shortened version of your name

But in private I can imagine him saying "Thank you dear" to you at any chance.

Maybe even, dare I say it, "Love"

I really like the nickname "Love" lmao

If you liked this, maybe try my last post, featuring Bakugou, Todoroki, Shinsou, and Aizawa! :]

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justletmescrolll · 2 years

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something different - a concept for a Volta do Mar skill portrait

Ok. So,

I'm usually not great at knowing what is and isn't common knowledge, but I feel like I need to explain this one. So here's my entire thought process with evidence.

Transcribing what Charlie is pointing at:

[Image 1: a photo of a clothing tag from Kim Kitsuragi's Aerostatic Jacket - official ZA/UM merch. The tag reads: +1 Hand/Eye Coord. : Airman Kitsuragi. +1 Volta do Mar : A feather on the wind.]

Official merch indicates Kim has his own set of skills unique to Harry's - Volta do Mar.

[Image 2: a screenshot of a wikipedia article on Volta do Mar. The relevant text reads: "Volta do mar, volta do mar largo, or volta do largo [...] is a navigational technique perfected by Portuguese navigators during the Age of Discovery in the late fifteenth century, using the dependable phenomenon of the great permanent wind circle, the North Atlantic Gyre. This was a major step in the history of navigation..."]

Volta do Mar is a navigation technique wherein a traveller strategically enters a current so as to be spit out in a desired direction. At first glance, the technique appears counter-intuitive since travellers have to veer far off-course to reach the "good" currents. More than just going with the flow, the technique requires navigators to be completely at mercy to the flow. A feather on the wind. And Kim does this quite a bit when he (reluctantly) surrenders himself to Harry's unusual Detect-niques.

[Image 3: a screenshot from the Disco Elysium wiki that reads: "Successful navigation of the pale relies not just on technical know-how, but intensive psychic preparation. Some of these tactics have been known for thousands of years, such as Volta do Mar, which resembles the process of writing poetry."]

Volta do Mar is an in-universe technique used to survive the mental toll from navigating the pale. So we know that this universe's version of Volta do Mar is also used in navigation. Mental navigation.

SO. Navigation. Pale. Feather on the wind. Kim Kitsuragi. The Volta do Mar skill has to look like an aerostatic. Like, it has to. And the model aerosratic concept art from the artbook [image 4] kinda looks like a face already so stealing that, thanks.

But how to visually tie that back to navigating the currents...

[Image 5: a screenshot from the Disco Elysium wiki that reads: "Their travel was made possible by the fact that, using a device known as a pale latitude compressor, it's possible to force dimensions on the pale, bouncing radio waves from one end to the other and shortening the path."]

So pale travel is made possible with an aerostatic and some radio waves. This sort of counteracts the "at mercy to the flow" description I used earlier as it gives the navigator more control, but this makes the comparison a better fit for Kim anyway, since he often does step in to set Harry back on course. So lets give the aerostatic creature a hand and have it physically shove the radio waves into a basic representation of the pale. I'm not a writer so heavy-handed metaphor it is 😎 (that wasn't a pun).

I don't necessarily believe Kim's skills present themselves as eldritch gremlins like in Harry's head, but what if.

#disco elysium #disco elysium fanart #anyway #back to our regularly scheduled harry posting

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actual-bill-potts · 1 year

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Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth: A Reading

The last 5 pages of Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth are spectacularly beautiful, and have inspired so much amazing fanwork and thought. However, the rest of the Athrabeth is, I think, a bit...harder to understand? At least, I have trouble wrapping my mind around it, and I've seen many interpretations of the conversation and what's going on between Finrod and Andreth here. So, for your reading pleasure, here is a "translated" version of how I read the Athrabeth (minus the last 5 pages which I simply dissolve into tears over every time). It's essentially the script of the Athrabeth, in modern prose. To those nerds who are as invested in it as I am - I am extremely curious to hear your thoughts on this! Differences? Similarities? I know the below is not the only way to read the Athrabeth, by a long shot.

FINROD: Andreth, I am so grieved at Boron's death, and so sorry for your loss. It seems like just yesterday that he was a little child. I feel like no time has passed at all since I first met Bëor, and now his grandson is dead. I loved them all, and miss them all.

ANDRETH: Thank you, and I'm sorry for your loss as well. My family have lived long and happy lives in Dorthonion, though - it may have seemed a short time to you, but they would have lived far fewer years before we crossed the Mountains, and counted themselves lucky for it.

FINROD: I'm glad at least that you and your family have been content.

ANDRETH: I wouldn't say that. Just that things suck a little less than they would have otherwise.

FINROD: Wait, what does that mean?

