#one of my goals is to be less focused on being insane and actually get things done. w all my relationships i have a time blur thing

[xoxitgirl]

˚⊹₊ ⋆ updated manifestation routine ₊˚｡

2024 it-girl manifesto

hi all! so my last manifestation routine I feel like I missed a lot + have a new mindset now so I’m going to break it down in a better way lol. a lot of my mindset has been developed through esoteric philosophy, teachings of neville goddard, and edward art.

the foundation—

so this is what i base my thought process on, everything is mental. this is literally the first principle I learned of esoteric philosophy—mentalism. the mind has effects over all; mentally, spiritually, and physically. for anything to be/exist it has to come from the mind, this is also considered the “law of self” or the “law of one.” since our minds literally can’t comprehend what is imagined to be experienced vs what we’ve actually lived through, we can literally change ANYTHING through consciously shifting our awareness. some things may be viewed as “harder” or “more difficult” but in essence its the same exact process every time. and I only mean like conscious manifestation and not like past events/trauma.

rule one: find what works for you and practice consistency.

rule two: if you have it in your mind, it is already yours. feel it, touch it, smell it, embrace it. use your senses.

rule three: what is inside of you is outside of you—let it reflect without desperation, fear, or pressure.

intention comes first

if you lead with no direction where will you go? being able to understand what it is you want is a necessity to me when it comes to manifestation. I like to think of it as a mini ritual; writing or deciding your intention and then diving into the mindset revamp and everything else in store.

journaling, journaling, and more journaling

I journal literally everything in every style—meaning; when I start journaling I write short paragraphs expressing gratitude for my current manifestations. for more in depth desires, I will write pages about the experience of getting my desire, the feelings I felt, the people involved, the setting, etc. similar to gratitude letters, I just write gratitude vaunts. when I’m not vaunting I’m setting goals. goals can easily help us understand what we want and what we can do in the meantime to feel like we have it. I also journal sporadically, I read through all the things i’ve manifested through a couple months—for some reason this works insanely well for me.

state akin to sleep

SATS or state akin to sleep is basically being completely relaxed/in a drowsy state and envisioning your desire so its like you’re falling asleep in the wish fulfilled. this is useful because when you’re in this state, your mind is more accepting and receptive of your desires. neville breaks this idea down in depth but in short, there will be less opposition because you experience having your desire in this state and as I love saying; as above so below. as you continue this method the mental and physical planes will align.

subliminals + affirmation tapes

I always binge listen to subs for around a week to a month and then stop for at least 2 weeks minimum. idk why i just don’t like repetitive tasks but this way of sporadic listening has always helped me manifest better because I allow my manifestation to come to me. especially if it’s something I think is more of a material manifestation like a new car—I made a car sub and stopped listening after like 3 months of constant listening and my dad told me to clean out my car for my dream car.. like let it come to you babes.

detaching!!!

in my mind detaching is equally as important as intention. if you’re obsessing over something its more likely you’ll focus on the lack in the 3d instead of the abundance you have in the 4d. I force myself to not worry about my sp, put my phone down when I’m worried ab sales, and just relax because what is mine will always be mine. ways to detach… going on walks, drawing, focusing on hobbies, working out, yoga, listening to music, hanging out with friends or family, going for a drive, literally anything that brings you back to center and allows you to stop thinking excessively about your desire.

affirming 24/7

im always asking and telling myself how I would think as my most desirable self. when i’m worried about the weather, my designs, if my dates will go the way i want, or if my packages will arrive on time I affirm immediately, “the weather is always so amazing. I love driving in my area’s calm, nice weather. everybody always loves my designs, why wouldn’t they? I’m literally one of the most famous designers in the world. I always have picturesque fairytale like dates with my SP because he loves me and wouldn’t let me settle for less tff” and like its been mentioned before, we have thousandss of thought a day so a negative thought literally cant hurt you or your manifestation but affirming can be extremely helpful for those with anxiety or intrusive thoughts imo.

manifestation lists

i write a list of everything I’ve manifested every month to remind myself of my power. at times ill even throw in a few things that I am wanting at the moment to remind myself it’s already mine. every time I manifest consciously I scroll through the list just as like a confidence booster I guess.

visualizing + vision boards

im constantly visualizing what I want in my present. literally money in my hands, my new computer in front of me—visualize, visualize, visualize. thats definitely a really big part of my routine, also making vision boards and having them on my phone, on my walls, etc. using apps to make it more convenient like vsco, pinterest, notion.

sigils

making sigils helps me kinda detach too! this is definitely not a necessity, I only remake my sigils every year or when I feel uneasy about something. over time i’ve noticed that with ones i’ve used for safety/peace, I have to actively choose which energy to embody. nobody will come into my space causing me to be in a stressful mood unless I allow it—imo it helps a lot with conscious creation.

challenges + rules

I make a lot of challenges that I do privately and every time I stop/revert to thinking about the 3d I have to restart. I always give myself repercussions for feeding into a lack mindset because why would I do that when I live a life of abundance? im not like hard on myself or anything its just about maintaining the idea until it saturates. I also use like 10-20 manifestation rules that I have and follow on a daily basis, I would also recommend making your own list of rules because if you don’t have a standard to follow its harder to stay focused. some of mine are—

ᥫ᭡ everything I desire manifests the second I desire it.

ᥫ᭡ I manifest anything I want instantly.

ᥫ᭡ only my desired thoughts manifest.

ᥫ᭡ nothing can stop me from getting what I want.

ᥫ᭡ the 3D changes instantly for me.

ᥫ᭡ I have such potent undeniable incredible power.

ᥫ᭡ I always manifest what I want on the spot.

as above so below, as within so without.

itgirl ⊹ ࣪ ˖

#vzn #xoxitgirl #manifestation routine

[not-poignant]

Question! You juggle so many projects at once, and I think that's awesome. Do you have any advice for how you stay motivated (and/or organized) to work on so many different things? If I'm inspired by something, I want to focus on That Thing and Only That Thing — I have a really hard time pulling my brain away to work on other projects.

I'm wondering if a schedule would help? How do you even set your schedule?

This is a lot of questions packed into one ask, I realize — I guess I'm just in awe of your NaNoWriMo progress (you are insane (affectionate)) and want to pick your brain about your process a little.

Hope you have a lovely day!

Honestly anon, we all have our ways of writing, and it's best if you stick to what actually works for you instead of forcing yourself to do something different.

I'd recommend looking into some of the coaching / videos / podcasts by Becca Syme. A lot of it is simply based around accepting who you are, instead of forcing yourself to write like other people. Part of that is finding your strengths, but some of it is simply...being like 'okay, I'm like this as a writer.'

I don't write lots of projects because I taught myself to, but because I love doing it. I write more when I work on more projects. If I forced myself to only focus on one thing I'd feel stifled and held back, I'd write slower, and I actually think my writing would be muddier and less good.

Other people do best and write fastest when they're focusing on only one project at a time.

And which kind of person you are anon is something you'll figure out over time. Though it sounds like you might already know.

If you wanted to try working on multiple projects, I'd look at adding just one more into the rotation and seeing how it feels. Does it make you write more? Does it make you want to write more? Is it pulling focus? Is it making you lose inspiration on the other story? It's not so much a scheduling issue as it is simply...which one gets the words out?

The goal isn't to become like me as a writer, just like my goal isn't to become like other writers. The goal is to get your words out in the way that works best for you. If that's slowly, that's amazing. If that's fast, that's great, and while there are techniques you can try, it should always be with a view to respecting your organic process.

Many writers quit, or burnout, as soon as they stop respecting that process, or when they start feeling ashamed of their natural process and put pressure on themselves to do it another way.

Also I'll be honest, I'm working on too many projects right now and even though I'm loving it, I know it's too many. Like, I've deprioritised Underline the Red for my own sanity, and I am actually really looking forward to clearing a couple of stories from the schedule so I can focus on other things. About 3-4 stories is my sweet spot.

I don't exactly 'stay organised' anon. I actively want to work on all of these stories. And tonally they're all different, so if I feel like something more wholesome, or something darker, or something more pornographic, I have options. I do have a monthly kind of idea of what I should be working on (i.e. based on the upcoming schedule), but I can only really do that thanks to ADHD meds and I'm cautious of recommending techniques that I personally can only access and make use of because medication has fixed some of my executive dysfunction issues. If you're playing with any kind of unmedicated ADHD, there are tools that won't be as useful without tangible medical or therapeutic support. D:

I set my writing schedule via a mix of the writing that makes me money, alongside extra writing that I enjoy that doesn't make me money. Ideally I enjoy all of it and it's all fun. But the stuff that makes me money has to come first, because of like...life reasons. Idk where you're at professionally, or even if you want to do this professionally, and that would profoundly influence how I'd even suggest scheduling. If you don't have to schedule your writing, don't do it! If you don't have to make decisions like this, then don't make them!

Also, if I hated any of these stories, I'd put the story on hiatus. I don't believe in writing stuff I hate or resent writing. I know other people can make themselves do this and I'm glad that works for them, but I can't do it and I just...yeah. I have to love the story and enjoy it and not resent it to see it through, it's probably why there's so much drama happening all the time, and angst, I'm keeping my dumb hurt/comfort brain engaged lmao.

Never underestimate the power of also just 'I've been doing this for 10 years and I'm very practiced at stuff that other people will only learn with years of practice.' Some of this stuff doesn't have shortcuts, it just had a lot of time and 5 million words sunk into it. When I first started writing on AO3 I wrote one story at a time (though I did quickly become bored of that and moved to two). I wasn't making money. I didn't have a schedule for 9 years. I didn't want one.

The things I've learned... my wordcounts are reliable because I've just had a lot of practice writing. Unfortunately there's no trick to that, beyond sitting down and writing. The more you do, the more you learn about your own process and respect it, the more you write the stories you love, the better you'll get. And I've had times where I've burnt out, times where I've needed long breaks, times where I pushed too hard or forced myself to be like other writers and ended up wondering if I'd quit.

I want to give you easy answers, but the easiest one I have is - which way of writing brings you the most joy? Which way makes the words flow? Is it just one story at a time? That's great - that's your way. That might change in time, but don't force it to. You can experiment like a scientist and try different things, but be compassionate and accepting of whatever your innate way of doing things is.

I struggled so much with the fact that serials is just my way in a world of novelists. I cannot tell you how much misery it has brought me, trying to force myself to be a dedicated novelist when I always just wanted to write sequential stories live. And I really thought I was doing things wrong and you know, other authors thought I was doing things wrong.

It turned out I wasn't, but self-acceptance of my own methods and style went a long way in that process.

