#( this is all in a nutshell. i really could go on for pages.

[zealctry]

JJK verse: hidan as a ᴄᴜʀsᴇ.

while I value the idea of hidan making a possibly interesting ( and unhinged ) curse-user, I think it thematically makes more sense for him to be a curse(d spirit). I mean, not only has his whole character been entrapped and shaped by religious violence & trauma,  but idk, maybe it’s just me….but I think that there’s something so very narratively appropriate about hidan becoming ( quite literally! ) the embodiment of everything he propagated / obsessed over in his canon ( i.e. religious zealotry to the point of lowkey insanity, and the pain associated with it, both to himself and to others ). it's poetic justice~

in a nutshell, the embodiment of the terror, hatred, despair, betrayal, conflict, and agony associated with religious discrimination and persecution perpetuated ( either willingly or by coercion ) by humans upon their own kind, for centuries upon centuries. religious persecution and its outcomes are strongly interwoven throughout human history and have caused an immeasurable amount of human suffering across cultures. assume an extrapolation of it into the jjk world  — yeah, horrific stuff, and the associated reservoir of cursed energy is proportional to the horrors.

the unresolved pain of those being hunted, being tortured, being killed. the hunted and dehumanized in the name of a specific faith. the orphaned and the terrorized. the quivering voices pleading to a silent god. the hating eyes of the inquisitors and the trembling of the accusing finger of it's them, better them than having the blade turned upon me. the doubtful, silencing their doubts and strengthening their position by blood. the horror and disgust of the mute onlookers. perpetuator, idleman, victim; all of it, all of them.

brief physical description.  177 cm. humanoid (male). silver hair, magenta irises, overall similar in appearance to his canon curse form. in terms of garb,  wears nondescript (black) monastic robes, which are often, but not always, paired with a takuhatsugasa ( a wide, bowl-shaped hat that partially obscures the wearer's face ). generally holds onto a long string of charred beads ( unclear if representing a rosary or mala beads ).

notable psychological characteristics.  wrathful, vengeful, chaotic, hypocritical*, prejudiced, fanatical. somewhat unhinged. easily (albeit more often than not sadistically ) entertained/amused. can play surprisingly well with others, if he feels like it. ( if. if. )

* i have to put a special emphasis on this one because it's so, so important. Hidan will often play judge, jury, & executioner with someone, and bring upon them 'godly judgement' for their beliefs, morals, and behaviours, acting holier than thou and superior... only to behave in the same exact manner (thereby contradicting the very doctrine he supposedly seeks to 'uphold', while supposedly implementing its ideals; something something yeah, it's a not at all subtle & direct parallel / critique of some present-day happenstances. )

sidenote, but as a human-based curse ( of important note is that he isn’t a curse based on the fear of god; he really is a curse based on fear of the horrific actions perpetuated by humans in the name of a specific faith ), he has a particular interest in humans, and would happily interact with them, although if said interactions are positive or negative is tba ( he honestly doesn’t care, as long as they’re entertaining ). normal humans, sorcerers, curse-users... it doesn't really make much of a difference to him.

cursed techniques, grade, etc. tba on an as-needed basis. ( might be thread-dependent for funsies. )

[the-rebel-archivist]

The reason Lucanis’s romance falls flat to me is not because I expected Zevran 2.0. It’s not because I wanted to go on many fluffy little dates. It’s not even because he’s generally missing content and his lock in scene is reused from when he tells you about his interest in Neve in a non-romance.

It’s because of the type of content that is missing. It’s lacking the development of emotional intimacy and vulnerability. He goes from 0-100 with nothing in between. A light, fluffy date would never have fit him, but a difficult, hard hitting conversation in which he could explain how he feels about you and what’s holding him back from you where you could support him? That’s what’s missing.

“But Inner Demons?” you might protest. No. That is not romance specific, it’s a good insight into him but it should have been the jumping off point for an honest conversation that never happens. Inner Demons doesn’t explain why he ran after nearly kissing you. You can headcanon a million reasons for that, demisexuality, fear of inflicting Spite on you, fear of lack of control, but the fact remains that he never, ever explains it and it has to remain headcanon.

Imagine if you will a scene where he asks that you stay near him because he’s afraid of falling asleep, maybe after that codex where Spite blows out his time-tracking candle. Would you sit with him? Of course. He would have expressed a moment’s vulnerability with his own mouth to your own physical ears, and of course you would be there. The romance didn’t need grand sweeping scenes of passion, it’s missing the simple intimacy of the quiet moments where you get close enough to discuss feelings and fears.

You have to headcanon how he might feel about you the entire time, since the only clarity you gain about the state of the relationship is when he says that “whatever this is” he likes it. That would be fine if he talked to you at all about what you wanted out of the relationship and you were on the same page about it being a little new and scary, but you don’t. It makes the passionate declarations of love at the end of the game fall pretty flat for me since I didn’t feel like I’d earned them, every “You have me” reminder throughout the bulk of the game felt shallow and like it was begging to be let in to his thoughts, which is… not great when it’s for 90% of the romance and not just the very early beginnings of it. It’s another instance of telling and not showing.

The moment at the end of the game when he tells you that he didn’t say anything because he thought you knew? That’s nice, but it should have been earlier, it should have been lock in content, because what do you mean we’ve been locked in to a committed relationship all this time and this is the first time you’ve expressed that you actually care when given new word of god context emotional intimacy should have been the top priority to develop and explore? The optics of the confession when we’re all probably going to die trope are pretty great, I won’t pretend they aren’t, but when you take a step back and ask yourself why then, and what were you two doing before? You end up with a lot of questions and holes.

But that’s the entire romance in a nutshell, really. Questions and holes that you have to fill in. It’s great for people willing to do the heavy lifting in headcanon to establish emotional intimacy, but it does not do that on its own and you have to connect the dots yourself.

[disguisedcheezed]

this might be a stupid question, but i see you as a kind of authority on john egbert so i thought i'd ask you. i remember a poll you made a while back about john's favorite color being green, but do you remember where exactly that comes up in the comic? i thought for sure it was in his letter to jade, but then i went to check just now to prove it to someone, and all it really said was that jade seemed to favor green. is it never outright stated, just implied?

Hehehehe, I'm flattered thank you. Anyways-

It always has been the moment you lay your eyes on the first panel. John's Slimer logo and the Sburb beta logo. The color GREEN stands out.

" You find a sweet getup. It's almost as if it was tailor made for you. How weird would that be??? " And then he immediately wears it.

And John wears Slimer pattern boxers... (covered up by the pajamas)

John's letter in a nutshell:

John: jade, look at this shirt and it's BLUE and that means it's AWESOME and you SHOULD wear it. (and it's not because you need to wear normal clothes because you dress weird.) John: :) Jade: :O !!!

Initiating the color switch. (Jade would believe John if it was any color, honestly. She's 4.)

John's favorite color has always been GREEN. This is a fact that has been stated in past John posts from 2014 and 2015. Why was it never stated in the comic itself? Because it follows the rule SHOW, DON'T TELL.

And this page with Terezi shows it:

Terezi doesn't know John's favorite color because she was blind. (Emphasis on the "was".) John never once said his favorite color is green. John types in blue text, has blue eyes, and wears blue pajamas, which led to Terezi thinking his favorite color is blue because that's what she saw.

You could see John was going to say something, quickly spoken over by Terezi, who didn't even care to know his actual favorite color. What is the use of telling a person who is almost dead anyway? John has some really important world saving shit to do. Totally not him executing Terezi's selfishness and desperation to bring back Vriska. HA HA HA, anyway.

In conlusion:

John Egbert's favorite color is known to those who have eyes to see.