ANDRETH: Well, Morgoth fucked us all over while the Valar and the Elves were happy in Valinor. And he's still fucking us over.

FINROD: I'm confused. What does dying of old age have to do with Morgoth? He's evil, yes, but everyone since Bëor has died peacefully, of natural causes, the way Eru intended.

ANDRETH: So all you Elves say! You all think that we were designed to die in the blink of an eye. In fact to you we are indistinguishable from children, in how short our lives are; and you look down on us for it.

FINROD: I can't deny that some Elves do, though certainly I don't look down on you or any of the Atani! But the Elves who call you childish are not logically consistent, because our own lore says that both the Atani and the Quendi are children of Eru - and thus we are equal in every way that matters. And since you are children of Eru, equal to us, it follows that if you live briefly Eru must have designed it so. Do you disagree?

ANDRETH: Yes, I do! And furthermore I think the idea that the Atani were always designed to live briefly is a lie of Morgoth. The Wise among us say that the Atani were designed to live forever, but Morgoth shortened our lives unnaturally.

ANDRETH: Ironically, even though Men call us "the Wise," they won't listen to us about this. Neither do Elves. You're all dumbasses to be honest.

FINROD: I mean. That's fair. And Morgoth for sure fucked over Men's bodies to some extent. Since leaving Aman, even we Elves have noticed that our bodies decay and weaken faster than they would have otherwise.

ANDRETH: You still don't get it, and you're still being a high-handed dumbass. "Even we Elves" - do you hear yourself? You're starting from the assumption that Elves were meant to be more durable than Men. We of the Wise don't think so. We think Death was a terrible thing that was imposed upon us by Morgoth. We also thought that maybe by reaching Aman we could escape it: but apparently Morgoth beat us there, and I'm starting to suspect there's no hope for it anyway - in this world.

FINROD.EXE IS REBOOTING

FINROD: ...ok rude. I didn't wish death upon you.

FINROD: But anyway, you keep equating death with Morgoth! Are you really saying that he designed death? He's powerful, sure, but - death is everywhere. It's a part of life. If Morgoth wasn't around, death would still be here, it just wouldn't be considered an evil.

ANDRETH: "Death is a part of life," says the Elf. You don't know shit about death.

FINROD: Just because we Elves are immortal doesn't mean we don't die! We have died in droves, here in Beleriand - helping to keep your land safe, in case you hadn't noticed.

ANDRETH: Funny you should say that. I heard you came to Beleriand to recover some jewelry or whatever. But maybe that was just Caranthir. Anyway, death still isn't the same for you as it is for us. You can return; we can't. Once we die, we're gone forever. And Morgoth did this to us.

FINROD: I get what you're saying: Elf death is different from mortal death because one can be cured and the other can't.

ANDRETH: That's part of it. But here's the kicker: not only is death worse for Men, it's also inescapable. Death isn't guaranteed for you. It is for us. It doesn't matter what we do, we all meet the same wildly sucky end.

FINROD: So the Atani have no hope?

ANDRETH: I wouldn't say that exactly. We have no certainty, and no knowledge of what comes after death. But I think there is hope, and maybe we can speak of that later. I know you miss us, when we die.

FINROD: May we can, later. But for now, I want to return to what you said about death. I think you're wrong about the difference between the Quendi and the Atani. We Elves also die - we're tied to the world, and we'll die with the world, because the world will eventually end. Our deaths come later than yours, but they're just as inevitable. And beyond that - nothing but oblivion.

ANDRETH: That's a fair point, but...

FINROD: ...But at least we have a longer span, before death? That's also fair. But - just because the end is further off doesn't mean it's not a bad end.

FINROD: I could say much more on the subject, actually. But first: you say that Morgoth caused death, right?

ANDRETH: Yes.

FINROD: Gonna be honest with you: that's terrifying. I've met Morgoth, and he's a scary motherfucker, but the Quendi have never believed that he could truly prevail against the children of Eru. Eru is so much more powerful! That he could change the fate of a whole race - that's insane. If it's true, then not only the Noldor but all the Valar and the whole world are absolutely fucked.

ANDRETH: Aha! Now he realizes! You spoke so coolly of death a second ago, but now that I've suggested an idea that Men have to grapple with their whole short lives, you're in despair! Morgoth does have that power, and we are fucked.

FINROD: Watch it! To say that Morgoth has that power is to say that he is equal to Eru - and he is not equal to Eru.

FINROD: Let's say I accept your premise that the Atani were not originally made for death, but that their fate was changed. It must then have been Eru who changed it. What did Men do, to anger Eru so?