You might not like this response anon, and I apologise for not actually just lining up a schedule for you to try (I don't listen to my own schedules), but...it's okay to be someone who works on one story at a time. Or two stories only. I actually think it's awesome, and my writer-friend in my writer's group whose work I've been helping beta for years is a 'single project at a time' writer and a *rewriter* (no one wishes they could change their process as much as rewriters imho) and her writing is amazing. Like, incredibly good. (That's Stephanie Gunn by the way, for anyone who wants to read some cool science fiction / gothic fantasy).

So that's her process, and it's an amazing one, because it creates the writing that it does. Whatever your natural process is, anon, it's okay to write that way, trust me.

#asks and answers #pia on writing #idk if i am well-equipped to teach anyone anything about writing #but i do know that respecting your way #the way that makes the words flow most #is the way forward #experimentation is fun #but never try and make yourself be a different kind of writer #because down that path lies burnout and just...losing some love for it #maybe one day i'll go back to working on one project at a time! #whatever is right in the moment is the process i follow sdlkjfsa

[langernameohnebedeutung]

a thing worth noting that with the examples the reblogger gave about "female obsessive characters" is that when it is a female character that's obsessed with boys or men it is almost always played as either a joke or meant to be seen as dangerous and creepy - usually both. All the "boycrazy" female characters in the example are meant to be seen as antagonists and/or comic relief, and we know the classic trope of the "maneater". Meanwhile when a male character is "girlcrazy" and behaves in a similar way as the girl characters more often than not he is meant to be seen as an underdog, an aspiration, a guy who is "maybe overdoing it a little" but who you are meant to root for anyways. Take for example the guy in Love, Actually whose only character trait is wanting to sleep with as many women as possible and whose sole goal in the movie was trying to get to US america bc "it is full of hot babes" and who you are clearly meant to root for when he immediately gets flirted with by not one but three "horny sex manic" women at the same time (all of whom he ends up sleeping with at the same time) as soon as he arrives there. The only times I can think of something like that happening to a "boycrazy" female character and being meant as a positive thing may be romance movies targeted at a female audience already, while male characters like that can be found in almost every movie or show there is

That is a good point - usually, the joke is that the woman is being "hysteric/insane/axe-crazy" like the character I think they mentioned from Fairly Odd Parents but not really someone you should sympathise with like we are expected to with the Big Bang Theory guys. Plus, there is also a lot of attractiveness-based dehumanisation happening there. (In fact, ironically, Barney Stinson even directly says this in an episode, describing women on an acceptable hot to crazy ratio)

Plus, I also think it's important to consider that a lot of the bias against women is expressed in a misogynistic, patriarchal framework, not an egalitarian one. Obviously, our point of view (I hope) would be to look at the action that was committed and evaluate the moral implication of that action, regardless of gender. To say: "This Action is bad and you shouldn't treat anyone like that, no matter what gender you are or they are". But 2000s sitcoms do NOT operate based on that standard of morality (hell no, that's kind of the issue here).

(in fact, a lot of media still doesn't do this, that's why movies constantly have those scenes about women slapping their boyfriends which make me want to rip my own hair out. Which is a good example of why this isn't simply a dynamic of 'women are allowed stuff and men aren't': It's a complex interplay of various aspects of heteronormative culture and patriarchal tradition. Most of these movies are made by men. And these men certainly are not some dedicated feminists, otherwise they wouldn't portray (and treat) women like they do. Hollywood certainly doesn't historically or culturally come from a feminist perspective of "abuse is abuse, regardless of gender" and they are certainly not those evul, conniving misandrist manhaters that the right likes to imagine going: "I think physical abuse is okay when a woman does it, so I will portray her slapping around men" (in fact, the right rarely takes offence to these things UNLESS it is to silence conversations about misogyny in media)

The truth is: A lot of writers who write these tropes simply do not consider it abuse. We talked about why they excuse it in men like Barney Stinson (usually by focusing on the men's side of things and using the female characters as props) but that's not how it works for female characters. In fact, the men getting slapped around ARE characters whose interior workings the movie or show addresses. And we are not supposed to find either more or less sympathetic for this. If these writers came from the perspective "this action is bad, regardless of who does it", why would they make light of their lead characters suffering physical domestic abuse? Why would they still treat the woman like a viable love-interest (and her action as justified when they would never portray it vice-versa?) Even make it a punchline? - The reason is that they come from a place where a) women are by nature ineffective creatures for better or worse and b) that a manly Man-Man(TM) cannot be hurt by a woman through the same action through which he might hurt a woman. Because of Man Strong and Woman Weak. A male character who genuinely reacts to being slapped is portrayed as being whiny and weak.)

And I think if we look at the issue in that context, we realise there is in fact (back to the original point of my post) a lot of predatory (or perceived as predatory) behaviour that female characters are criticised for by the narrative that don't really play a role for a male character - BUT: It's usually not about getting The Sex.

The patriarchal, heteronormative narrative is that a) "men always want sex" and b) sex is a resource that women possess and must be "convinced" to give to men (and the more Manly Points you have, the more easily women will drop that sex-loot for you.) - that, on top of the 'women are ineffective' theme is why there are so few shows genuinely judging male and female characters the same just based on their actions. That is the reason why a lot of the time when a (conventionally attractive! of course!) female character commits what is basically sexual assault against a male character, that man is portrayed as happy about it in the end (especially when it's about scenes where he loses his "virginity") - it's because the patriarchal reading of this situation, fucked up as it is, is "she gave him a gift". (She is only treated as predatory if he finds out that he doesn't consider her attractive later) This is also the reason why a lot of men feel more attacked by something like the Barbie movie than all those classic sitcom tropes of men being slapped by their girlfriends - because for them, one of those upholds their worldview of Man = Strong / Woman = Weak and one challenges it. And the one that challenges that view is not the one where a woman slaps a man).

A lot of the time, when movies and shows conceived in this patriarchal framework actually want to portray women as predatory, they (unsurprisingly) also conceive predatory behaviour (in women) in the same patriarchal framework - or rather, their patriarchal framework informs them of what kind of behaviour is predatory in women - something that is usually informed by real-life misogynistic stereotypes and narratives - like the femme fatale, the succubus, the maneater, the vampire).

#(And that is not to open the entire can of worms of trans women being portrayed as predatory for merely existing.) #cw abuse mention

[yearofradicalselfbelief]

Part Four [Progess & Foundation Laying] - 16/12/23

Hello! I actually have a non-depressing update to write today, what a time to be alive. Discussions of 2024 goals, and changes to my writing schedule ahead.

I’ve spent the last week or so basically already making a start on my goals for 2024, so that once January hits, all I need to actually do is maintain the momentum instead of spending the first few weeks undoing whatever bad habits I could let myself slip into just because it’s the holiday season.

My big goals for 2024 are nothing new. I go into every year wanting to read more, write more, and exercise more. The thing is, there was a time when I’d have these goals and each one truly would be starting from scratch. Before I started writing daily as a rule, weeks would go by where I didn’t write a single word, then I’d feel bad about not writing, which would make me want to write even less, and create that great little feedback loop from hell. I also went through a ridiculous reading dry spell during/following my uni years, because nothing makes you want to read less than doing an English Lit degree, and honestly I’d never been big into fitness beyond a few weeks-long health kicks up until I hit my 20s, either.

So when I’d first have these goals, none of the foundation would be there, and I was basically expecting my habits to go from 0 to 100 the second the clock struck midnight for the New Year. Recently, I’ve been doing things smarter.

Starting my daily writing streak on 1st January 2020 was a great starting point, because I haven’t missed a day since, and I’ll be hitting my 1500th consecutive day of writing sometime in the first quarter of next year. The year that followed that, 2021, I started to take my fitness way more seriously. I worked out on and off before that, but 2021 was the year where I did my first ever 75Hard challenge – successfully – in the summer, then another the following autumn, and I’ve done several since.

2022, as I’ve said, was a bit of a write-off because of everything I went through, but 2023 has been the year of upping the reading habit. Last year I read 14 books, this year I read 41 – with ~5 more being in progress, but I probably won’t finish those til New Year. My goal for next year is 50.

The thing is though, juggling these habits means that it’s been pretty common so far for one thing to fall by the wayside while I focus on the other two. When I did flufftober this year, I didn’t have the time to do a single workout the whole month. Or when I do a workout challenge, my writing output halves because it gets to the evening time and it’s just a struggle to stay conscious during the evening hours where I’d ordinarily get my best words in.

So my overarching goal for 2024 is to have a year where I just absolutely ace all three of those habits. I want to read lots, write lots, and get a great level of consistency with my workouts. I do have more minor goals that fall within all of that too, like finding a way of using social media that isn’t all or nothing. This year, my screen time has either been insanely high, or I’ve been on Instagram breaks for months at a time. Then I hang around until I can see it’s wearing on my mentally, and disappear again for a long stretch. I really want to find a middle ground with that – one that doesn’t have me being so terminally online that I feel like shit, but also one that doesn’t have me constantly missing out on cheering on overseas friends, with whom IG is my only source of real communication.

And, as I said on my main blog, another big thing I’m changing is really controlling where my energy goes with my writing, and when. Because I do have a bad habit of focusing on fanfic more than I focus on the novel. There are a few reasons for that, and honestly I don’t even regret it – yet. But if I don’t make any changes, there will be a day on the horizon where I do.

Fanfic has been, and still is, great for me. It gave me a community of amazing, kind, supportive, and generous people when I was in the lowest point of my life (and I cannot overstate how much that made that time bearable for me), and it has improved my writing by miles. I’ve had people in my life who do openly view it as me wasting my time because it hasn’t gotten me further in my writing career when you only look at the basic facts, and there have even been times when I’ve been tempted to give into their way of thinking. However, earlier this year I read some very early drafts of the novel – from way back before I even started Little By Little – and they were just not good at all. Then, I look at the chapters I’m producing now, and seeing how much better they are, and that change is thanks to the sheer amount of fic I’ve produced in the last few years.

In part it’s because of the fact that writing so often is bound to improve said writing, but it’s also because of the feedback I’ve gotten on those fics. Feedback doesn’t always only limit itself to reflecting on the specific story that feedback pertains to. Sure, sometimes it’s a case of “I wasn’t a fan of this plot point” or “I don’t like this character”, but other times it’s “I feel like there has been too much introspection in these last few chapters” (which was a big problem with my writing at the start of this decade, and really showed in early novel drafts), or “I really enjoy the humour you put in your stories” – because allowing myself to have fun and be silly with the narration in Catch the Wind, and seeing not only how much fun I had with that, but how much people liked that, really freed me up to add the same thing into the novel itself.

It all contributes, and while I do have a tendency to get upset at myself for reaching the ripe old age of 27 without having yet even queried a single novel, I look back on the stuff I was writing at the ages when I really wanted it to happen that specific year, and I can see that my writing just wasn’t ready for it. Now, thanks to fic, it is.