To the people who believed it's blue: GET FOOLED, FOOL.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gabriella Ferrigine at Salon:

John Oliver on Sunday's episode of "Last Week Tonight" delved into how former President Donald Trump's second term could hypothetically play out given that polls give him an edge over President Joe Biden. “You can go on his website and see it all laid out, and it’s pretty alarming,” Oliver said, before playing a clip of Trump articulating his plans to dismantle trans rights. "I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth," Trump said in the clip. "No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong with the wrong gender," he added, claiming that it is a concept "never heard of in all of human history" until it was recently invented by "the radical left." "That is really the Trump experience in a nutshell right there," Oliver said. "Hateful ideology, a promise to make life harder for minorities, all wrapped up in a non sequitur so stupid it is inconveniently funny. The radical left invented trans people a few years ago? I’m sorry. What?!? Did they put it on 'Shark Tank' and I somehow missed it?” The host then brought up a number of Trump's other plans if he assumes the presidency again, including mass deportation, requiring local law enforcement agencies to implement controversial policing tactics such as stop-and-frisk, slashing funding for schools that implement a mask or vaccine mandate, and impose a universal tariff of at least 10% on all imports.

"He's promising to get revenge on his enemies," Oliver said. "At rallies he’s told supporters that ‘I am your retribution,’ which sounds like something you’d hear out of the mouth of Megatron rather than a major presidential candidate." "He's been specific about who will be on the receiving end of that retribution," Oliver added, before showing footage of Trump claiming that he will "root out communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible — they'll do anything — whether legally or illegally to destroy America and destroy the American dream." "Was he falling asleep at the end there?" Oliver jokingly asked. "Second, it's not usually a great sign when a politician starts referring to groups as vermin, unless of course they're running for mayor of Zootopia and they're gunning for the little Rodentia votes."

[...] Project 2025's 900-page handbook, for example, includes plans for dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because it is "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry." Oliver observed other initiatives included in the handbook, such as installing a pro-life task force to replace Biden's reproductive healthcare task force, disassembling the FBI, defunding the Department of Justice, outlawing pornography, and more. Speaking about the two figures spearheading Project 2025, Trump associates Russ Vought and John McEntee, Oliver said, “Their goal here is clear: To assemble an army of vetted, trained staff who can begin dismantling the administrative state from day one."

On the most recent episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight that aired last Sunday, host John Oliver had an alarming segment about how Project 2025 would harm America in a multitude of ways.

See Also:

The Guardian: On HBO's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver on a second Trump term: ‘Really does promise to be far, far worse’

Can We Still Govern?: The Public Opposes Trump's Plans to Politicize Public Services

From the 06.16.2024 edition of HBO's Last Week Tonight:

[lovemyromance]

You know that scene in the Jim Carey grinch when he yells “I’m an Idiot” into the cave and the echo says “You’re an idiot!” back at him instead? I feel like that is the glenriel echo chamber in a nutshell. THAT is the real take away from the fated mates quiz that was posted today.

I think the issue in this fandom is that people tend to take things very, very personally. Ive seen it on all sides, but it's especially prevalent when we take a look at some of these Gwynriel theories. Gwyn became a self insert character for many because she's just vague and secondary enough that she has no real flaws and is not very complex or fleshed out. She does a few brave things and is generally kind and pretty - and people just latched on.

Any idea that Gwyn isn't a main character, any mention of the lightsinger theory, any whisper even that Gwynriel isn't backed by evidence from the books - that is something they are going to take very personally. Because even if objectively, all those things are true, these people are using Gwyn as a self insert. So they are hearing people say:

"Gwyn is not an MC" = "you're not a main character"

"Gwyn could be a lightsinger" = You're a cruel evil lightsinger"

"Gwyn and Azriel aren't mates" = "you're not gonna end up with azriel"

And that doesn't seem like something they want to hear. So they lash out, go crazy with their crack theories even more than before. They take it as a personal insult when it is just something that is objectively true. They accuse everyone of being anti Gwyn when they dont support Gwynriel when they are really two separate things.

I'm sure they'll find some way to spin this fated mates quiz anyways. Or more likely, the Eluciens will spin it because Lucien was an option and try to push the Elucien agenda, which the Gwynriels will hop on board for just to say "ofc SJM wouldn't spoil Gwynriel in a quiz 🙄"

That's what happens when you form a conclusion and then read the books to zero in on any scrap of text you can twist to fit that conclusion. When you read backwards, you form backwards opinions 🤷🏻‍♀️

People have got to understand that being anti a ship doesn't mean they hate that character. All I see Eluciens & Gwynriels do is accuse people of hating Lucien and Gwyn. Which is crazy. Nobody hates them, im pretty sure feelings towards these characters have only soured due to the insanity of the fandom, not the books or characters themselves.

And I've been very clear about this. For example, Lucien was actually my favorite character in ACOTAR. But when SJM stopped writing him, I stopped liking him as much. When Lucien and Elain were declared mates in ACOMAF - I was actually in support. It was only in ACOWAR did I see how unsuited they were for each other that I realized I don't think this ship is endgame. I reached that conclusion without hating Lucien or Elain - imagine that?

Furthermore, I actually got Lucien in that fated mates quiz. And I was not surprised nor was I disappointed by the answer. It tracks. If I were to go for a man, it would definitely be someone like Lucien. Even my current boyfriend has the same kind of traits as Lucien (dry wit, snarky, but able to switch to polite and charming at the drop of a hat).

But that's the important distinction. I, personally, would go for a man like Lucien. But I am not Elain.

And I know that. I am able to objectively read these books and form accurate conclusions because I don't let my personal preferences cloud my judgement of what is on the actual page.

I might personally prefer a man like Lucien, but Elain clearly does not. She wants nothing to do with him.

And if people were able to stop with the self-inserts and obsessions over fictional men, they would be able to read these books with a clear mind. The way they were meant to be read.

[abundantchewtoys]

Beyond Canon, re: p666.1, 666.2

So, I want to comment.

The fact that the "session" Vriska has begun is no S***b at all but a therapy session in the hyperbolic helltier chamber. Hilarious.

It's cool how the page is basically Homestuck: The Visual Novel. The talksprites & dialogue do the heavy lifting, the background & music's there for the ambiance.

Upon seeing the time skip, Blaperile had the good idea that she might be in here for 6 to 8 years. Bringing Vriska closer in age to the other Meat timeline kids. At least, near the start of their journey to Deltritus. Plus, most of them are functionally immortal.

In a lot of ways, Vriska was left lagging behind. Her insistence on going out to fight Lord English meant that her own personal timeline has been so short until now compared to the rest. Terezi went out to search for her for years upon years, while for her, less than a week passed on Candy Earth? Crazy.

I was wondering what introspection could be forced upon Vriska, that would feel earned. I mean, the post-retcon version of her already did much of this on and off screen, it could've ended up feeling repetitive somehow. But no.

No, this feels right so far.

She spends the first two years (???) trying and failing to move forward with Tavros (and Davepeta). I would've assumed she only had those two locations to explore in all that time (Tavros' hive's terrain and her own). Until she started venting there.

Seems everything in Helltier Alternia is available to her. It probably just never stops feeling fake. Which reminds me a lot of the (revised) ending to qntm's Ra.

SCROLL TO THE NEXT ARROWS TO AVOID SPOILERS ========> . . . . . . . . In which the characters end up on a simulated version of Earth with the story's self-proclaimed protagonist swearing up and down she can feel the difference. And nothing what the people in here do matters as none of it's real. . . . . . . . . <================ END SPOILERS

So, what are the people in the hyberbolic chamber, truly?

Tavros & Aradiabot seem like self-aware versions of their past selves, like unawakend dream selves. Tavros even felt more confident than I've remembered him ever seeing. Hope this isn't because this was his pre-paralysis self.

I kind of wonder if the sprites are standing in for themselves in the chamber. Aka that Vriska hung out with GCATavrosprite-as-his-past-self all this time? Not sure though.

Aradiabot, you ask? Well we know that Alpha Aradia has been travelling to all sorts of alternate timelines and is very much much older than she looks. So she could've gone and filled in for Aradiabot here, too. She used to be her own sprite, after all!

But that doesn't feel entirely satisfactory, either. It kind of feels nicer to imagine Vriska's been engaging with "meta Tavros" and "meta Aradia". Aka, an amalgam of who've they've been in the story, to the people reading Homestuck. Very much a function of the Point, but also very much the character themselves as well.