ANDRETH: We have ideas about that, actually. But we don't speak about them to outsiders, and anyway we're not 100% sure, because whatever happened is something that we have been running away from every since, and it must have happened very long ago.

FINROD: So you do have some idea?

ANDRETH: Maybe.

FINROD.EXE IS REBOOTING

FINROD: Do you think anyone besides the Atani knows anything about this? The Valar maybe?

ANDRETH: The Valar? How the fuck should I know? The Valar never bothered with us. They were apparently too busy with their precious Elves. Fuck the Valar.

FINROD: Don't say that! I've met the Valar, and they're actually cool as fuck. Has it occurred to you that maybe the Atani are out of the Valar's jurisdiction? You're children of Eru alone. You're the masters of your own fate in the way the Quendi are not.

FINROD: Also you seem really upset. I get it if you don't want to talk about it, but please don't put it on me.

ANDRETH: (glares)

FINROD: Anyway here's another thing I don't get. Let's say that at one point the Atani were made to live forever. But even the Quendi don't truly live forever. We die when the world does. What would it even mean, to be deathless like that?

ANDRETH: Our opinions on this have nothing to do with Elves. We had these theories way before we even knew Elves existed.

FINROD: Ok I'm gonna be real honest here, I kinda thought that you came up with these ideas because you were jealous of Elves. But you say this has nothing to do with Elves, and it never even occurred to you to make the comparison to our state. How can that be? The Atani have known about Elves for a long time.

ANDRETH: I'm gonna be honest with you: that is some typical Elf bullshit. The world does not revolve around you. We've always known that we were made to live forever. And I do mean forever. As in, no dying whatsoever. What about that doesn't make sense to you? Were you too busy thinking up your next subtle insult to listen to the words I was saying?

FINROD: Has it occurred to you that what you're saying may be batshit insane?

ANDRETH: It hasn't, actually. Many wise people among us would say the same thing I'm saying.

FINROD: Well, many wise Elves would say the same thing I'm saying. So there. I have two issues with the idea of complete deathlessness. First: you claim to have lives that will last longer than the world, and yet you are sustained by the world. How can that be? Second: if the Atani will live longer than the world will last, then your spirit and body must be separate from each other, or else the spirit would die when the body does. We Elves believe that the spirit and body belong together, and that the separation of the two is an evil.

ANDRETH: I get your first objection, and I do have an answer for it. The second one I don't understand.

FINROD: I'm surprised - it seems very obvious. But maybe the Atani are too close to the issue. We Elves have observed you all for many years, and we do love you (irritating beyond belief though you might be), so we do know something about you.

FINROD: To break it down: the spirits of the Atani and the Quendi are not the same. It's obvious in the way we look at the world. You Atani view the world with a surprise and delight that we Elves can't muster. It's like...we love the world, but in the way that we love a familiar home; you love the world like you're a guest in our home, visiting for the first time

ANDRETH: Guests? In your home?

FINROD: That's what we call you!

ANDRETH: (sarcastic) How incredibly gracious of you! We live here too, asshole. It's not like we have another home to go to.

FINROD: No, but seriously - it does actually seem like you're just guests here, and you belong somewhere else. Where do you belong? Where did these ideas about deathlessness come from, that are so strange and so foreign to our very nature?

ANDRETH: That's really interesting, actually. I think you're right, about Men - we do get bored after seeing the same world day after day, while the Elves don't. Previously we thought that was because Elves don't tire or decay the way we do. But now - if nothing in this world can make us feel at home - is that another aspect of Morgoth's curse on us? Or is it something fundamental to our nature as Atani?

FINROD: I think it's fundamental to your nature! And now you get my second objection. Death is the severing of body and spirit; immortality means that body and spirit remain together forever. If Men don't fully belong in Arda - and we have agreed that they don't - then wouldn't immortality in your current body be a curse? We've always assumed that when you die, your spirit goes to some other realm that is your true home. How can you be truly deathless and yet belong to a world that will inevitably die?

ANDRETH: You know what they say about assumptions. I don't believe that when Men die we go get a body in some other world, and leave our Arda-bodies behind. Because it is a grief to us, to die and lose our bodies. If what you suggested is true, then our bodies would be distasteful to our spirits: prisons rather than houses. But that's not true! We love our bodies; we are our bodies, as much as we are our spirits. Death doesn't "set our spirits free": it only hurts us.

FINROD: Okay, so let me get this straight. Your spirits are guests here, but your bodies belong fully to this world - but they are indivisible from each other.

FINROD: The only way that works is...if your spirits take your bodies with them, when you depart for whatever world is your true home. That would be amazing, if true. What is the land that is the true home of Men like, I wonder?