But that still leaves me with the fact that I now really do need to start prioritising my time. The discrepancy with fic and original work comes in the form of instant validation. With fic, I can finish a chapter, and if it’s a popular story I might have a comment on it within an hour. And it’s not that I feel like I can’t write without that, but because it’s such a help with my own anxiety when it comes to writing. I have a tendency to finish every chapter thinking it’s shit, and I don’t believe otherwise until I have that first comment telling me someone enjoyed it. With novel work, it doesn’t work that way. And because the novel means so much to me, that adds to the anxiety, until there are times when I’m so anxious about working on it that I can’t even enjoy working on it, because I’m just telling myself “what if this is shit? What if you’ve wasted ten years of your life building this world and creating this thing, and it ends up being for nothing?”

And I mean, it won’t be for nothing. If no agent wants to take it on, I’m not averse to the idea of doing a patreon type thing with it once I’ve exhausted every other avenue, but it is just that initial anxiety. I know it’s irrational, and my beta readers are really enjoying it, but the fact remains that I am a Frightened Bitch. It’s genetic.

But I need to overcome that, and I won’t overcome that if I’m running to the safety blanket and instant validation of fanfic whenever my anxiety spikes.

This is something I’d resolved to fix for quite a few years now, but I’ve never gone in with a specific game-plan, which means I then fall back into usual habits very quickly, because “idk I’ll figure it out” isn’t cutting it here.

So, I’m imposing a rule where I can only post one fic chapter, total, a week. Not one chapter of each fic, just one chapter of one fic. Fridays will be fanfic days, and I’ll post my chapter, and then I’ll go back to novel work. If a few months go by and I’m especially happy with novel progress, I might up that. I still want to take part in flufftober, but I’m really hoping that by then novel work will be so far along that doing so won’t be a problem, because it’ll be a nice break from edits rather than all-out rewrites. The plan is to also decide at the start of each week what will be updated next, let you guys know what it will be so you’re not waiting only to find out it’s a fic you don’t even read, and then rotate between that and the novel during that week. My current way of doing things is to have like 12 word docs open at any given time and just add to each one here and there until something is finished, but that isn’t the most efficient way to go about this.

I do have other set outlines as to how I’m going to achieve my other goals, rather than just “read more” and “exercise more”, because breaking them down into concise weekly targets to hit makes so much more sense. As for the screen time/social media dilemma, I’m going to be taking every Monday off of social media – with the exception of answering IG messages, because I use that in place of texting and I don’t want to completely self-isolate, just lessen the scrolling and the posting. I’ll also be limiting how often I can post, because the folk who follow me over there will know that my IG stories get a bit unhinged re: length at times. If I need more than that, which I think I will, I’ll extend the break to Tuesdays, too.

And the 50 book goal is pretty neat, because I can then just set myself with the goal of one book per week, or aim for 100 pages a day, which is fairly doable most days.

It’s going well, so far! I worked out five times this week, I’ve done quite a bit of reading, and I’m currently in the progress of updating every fic that I want to update before this once a week rule comes in (HTWA, Free, and Fallen Through Time are the top priorities – then, I think HWFG should roll around to be the first thing I update come New Year).

And to finish things off, I mentioned in my last post that I’m forcing myself to go out and do fun things for the sake of doing fun things at least once per month, beyond just errands and stuff that needs to be done, even if it just means a solo cinema trip or whatever. I did that this month, so have my proof of that in parting. Went to the city centre for lunch with a friend, and to take in the Christmas lights and snoop at the pretty clothbound classics.

So happy to be able to post something actually positive on here for once! I intend to keep that up, and I’m very grateful to the people who are following along on here!

[hungrydolphin91]

@v-voeux RIGHT so. This is gonna be MASSIVE spoilers for my ongoing post-game Zestiria fic Falling Awake, that one i started over a year ago that Nash made beautiful art of ;_; I still have plans to finish it someday, but currently I'm struggling because there's 11 characters I'm trying to juggle at the same time 😅 not to mention I haven't played zesty in a while, so some the scenes I'm trying to write feel a little stale or unfocused. I WILL come back to it though I SWEAR I wanna finish this story because this premise drives me insane hhhhh

I kinda lied in the fic tags calling it a berzesty crossover because it's much more Zestiria-focused than Berseria, set in zesty post-game in a world where humans can suddenly see both seraphim and hellions which causes lots of problems (not to plug my own work but I would recommend reading what's been posted so far, the text itself can do a much better job emotionally conveying the context than I can here). Mikleo in particular is struggling ('cause that's what we're here for, mikleo angst 😅) because their former group is falling apart over various issues, such as a lack of purification powers/Shepherd and whether it's ethical to kill hellions/dragons since basically no one has the ability to purify them anymore. Mikleo is lonely, desperate, and depressed, but he's still holding out for some kind of long-term solution to the malevolence hidden in the past, when humans and seraphim coexisted.

And while's he's researching he discovers the true nature of a powerful but long-forgotten Empyrean, Innominat, who has been sealed away inside the earthpulse. He takes the steps needed to free him, and is rewarded by being immediately devoured. RIP.

Except the twist is that he fucking planned this. I took the idea of Empyreans being influenced by the souls that are sacrificed to them and ran with it so Mikleo DELIBERATELY fed himself to a god in order to reincarnate as said god (kinda similar to his seraphic rebirth actually), and with the powers of an Empyrean he'd be able to cleanse the land's malevolence himself and Sorey could awaken.

EXCEPT it's not quite enough yet. Innominat is a forgotten Empyrean so no humans are giving him their prayers and therefore he is much weaker than he was in Berseria. So despite Meebominat devouring as much malevolence as he can for now, it's not gonna be enough to really purify anything unless he gets even more powerful.

It's worth noting that up until this point, Mikleo hasn't really done anything amoral yet, other than traumatizing Zaveid who witnessed his 'murder' and letting the others think he's evil 'cause he doesn't expect them to be onboard for his plan. He fights the others when they confront him but he always leaves them alive because he doesn't want to hurt them, he just wants them out of the way. His goal is to find Sorey again and more importantly, Maotelus.

At the same time as Innomeebo's galavanting around and dealing with his angry friends, Sorey and Maotelus wake up because Maotelus has sensed Innominat's awakening and wants to personally stop him. They depart from their own pocket of Earthpulse on borrowed time (not canon compliant but who cares fight me) in order to track him down or at least warn someone that he's a threat, because few alive today even know who he is, much less how dangerous his return is.

A bunch of things I have yet to write happen but ultimately Sorey and Mikleo end up reunited, initially delighted to see each other again until Sorey starts to realize Mikleo's domain is on par with an Empyrean, maybe the exact Empyrean he was looking for actually. Sorey starts to doubt whether he can even trust Mikleo or if this is just Innominat wearing his face to torment him. Meebominat, meanwhile, is arguing firmly that yes, it's really him, and he doesn't have any of Innominat's old evil plans for the world like the Ceremony of Suppression. He really does want to save the world. He just needs to devour Maotelus first-- after all, Maotelus is a part of Innominat, and with their powers combined and consolidated he should be able to purify the world fully.

Cue Sorey's sort of BSOD moment, trying to figure out if this is all a lie, somewhat swayed by the logic of it since Maotelus wouldn't even technically die, he'd just become a part of Innominat like Mikleo already has. But Maotelus absolutely does not want this (picture lil babby Laphicet telling Innomeebo to fuck off) and of course Sorey doesn't want to sacrifice one person, even if it would save the world. But now he's not sure if he has to stop and maybe kill Mikleo to save Maotelus, or if he can actually be reasoned with and saved somehow.

Eventually Sorey gets the idea to solve this problem the way he addressed the last major antagonist he came up against: get to the truth of the matter, using the Earthen Historia. He witnesses for himself what led Mikleo to this point of voluntarily sacrificing himself to gain power, and comes to the heartbreaking conclusion that this is, in fact, pure Mikleo, genuinely asking him to hand over Maotelus so he can eat him.

Again it's worth noting that Mikleo is motivated by more than just loneliness and longing to see Sorey again, although that's a big part of it. He's confident in his own abilities to be in charge and ambitious enough to embrace Empyrean levels of power. He's seen how much the world is suffering and wants to change that and fulfill the dream the two once shared. But Sorey's own words ("My dream will live on, so long as I don't forget,") are part of what inspired him to do this, though twisted through his own lens of desperation, and that's how Sorey realizes Mikleo WILL still listen to him. Mikleo has the power to fight and maybe take Maotelus by force, but he doesn't. Even if he's not consciously aware of it, he's handed over his moral compass to Sorey, and as long as Sorey approved of his actions, they'd all be worth it, no matter who was hurt along the way.

So of course Sorey doesn't approve, because he can't let Mikleo down even though he's begging him to. Mikleo is heartbroken and for a second Sorey worries he might lash out after all, but he doesn't, because Mikleo trusts Sorey more than anything else including himself. He willingly surrenders Innominat's power using the deus ex machina that is Siegfried, all while utterly grieving the eventual parting that's coming, since ultimately nothing has been fixed and Sorey will still have to go to sleep.

And that's the emotional climax of the story, the part that drives me insane every time I reread it 😅 I have ideas for more to follow afterward, hopefully a happier ending because even I hate to leave Mikleo exactly where he started after how far he went to change things, but between the confusing, inconsistent lore of berzesty and the endless possibilities of endings here I am once again overwhelmed. Thanks for reading this far though, I hope my sormik angst was to your taste 😄

#fan fic #tales of zestiria spoilers #i'd share my outline and WIPs for this story but that google doc is literally the messiest document i have ever made in my life 😅 #thank you for asking about this though i have so many ideas for stories and such little executive function to actually create them ;_; #and im too shy to just throw my ideas out here unprompted im like a vampire i need an invitation 😂

[sharkneto]

For the author commentary game- From “Cease Fire on the Cleveland Express”

“She wants to play dumb, so badly, almost does, except Five is right next to her so she’s hyperaware of her position in relation to everything around them. He says “twenty feet down” and it’s like that point pings in the back of her mind. Following the ping, Lila glances over her shoulder and immediately spots their scientist. “Oh, poor lamb. They didn’t even try to help him fit in, did they.””

and

“They sit in uncomfortable silence after that, taking turns peeking at the Commission agents. The minutes creep by. Lila considers tapping out of Five’s power for a bit so she’s not so agonizingly aware of each second ticking by at a glacial pace.”

I have to know everything about Five and Lila’s powers!!