In other news, how many times will Vriska end up 'dying' in the chamber, on screen? I mean, in the last part she went to lie on her quest bed. Not a lot of sleep happens on those! At least, not for long.

It's hilarious that Davepeta seems to have been designated Vriska's "handler" but has no real experience to help her along. I mean, that's most of the sprites in a nutshell, but still. If the chamber's supposed to give her growth, you'd have thought she'd be given a better helper.

Then again, the sprites might be constructs of the chamber too. Vriska might really be in here alone and the chamber just has her own psyche to work with. She's internalized she's a badass who doesn't need help.

And now she's slowly unlearning things. By now, she's learned to ask other people what they want to do. The prompt "What will you do?" was never about her, it was about the others.

It's going to be interesting to see what she has to confront in the Mindfang path, though. It would be wild to get talksprites for Mindfang or Spidermomsprite! But if it's about her toxically near-religious obediance to Alternia's obsession with ancestors… Yeah I can see her talking with a version of pre-retcon Vriska. Or Aranea. We don't know if she ever did meet a version of her dancestor post-retcon.

Loved how the page went and took in a larger part of the page, like during [S] Cascade. And the branching paths evoke the paths we got to choose from during the time the cartridge was corrupted.

Yeah, on rereading the text, I think Tavros & Aradiabot are elements of the chamber trying to guide Vriska along.

If she'd only contemplated what WORDS could've been better than the ones she said already, instead of jumping to ACTIONS (hers or Tavros'), it wouldn't have taken two years for her to get there with Tavros.

But that's the road she had to travel: Apologies -> Revenge -> Actually sitting down & sorting it out with the other party.

Now for her to unlearn all her other unhealthy coping strategies! Yeah she's going to be here for a while.

Neat bit, that bit about projecting though. It's true, underneath all the bluster, she was just a kid trying to find the best way to deal with the world she was given. And then, when she thought she found it, she put everyone in the same box with her.

And hey, Tavros' reaction (pointing) at realizing she might be projecting… Was that a reference to the Turnabout fangame?

Him proposing they could be projects for one another… Imagine them as moirails, dear god.

Tavros can very much pretend to be blue as he is now (as a sprite).

It's interesting to (re)learn how much Vriska was obsessed with trying to patch things up with Aradia. While Aradia was like "whatever, bye", lol.

And, is the helltier rung thing a real thing? Cause we saw godtiers physically represented as platforms! This seems more like Vriska's finally truly scaling her echeladder.

Like she skipped a few steps in growing as a S***b player, which seems just so like her.

Real on the nose that she spends all this years. Stuck. In her old home. Bent. To return to her hive each time.

Aradiabot's spiel about incremental change & the danger of cycles reminds me of the song. "I'm going around, not in circles but in spirographs." It's the difference between getting stuck in this chamber vs. the dreambubbles, too, I guess.

Waiting to see if this all really will end up with a Scourge Sister fond reunion!

[brown-little-robin]

Hello, Robin!! *waves*

Since we got onto the topic of synesthesia, now I’m quite curious: how did you come to find out that you had synesthesia? What did that process look like for you?

Hi, Grace!! *waves back*!

YEAH OKAY SO! It was pretty interesting! In a nutshell, it went: I hear about synesthesia and go "couldn't be me! my color associations must be made-up and only in my head!". I learn that not everyone sees real-time subtitles in their mental space. I learn that not everyone has a mental space. weird, but okay. I keep thinking about it for a few years. I read various synesthete's descriptions of their own experiences, including symptoms that are different from what I initially assumed was The Only True Synesthesia. (useful athough limited terms: "associative" versus "projective" synesthesia.) I talk to a psychology grad student who explains how synesthesia works, physically, in the brain. I finally accept that I process almost everything through the color center of my brain. Every concept, thought, sound, and touch-sensation registers as "color/light" to me. I have two fields of vision, which I cannot turn on or off at will: the physical one and the mental one, and sometimes they overlap. I decide that I definitely have synesthesia.

Basically, the process of finding out I had synesthesia was part paying careful, consistent attention to how my brain works, and part learning how other people's brains work. I had to learn that my experiences were not just What Everyone Does, and come up with my own terms for my own experiences as well as adopting certain existing terms!

Detailed timeline of Robin's Synesthesia Adventure below the cut! <3

1) At age 10, I have an argument with dad where I argue that 5 is green, and he says it's red, and I say NO it's GREEN, and he says "well it could really be either, I could see 5 being green", and I stop, confused, and think ....no, every number is only ONE color (except for the number 2 which is two colors at once), what is he talking about. I could understand 5 being red for dad and green for me, but the idea that 5 was totally unconnected to color, that this argument had no basis in reality? that was weird.

2) years later, I learn the term "synesthesia". Cool! I think. Couldn't be me, since when I look at the number five, it isn't green on the page, exactly. It's just green in my head, and sometimes on the page. Same with all the other letters and numbers, and with sounds and textures. High short sounds only make bright neon flashes in my head, and cello is only brown and fuzzy in my head, and guitar only makes sharp metallic shapes in my head, and so on; it's not like I'm actually seeing sounds. Also, "R" is "red", and "Y" is yellow, and "G" is green, and many such things; if I really had synesthesia, surely the pairings would be totally random and not influenced by my culture or the stuff I grew up with. surely.

3) I read a book from the perspective of a character with synesthesia (who also had magic alien communication powers related to that), and HER symptoms were so extreme that it confirmed me in the belief that I definitely did not have synesthesia, because I don't like, hallucinate! (note: the definition of hallucination is a bit loose. you could argue that I do hallucinate. but anyway.) but I, unlike this fictional character, don't react physically to sound-colors like they're real! Except when things are so loud that I experience them as bright and instinctively close my eyes, but that doesn't count. surely.

4) I get into a research rabbit-trail on synesthesia. synesthesia is so cool! what is it like to have that? from the inside? wait, this sounds like me. wait, you can have associative synesthesia versus projective synesthesia?? what's the difference?? WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I HAVE BOTH ASSOCIATIVE AND PROJECTIVE SYNESTHESIA. I have to be making this up. I don't think these words exactly fit my experiences; I definitely see the colors I associate with things, but not in the real world, not exactly, not all the time. hmm.

5) I learn that most people don't experience ticker-tape synesthesia (involuntarily seeing captions as people speak). It is at THIS point that I first go: yeah, I definitely have SOMETHING. I DEFINITELY have THAT. But then I think, wait, I don't see captions for ALL LANGUAGES. that must mean I'm making it up. when people speak a different language than English around me, all I see is blobs of color, like how it looks when people sing without words, and occasional "captions" when I pick up something that my brain can transliterate into Roman characters. surely this is not synesthesia. this is just... Thinking.

6) After upwards of a year of wondering about this and observing myself, I come to the conclusion that although the specific associations are not intrinsic to my brain (for instance, I develop color associations with friends that I don't have with strangers, and letters correspond to related colors), my synesthesia is both consistent and involuntary; piano was white sparkles five years ago, and it's still white sparkles now. I am not making it up on purpose. It happens whether I want it to or not, and I cannot turn the sensations off when I try. This is just something my brain does. (note: recently I've been having fun watching my brain come up with colors for the Japanese characters I'm learning! ら,る,れ, and ろ are all red :])

6.5) I meet a grad student in psychology at my university who hears that I think I might have synesthesia. He is DELIGHTED to share the current research on exactly how synesthesia forms in the brain with me, out loud and via sketching on a napkin. I kid you not, on a napkin. I learn that synesthesia is a physical process in the brain, and that almost every baby is born with some form of synesthesia; sensational signals (electrical impulses) travel to multiple receiving parts of their brain through your neurons. Eventually, baby brains figure out to send visual signals only to certain areas, such as the color and shape sensing areas, and auditory signals only to auditory receiving, and so on, without triggering the other parts. HOWEVER. Synesthetes' brains never quite lose some of the more convoluted sensational paths. (side note: you can also develop synesthesia later in life because the brain is very flexible and very weird. people sometimes gain it after a brain injury, for instance.) anyway, I, personally, seem to route all of my sensations through the color processing area in the brain. I don't know why, but maybe because it seems to be useful to my memory recall systems! When I try to retrieve memories, the first thing I always think of is the color I associate with a memory/concept/thought. Then my brain uses that color as a key to find the related memory/concept/thought.

