#but I'm happy that some of you out there like my translations uwu

[rakkuntoast]

Your talks about Missa's mischaracterization are exactly why I made a post specifically asking for Missa mains to give me their analyses for me to reference in Awake Me From My Nightmare.

I even went as far as to slap some parts of the post in Google Translate encouraging Spanish qsmp fans to reply to me and I'd just have someone translate their analysis for me. Which I did (thank u Kami ily). And I was so fucking happy when more of my responses came from Spanish speaking fans than English. Peak QSMP moment <3

But anyway yeah. Missa's characterization has been lowkey my biggest concern writing the fic tbh. I wanna do him justice. He definitely isn't written as a pathetic woobified uwu cinnamon roll, that's for sure.

I've been staring very hard at the paragraphs people gave me on his character and I THINK I've been doing a decent job at balancing the "gets overwhelmed by things" wet cat side Crows see AND the "um actually he could kick your ass and can be a bitchy little shit" reality?? Mans is getting lots of moments where he's like "fuck this" and gets ready to Literally Fight God. There's still lots of tears, but like, if YOUR husband was in front of you covered in his own blood and lookin like he's rapidly wasting away in real time, you'd be an emotional wreck too. So I'm decently confident in his characterization, but I still have that "AAAAA I HOPE I'M DOING THIS RIGHT" worry. 100% gonna be clinging to comments from readers about if I did him justice. So far I've characterized everyone (Phil, Fit, Etoiles) super well according to readers. 😭🙏🏻 Hoping I keep up the streak with Missa in Chapter 3.

The discussion you've been having is exactly why I'm doing my best to do him actual justice. And I might actually read back through your posts and translate the Spanish bits just to get even more insight. I don't see enough people talking about qMissa like this.

And on a semi-related note, GOD I wish there were more YouTube clip compilations of Missa moments. Like idec if they're not just qsmp, I want more of them in general!! Idk if I just wasn't searching well enough or what but when I went looking a while back, there were MAYBE 2 videos at all, let alone Eng subtitled so I could understand them. And rooting through Tumblr for clips is a pain. 💀

Tldr thanks for talking abt this Rakk, this is exactly why I've been busting my ass trying to not write Missa reduced to one trait or the other. Tbh I've been seeking out proper analysis/understanding of qMissa even before I was writing him in a fic. Bc I KNOW what we Crows see is a fraction of his character.

ISAAAA you're doing God's work honestly, the "fights God through tears" is peak qmissa characterization akfknsjx

I do think we need more translated Missa content, sadly like the best thing you can get is qsmp clips translated or someone on twt decided to translate this one bit from his videos (like him having a crush on a pineapple)

it's sad that it doesn't get talked about how clever the guy is and while the fix is pretty easy (just getting more missasaurios to talk about him) it's just a case of bothering to translate stuff cuz that shit takes time and effort

as well as missa's miscaracterization not being talked about as much cuz a lot of the ppl who talk abt him are English crows who think he's a sopping wet cat<- i am BEGGING for people to unlearn this word it's making me insane

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Spoiling You With All My Might -- Comte Collection Story Translation

I've been meaning to post this one for a while, as it's honestly in my top ten Comte events of all time. For this Collection story event, it was basically all the suitors comforting MC when she's stressed/tired/overworked. And lbr, who doesn't need that in their life?

Enjoy everyone, and just a reminder that I'm no professional--I just translate these for my own enjoyment. Without further ado:

In the early afternoon, when the hands on the clock are pointing to 3pm-- I was alone drinking tea in a quiet kitchen. (I’ve been busy lately…I think I’m a little burnt out.) My cup of tea was already empty, but somehow I didn’t have the energy to stand up-- Comte: MC, are you taking a break? Turning around revealed Comte standing in the middle of the doorway.

Okay but like. I gotta say just the thought of him peeking around the corner is killing me, he's the cutest man alive I swear

But also. Now I'm wondering if he's lowkey like IS IT MEOW MEOW TIME? MEOW MEOW T I M E!!!!!! pounces on the opportunity for quality time. Somehow that's even more adorable I'm going to explode from uwus

MC: Indeed I am. Would you like to have some tea, too? Comte: That’s an attractive invitation, but if you don’t mind, would you spend some time with me for a little while after this? MC: Go out with you…? Comte: I’m thinking of going for a walk. Would you like to join me? His hand was outstretched in a gentlemanly gesture that touched/eased my heart. MC: Haha, I’d love to.