Ah, Cease-fire on the Cleveland Express, a fun time for me to dig into what Five's powers feel like because Lila is the one and only time we get an outside pov on what they feel like :)

I think Five's powers hinge a lot on being aware of exactly when and where he is in space and time and in relation to everything else around him. He has to be in order to know how far to teleport around and not hit anything in doing so. In my fics, that means he's got insane spatial awareness, innately knows what time it is (Five doesn't have a watch in-canon for anything but show, I Do Not See It), and can calculate speed and trajectory of things on the fly (but in a different way than Diego can because he has a different relationship to the momentum - more about where the object is rather than its actual trajectory, if that's a valid distinction). In shorter terms, the guy is really aware of his surroundings all the time.

This is Five's normal, this is all he's ever known, so playing with how that constant stimulation is shown is the goal. How I interpret it is that it's more or less like he's got ADHD - his base level of Normal Stimulation is Really High because the Earth is spinning, people are moving around him, he's moving, time is moving and he's aware of it all by default (don't think about how him suddenly dropping himself in the apocalypse affected that). Keeping himself moving and focused on things lets all the other movement happening around him fall into the background until he needs to focus on it again for a specific jump or action. There are a lot of reasons why Five doesn't relax well and this is one of them, for me.

With Lila, though, we get to explicitly state why Five is so squirrely (because of his powers) because she is experiencing Five's powers. So, when she taps into his powers, suddenly she has all this movement happening around her, too, and can comment on it because it's not her normal (Five just assumes everyone else just also experiences the world like he does, when they Do Not). Her spatial awareness of herself and everything around her gets cranked up to an eleven, she can feel time ticking by. Lila can handle it because that's part of her power - handling other people's powers - but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a pleasant new perspective on the world that she's comfortable in. She's already impatient and impulsive (...like Five is), and waiting already takes long enough without knowing exactly how long you've been waiting for. Being able to tab out of that exact awareness would be a relief, if you knew you had the option. She doesn't because she's a professional and anything Five can do, she can do better, but godddd does a second last a long time when nothing is fucking happening.

It was fun, too, thinking about how Five's time travel would feel to her, how it would be different than a spatial jump and how her instinctual reaction - while so close to Time when tuned into Five's power - would be to Stop That because Time doesn't want to do what Five's doing with it. It's supposed to move forwards, Five is dragging it backwards, and Lila can feel how Wrong that is on an intimate level. She works with all the other powers on an Instinctual level (rather than the more cerebral, mathematical way I headcanon Reggie trained Five to understand his own), so she's going to trust and react on instinct, until Five can give her the (condescending) heads-up for what he's doing and to let him do it. Schools out on if that innate instinct would work better for time travel vs Five's careful equations; I think it's a crapshoot no matter how they tried to do it and they're both right to be wary of it.

Anyway, just, thinking about what Five's powers feel like was a fun little puzzle. I like Lila for a lot of reasons, she's really a delight, and the fact that she opens up an exploration of all the siblings' powers to an outside point of view is just one of them.

send me ~500 words from one of my fics for director’s commentary

#i love thinking about five's powers #and how much that little guy's brain is going All The Time #i think it would be exhausting to be in his head #thanks for the ask! #tua #ficblogging #ask game response

[alivegirlmari]

which skamiverse character do you think would fit in best with the Yellowjackets?

OKAY INSANE QUESTION. had to spend all weekend thinking. idk whether you meant who would best fit as in like, who would be friends with the team?? or who would just generally exist in the yj universe?? so i'm doing a bit of everything <3 long as fuck so under a read more.

mailin is, i believe, the only canon girl soccer player, so the most boring superficial answer ofc is that mailin is the best fit. however:

nora m. and lottie would be a bittersweet type of almost, i think, if they were ever in a group project together. one time everyone bails on a meeting so lottie is like let's ditch the library come over to mine my parents are out. at some point they pause for a break and have a drink (lottie offers something alcoholic, nora declines, lottie doesn't question further but Knows something is up and grabs them both sodas). i don't think they'd be completely honest about their respective mental illnesses or family situations, ofc, but there'd be a shared, quiet understanding borne from a few anecdotes and the implications underlining them. it's nice to be able to breathe for a few hours, to admit the depth of your loneliness and momentarily allow yourself to cast it away. at one point, lottie puts on some music. they dance and laugh and let themselves be teen girls before lottie's parents come home. i think they'd say hi to each other in the halls, and nora would cheer when lottie scores a goal (the cashqueens go to mailin's games), but i just can't see them - for multiple, complex reasons - becoming besties. or at least, not publicly? i think it's one of those 'we'll have the magic of that night and i'll always be grateful for it' dynamics. fuck i actually want a fic of this now lmao.

in many ways shauna/jeff/jackie is just a parallel universe eva/jonas/ingrid situation. so i think shauna would be friendly at school with some of the evas (i'm thinking og eva and megan, not an eva but she'd also like liv imo), but they'd never quite click, either. shauna recognizes something in them she doesn't like - or, she can't recognize herself at all bc in her mind her situation is worse. but they'd share notes sometimes.

rip javi you would've LOVED being a tiny big brother to umut inci <3 there's a world where javi, wanting to become closer to his dad (or perhaps forced to go with him? similar to how he and travis go on the nationals trip) goes to mr martinez's games & training sessions and sees the u12 boys team warming up first and talks to the sullen kid kicking balls really hard. tfw you love your elder sibling but things are hard and neither of you really has the language to express it all.

constantin and randy. obviously. they have drinking competitions at parties; constantin eventually hates randy for not being an alpha male like him. unforch it is the 90s and randy does not have the emotional intelligence to recognize constantin is an alcoholic spiraling. (was that plot like...ever addressed?)

zoe m. and mari besties, spiritual sisters, and soulmates every friday and saturday night. berlin slash wiskayok you are NOT ready. but i don't think zoe is as bitchy as mari is. or as smart, tbh? mari would def hate the instas's s5 stunts. it'd be a very intense, fiery, party-focused short-lived friendship. a 24/7 drunk girl in the bathroom vibe. always about to collapse but absolutely beautiful while it lasts. pre-s2 cris would also love both zoe and mari btw.

yara and tai are the resident It girls who run things bts. i'm assuming tai did multiple extracurriculars. she meets yara, class president, overseer of all, at one of them. they immediately just get each other's vibe and have the 'can work in silent tandem and get everything done in ten mins OR will spend an hour giggling' type of friendship. yara faux-casually lets slip that she's bi once. does she already know tai's closeted and wants to make her feel a little less alone, or is she just hoping she is, desperate to know she's not reading too much into it, wanting to feel a little less alone herself? (tai freaks out regardless. they make up, eventually. yara becomes the world's first tai/van shipper. they smile at each other, a little wistfully, across the room and over the crowd at parties.)

tai would think redouane was a bit of a class clown at first, but she'd see him on the other side of the gym sometimes, always working out, playing with the younger students, putting away equipment correctly, and she'd come to respect him. van would LOVE his lil films. he'd be on the yearbook committee and make sure to take really good photos of van for the yj page, and give her the outtakes, and they'd talk Cinema. bilal comes along once and he and van invent the Just A Goofy Little Guy Convention. but i also think they recognize something in the other - a desire for More from life, but a situation beyond their control that may not allow for it - and maybe they wouldn't talk about it, but she'd sneak him movies for zak and he'd sew her something to pin on her jersey.

pre-s6 lola would love pre-crash nat in the sense that they'd both skip classes to smoke behind the school. unforch lola would rather die than exercise so she also thinks she's better than nat bc she's not an athlete. max also likes pre-crash nat for her bisexual smoker swag.

nobody hates this more than me but tiff is v mistycoded like her first response to being rightfully slapped in the face is to fake a broken neck with a brace to make people feel bad for her. they also only have one friend. they'd absolutely HATE each other though. s6 tiff would def bully her. s7-10 tiff doesn't, but keeps a wide berth, and offers no real apology for her past actions. moira's existence is the only thing that stops misty from putting a dead rat in tiff's locker. the second moira's 18 though? oh it's over.

(tiff is also 10000% the allie stevens of the yj universe, btw.)

some of the william remakes, mostly senne & noah, give me jeff vibes. as in the fandom loves to think they're better men than they are but if you think about it for more than two secs you're like, hold on...but didn't they once...? however alejandro IS travis and i mean this in a way complimentary towards both. alejandro & travis: guys who eventually become one of the girls. guys who love their gfs but love isn't always enough. guys and their almosts, their what ifs, etc.

lucas r loves paul's aesthetic, esp. his earring. he also loves mari. but i don't think mari loves him. tragic (misty loves him bc she loves a gay man she can put in a cage. he doesn't love her at all. less tragic.)

lucas vdh would light a cabin of girls on fire no question. he doesn't even need to know about the cannibalism to do it.

crystal is obvs those two theatre/musical kids that approach the evas in every season one. i could not tell you their names if you put a gun to my head. they might not've even been theater kids. but that's her: Very friendly, Very unable to read a room, Very much deserved better. speaking of deserving better: ava and crystal musical duo when???

jackie [handshake emoji] maya: girls who are doomed by the narrative. girls with complicated families. girls who love really hard. girls who are in love with, and have their heartbroken by, their best friend*. i actually don't think maya would like pre-crash jackie tbh. she's too normie for her. but college jackie and maya meet when jackie's roommate drags her to a campus enviro protest, and they'd become friendly, esp. when maya spots jackie hesitantly entering the lgbt students union. jackie helps maya shave her head once. they talk about femininity and gender and lesbianism and something clicks maybe they become roomies. maybe they raise a plant together. (*yes max is maya's canon bestie but s9 took everything from me debshirley are NOT taking my lola/maya besties headcanon too)

anyways um. did not mean 2 write an entire essay here. sorry for taking ages with it. lmk ur thoughts anon <33

#sorry this is mostly the german and french second gens ft. the occasional spanish cameo but like. #i can't pretend i particularly cared about any other remake/gen. tbh. austin you will always be famous tho. #ask #anon

[bunny-rambles]

Hey friend, I just saw some of your other asks and I wanted to chat with you. As a writer on this platform, I empathize with your struggles. The fine balance of making things and sharing your thoughts is delicate, and I very rarely post anything personal because I've learned they don't get seen as much - which is fine, that's why you make friends who can and will listen :)

As for the posts, I wish you could see how incredible you are for even making content!! It takes bravery to do it once, and courage to do it again. With the Fandom getting wider and less active, it's going to be dead space out there but it doesn't mean you aren't a worthy writer.

(I've learned over the last year doing this, you have to set some personal markers to reach. If I get 100 notes on a single character post, I'm stoked! (It doesn't always happen, trust me some of my favorite works have 45 notes on them) and if I get 200 notes on a multiple character post I'm pumped!) I've had to retrain my brain this way but, honestly, it makes me feel better about myself.