Wow.

7) Sharing this experience isn't necessary to have synesthesia, but I realize that my synesthesia significantly affects my functioning; due to having two fields of vision that overlap sometimes (like glass being laid over the real world or something), I get easily overwhelmed/overstimulated. And being overwhelmed causes my "synesthesia vision" to overlap MORE with the real world, causing more distress, causing a spiral of overstimulation that I seek to escape via closing my eyes, putting on music in earbuds, or leaving the room. A lot of what I and others had labeled "being shy", I realized, wasn't that I didn't want to be around people; it was my body getting stressed out and overwhelmed and trying to escape the double vision by any means necessary. It also gave me a tendency to dissociate and ignore my body. I become gentler with myself and learn to work with my brain, including knowing when to embrace discomfort and open my senses versus when to accept that the current overwhelm is not helpful and dissociate intentionally and/or remove myself to a quieter environment.

8) present day! I am still learning more about synesthesia and I love talking to people with different forms of it, or people with related conditions like aphantasia (face-blindness / inability to mentally visualize). I also like to argue about it. April is pale purple and I will FIGHT YOU on that.

if you have any questions or comments or things that stood out to you about this you'd like to exclaim over, please feel free to reply or dm or send an ask about it!! I Love Talking About Synesthesia >:D

[rubberduckyrye]

Ok so I found out about this despair mascot AU thing from a piece of fanart that popped up on my for you page on this app, and I've been reading your past posts, and color me intrigued. I don't know if I've seen all the posts, but could you give a quick nutshell version of this? Its making me want to write about it ngl, if you're okay with that of course. All credit of inspiration would go to you

OH MY GOD XNDJCNDJSJS YES GO AHEAD AND WRITE FOR IT IF YOU'D LIKE!!!

An anon had asked this before, but really it's just a crack bunny that just, sprung up like a daisy. Here is a rundown I made for it

The AU was made literally yesterday tho so it's not fleshed out or anything it's just silly nonsense xD

[brockitty-goober]

do u guys want me to finish this comic? I got it all written out but I kinda lost motivation after this part

sorry for saying “greystripe” but I’m Canadian and it’s pronounced ZED >:(

also sorry for saying “how much budget” I know not enough about money 😭

I don’t really wanna type alt text in image desc. cus.

way too long.

so I’ll write it under the cut!!

an aqua/turquoise(?) banner at the top of the picture reads “StarClan and Frostpaw in a nutshell”. Panel one: Riverstar holding his paw out, paw pads facing the sky, pointing at the Moonpool in StarClan. He has an annoyed expression on his face. Windstar sits behind him, a little confused. Riverstar is saying “MOUSE DUNG! Reedwhisker just died too!” and a cartoonish, dead Reedwhisker can be seen in the pool.

Panel two: Riverstar is holding his paws out in frustration and exasperation. He is saying “All we have is an undertrained medicine apprentice!” and a silly-looking Frostpaw can be seen in the pool. Behind him Windstar looks even more confused, stating “Or you could just.. yknow.. send a vision? To a different cat? Because it doesn’t have to be.. a medicine cat..”

Panel three: The back of Riverstar’s head can be seen and Windstar nor the Moonpool is in the shot. He is looking over to Greystripe who is loafing beside some trees. Riverstar is saying “Hey Greystripe, how much budget do we have for visions right now?”

Panel four: Riverstar and Greystripe stand beside each other. Greystripe now has little reading glasses and is writing on a clipboard. Here is their exchange, with Greystripe speaking first:

“Medicine cat or no?”

“Medicine apprentice.”

“RiverClan, correct?”

“Yep.”

Panel five: Greystripe is hidden behind his big clipboard which he is displaying to Riverstar. It only has unintelligible scribbles all over it to represent writing. Riverstar says “THREE MILLION DOLLARS?! We could just BUY a leader with this!”

Panel six: Ditto, but this time the clipboard is on a different page and can be read. It reads, each in different slots, with the expenses beside them: “we go to waffle house (w/ out fire star), -$125”

“another wig for ashfur, -$300”

“dawn of the clans cats want more money for their retirement (why won’t they just fade already), -$25,000”

“Warrior code rule change, -$60”

“Silverstream sues me, -$30,000”

“Millie sues me, -$50,000”

“Mistystar and Reedwhisker, -$90.75”

“Ashfur sues us for not giving him a Dark Forest visa, -$9000”

“TOTAL: $2”

Panel seven: Riverstar looks mortified, saying “‘$2.00’?”

Panel eight: Greystripe is nudging Ravenpaw, who seems to be interrupted from a cat bath. Greystripe has a big smile on his face while Ravenpaw looks really irritated. Greystripe says “I betcha we could get Ravenpaw to lend us a buck.” SFX: *wink wink nudge nudge*

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Adventure Historians

How do people in your world keep track of the past?

Trust me, whether or not a human language has a past tense (a few don’t), people do keep track. Humans are social mammals, like wolves and vampire bats; and so we act, as behaviorists put it, “in anticipation of future reciprocation”. We expect that, for better or worse, whatever we give of our time, energy, and resources, we should eventually get back. That means we have to keep track of what we did, who we did it to, what we anticipate in return, and who didn’t give back when they were supposed to. And that, in a nutshell, means keeping track of history.

Or if you want to look at it from a cultural rather than a biological perspective, history is the ultimate gossip-fest. “Did you hear what they called Duke William before he conquered England? William the Bastard, that’s what! Why, his mother was just a tanner’s daughter....”

Yes. That is actual history.

Too often, these days, history is taught as if it’s all dusty old men digging around in even dustier old books to dredge up and drone on about facts, figures, and battles nobody cares about anymore. This is a horrible lie.

Okay, I do have to grant the whole digging around in dusty books part. (Books, papyrus, cuneiform tablets....) Also dusty newspapers. And microfiche. Baptismal and funeral records. Recordings of people’s oral history. Archaeological reports, and even digs, when you can link a site to a known historical incident. Or even just sometimes, “this site shows structures, possessions, and typical populations of this area and time”. Good historians try to find any information about the time, people, and event they’re researching, so they can gather as many accurate facts (and even some they know are in dispute) as possible.

And then they try to pull it all together into a coherent whole of, “this is what I think happened.”

Good historians tell a story.

So the fantasy trope of adventurers tracking down a loremaster who then tells them the warning tale of the ancient kingdom’s fall, and where those monsters and treasures were thought to have gone afterward? That scans.

The only thing is, instead of all those tomes on the shelves being spellbooks? They’re probably historical chronicles, records of taxes, special pleadings to be relieved of taxes due to famine/war/what have you-

(A necromancer raised the whole graveyard and we had to pacify thousands of ghosts, Boss, it was horrible-!)

-Weird court cases, and all the gossip the loremaster and his predecessors could coax out of the royals and town mayors going back the last five centuries. Oh, and all the loremaster’s notes, likely fluttering across desks and shelves like a trail of raven-scattered pages, weighted down by skulls, glass orbs, and one really neat rock.

(If it’s an SF setting the scatter may be less physical but I’m sure no less eclectic. Also there will be physical notes. Historians get paranoid about having records for the future that last!)

In your setting, someone knows history. Officially or otherwise. Which leads to all kinds of adventure hooks. Who knows where to find the hidden item, or heir? Who even knows what questions to ask?

On the other hand, maybe your main character is the historian, out to fill in a hole in the records and find out exactly what happened when that meteor hit....