I laughed a little at this because I'm definitely the kind of person that's like "omg pls, you are not beating the silly goose allegations!!!" over him being all suave over a walk together but. At the same time. HEART EYES M-- King of romantics everywhere. Gentleman of my heart. Mellifluous seducer have MERCY

More under the cut!

Comte’s escort led me to a forest a short walking distance from the mansion. As I walk alongside him, the sunbeams penetrate through the trees as they sway with the breeze. Comte: The weather is lovely today, making it a perfect occasion for a walk. MC: You’re right…the wind feels nice, too. As I walked slowly listening to the rustling trees, I could feel the fatigue/tension draining out of me little by little. (It feels like my heart is being cleansed. It’s so soothing…) Comte: … It was then that I noticed Comte gazing at me calmly.

As somebody who used to be plus ultra literally every minute of my life, this made me so softe inside. The way he cares so much about her ;-; he really said "I will die before I disrespect a girlboss, but also. I am here. For to help PLS. Also a crumb of attention...p l swleseskje...."

(Ah…by any chance) MC: Comte Comte: Yes? MC: …You invited me out for a change of pace, didn’t you? Comte smiled softly at my words. Comte: I just wanted to take a walk with you like this.

I do love how, especially in recent events, MC notices his gestures more and more 🥺💛💛💛💛💛💛 I think it's really cute that he wants to be sneaky sweet and supportive, and whenever she realizes it he's like. C'est moi? You're not fooling anyone pretty boy!!! I know you have brain cells up there!!! But also the sincerity in that last line, of how he really does also just want to spend some time with her. How he's always saying the most wonderful thing she can give him is her time.

Just put my body out to sea I can't do this anymore--

I was enveloped in the sound of his voice, warming my heart, and my feet stopped involuntarily. Comte: MC? MC: Every time you treat me so kindly like this…I’m so happy I could cry Jokingly, Comte turned around and spread his coat. Comte: If you want to do so, that’s okay too MC: Huh… Comte: After all, there is no one here but us. If you want to cry, you can cry. Comte wrapped me gently in his open coat and murmured in my ear. Comte: Like this, there will be no trace of tears left behind. MC: Oh… (It’s okay to cry…that’s not something you hear very often when you’re fully grown.) (Just hearing him say that in such a sweet voice makes my heart feel lighter…) (Comte really is amazing)

Honestly this part just made me melt, I have no words--I'm down bad fellas. We love a man who encourages his partner that its safe to be vulnerable 😭🙏🏼

But also I feel the need to say. Comte don't offer this to me because from that point on I will live in your coat. It will no longer be 'Comte's nice coat,' but rather:

MC: Thank you. But…Aren’t you spoiling me too much? When I looked up and asked him, he leaned over to drop a kiss to my forehead… MC: Oh… Comte: I see. I think I don’t spoil you enough. Comte’s long fingers reached out to wipe my eyes gently. Comte: MC, I love everything about you. Comte: Your fatigue and your tears, don’t forget that it’s my privilege to soothe them with these hands. He gazes deeply into my eyes, and I can’t help how my heart races in response.

So like. Do you ever just cry and die. Because.

I'm like somewhere between "WE GOT A 2319!!!!!!!!!" and inches from professing my eternal love and loyalty like some kind of lovelorn knight too afraid to even touch the radiance of their beloved. Comte how on earth am I supposed to look at you without being blinded. Sun that's too bright!!!!! That's too b r i g h t!

I just. "Your fatigue and your tears, don’t forget that it’s my privilege to soothe them with these hands." [muffled wailing noises] Did I ASK--

Mfer out here like 'oh the terrible fate of being tied to me for eternity' meanwhile every second of being with him is either dizzyingly passionate or like being wrapped up in the warmest, fluffiest blankie imaginable. I HAVE TO S T A N SIR--

MC: Ah, if you spoil me so much, I’m afraid I won’t be able to do anything on my own anymore. Comte smiled a little as I laughed deceptively in the hopes of hiding how delighted I was. Comte: That’s great. I’d love to see that, myself. The fingers that had been stroking my eyes slipped down my cheek to touch my lips. Comte: If you can’t manage to walk alone--I’ll be there to hold you up, and walk alongside you. His sweet whisper ends when his lips gently cover mine. MC: Mn… In the midst of his enveloping kiss, I gently entrusted my body to the person dearest to me--

Can I just ?????? Say????? How much I love MC being teasing/catty with him as the events go on. I LOVE it here. I think I really like how she grows into her own strength, and how she feels comfortable expressing her shyness without ceding that integrity. One thing I've noticed that I love in relationships is this ability to air grievances in a playful way, where the stakes are low--but the person can still express their feelings and be comforted. I think I like how it's not about putting pressure on the person, but getting it out in the open and resolved all the same. It just fills me with warm fuzzies c:

Also. "If you can’t manage to walk alone--I’ll be there to hold you up, and walk alongside you." Like not to beat a dead horse, but wow. Pretty sure this metaphysically changed me as a person. Thanks, I will never be the same. True love exists, [unhinged barking noises], etc etc

[dootznbootz]

Hi!! I love your blog and I’m enjoying your Odypen headcanons and theories very much! I recently started reading the Iliad so I’m new to all this and I just want to know your opinion on smth. In song 1, lines 135-140 Agamemnon mentions the bride prizes of several Achaean leaders, including Odysseus. Obviously nothing else is mentioned, no name, just that he has one, too. What’s your take on that? Any headcanons? I honestly hate the whole cheating discourse around him and I don’t want to add more fuel to the fire because in the Odyssey he was clearly a victim!! I would just love to know what you think about this particular thing in the Iliad. Considering the historical and cultural context, having a bride prize was normal in war (albeit awful from our modern standpoint). But Odysseus is a very interesting and complicated character so this could go in many different ways with him, and in any case it doesn’t really change my opinion on his love for Penelope. Thank you! :)

Thank you so much!!! That's so kind! And I'm so happy you're reading the Iliad! I hope you enjoy it! I'm so happy you're enjoying my silly and I DO have many thoughts about it! :D

And very good that either way, it doesn't change your opinion on his love for Penelope. My opinion/interpretation regardless of those lines, that should ALWAYS be the interpretation that people have of Odysseus.

So idk if you've seen my Aspec OdyPen silliness yet and/or my "Odysseus is a half-eunich from the boar". BUT those are my headcanons. (which I can delve into further later)

but I'll go over the canon evidence now. :P

(disclaimer: Slavery is a fucked up thing regardless of the circumstances. this is in no way excusing any of it)

So IDK which translation you're reading, but as someone who's read multiple versions...Some just say "Prize", and with the "it" and "something". I...didn't really see it as a woman and/or specifically a concubine.

Let Achaeans give me another prize, equal in value, something I’ll enjoy. If not, then I’ll take a prize myself by force,                                   something from you or Ajax or Odysseus.

(Book 1, Johnston)

Let the Achaeans find me a prize in fair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or that of Ajax or of Ulysses; and he to whomsoever I may come shall rue my coming.

(Book 1, Butler)

But if they do not give me such a gift, then I will seize your own prize or Ajax’s or Odysseus’ and carry it away, angering whomever I visit.

(Book 1, Heumann)

So to ME, (I do not know what the actual words said mean) I take "Prize" of "something of equal value" and/or just a slave.

As yeah...My Odysseus is aspec (basically Pen-romantic/Pen-sexual), I kind of plan to WRITE it personally as a bit of a thing with "Grab one of Odysseus' slaves, he doesn't use them as concubines."

And with Odysseus being the one to transport Chryseis, I have it where it's a bit of "I'll go bring her to her father. Take any slave you wish from my tent if you must. I don't care."

Agamemnon dragged a swift ship down the shore, chose twenty sailors, loaded on the oxen, offerings for the god, and led on fair-cheeked Chryseis.          Shrewd Odysseus shipped on as leader. All aboard, they set off, carving a pathway through the sea.

(Book 1, Johnston)

(Also with Ajax and his girlfriend/bride prize, I think this kind of made him extremely worried. My Odysseus and Ajax have "special beef" even BEFORE the war but they are fine about it by the war. Odysseus not only doesn't have a concubine or slave woman he's attached to but he also was helping a bro out in a way lol.)

And Odysseus is a king and a piece of shit. It's horrible but it feels in character for my lil asshole to basically use pretty slaves in trading. "Hey, you like lighthaired girls, yeah? Well, you have that really pretty silver-studded sword...I want it. Would you like to exchange?"

I want to make it clear that I'm not writing like this or interpreting this in the way of "UwU Odysseus is too of a good boy for that." as that feels icky to try and "make everyone else shitty to make him 'better'". It's literally because Odysseus is just simply LIKE this. He has basically no libido/sex drive if Penelope isn't around. (I'm keeping this as safe for wormlings as I can so I'll leave it at that.)

An old wip post explains it more but I'll also put the wip itself here to kind of explain lol

My Odysseus is a "pretty boy" as he is in canon as well, and he hates when people make moves on him.

BUT these are just MY headcanons and/or what I plan to write, while I just don't really vibe with Odysseus being with folks willingly other than Penelope I have big gay for her. I live vicariously through Odysseus. I love her so much I can't stop others and other people COULD find evidence of Odysseus being with others if they truly wanted.