AND, instead of the numbers I go back and read old works and say, "wowo, I've improved so much!" (I'm here to make stuff yes, but I also want to get better at what I love - don't let writing become something you hate. Don't let low note counts dictate your worth. You are making something wonderful! trust in yourself and eventually you won't mind what your post looks like because you'll be working on the next one that's even better!

I know it's hard out there, being a content creator can feel lonely, so don't hesitate to reach out. You are more than your blog, live your life and use this as a place to get better at your craft !!

Rooting for you!!

- hazel

I have reread this, and reread this, until I couldn’t cry anymore because I bursted into tears when I read this for the first time. Truthfully, I didn’t want to respond, just keep it safely in my inbox so I can read it when I’m feeling at my worst, but that wouldn’t be fair.

Thank you so much, Hazel. When you put things into perspective, I actually feel a lot better about things. You are absolutely right, there is dead space now for most creators within this fandom, and I always forget that. I mainly forget when I see creators still getting an insane amount of notes.

Another thing you were right about, I got caught up in the numbers, and that was the one thing I really didn’t want when I started this account in the first place. Writing is something I’m passionate about, something I cherish and use to convey my emotions that I keep locked up. I should’ve never focused on the attention it got, but when you’re in this community, unfortunately it sometimes becomes inevitable to compare yourself to other works.

I actually do set little goals !! If it gets past 50 notes, I usually consider it a success and I’m very happy about it usually. I should stick to it but sometimes I just let my head get the better of me. I’m working on it,,,

It’s strange though, one of my favourites I’ve written was a piece for albedo that’s barely passed 80 notes, and it stayed on 30 notes for a good four months. I think I wrote that so well and I really liked how i did it but it’s gotten the least attention. Some of my least favourites have the most notes. So I understand not getting past the goals. But maybe I should take your advice and just hope I write better for the next time.

It’s surreal to see you telling me that you’re rooting for me, when I was inspired to start this whole thing from you and your kindness. You’re truly an exceptional human being and I hope i continue to grow closer to you. Sorry for never reaching out, I’m just incredibly nervous/shy around mutuals in fear of annoying them - I’ll try and work on that too.

Again, thank you. So much. This really cheered me up after this awful week I’ve had <33

#bun speaks #buns moots !! #hazel !! <3 #thank you <3 #I’m going to reread this when I feel that way again #it really helped

[hrokkall]

📂 magnificus and his unpaid interns

Going to keep this as brief as I can both because there's four characters and because I had this halfway typed up then accidentally deleted the draft (still ended up kind of lengthy though, so here’s a cut):

Magnificus:

Used to be human (or at least more humanoid; Inscryption seems to imply wizards as a different faction than humans which I’m not unpacking here) before his entire body was slowly transfigured via Mox proximity.

The future vision was always there though. He wasn’t always as reliant on it as he is now (definitely not to the extent we see in-game, there’s no way he survived so long looking so far into the future that he has trouble conceptualizing the present the entire time), but he’s always been plagued with visions.

A lot of people see him as a fir tree (fair) but in my eyes it’s hair/fur. I’d apologize for this one but inspecting his 3d model doesn’t show foliage it shows follicles </3

Probably uses xe/xem or hy/hymn pronouns in addition to he/him. That or prefers to ditch pronouns whenever possible and just use “Magnificus”. My headcanon kind of fluctuates in this avenue.

The first of the four Scrybes, at least relatively speaking. His deck seems to take inspiration from the Orbs of Power from Legendaria (or possibly the other way around, the DMG timeline is all over the place), implying he may have been the first Scrybe conceptualized for the card game as it was based upon an extant source.

Goobert:

Wasn’t really given proper supplies to “fish” initially so he ended up learning to make his own! He’s actually really good at working with what he has all things considered; even made his own paint for his event in Kaycee’s Mod!

Like the rest of the “Fishers” (minus Kaycee, sort of) he takes his job very seriously, even if it doesn’t always yield results. (I like to think of it as Goobert, Angler, and the Dredger all having this very serious rivalry whereas Ghoul!Kaycee is just kind of standing back like “What the fuck?”)

Pike Mage:

The last to begin her ““Training”” of the three, and as such hasn’t gotten very far along compared to the others (even though the end goal is Just As Batshit).

Seeing as orange Mox focuses on high attack, her end goal was for her to be a powerhouse in spite of her lack of body, so when she was given her body back she’d be thrice as strong. Is this batshit insane? Absolutely. But she never really got to that point (at least not that we see; who knows what shit is going down in Post-Transcendence Inscryption) so as to whether it worked as intended is anyone’s guess

Used to be a knight before changing tracks to study Magicks, hence the visor.

Lonely Wizard:

Probably one of the only times you’ll hear me say this that won’t be followed by some blue-and-orange morality ass shit: I don’t care what canon says. They’re shorter than the Challenger.

Because their sensory input has been... next to nothing for several years, they have a lot of difficulty differentiating between “this is a bad sensory experience” and “this could actually kill me”. There’s next to No difference between “This shirt feels kind of nasty but I can’t pinpoint why... let me touch it a little more to find out” and “I am staring Directly into the sun. I wonder why my eyes hurt. Let me look a little harder to find out” </3

Having studied under the Sapphire Mox, the abilities granted to them are that of support which... more or less manifests in being able to move uninhibited. Not only are they extremely speedy just in general, but they’re also able to travel instantaneously in complete darkness.

Post-escape they absolutely graffiti Magnificus’s tower. They don’t even give a shit if they get caught. What’s Magnificus even going to do? Try to grab them and they’ll noclip directly out of your arms! Good luck keeping them confined! They escaped once and they’ll do it again, damn it!

General Headcanons:

The wizard pupils don’t interact a ton in canon but they are friends. Even after “graduating” they’d still be friends I think :]

The trials weren’t always so rigorous; pre OLD_DATA discovery they were more akin to college courses with a wizardry flair as opposed to Actual Ass Torture. Didn’t yield as “extreme” results of course but... the ends  really aren’t justifying the means on this one, Magnificus...

The style and color of wizard hat is mostly up to the individual, but the baubles at the end aren’t! They’re actual pieces of Mox—really small ones, albeit; not enough to have any effect during card battles—that symbolize which path(s) of training the wizard in question took/is currently undertaking. As such, Goobert has a green triangular charm, Pike has an orange diamond, Lonely has a blue sphere, and Magnificus has all three. (Feat: Drawing from a while back as a visual)

#Re: Inbox #Re: Anon #📂 asks

[henry-blake-offishial]

See what I find funny if they do this is that in the comics, the whole thing with Homelander and DID is that he was being gaslit into thinking he had it, with all the truly evil things he had apparently done having been work of an imposter impersonating him on-and-off over the years with the ultimate goal of driving Homelander insane, pitting him and Butcher against one another for years, subverting the ‘evil alter’ trope by showing there never was one, that Homelander wasn’t even a real threat. So if the show actually just makes him have DID, I’m like…. dude.

Yes, yes and yes. I can't even express how chaotic and confusing I find the writing of this season. Writing characters out left and right, stomping subplots into the curb, I really don't think that they have any overall plan whatsoever. They're just focusing on these "You're not ready" shock value moments and sadly not on storytelling anymore.

Homelander has SO MUCH unused potential. I get that they're not opting for drama since season two. But I can't forget that he's been raised in a lab under horrible conditions, I simply can't, but the writers apparently did. Everyone's talking about Soldier Boy's PTSD, what about Homelander's? So now he apparently has DID? Is that his development? Not that I didn't love his dialogue with Doppelgänger in season 2, I think it was his strongest moment in the whole season. But didn't he decide, there and then, that he wouldn't need the audience and the ratings anymore, that he doesn't need anybody? And now this? I understand that a change of personality is a process. They just don't show us the process. If there's a human side and a monstrous side battling inside of him, why don't they never show us the human, the "John" part of his character? I understand he doesn't want to be vulnerable with others, that's in character. But they couldn't have done so much more with his vulnerable side, the part of him that allegedly doesn't want to do all those things. I mean where's the struggle? His daydream about lasering the crowd was the only great moment regarding that matter, if not the only moment at all. But a character with that complexity needs more than that. He's so much more deeper than the show shows us. It appears that his evil persona has already won, from the start, does his mirror dialogue even make sense? I think it's all so confusing.

They've been hinting he would become batshit crazy the entire second season and so far, nothing happened. Isn't it interesting that he still is able to keep himself together after everything that happened? He already snapped for less. Where is his resilience coming from all of a sudden? He should appear like a wounded animal now, which is being hunted down and runs for cover, but would fight any opponent relentlessly. Instead he's playing Game of Thrones? He was never a good strategist! Aw heck. He doesn't do shit except for threatening people who are already afraid of him. And then his weird scene with Butcher in the appartement that doesn't make any sense at all. All these strategic team-ups that never make any sense, they should just stick to their roots. And give us solid action. The Supes just keep leaving the Seven, this feels like such a low-budget season so far. To keep The Deep around is so... weird? He never has anything important to do! I was expecting some kind of showdown between Homelander and Ryan, but he doesn't even look for his son! Did he give up his kid, just like that? I was also hoping they'd show Homelander's struggles to stay sane, some minor breakdowns, to emphasise his human side. But he's some dumb Terminator.

I started rewatching the first season, when things fell into place and weren't a mess that clinged onto shock value more than common sense.

(sorry for that long ass rant my friend 🙈🙈)

#anon response #the boys #The Boys TV #homelander

[enneamage]

why do you think the new york vlogs did so badly viewers wise? what made it go so wrong?

At a glance, Kacey Neistat /j

(/hj? I think Kacey people didn’t care about Tommy and Tommy people didn’t care about Kacey, which caused that abrupt dip. That or people were turned off the museum vlog and decided to jump ship from there.)

For starters I would like to sift out things going ‘Badly’ from being ‘slightly less ridiculous than usual.’ He still pulled insane numbers compared to what most people do on Youtube, and I have a lot of respect for other Youtubers that pull a small but refined audience. I think that the easiest road bump to understand was that people got overwhelmed / fell behind on content and just never picked the series back up again since they were coming out so often.

Tommy has a vlog format, and a vlog persona. I think I really focused on this series because it was an accidental exercise in the limits of doing a wide-reaching vlog formula, and how something that performs well in one format won’t always transfer to power in another capacity. The vlog series was a successful series of videos in YouTube terms, but the sore spot about it was that it was clearly designed to be a massive fundraiser that only made it to around half it’s goal.

The scaling on the fundraiser was wonky in a few places, and even backfired a bit. Tommy clearly thought this series was going to pop off, and it really did get a good number of views, but expectations were set very high.