[etherealising]

Hi Vee!!! I hope you’re doing well and congratulations on 1K woot woot <3! I was wondering what some of your favorite songs are right now and what are some of the songs that remind you of aiekoy currently? For me it’s definitely Pigment by HER, unthinkable by Alicia Keys, and Do4Love by Snoh Allegra both sonically and lyrically are what I usually listen to when reading aiekoy!

bestie bestie bestie…i hope you’re sat and ready for this presentation you’re about to receive. also the pfp is so cute i love that for you!! 🥰

firstly i am doing well thank you for inquiring, i hope the same could be said for you my love! also 1k wowie! most are bots and pages that don’t interact but we’ll take our wins where we can get them! please babe prepare yourself for this behemoth of a post! 💕

some of my fav songs atm are…

nothing matters - the last dinner party

this song makes me feel like i’m a witch in salem and my neighbor wants me hanged because he thinks i seduced his wife with witchcraft but we’re actually just two ladies in love

history of man - maisie peters

i’m a whore for greek mythology references and girly pop got me

rapstar - polo g

word for word bar for bar i could sing this song drunk

megan’s piano - meg thee stallion

dare say this is my hype song (could also sing this song faded out of my mind)

slow burn - infinity song

gives me 90s vibes and i love anything they put out (it inspired aiekoy chapter 12 heavily)

walk like this - flo

listen flo has been doing it right since cardboard box i don’t play about these girlies!!!!

the way things go - beabadoobee

i actually have a carmy one-shot based on lyrics from this song 🥲

songs that remind me of aiekoy:

only you - yazoo

i mean this one feels kind of obvious to me, it literally inspired this whole fic and without it aiekoy would have never seen the light of day.

cybah - syd/lucky daye

listen okay, this song just speaks to my sole and i promise you everytime i hear these lyrics i can see baby and carmy in my minds eye just going through so many different scenes its absolutely crazy. this song is just so intimate to me and it reminds me of the soft intimacy barby shares.

loved by you - kirby

this song is so carmy coded it inspired an upcoming interlude and anytime i hear it all i can think about is barby (mostly carmy) and all the scenes i have planned to write about in interlude 3. this song gives me very much carmy’s internal dialogue throughout this series and that’s basically what the interlude is as well. this song also really inspired me to keep writing this series when i was ready to just give up on it and idk it just holds a special place in my heart (also shoutout to s1e4 of the bear for introducing me to this song 😭)

ros - mac miller

i feel like this is so out of left field but it just fits! also very carmy coded imo just hearing this song immediately makes me think of barby and lyrically i just feel like it fits them almost perfectly (also heavily gives carmy’s internal monologue).

honorable mentions:

achy bones - ash the ghost

dark red - steve lacy

i like the way you love me - brenton wood

back in town - florence + the machine

bestie brattyb’s immaculate music taste:

pigment

literally gagged me, i was not ready for that! i love the mixture of singing and spoken word it was so beautiful and i feel like it balances the love and toxicity that can sometimes be present in relationships and it screams barby. you really put me on with this one bestie it was such a good choice!!!

unthinkable

a classic really miss keys rarely misses. listening to this song i could literally see scenes between carmy and baby playing out in my head which is always inspires me to write. like oh my goodness how have i not considered this song before this is literally barby’s relationship in a nutshell!

do4love

bestie you really have superior music taste. this gives me like the ‘missing’ years between carmy and baby. especially baby trying to move on and create a life outside of her love for carmy and her little Chicago gang.

i genuinely love you so much for all the constant support you have given me and this funny little series i decided to write, also thank you so much for participating in my 1k celebration your ask forced me to go through the aiekoy playlist and remember why i love writing this series so must and it has really inspired me to keep writing for aiekoy!!

please enjoy the long awaited playlist i’ve been meaning to share (apologies in advance there’s some random songs that def don’t belong and i’m too lazy to delete) 🫶🏽🤍

[literaticat]

Is it better to include an elevator pitch or not in a query? As an example, if the query is three paragraphs plus a bio, should it also have a one sentence elevator pitch at the top - do you recommend that or is it optional/doesn't matter either way? Which is better - elevator pitch, 3 paragraphs describing book, then bio, sign off or 3 paragraphs describing book (or 2 in some cases), bio, sign off, no one sentence pitch at top? I feel an agent might just read the first line then decide?

I have no questions in the inbox, but this was sitting in drafts for like -- a year? Haha. Sorry, original asker! I'm going to put this in the FAQ under Querying, as it's sort of the definitive "this is what you put in a query" answer, I think.

To answer your question: There are a lot of people who have a lot of rules and tips for queries, and here's what they DON'T usually tell you:

It doesn't really matter what order you put the elements of your query in, or three paragraphs vs two, or whatever whatever. Just include all the information we ask for and make it short enough to fit on a page. These are the ONLY two "technical" rules. Other than that - we just want it to be compelling. We want it to make us want to read the book. So make it how you like it! What sounds good to YOU?

Now. What you are calling the "elevator pitch", I'd call a log-line actually. I consider an elevator pitch to be something you are delivering in person - like if somebody asks, "hey what is your book about", your answer is nutshell elevator pitch. A log-line is a little shorter -- just the very top-of-the-treeline description about what we are about to look at.

Personally, if I were writing a query letter, I'd probably go like this:

Salutation: Dear so-and-so,

Short intro paragraph: I'm querying you for A REASON / I met you at A PLACE, etc. I'm delighted to share TITLE, a CATEGORY complete at WORDCOUNT about LOGLINE.

About the Book: 1 to 3 paragraphs. Mine would probably be two paragraphs: ONE paragraph about the book, expanding the log-line, ANOTHER short paragraph to wrap up the first paragraph as necessary.

Bio: Previous publications if applicable, if not just a little something about yourself.

Sign off: With social media handles, etc.

For example:

#1 - Salutation

#2 - Intro

I have such fun listening to your podcast, and when I saw on social media that you are a sloth fan, I figured it was kismet and I should send this your way! SLOTH COPS is a twisty MG whodunit complete at 60,000 words, about two polar opposite sloth police detectives who must team up if they are to have a hope of catching the mysterious tortoise murderer plaguing their city.

#3, flesh that logline out:

Captain of the Sloth Squad Callisto Jenkins is an experienced veteran on the force; she's seen it all in her day, and has the gallows humor to prove it. Officer Stormy McNair is a rookie on the beat, desperate to make his bones as detective and prove to every doubter that so-called "bad sloths" like him CAN solve crimes. A foolish mistake during an investigation causes Callisto to take Stormy's badge and gun away and consign him to desk duty, but the hothead rookie can't stand being benched and figures out a way to get involved with Callisto's last case before retirement -- the case of the Tortoiseville Strangler.

#3.5, close out the pitch part:

The strangler doesn't take kindly to sloth cops on his turf, and Stormy and Callisto soon find themselves embroiled in a case that is much bigger and more sinister than they could have imagined. It will take Callisto's patience and dedication to the hunt combined with Stormy's brazen attitude and quick wit to get them out of the Strangler's lair with their necks intact, and put the shadowy tortoise killer behind bars where he belongs.

#4 Bio :

I'm Fiona Q Whittlestone, and I'm a professional private detective, which sadly, is a lot less exciting day-to-day than movies would have you believe! I live in Palm Springs, CA, with a 100 year old Desert Tortoise named Ambrose who, as far as I know, has never committed a crime. SLOTH COPS is my first novel.

#5: Sign-Off

--

Now - 1 and 5 obviously have to stay where they are. In my opinion, 2/3/4 make the most sense in that order, and that's about the right amount of room for them. But if you wanna do a hooky log-line, then the about, then the nuts-and-bolts -- that's fine! If you'd rather introduce yourself THEN put the description of the book and then the nuts and bolts -- or you need only one paragraph for the book -- or you need three paragraphs for the book but it still fits on one page -- that's fine! We just need all the info, and we need it on one page. That's it.

[storieschats]

ACOTAR reactions: Plot reveal and a hard time letting Tamlin go

Note: Check out previous reactions here. Feel free to comment, reblog, like and talk to be about books whenever!