ANDRETH: Only Eru knows, I guess. Even the wisest of us haven't thought much about that. We've mostly thought about the nature of Men, not what the next world might be like.

FINROD: So it's not just Elves who think too much about themselves!

FINROD: ...but anyway. This idea of yours is actually really cool! If it's true, it means that Men, rather than being the lesser followers of Elves, were intended to be healers of the world, and bring all of us children of Eru into a new Arda, without any evil in it. I never heard of this from the Valar, but now I wonder if they just...couldn't comprehend it! Or maybe Eru never told them. Maybe all of this is meant to be a build-up to some big reveal from him!

ANDRETH: What would the "big reveal" be?

FINROD: Deliverance from death, of course! I think I was wrong earlier, when I defined death as the separation of spirit and body. Death is the annihilation of both spirit and body. And if what you say is true, Men could deliver us from that fate! By your power you could allow all the Children of Eru, Men and Elves alike, to bring our bodies and spirits both to a new, truly deathless world.

FINROD: And what a world it would be! Men and Elves could walk together, with no fear of death ever dividing them. Such songs we would sing to you, for that!

ANDRETH: Uh-huh. And what would you do when you weren't singing our praises on the hilltops? Because you all are annoying as fuck to talk to in this world.

FINROD: Who knows? Maybe we would tell you tales from when the Eldar first awoke, before all the terrible things that happened later. In your world we Quendi would be the "guests," and you the hosts; you the lords, us the followers! We Elves have the gift of an unfading memory, which you have not: and in this new world we could tell such stories!

ANDRETH: But this is terrible to think about, because that future is not assured. Men have been cursed. We are not deathless now.

FINROD: Is there no hope then?

ANDRETH: What do you mean by "hope"? If you mean, "some ground to stand on when we say things won't be terrible forever," then uh...no. No hope whatsoever.

FINROD: Well that's one kind of hope. But when I said hope, maybe I really meant faith: faith that Eru won't let this state of affairs continue forever. Faith that Eru loves his children, and wouldn't leave us all to die with no recourse or comfort. Do you have none of that hope in Eru?

ANDRETH: Maybe - but we Men have suffered so much already! Why would Eru allow us to suffer so much? Morgoth has won, and he rules our fate now.

FINROD: Don't say such things!

ANDRETH: If you truly want to understand us - you must hear this. Most if not all of us already believe that. In fact the only Men who don't believe that Morgoth is their lord are those of us who came West. And hope is fading even among us, because we hoped for light and healing in the West, and didn't find it. Maybe there is no hope.

FINROD: That sounds awfully pessimistic.

ANDRETH: I think the pessimism is warranted. We've been cursed by Morgoth: who can un-curse us? How could such a thing happen? And even if we were un-cursed, what would happen to all the Men who've died already? There's only one belief - the Old Hope - that provides any kind of answer at all, and their answer is kind of crazy.

FINROD: Well, what is the Old Hope?

ANDRETH: That Eru himself will come into Arda, and lift Morgoth's curse upon us.

FINROD: Do you believe this?

ANDRETH: How can I? It's completely insane. You say that Eru isn't just a greater Vala, or some other kind of "god" who's still bound to Arda, but rather something entirely different and much mightier. Yes?

FINROD: That's correct - the Valar even say so, and they're not likely to lie.

ANDRETH: Exactly. So how could Eru, who created this whole world and everything in it, and has absolute power over it, come into it? It doesn't make sense.

FINROD: I mean, in some sense he's already here, right? Like, his hand is in everything, because he created everything. But I see what you mean: there's two ways of being "within" Arda.

ANDRETH: Yeah, you see what I'm saying. Sure, his hand is on Arda. But how could he, himself and entire, come into the world and live as we do? Wouldn't it just...break everything?

FINROD: Don't ask me. That's not a question for Elves. I don't think it's even a question for the Valar. But I'm sure Eru could find a way, if he wanted to.

FINROD: Now that I think about it, the Old Hope actually makes a certain amount of sense! I don't believe that Eru will let his Children suffer forever. I refuse to believe it. But in some ways Morgoth has irretrievably cursed this world. He added evil to everything, so that nothing within Arda is purely good. That means the final answer to Morgoth's evil must come from beyond the world!

ANDRETH: Wait, so you believe the Old Hope?

FINROD: I'm not sure yet. I've never heard anything like this before.

FINROD: But maybe we two races were meant to meet like this, so that you could pass on this great hope to the Quendi! In fact, Andreth, dear one, maybe we two, ourselves, were meant to meet, so that you could bring comfort to my people, in this time of great fear, and that the Quendi and the Atani might be brought closer together!

#athrabeth #finrod #andreth #my writing #queuenta silmarillion

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