The incentive to subscribe was too low and the buy-in for the donor rewards was too high. I didn’t realise I could put a price to what my subscription to a channel was worth, but having someone say it cost a penny had me going ‘that ain’t right.’ There’s actually experiments that show if you give someone an insultingly small amount of money for a thing they were going to do anyway, they’ll stop doing the thing because the switch from internal to external reward reframes it as being unappealing. I think he accidentally triggered that effect in some people and turned them off. If someone wasn’t already invested in who Tommy was (and those people were probably already subscribed by now), the penny thing wouldn’t have done anything for them.  

Tommy already had a healthy handful of subscribers, but one of the features of his scaling was he would throw in $10,000 for every million he got. I don’t think that ever came into play, but you can tell what he thought we was going to be dealing with here. As for the cork board, he never really spent any meaningful time with it in the vlogs, and it felt more like selling ad space rather than anything communal or accessible.

You could tell when Tommy started panicking because his friends decided to get into a friendly dono war with each other to cheer him up. Phil eventually even did a supplementary YLYL stream close to the end. As I said before he eventually started crediting everyone who donated, because the list turned out to be not that long. I think he started to adjust on the fly and never really had the time to ground himself again in between filming the vlogs themselves.

Marathons, endurance tasks, and challenges tend to have a theme in common: Struggle and suffering. That sounds extreme but it’s true, public spectacles in those styles tend to be interesting because they tap into some raw human emotions. Tommy had a challenge / marathon format, but he never really got to extremes of emotion that we were meant to notice. He very distinctly went ‘odd’ making the videos (partly from dealing with the nerves of realising that his plan was not working) but it seemed incidental to what he was doing rather than an intentional feature; he was suffering making the vlogs, not doing the tasks themselves. He never really felt like a convincing narrative underdog, he was just Tommying around the city.

I think the vlog format kept him from being earnest. Underneath the hood I could see the logic of the fundraiser that went along with the series: living in New York is damn hard on a slim budget, let’s make life easier for the people who need it. The thing is, the connection between those two points was never made explicit or clear. What you got was a hyper-real call to action that felt like a mid-vlog ad read. He also didn’t wind up sticking to the challenge format, for either the tasks or the budget, which grew the disconnect even further.

It didn’t really seem emotionally honest because it was hitting that strange scattershot tone where people play to the ages of five to twenty-five, both making things as colorful and hyper-stimulating as possible while also making sex jokes. Tommy knows how to make himself into a cartoon character to do these bits, but the mask went on too thick to be able to connect with the audience in a way that people would have found genuinely inspirational or moving.

Reality was weird in that series. It was obvious that some bits were scripted in a very storybook-simple way (“I’m going to meet my hero!”) and things were planned in advance, which stacked kind of awkwardly with other aspects of the vlog. The storyline seemed to be pitched to a very young audience, but those people don’t have wallets, so that came off as an odd choice to me. I remember thinking that the final vlog was like making a balloon animal out of a fire hose, the footage and the editing style just barely stuck together because of the weird tonal places it went and then tried to over-write or ignore. I also remember thinking that several parts of the series would have breathed better at a slower pace or at least with different editing style, but I also knew that wasn’t on the table.

I talked about this very briefly when the series was still coming out, but I think there’s a big difference between the average level of engagement that an audience has with a YouTube video versus a livestream. Charity livestreams are a big thing for a reason, the immediacy and community of working together for a shared purpose is a lot easier to get in a live format.

On the other hand, I think that the things that get Youtube videos clicks and retention might have worked against him in the end. As people slowly zero in on what makes people keep watching videos, they get better at bypassing the parts of your brain that think for long enough to be able to get bored and click off. It’s a bit of a stun-lock system where you can dazzle people into paying attention without having to build deeper investment, which is good for retention but bad for trying to get a proactive and engaged response from your audience, since those are the parts you’re trying to put to sleep. I think this series created a kind of bystander effect where people didn’t feel any real need to engage, especially since Tommy kept a brave face on when it came to what the donations actually turned out to be. I remember waiting for him to crack or acknowledge that there was something wrong, but he never really did.

To be metaphorical, I think Tommy followed a recipe without fully understanding how the ingredients worked. On paper it was the vlog format stacked onto a Mr. Beast style challenge (specifically this one since he references the guy in the series), both of which seemed like sure-fire winners, with some flares that made it more personal to him. You could really tell from his scaling of the subscription ‘price’ and donation goals that he expected the series to blow the roof off because separately those things worked well, but it didn’t turn out to be that simple, and he got a different result.

#I went in with the chainsaw but it’s critblr I’m allowed #gen tmmy tag #Youtube is a beast that I don’t care to try and fully understand #So I’m sure there’s chunks I’m missing #But just as a viewer this is what I saw & felt #tubeposting

[mythgrippa-blog]

Another morning

Alright, where do I start. Perhaps with the app I've been working on with my team. Alright, where do I start with that... think think think...

I'm the technical lead for university year long project (its actually 6 months, so I don't know why they would call it a year project) and its essentially a capstone project for my computer science degree.

My team is composed of 5 people, including myself and 4 of those members I've been in another terminal war simulator C++ project with last year and the other member I've met and teamed up with this year.

When we first decided to team up, I didn't want to be group leader again because I'm simply not a leader! Its way too much pressure having to manage people and making sure everyone is doing their work, and in hindsight I still think someone else in my group should have been a leader because I don't like these responsibilities! I'm a techie, an introvert! PICKING ME TO BE A LEADER?!?!? ARE YOU INSANE??

But nobody else wanted and I hate how everyone thought I was just playing hard to get, bro I'm simply not like that! But alas I gave in since no one bothered to step up, the only leadership quality I think I have is my refusal to fail and my clear sight to a goal. And also my ability to go beyond my limits even if detrimental to my mental health

So, what was the project that I've someone ended up as a leader for? Well, the project was an event photo sharing app and our client was a software engineer from a popular tech company in my country.

We met up with them, discussed ideas for the project, tried my best to encourage my team for the most grueling 5-6 months of their lives and got to work!

Being a project manager/leader is super hard like oh my goodness, I had to make sure there were constant meetings and that we followed scrum agile framework, it was really hard managing because getting people to do work is not one of my skill sets, I've always been a solo leveler but now I have to tell others what to do. Its hard to enforce accountability for work not done when your members are also friends.

What I wanted for my team is for them to have fun, learn something that can make them more valuable in the long run and ultimately build something they're proud of. Those are the values I tried for but its very hard if nobody listens to me and it feels like a chore to them.

My role was mostly technical leading as in most of the technical decisions were made by me, and also technical support as in if you ran into an issue come to me and I'll help or lead you to someone who can help, and I was also DevOps as in I built the whole CI/CD pipeline for our project with automatic builds, tests and deployments (I've never done this before so I had to learn and learn a lot of github actions), I was also sort of doing full stack (backend/service engineer and integration engineer and ui engineer) and also involved in training an AI model which in the end didn't work but we found a nice python solution. As you can imagine, I was having a lot on my plate? more like table and all had to be done

The team focused towards the 4 demos we had, each demo was a sort of deliverable where we had to have a certain percentage of the app requirements done. It was exhausting work, I had to work so many nights and give up weeks of holidays and recess to get it done, I started eating more and sleeping less, moving less, always on my computer, coding and designing, day in day out, sacrificing family time to make progress for the sake of the project, why? because I don't want to fail, it was no longer for sake of making the best app in the world, somewhere down the line of development it was no longer for the fun of it, it was for survival. This felt like a Herculean challenge, as if I was Sisyphus or something, it was all I could think about. I thought this project would finally be the time I enjoy myself but it ended with me having to rush to meet deadlines. Pushing myself to the very limit.

I won't lie, I was starting to feel hate inside my heart because I was burning myself out. Before the project began, one of the assistant lecturers mentioned that the projects will be tough and that it may ruin friendships, I didn't think much of it but now I'm just shook at my team. Not because deadlines weren't being met but because I was being ignored, I felt like I was being an inconvenience, like I was just taking time away from them and when the demo was getting closer and then all so suddenly they look at me like why things weren't finished. I'm sorry but we have deadlines for a reason!!! And now we have to do crunch time and I look like a bad guy.

But those feelings so mostly dissipated in our 4th demo because that was it, our supposed final demo, at least where the app is supposed to be at 100% complete. We finished all of the required features and tried adding extra, and what was the result? Well you can go and see for yourself

This is what we were presenting, the presentation went alright, better than the first 3 but I wasn't satisfied because there were some features I wanted to add but couldn't since we had to make sure the parts we did have were working. We were presenting to our lecturers, not the module lecturers but lecturers for the whole computer science degree, so we were a bit shaky.

The presentation went alright, two of my members have a dynamic, one of my engineers had a Steve Jobs like talent and the other was a quick learner and were very good at hiding their fears. The lecturers asked us questions, there's something I noticed about these questions... they were ignited by our presentation, but thats something for later. The questions were essentially based on what they taught us in the last couple of years since the degree began in first year and as final years were we able to apply what they taught us.

We were able to answer most of the questions with confidence, however one of my lecturers wasn't happy with our implementation of microservices. But other than that, it wasn't anything major, we did our best. And now we can stop working on the project.

There's a fifth demo in case our 4th demo didn't go well, meaning that we have to make improvements to the app, but we haven't got the results yet. In the mean time, we are focusing on our other modules.

Well I think I've said enough about the project. I'll write more later on what I'm going to do with this new free time because its crazy how much free time we have without this project. I am happy my team was able to push themselves, I've always wanted to be part of a development team where we all code and eat pizza together while working on the app. Discussing ideas with each member and how they should be implemented. This experience was valuable and I don't believe it would have been possible if I wasn't the group leader or with these lovable goof balls.

I do have anger issues, but the normal amount of anger, you know when your buttons get pressed so much, I was the only technical support! I felt like an overworked gateway service! Oh my goosh I was just mad. But hey, there's a good and bad to this, all you need to know I won't be doing any more group leaderly stuff hopefully and I'm not going to be involved in software development for a while and I'm retiring. Its off to cybersecurity now.

I'll let you know how the results are, but my next post will come out shortly

[shinigamiringo]

New year new death :D

So I have pretty much always failed my resolutions. There’s so much I want to learn and do, and so ofc like a normal adult I try to cram it all into one month and get overwhelmed then give up and beat myself up. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do right? 😂 But! While this year might not be too different, I have decided to cram less into the resolution part and not commit sudoku if I fail. Because I probably will. A lot. At this point though, I need something to change or I will just be a dog chasing its’ tail. I get too dizzy for that so fuck that noise. So, I’ve decided to try this in terms of quarters- that is, 4 separate parts of the year with each quarter building upon itself. My resolutions are pretty small too, so hopefully that will help a bit. Without further ado:

Q1:

1. Learn and understand all 2000 jouyou kanji.

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese since about the time the dinosaurs roamed, and with that amount of time I should have been fluent already. Sadly, I am not. Obviously. So instead of putting a goal of “become native level fluent,” my goal is just to learn the Jouyou Kanji. I do have some things to build on for that, but right now my goal is just to be able to read and since kanji has always been a huge road block I thought tackling that would be pretty helpful. 