Book 1 Page 304 of 419

What's happened so far: Ok if the last 100 pages were slice of life, this ones I just read were exposition,exposition,exposition. So we start with Tamlin and Feyre getting into a sort of a relationship, there's a solstice party yada yada but the guy who's going to be our love interest turns up and we find out his name is Rhysand and that he's the high lord or whatever of the night court. He finds out that Feyre is there and makes threats, Tamlin sends Feyre back home, she meets up with her family again and more or less makes up with them and says she's in love with Tamlin and is going to come back to help him. When she returns, the house is destroyed and we discover basically the whole plot that we didn't know about. In a nutshell, there is no disease, the only disease is a human-hating gal who has tricked and conquered the high lords and cursed Tamlin because he doesn't want to be with her. And the curse is that he had to make a human who hated and killed a fairie fall in love with him. Feyre is remorseful and goes to save him. She makes a deal with our evil girl whose name is Amarantha. Now I'm going to get into fulfilling the deal part.

What I think so far: I like it! It's has quite a lot of fantasy! It's a good book for escapism, which is something I like in books. Like when you're reading, you feel like you're in another world for a couple of minutes.

Positive points:

Honestly, I kind of liked our villain, as a villain obviously, she's horrible but she's kind of fun horrible. I'm having fun with her evilness.

I could see what Rhysand's personality was going to be like in like 3 lines because I’m so used to the tropes that you just feel are going to be used and I decided I will probably like him as a character.

Ok the fairies are a bit more evil, I like it, give me evil fae folk.

Negative points:

Still feel sorry for Tamlin, not gonna lie. Our guy is going through a lot just to be dumped. I’m kinda worried about what I’m gonna feel about the change in romantic interest.

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐

Predictions: Obviously she passes all the tests and frees Tamlin (probably with the help of Rhysand who, as we've all realised, really hates Amarantha and is just pretending not to). Obviously there will be shenanigans and things that will go wrong during the tests, I was just stating the final conclusion.

After friend gets worried about me liking Amarantha: Yes, I hate her too, but that's why she's funny as a villain. She's a fun villain to read about, evil to the point of irredeemable sure, but a good villain nonetheless.

After friend gets worried about me feeling sorry for Tamlin: Okay, I'll try to feel less sorry for Tamlin. Rhysand is going to be our dark boy with a sad past and I will have to move on from Tamlin.

[indigozeal]

Game translation project delay

Earlier this year, a game translation project which I had been trying to get off the ground for a very long time was surprise-announced by another team member, with a release implied to be imminent. I'm not going to mention the name of the project in the body of this post for Woolie Madden reasons—I don't think we should have tempted the Fates then, and I don't think we should any further—but if you've happened across this page, you know what it is. I had myself mentioned that I had already translated 90% of this game's Super Famicom script, a number the team member making the announcement quoted, and one which I stand by. Yet here we are several months later, and I'm still deep in work.

In short: the translation's the holdup. I'm informed that technical reasons make using the original SFAM game for a patch prohibitively difficult. However: the version of the game I understand we have to use has expanded greatly on that original SFAM game, adding a number of events and much more text—plus a second protagonist choice with mostly unique events and dialogue—while revising some of the existing script. Translating & editing all this new material, in addition to editing the entire script, old and new, for length and inserting it line-by-line, is unavoidably taking a good amount of time. While I've been presented with a method that attempts to create a script for the game using a combination of Google Translate, what I translated for the SFAM version, and guesses from non-translating members of the team, I strongly felt that the results did not deliver in terms of quality, accuracy, fluency, or characterization, so I asked, and was promised, complete responsibility for the script side of the project.

That's the reason for the delay. I, as the translator, am the rate-determining step. That's due to a decision I made for the quality of the project—I want to deliver a good patch, one that reflects the game & characters accurately and of which everyone can be proud—and the consequences of that decision are my responsibility. Given my current work rate, I'm going to shoot to complete the translation side of this project six months from now; emergencies or unexpected developments may change this, but I think it's doable.

That's the nutshell version, and I apologize to anyone whose hopes were gotten up by the announcement earlier in the year. There really isn't a way to short-circuit the time investment required for the translation, for reasons explained at length below. If you'd like a more in-depth explanation, please proceed past the cut.

A bit of background

I've been a longtime fan of a romance-oriented Japanese game & media franchise aimed at women that founded an entire gaming genre but, except for one TV series, has never had any sort of official release outside Japan. There'd been some talk in the fandom of how nice it would be if the franchise's foundational, genre-defining game, for the Super Famicom, finally got an English patch—for historical purposes; to give the franchise a bit more recognition outside Japan; just so that the English-speaking fans could play. However: the game's script was notoriously huge, and no one wanted to climb that mountain. (The game's lovey-dovey, frilly subject material also doesn't typically appeal to the folks who fill up romhacking.)

I was exactly the type of unreasonable person equipped for this task, however. I've been involved in hobby game-translation projects for…well, decades now. I also translate professionally and have worked in game translation on projects for Square, Sega, Bandai Namco, Koei, and others, as chronicled in part on this blog. I also had one huge advantage for this game: the publisher had released a book containing almost its entire script. It took a great deal of time, but a few years ago, I finished and posted a translation of the script book.

Attracting someone to insert this script into a patch, though, proved a problem. One obstacle, I learned, was the immediate lack of a file pairing the English translations with the Japanese lines; I'd thought I'd attack this once a patch project started and I got proper script dump files, but not having a paired version of what had been translated immediately prepared was a turnoff, I guess. I therefore set to work producing one. In the meantime, I was indeed contacted by a few folks with some interest in producing a patch, but I didn't subsequently hear of any progress.

About a year ago, though, shortly after I started on that "paired" version of the script, I was contacted by a very interested and motivated individual who claimed they could use the script to produce a patch for the game. One thing, however: there were issues with the coding of the SFAM version that made producing a patch for it prohibitively difficult. (I know very little of the tech side of producing patches and am not equipped to provide an explanation, but this was not the first time I'd heard this about the SFAM game. I had persisted in translating the SFAM script in the hopes that the issue was resolvable, as the SFAM version is the historic, genre-founding title and the folks with reservations self-admittedly hadn't looked very deeply, but evidently, the problem is indeed a serious obstacle.) As a solution, this person asked if I'd be willing to work on a patch for a later, more-technically-manageable rerelease of the game on the DS. I readily agreed.

A while after, two more folks joined the project on the tech side, evidently with a solution to an issue that was frustrating progress on the DS version. They offered to produce a version of the patch for the PS1 version alongside the DS version; I agreed. (I eventually learned, however, that this would involve extra work, that of producing a second version of the script to accommodate the PS1 version's different per-line character limits.)

What exactly are you doing right now?

In brief: when agreeing to produce a version of the script for the rereleases, I didn't anticipate how much they expanded on the original game.

While the original version has a single, set protagonist, the expanded versions allow you to choose to play as her rival. The choice isn't limited to a simple swapping out of names in dialogue; each protagonist has her own unique versions of events, plus unique dialogue from the nine love interests. (Some dialogue is shared, but about two-thirds of it, I'd say, is tailored to the choice of protagonist.)

Dialogue from the love interests has been greatly expanded to flesh out characterization. For example, in the original game, if you asked one of the love interests his opinion on one of the others, he'd respond with a generic message of approval, disapproval, or indifference based on his current regard for the other man. In the remakes, however, each love interest has a unique set of approval/disapproval/indifference messages for each of the other eight suitors. In other words, where there were once three different messages, there are now twenty-four, each on average significantly longer than the originals.

There are numerous new events and activities: cafe and skygazing dates, letter-writing, cooking, finding lost objects, etc., all with unique dialogue for each protagonist and love interest, making for a base of eighteen variations. Many have additional variations based on other parameters.

Some of the dialogue that's still present in the remake has been revised from the original.

Again: what I had originally produced was a text translation of the script book to the Super Famicom version of the game. The script book was not complete—it focused on exhaustive enumerations of love interest dialogue and elided NPC dialogue—but I believe it has about 90% of the original game's text. With the remake, though, there's a lot more work to do.

My tasks are numerous. The script files I've been given generally sort dialogue by event. For each file, I have to identify the specific event they concern, then go line by line to ascertain the speaker of each line and the circumstances under which each is said from context (as this information isn't marked) as well as determine if the text is old or new. If it's old, I have to find the translation in the script-book file and match it to the source text; if it's new, I have to translate it—and also check it against a new script book for the new version, as certain changeable or user-definable proper nouns, such as protagonist names and various locations an event can take place, are for tech reasons not reliably represented in the script dump files. For all dialogue, I have to edit translations to match character and line limits, putting in line breaks and sometimes rewording text or, as a last resort, cutting it—and since the character limit per line is different for the PS1 and DS versions, I have to produce two versions. (In fairness, I don't have to, but the extra space in the DS version is useful on occasion, and dialogue boxes might look odd if I don't use real estate properly.)

It's a lot. However: it's not that different than what I do as a professional game translator (with extra steps), and I'm uniquely equipped to tackle this particular job thanks to having translated the SFAM script book and being very familiar with the characters from following the franchise for years.

I can do all this, but it takes time. That's what holding up the patch.

No, AI can't help

Not long after the announcement, one of the team members informed me that they intended to produce the patch using a method where Google Translate versions of the script files were combined with parts of my original translation and guesses from non-translating members of the team as to what lines meant. They shared an example—an attempt at an English-language version of the introductory segment of the DS game produced using this method. (I had translated the SFAM introduction, but, as with all matters, the DS version greatly expanded on the SFAM version.) I had not been informed previously about this plan.

I took a look, and I felt very strongly that the results did not live up to the standard I wanted for this franchise's English-language debut. There were numerous errors in translation, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The English used wasn't fluent. Characters no longer had unique voices—they all sounded the same, and characterization was completely absent.

(I have to say: despite the importance of the other issues, the gutting of characterization was the biggest knife for me. The game was so successful in pioneering its genre due in great part to its attention to characterization, which I worked hard to reflect in my translation. Seeing all that work torn up in favor of an AI translation that was not only not up to the task linguistically but torched everything that made the game unique frankly hurt.)

The Google Translate script is not exactly usable.

This isn't Google Translate's fault. The script files are typically formatted to present, line by line, just one side of a conversation in all its numerous variations—either for one love interest in all possible permutations (variants depending on your affinity with him etc.), or for all love interests who can have this conversation. There's no overt signal in the file that the speaker or scenario is shifting; you have to realize who's speaking and in what circumstances from context and speaking style. Google Translate can't glean the context it needs to deliver an effective translation when dialogue is presented in this manner, and you can't infuse it with the franchise or script knowledge it needs to make the right calls about speaker/scenario/etc.

Other obstacles: The dialogue is presented line by line, so Google Translate is going to translate line by line, which leads to choppy dialogue. Characterization is frequently communicated in elements like verb endings and sentence-ending particles that Google Translate overlooks or doesn't convert well or that can be translated in multiple ways depending on context. Conversations also have a number of short lines that are also heavily context-dependent, where trying to translate them context-free via the line-by-line method leads to inane translations. There are more; any experienced translator could probably expound further on why using Google Translate in this scenario is a bad idea. You need an experienced translator with franchise knowledge to tackle this project.

I also don't expect the folks on the technical side of the team to attempt to translate—it's not their job, any more than romhacking is my job.

I would have been derelict in my duty as a translator if I let the patch go forward in this state. I didn't, and don't, feel that a Google Translate patch would deliver any value—there are programs out there that can Google Translate dialogue boxes in roms automatically, if that's what you want. This is a historic game, and I feel it deserves a patch that showcases the qualities that made it special for its English-language debut. If we delivered a patch that was incoherent and characterless, the franchise would be tainted in the English market, and the team would be nailed to the wall. From my job, being the one equipped to gauge quality in this department, I knew what public reception of a patch in this state would be, and I didn't want the rest of the team or me to suffer that. (To be selfish, a poor-quality patch would also have professional repercussions for me, as pros do watch the fan scene, and trying to pass off AI, much less AI that's not up to the task, as your own work is, rightfully, a huge black mark on your reputation.) Also, to be blunt: I didn't start this project years ago to spit AI all over this game.

I sent them an email explaining the issues above to the relevant team member, and I asked to have full responsibility for the script side of the project. They agreed.

There was also an attempt by a team member to use AI to help with editing that didn't bear fruit. One of the non-translating team members tried to help with my workload by taking the lines I'd edited for the 38-character DS line length and trying to re-edit them for the 33-character PS1 line length with AI assistance. I was not initially informed of this difference in line lengths or the need for two scripts. I discovered it only upon accessing the group versions of the script files on the cloud drive and discovering that a number of formatting and translation errors had been introduced into files I'd previously edited, some rather basic: the Japanese verb for "to eat" had been mistaken for the one meaning "to rest," for instance. Upon inquiring, I discovered what had happened, and as a result, it was clarified that I would be handling editing for both versions and reworking the files affected to restore the translation and remove the errors produced. I appreciate the attempt to alleviate my workload, but there's by nature a hard linguistic wall involved with editing, and the attempt just created more work.

So the other team members have experimented with using AI, but it hasn't produced anything usable—honestly, it just kind of screws up everything it touches. (If I'd been aware of the attempts to use AI on the project beforehand, I would have reached out and explained why they wouldn't have worked.) I'll state right now that my vision for this patch absolutely does not, and never did, include Google Translate or other AI or LLMs: as a professional translator, I have no need to use AI to translate; it would not expedite the translation due to the particulars detailed above; and I care too much about the quality of this project to farm any part of it out to AI. I mention it because a lot of folks, particularly tech folks, have more confidence in AI than I do, having worked with it extensively for my job and knowing well its capabilities and limitations. It can be useful in certain situations, but it's not omnipotent, and it's not suited for this project.

"Hey, would it help to get an additional translator?"

Honestly, not at this point, no, for several reasons.

One, the work to be done requires a great deal of previous familiarity with the script. Remember, the script for the roms exists in a bunch of files with the lines are generally (but not always) sorted by event, where the individual speakers and the nature of the event itself have to be inferred from context or just plain recognized from experience. The lines also aren't typically organized to present a complete conversation, usually going through all the iterations of one side of the conversation character by character. A good deal of the work is recognizing context and speakers for the lines and whether they're already-translated material or entirely new or old lines that have been changed, so that existing translations can be matched or new, context-appropriate translations can be written. You really need to know your way around the script to do that. I'm equipped to do that, since I've translated the script book for the SFAM version; that's a tall ask for someone coming in cold. We tried it previously, and it didn't work. (It also helps if you have previous familiarity with the characters and how they speak, not only to identify when they're speaking, but to translate what they're saying in a character-appropriate manner. The latter isn't impossible without that familiarity—it's how games are typically translated—but it's way easier if you come in with that knowledge.)

Two, this is a character-intensive game with a huge amount of nuanced character writing to reflect in the English translation, and that calls for a certain degree of translation and just plain writing ability. Many of the devices used to communicate that nuance are easily overlooked unless you have a lot of translation experience. (I'm speaking from my own development as a translator here: you can reach a point where declarative sentences like the narration in a world guide or Ultimania are within your grasp but the nuances of conversation are just going to elude you.) Plus: even if you identify and understand the Japanese text, you still have to be able to phrase it in English fluently, in an accurate and character-appropriate manner. This whole set of skills is another ask.

Three, this is a niche title for the West whose massive script was notorious for repelling translators. "Hey, guess what! I'm working on a version that I've discovered is even more massive and interminable!" does not make the project more enticing.

Four, it's way harder to vet translators nowadays, and it would consume resources on my end I'd rather put toward getting the dang thing done. The rise of LLMs has given rise to a number of folks eager to take over translation duties on a project who have just one or two semesters of Japanese but think Google Translate can make up for the rest. (You might say, "hold on, you just mentioned that this project repels translators; why would someone like that sign up for this?", but that's kind of the thing: it'd attract those who don't know enough to know what they're getting into.) In a conversation- and context-heavy project like this, where AI is going to fall down hard, those people are going to hit a wall very quickly, which leads to difficult conversations that I'd really rather not have—but would have to have, since I'm the translator who started this whole thing, and it's my responsibility to deliver a quality product.