To help with this goal, I will be using a few different resources that I have hoarded through the years: Wanikani, A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, Renshuu, and Memrise. Wanikani goes too slow for the time I have to accomplish this, so it will mainly be used as a reinforcer. Resnhuu and Memrise will be both reinforcers and learning resources, while A Guide will be my main focus.

2. Work out at least 2x a week

The gym and I have always had a weird relationship. I love working out when I’m there but getting there is the insanely hard part. I get tired as soon as I sit down and then distract myself for too long. I also don’t want to work out before I go to work only because I’m afraid I won’t have time. Yes, I am the person who has an appointment so makes no other plans for the day 🥲

With that in mind, I have a few different things to help out: I have teas to drink so I can lower/ completely cut out soda consumption, Fit boxing/Ringfit for the switch, a step/ swinging thing called dipda, and ofc some youtube videos. This gives me plenty of options if I don’t want to go to the gym. If I do make it to the gym, I plan on just focusing on getting my mile below 18 minutes. God, if my teen self saw my time they would throw me off a roof 😭

3. Floss, brush, and mouthwash everyday

OK, so ngl I debated putting this in here but since I’m shouting into the void it probably won’t be too bad. Anyway, due to depresso I’ve had trouble being consistent with my dental hygiene. Is it gross? Yes, but that’s what happens when you feel like shit and even getting out of bed is a exhausting. If you don’t understand what I mean, you’ve obviously never been to that dark place and while I applaud you, don’t judge me for my amount of spoons. hmph. 

To help with this, I figured putting on a podcast I like as I listen would be a good way to encourage that, and only listening to it when I do my teeth. I have quite a few on backlog but decided to either use Behind the Bastards or Let’s Not meet. I’m not sure yet tbh, but having 2 to choose from will probably be better so I won’t get bored. Also, since I can only listen to the chosen podcast during the washup process, I might actually encourage myself to do a face routine and teeth routine day and night. Hope springs eternal!

There are a few other things I want to add on there, like drink 64oz of water  everyday, a drawing course, and a calligraphy course (already bought and delivered, thank goodness) but I don’t want to make the same mistake again so these 3 are the main focus for this quarter. Hopefully, I can update everyday to show progress, but if I don’t then I’ll focus on washing my spoons. Let’s go, 2023 D:<

#haha this is how i die #2023 resolutions #onwards to death #I SHALL SCREE THE SCREE OF MY PEOPLE

[sharktaxi7]

Mountain / hill Bikers, Ride Like a Master!

Happen to be your goals exactly like a pro racer? Are you in your 20's or 30's? Expert riders are probably younger, much better, and more competitive than you and the goal is usually to win backgrounds. When I trainer pro racing enthusiasts like Mitch Ropelato and Cody Kelly I realize they aren't much like most motorcyclists. They are the younger versions from me (and now greater versions in me) whenever i raced inside pro type. Being much better, more competitive, and getting paid to do well in races offers pro racing enthusiasts a different goal than the majority avid pile bikers own. Different Goals and objectives require distinct methods. I have discovered quite a few scenarios where you may not want to ride such as a pro and I will talk about them with you in a number of articles. A lot of involve numerous equipment, a few different mindsets, and some totally different skills. Circumstances One Should you Might Not Desire to Ride Like a Expert: Don't Bring Pro Marks when your desired goals are different. Have you ever heard the saying, "don't take the smooth line fast, take the fast line smooth"? I learned that from an important teammate years back. Everyone whoms goal is usually to go as soon as they can, need to understand and live that. We have taught that to my own students for years. Taking the fast line efficiently often means heading straight and using various methods to float over the difficult stuff. Bundle jump, bunny hop or simply just unweight above anything that could possibly slow you down. Therefore pump the backsides from the landing to get speed. Doing this well have been my yoga for years. That keeps me focused, in the moment and it provides instantaneous feedback. The idea rewards you by steering clear of impacts and allowing you to accelerate down the path. You also immediately know in case you mess up whenever you "eat the handlebars" if your bike slows and your body keeps heading, causing you to do a full-strength pushup. What is your objective? Is it for getting fun, ride with more self-confidence, and/or certainly not hurt yourself? Well, depending on your goals you could possibly actually want to take the smooth stripes at method speed! I'm just 54, "taking the easily line smooth" can be strenuous now. Hanging over the harsh stuff frequently takes quickness and mind-blowing movements, two things I obtain myself with less in as I time. I crashed hard on New Year's Moment 2020 and it woke me up. My things have improved, I can't always be broken and supply for my family and I just can't coach when broken. Because the crash, I possess backed away to 90-95% of my former rate. When going that pace, descending differs. I terribly lack the momentum to float over a number of the rough stuff, so often I have to take smooth series fast rather than take the fast line without problems. Taking the clean line extremely fast is actually really fun nevertheless - it won't win any races, nevertheless, you take much less of a winning over. It's much calmer, and you're not overloading your mind with hundreds of split-second decisions one minute. "Don't take smooth lines fast, take fast series smooth" is likewise a relative thing. Imagine me, Aaron Gwin takes way more quickly lines as opposed to me because he is better a lot more stronger than me. Aaron's lines scare the bejesus out of myself! Anything as small or less space-consuming than a Honda Civic the guy just goes through or over, his lines will be insane. Even though they won't terrify Aaron, my own lines may well scare you. Based on each of our goal/s, the fitness, and our capability, what we suppose is the fast line, variations greatly. When i honestly by no means realized the best way mentally stressful it is to ride at the edge of your ability until I decided to back off a tad. The way I have descended for the last 30 years creates a massive hurry, not just an adrenaline hurry and dopamine rush, yet a human brain rush also. It is very intense, similar to a drug, for this reason my addiction. Riding a little bit slower is a completely different outdoor activity, less strong and much more relaxing. Riding like this doesn't put on me away near as much as charging it will. A wise Buddhist once said that our goal isn't enjoyment, the objective is an actually keel. We can make too content and when we have too cheerful we simply can't maintain the idea and we will wreck later. As a young person, I found the fact that defeating. I needed the happiest happy possibly. As a middle-aged man I've truly learned to comprehend the Buddhist wisdom, seemingly, it also applies to mountain biking! When i also skipped a lot of fun marks and actually the #1 of pile biking to acquire fun? http://probiketips.com " I have always located them to be creative when compared to me. Many people playfully search for little "hits" to leap off of as they zig-zag over the trail. That used to drive me almonds! Now I love following all of them, seeing and hitting each of the "fun lines" that I overlooked while searching for the quickly lines.

#website

[todomitoukei]

Japanese vs. English Dabi - A 292 Comparison

As other people have already pointed it, the official translation is sometimes a little biased to the point of adding things into the text that aren’t in the original Japanese version or changing phrases to the point where the villains come off colder than they actually are.

The current chapters are highly important to Dabi’s and Shouto’s characters and so the official translation, unfortunately, can lead to people getting the wrong image of Dabi. This is not to say that Dabi is actually a super friendly guy - however, I don’t think you can get a full picture of all the layers to his character without taking the original text in mind.

Since there are a few panels I’m going to talk about from this chapter - comparing the Japanese version with the official translation and also dissecting and explaining the original Japanese phrases - I’m going to put the rest of this post under the cut because it’s a bit lengthy otherwise.

Let’s start with these panels. Though these aren’t mistranslated per se, just like with the “dance with your son in hell” line from the previous chapter, the furigana next to the kanji have a different meaning here. As discussed before, whenever this is the case, the furigana are what the character says, and the kanji represent what the character actually means.

The line in the second panel is: 「轟家の過去が消えるわけじゃねえだろ。」

轟家 「とどろきいえ ; todoroki ie 」-> the Todoroki household

の　「 no 」-> particle to indicate possession, works like an apostrophe

過去 「かこ  ; kako  」 ->  the past; a past (i.e. a personal history one would prefer remained secret); one’s past

が 「 ga  」 -> particle to mark the subject of the sentence

消える 「きえる  ; kieru  」 -> to vanish; to disappear

わけじゃねえ 「 wakejanee  」 -> It doesn’t mean that

だ��� 「 daro  」 ->  right ? (used to ask the person you’re talking to for confirmation)

The two words that have a different furigana reading than they should have, are Todoroki household and past. According to the furigana, Dabi says:

「 うち 」-> house; one’s own home

「 じじつ 」-> truth; reality

So going by the kanji reading you get:

“This doesn’t mean that the past of the Todoroki household just disappears, right?”

Whereas what he actually says is:

“This doesn’t mean the truth of our home just disappears, right?”

In comparison to the “dance with your son in hell” line, these two versions don’t differ as much from another. Caleb actually addresses this in his twitter threat and sort of mixed the two versions into one: “This doesn’t change the hard truths about my family’s past!”

Personally, considering he is directly talking to Shouto here, I find the choice of translating the Todoroki household/home part into “my family” a bit weird. Since he seeks Shouto’s confirmation here, it would make more sense to translate it as “our family” in my opinion. The “my” makes it feel a lot more self-centered, even though there is no indication for him to only be referring to himself here.

Switching the word to vanish with “change” also slightly changes the meaning here. Though both are accurate, I feel like their past disappearing holds more weight. The line is, after all, referring to the fact that Best Jeanist has appeared, despite Dabi earlier announcing that the hero had been killed. So even though Dabi was wrong about that part, it doesn’t make his other facts go away. It’s not just about changing his words, but making it like they were never spoken in the first place. It’s a small difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Finally, the “hard truths” part instead of reality/past. It’s interesting to think about why Dabi says “truth” when he means “past”. But I think one way to look at it is that to Dabi, he has accepted the past. He has lived with it and carried it with him in silence for so long, but was always aware of it. Despite him not having told anyone else about it, he didn’t deny that past to himself. He shows his scars and he fights back. That is who Dabi is as the person that rose from Touya’s ashes. Meanwhile, he says “truth” while talking to Shouto. While we, the readers, and those around Shouto know of his hatred towards Endeavor, Dabi doesn’t know about this. To him, Shouto really is just Endeavor’s little doll. And so in Dabi’s eyes, Shouto has yet to see the truth. To acknowledge their past and the pain they all went through. And though Dabi might not be completely right about Shouto, he isn’t entirely wrong, either. Because even when Shouto hates Endeavor, even when he says he is just going to use him for his own gain, at the end of the day, regardless of his reasons, his actions are still what Endeavor wants him to do - to train hard and want to become the Number One Hero.