Furthermore, a lot of this can be difficult to communicate to the type of people who would be most enthusiastic about AI at the present moment. I love you, tech people. I love you. But I have gotten the impression over the years that some tech folks in the rom-patching scene regard translators and translations as kind of valueless and interchangeable because, you know, words are all the same, who really cares. It's already an uphill battle to convince some folks that words, the type of words you use, matter, and I'm afraid my forces are already fully engaged on one front (the script itself).

Even if the volunteer were heaven-sent, due diligence in ascertaining their divine status would take a lot of energy, and after the stumbles we've had, I just want to get this done, and just want to rely on a method I know from experience will work instead of chasing down more blind alleys.

Real-life issues! We've got real-life issues here!

I will also note, by way of explanation, that I have had a number of personal things happen that have resulted in delays on my end, which I will recite here for entertainment's sake: I got bronchitis twice in succession (I had it for a week, got better for a week, and then got it again, worse, for another week) and became as sick as I've been in my adult life. There's been an issue with a property in my family to which I've had to tend, involving lawyers extensively. I got an opportunity this year to work professionally on one of the most storied franchises in gaming, to which I had to dedicate a suitable amount of time, as well as other professional translation projects that demanded my attention. I've had to travel extensively for personal reasons, and not fun, vacation-type travel—travel that involved a good deal of work, physical and professional. I had fallout from a client who wanted me to cheat on my taxes to cover for an accounting issue on their end and submitted falsified documents to the IRS. Also, after a lifetime of avoiding, by luck or otherwise, such situations, I have had a problem with being harassed by not one but two completely unrelated individuals, one of whom became physically violent with me. (Not very successfully, but the attempt itself was disturbing.)

To paraphrase from Jurassic Park, I'm sure, dear reader, you are sorry for my problems, but they are my problems. But I recite this to communicate it's not been all Lazy Translator Fun Time over here, and at times, though my spirit has been willing to work on this translation, my schedule has been weak. Or too strong, rather. This doesn't make the delay go down any more easily, but it has been a practical concern.

---

So that's the status report. In brief: I'm asking for six months to get this done, AI-free, and I thank you for your patience (both with the delay and in reading this).

[hussyknee]

Does reading a lot of books "count" if they're all only popular light-read novels? As opposed to classics and literary fiction and whatever 600-page in-betweens are called. I can tear through all of Cat Sebastian (who's either hit or very, very miss for me) before I can pick up, like, Sharon Kay Penman, even though they're both popular historical novellists, because SKP's are about real historical figures and wars where a lot of horrible things happen to people. So of course my brain is convinced that SKP's novels "count" more than CS's, because it only counts if you have to struggle through an emotional morrass that makes you feel glad to live in climate collapse because at least nobody is sticking people's heads on spikes anymore.

This is also why I can only stand well back from literary fiction and poke it with a stick like I'm waiting for rats and snakes to jump out because, afaik, most of them are about people being sad and ruminating on the Human Condition. I don't get why I have to read about that, given I'm a sad person who's trapped in the Human Condition.

(I sometimes think the people that write these things are either so removed from the unwashed masses that they can look at them like a science experiment or five inches from offing themselves at all times. Presumably some of them are those mythical Normal People who have somehow emerged from the existential soup without any mental illnesses. Idk. How tf do you write fiction about real human pain that isn't even self-indulgent whump fic? I'm still trying to recover from having read Ninety-One Whiskey four years ago.)

You'd think the solution would be to just read some escapist fantasy, except the serious non-YA adjacent stuff that get submitted for Hugo awards (or Netflix and HBO adapations that shit all over the source material) are also about Bad Things Happening To People. I suppose this is better than white Christian manifest destiny bullshit like Lord of the Rings* where Bad Things Only Happened to Boromir, whose fans are the kind of people who think Gone With The Wind is a literary classic instead of Ku Klux Klan propaganda or people like me who are pathologically obsessed with conservative white bullshit**. And yet have I ever picked up NK Jemisin, who seems to be for all intents and purposes the queen of decolonial high fantasy? Of course not. Better to bear that media where Bad Things Only Happen To Imbibers Of This Racist Bullshit, than fly to others Where Bad Things Happen To The Characters that we know not of***.

It's really fucking hard to be extremely mentally ill and have OCD that won't let you DNF stuff that bores and distresses you and makes you think anything that lets you have safe, happy fun is just easy mode riffraff of no nutritional value.

***Still trying to figure out where Guy Gavriel Kay fits in. Without, you know, just reading the damn books.

**Tbh the reason conservative white bs is so appealing is because conservatives genuinely believe in the Just World theory. They rationalize the chaos of reality by assuming that the world used to make sense and work the way it should until Bad People happened to it, and it can be restored to its rightful glory if we can just root out all the shit that upended the old order. That's fascism in a nutshell and why its so deeply seductive even to people suffering under it.

*No, I'm not going to explain why LoTR is smuggling white supremacy. Y'all care more about defending the intentions of white men living in the fading era of the British empire than understanding how they could possibly have internalised white Christian supremacy that informs their writings about Fair, Enlightened Folk of the West yearning for a mythical past where they reigned supreme. Figure it out.

[bookremedies]

For the aspiring novelist: Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murikami

After my first novel writing attempt 9 years ago I stayed away from creative writing altogether. That was back in my mid-twenties after years of blogging and short story writing.

James Patterson had just released his Masterclass "James Patterson Teaches Writing" and after working my way through some of the lessons, I decided to try turning one of my sci-fi story ideas into a novel length work.

I now realise that the story lacked substance to go the distance of a novel but at the time I couldn't understand why it was so hard to slow the pace of the story down.

Some stories are just not supposed to be novels.

I had headed straight to the keyboard to flesh out the first chapter but found myself rewriting the same part of the book over and over again.

It was miserable writing and at the time I'd thought to myself "Really, what is the point anyway? It''s not like anyone is going to publish this." Not long after, I launched my first business which took up a lot of my time and creative juices.

So that was that. I put the story aside (I actually have no idea where it went...) and turned my attention to the world of business and marketing.

Despite feeling the tug to write again numerous times, it wasn't until I read this book late last year that I truly understood where I'd gone wrong all those years ago, and what I needed to do differently if I were to turn my attention to writing once again.

Needless to say, "Novelist as a Vocation" by Haruki Murikami was a game changer for me.

In a nutshell, what Murikami helped me realise was that novel writing was much more about habit, routine, patience and practice than it was about perfect prose, artistic torment and sheer talent.

And contrasting with James Patterson's approach of gathering, planning and structure, Murikami's method of "clocking in and clocking out" to fulfil a quota of written pages each day just made sense for the way I like to work.

I'm also grateful that I read this book during time away from work whilst traveling and in need of a creative outlet. I'd just wrapped up my business and had been accepted for a new full-time job (a job that would allow me to keep my evenings and weekends free to continue my creative pursuit). So as I read, I began to write and I could understand in my own practice what Murikami was explaining from his experience.

For instance, instead of being in the analytical, research mindset, I found myself adopting a free flow style of words pouring out onto the page. I let the characters appear and make the decisions and began to experience the joy of allowing the story to write itself.

I understand what Murikami means when he talks about being a "faithful scribe" to the events playing out in his mind - that's what writing feels like to me now and it's so much fun!

I have not yet experienced writer's block during writing the first 6 chapters of my new novel (WIP): "Children of the Gods" (@childrenofthegodsau) and I attribute this to what I learnt from this work.

A word of warning though. If you're reading NAAV in the English translation (I cannot speak for the original Japanese or other language translations) you may, like me, find the almost exclusive adoption of the "he" pronoun used for "the novelist" to be incredibly grating.

Occasionally an "or she" is thrown in but sadly there is not a single singular "they" pronoun used throughout the work. If you can get past that (honestly a struggle and distraction for me at many points when reading) there are many gold nuggets to extract from this book.

And of course, whilst there is no such thing as a silver bullet, I do believe that for many aspiring novelists out there, this book is bound to be helpful in one way or the other.

Truly grateful to Murikami for sharing these insights!

Happy Reading!

Loz