I included one the alternative meanings “a personal past one might prefer remained secret” because it also fits well with that interpretation. That the true meaning behind him saying “truth” is not just the mere past, but the part of the past they don’t want to share. Whether that’s because it’s an ugly one that could haunt them for the rest of their lives, or because it’s just difficult to talk about. Either way, it’s more than just memories from when their family was still young. In that, I think “hard truth” is actually a fitting translation, even when it doesn’t have the exact same nuance as the Japanese version.

While Shouto and Dabi are in many ways similar to another, they have slightly different goals: While Dabi wants to kill Endeavor, Shouto wants to save his mom. To both of them that is liberty, just with a different approach.

And the ending of the sentence, where he seeks confirmation from Shouto, sort of indicates just that. He wants Shouto to admit it. Pushing him into a corner and asking a question that only has one right answer. This is also similar to a few chapters ago when Toga confronted Uraraka with the question “Was Jin not a person?” It’s asking something with an obvious answer, yet the people being asked seem to not yet be able to give the right answer, even when they might already know it.

Next of, Shouto confronts Dabi about the villain he sent to their house, who could have killed Natsuo. As you can see in the panel above, the English translation has Dabi say: “Almost killed? What a shame. That would’ve really hurt Endeavor.”

Meanwhile, the Japanese version says: 「それならそれで。エンデヴァーが苦しむ。」

「それならそれで ; sorenara sorede 」 -> even so (expression frustration); still

「 エンデヴァー ; Endebā 」 -> Endeavor

「 が ; ga 」 -> particle to mark the subject of the sentence

「 苦しむ ; kurushimu  」 -> to suffer

As you can see, “Almost killed? What a shame” is kind of very far off from the actual meaning. While the official translation makes it almost sound like Dabi is disappointed and wants Natsuo to be killed, the fan translation has him say: “Then that would mean Endeavor would suffer.” This is a lot closer to the Japanese version and focuses on the more important part: the goal is for Endeavor to suffer. Dabi’s intention isn’t to get anyone else in the family hurt/killed in the process, however, he does have this tunnel vision where everything is about Endeavor and doing whatever to hurt him.

“What a shame” sounds like he is upset Natsuo didn’t actually die. While, as stated above, the first part can show frustration, that frustration more likely refers to the disappointment that Endeavor doesn’t suffer as much as he could.

While both versions translate the second part as Endeavor “would” suffer/be hurt by this, the Japanese uses the present tense for suffering. In a way, Dabi is saying “Well, though he could’ve been more hurt, he suffers.” Maybe he hasn’t been as damaged as could be, but it doesn’t matter, because the fact remains that he does suffer from this, present tense. So Dabi doesn’t recognize this as a loss or “a shame” that Natsuo didn’t die. Instead, he recognizes that Endeavor suffers, even when he isn’t met with the worst-case scenario.

In response to the last panel, Shouto asks whether Dabi is insane (please don’t ask people that) and Dabi’s response in the original translation is “Sure am, Shouto. See, your brother’s not so big on “feelings” anymore.”

A couple of thoughts on this. First, this is a downgrade in comparison to the fan translation of “You got it, Shouto! Your big brother has completely lost any feeling for anything!”

Something the phrasing coupled with Dabi’s wide eyes and big smile make me laugh and this panel now lives rent free in my head. 

Anyway, the Japanese line goes: 「そうだよ焦凍兄ちゃん何も感じなくなっちまった。」

「そうだよ ; soudayo 」 -> that is right

「 焦凍  ; Shouto 」 -> Shouto

「 兄ちゃん ; Nii-Chan 」 -> big bro (in a very endearing way, but can also be used to be demeaning)

「 何も  ; nanimo 」 -> nothing

「 感じ ; kanji 」 -> feeling

「 なく ; naku 」 -> adverbial form of nai; attaches to a verb to mean “without”

「 なっちまった ; nacchimatta 」 -> to have become (unintentionally; regretfully)

The fan translation, in my opinion, is far more accurate, but there is still something missing. 

First of all, I don’t know why the official translation put feelings in quotes as if Dabi didn’t actually say it? mean it? It just feels like an odd choice that I can’t find a good enough justification for.

Second of all, “not so big on ‘feelings’ anymore” and “has completely lost any feeling for anything” is a big difference, and would make sense if the fan translation was inaccurate. But it isn’t. The official translation makes it sound like Dabi more or less chose not to feel anymore or pay attention to his feelings. He could, but he doesn’t want to. You could argue that both sentences still carry the same meaning: Dabi doesn’t feel anymore. "To be big on something” usually refers to having a strong interest in something and prioritizing said interest, which implies that one chooses to prioritize it. While I’m not arguing that some people do choose to ignore their feelings instead of confronting them, in this case, it’s actually the opposite of what he says.

Looking at the actual Japanese sentence, it begins with Dabi confirming Shouto’s words. Yes, I am crazy. There is no denying, nor shame in this. There is almost a bit of pride in that - so little bro actually recognizes that I have gone crazy from this.

Nii-Chan is an interesting choice of words here. The Japanese language is very much based on hierarchy. There are different levels of formality (shown through words, expressions, and verb forms) depending on whom you are speaking to. To summarize: When you are talking to someone who is of higher status (based on job position, age, experience). This also applies to siblings. Since those of higher status can be more direct/less formal with those of lower status, older siblings can address their younger siblings by their given name alone. 

Meanwhile, the younger siblings would use some kind of honorific/suffix. In this case, the “Nii” means older brother. “San” is the standard suffix you would use to address your older siblings (and other people in general). “Chan” is a suffix that you usually use for kids/girls, - where it has a cute, endearing connotation - wherefore it becomes kind of rude when used for older people (as in people who aren’t children anymore). But it can also show endearment - a close bond between the siblings.

So why does Dabi call himself “Nii-Chan”? While you can interpret this as a sarcastic remark to mock their non-existent relationship, I think here Dabi uses it here to humanize himself to Shouto. Kind of like an “I know you see me as a villain right now, but I also am your bro, remember?” He isn’t just this “evil criminal” - rather cute lil Touya is still inside of him. Dabi isn’t just Dabi. He still is Touya, too. So if you fight Dabi and if you call Dabi insane, you also do those things to Touya. Dabi might be the stage of “having completely lost it” but that doesn’t just suddenly happen. It’s a process. While we can say Dabi became Touya on the day Touya “died” yet it’s important to recognize that there was a gradual transition where both Touya and Dabi existed.

Now that we have that part aside, let’s focus on the actual point of that phrase. The part about his feelings.

何も感じなくなっちまった。 Nanimo kanjinaku nacchimatta.

“Nanimo” means nothing and comes with negative verbs that it refers to.

As mentioned before, “kanji” means feeling and is paired with the adverbial form of “nai” - “naku” which negates “kanji” to turn it into not feeling. Pair that with “nanimo” and you get a meaning of “feeling nothing”

Now for the actually interesting part of this phrase (apologies that it took so long) - “nacchimatta”. This word consists of two seperate words: “naru” and “chimatta”. “Naru” means to become and is here merged with “chimatta” which is the colloquial past tense version of “teshimau”. The verb “shimau” expresses that an action (the verb it attaches to) has happened either unintentionally or has yielded regrettable results. So in this case, it is unintentional/regrettable that he has become something.

Putting this together, Dabi says that he has turned into someone who doesn’t feel anything anymore and this was not his intention, nor is it a good thing. To be fair, “shimau” can also mean something happens completely, however this meaning is rarer and while we can say that this is the meaning here, it’s more likely and more interesting to consider the more common meaning.

With that in mind, I want to quickly address the panel next to it, where Shouto asks him whether he has gone insane

In Japanese Shouto says:「イカれてんのかてめェ！」

「イカれて ; ikarete  」 -> (*ika is written in katakana here to emphasize the word since you can’t use italics in Japanese) to be beaten; to be crazy

「 ん  ; n 」 -> ender is used when explaining something; often with emotion*

「 の ; no 」 -> explanatory particle; used at the end of a sentence like a question marker, but you want the listener to answer and give you the reasons why

「 か ; ka 」 -> ender indicating doubt or uncertainty

「 てめェ！; temee! 」 -> you (derogatory) *meme not intended

The reason why these nuances are important to take into account is that when Dabi, in his reply confirms that “Yes, you’re right, unfortunately, I have become unable to feel anything” he is not just confirming the statement, but emphasizing just how tragic this all is.

*[edit because someone pointed this out to me: the ん here is actually more likely to be the casual form of いる (iru) that attaches to the て (te) form of a verb to turn it into the current/ongoing state (= In this case "are you being crazy).]

The official translation simply made Shouto say: “Are you freaking insane?!” which isn’t exactly wrong but misses the nuance of the “nnoka” in the middle of the sentence. While the official translation sounds rather cold and dismissive, the original shows that Shouto cares. There is emotion, and more importantly: there is a desire to hear his reasons. “Why do you think it was okay to put Natsuo in danger?” By the way, the “n” ender that shows emotion when explaining something is also used by Shouto earlier when he says “Remember him? The brother you cried to every day?!” - It’s no surprise that he is emotional right now, still, it’s important to note that he isn’t just showing his emotions through his tone or his expression, but also through his words in order to make it as clear as possible to Dabi how much Dabi’s actions affect the rest of them and hopefully be able to get through to it.

It’s an emotional and tragic conversation that takes place between them, yet the official translation turned it into a much colder, less-caring one.

I know this was a lengthy post with a lot of information, so congrats and thank you if you’ve made it this far. The reason why I decided to make this post was that initially, the “Nii-Chan can’t feel anything anymore” part stuck with me so much and even more so when I dissected it.

Again, other people have pointed out that the official translation is very biased at times, which is not just sad for those of us who care about the villains, but it’s also just not professional. A lot of the panels I talked about in this post aren’t inherently incorrect, they are simply missing nuances that the English language doesn’t provide. Still, I wished that a professional translator would figure out a way to at least slightly incorporate these anyhow (which btw is literally part of the job). Aside from those, it’s just frustrating when the emotions get almost entirely removed from phrases. I get it - Dabi is apathetic, as he says himself. And yet, Dabi is also constantly shown to put extreme care into which words he chooses; this chapter being no exception. So why does such an important conversation between two brothers get changed in ways that make people who don’t bother checking other translations/the Japanese version unable to get the right image of them?

I understand that it’s important to support the official translation and I do. But it’s also very much important to read other versions, too. While the fan translation might have errors and mistranslations in it here and there, it tends to be a bit more literal and thus includes the nuances more than the official translation does. So please don’t just read the official translation and treat it like the only valid one, when it also comes with its flaws and just isn’t a good sole source for when you want to understand the characters.

#dabi #meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #shouto #todoroki #292 #my hero academia #mha #mine #bnha 292 #lov #also this took a while pls show this some love sgnskgns #translation