[kaledya]

*Me with my 37373 notes to keep track with all the messages*

I'm here ! So...

Yes, the translation program is Ai and Charlie is most of the time more a male name by statistics ? Its a nickname for Charles ! And yes I need to edit anyway, for Lolicia pronouns and also see if words are not repeating themselves, changing some words. So once I get used to it, I'm okay but I understand it can be annoying!

At least it doesn't bother me when there is a mix of she/he, I understand what you are talking about so everything fine 🌸

_

Right !! Hünni is so adorable ! _

Thank you for loving my choice in Addolorata's name ! _

It was very interesting you way to explain the all process of Constantine and Charlie birth as Lucifer and Lilith tried ! It make sense.

And I remembered you explain the orange blood somewhere in a post, but its nice to have it all here back and see you always agreed with your thoughts on the process !

For me it make a lot of sense. Especially the part that the resin/copper skin of the prince and princess are dangerous. It tells that if a Demon or even a Sinner tries to attack them (just an hypothesis), they also had to deal with the wounds.

Like I can imagine Constantine opening the two palm of his hands and POWER SLAP that Sinner/Demon in the face ahahah (like Harry Potter putting his hands on Quirrel face in the first movie!) _

Glad you like the idea of red and black blood and the corruption explanation! And also the eyes in blood making the weight of it all !

Monster is a great song ! And No Longer You, would be nice to when Overlords come back in their home and they just realise how much they have done to have a damn chair at a council! _

Yes, Elrond is very elegant ! Love his design. The best of his mom and dad.

I understand his reaction for his parents situation. Its a mess in either way !

Oh yes of course the recommendation from Constantine would be a big deal. Like the prince himself want Elrond in particular to have this bride and it would be something be among the Goetia. (Like they are chosen ones !)

I would try to draw Hürrem in a theorical beautiful Goetia-style dress one day with Elrond to see how they would match (just in term of design ahah)

Material Girl and Diva. Slay! Just like Verdelet. If Elrond was older they would be great friends !

Yes tall Elrond !🌸

_

In heat ahah. The number of comics I saw that say that Alastor or even Luci have a 'heat season' like animals was wild ! Its in my mind palace somewhere. Forever. *throw all of it in a hole*

Ahaha the dialogue was great ! Honestly, fluffy feathers make me damn happy.

Hürrem history would be wild ! Giovanni be like :

Giovanni thinking to himself : "But there is fanfics about everyone ?! Overlords ? Demons ? The damn king ?! Wait... what about ME ?" *try to find his name in Hürrem's phone*

Ahah

NO BUT SERENITY AND CONSTANTINE looking at RadioApple 🤣 i just can't.

Serenity *reading* : Is that our dads f-... Constantine: sssh. I don't want to know. I WILL unsee this. Now.

Thanks to you too ! 🌸🌸🌸 Thanks for you answers !

Ps : OMGODS I JUST SAW THE NEW ART POST WITH HÜRREM CRYINNNNG (why I'm never ready for this ?!)

LMAO Me too (⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩⁠-̩̩⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠-̩̩̩⁠) but it's fun to answer !! It just takes a while

--

And Hünni is a really sweet(like honey uwu) ship name.

--

And of course I will love it. They has a really beautiful and original name.

---

I'm really glad you think it makes sense!! But if you see any nonsense, please point it out!!

Yes, thank you, I think I had a conversation like this on Twitter a few months ago.I think The blood thing I'm talking about here was a question I asked one of my followers about whether Constantine wants a child or not.I don't remember exactly. Oh yes, I said he wouldn't want it because of his blood and many other reasons, I think he explained it in that post.(I'm not still sure)

--

Yes, they are both seriously dangerous and somewhat unstable beings.

Yes, even if a sinner makes them blees, it will have a dangerous outcome for them.For example, if Charlie gets injured in a war, she won't let Vaggie or the people at the hotel help her, she knows they will get hurt.

LMAO!! The faces of the sinners who saw the POWER slap would be truly amazing.

---

I'm so glad you loved the design!! And yes, Octavia mostly looks like Stolas and Elrond mostly looks like her mother, but it's a mix of the two.

-

Yes and Elrond really hates the sounds of fighting now he only goes to his father's palace for Octavia.

-

It's like yes, Elrond already knows that one day he will be married The fact that this person was chosen by the Prince kind of gives him confidence.(He doesn't want his marriage to be like his parents.)

Although Constantine was fearfully respected even among the nobility and was known as a somewhat callous person, the fact is that he was not a fool And someone who doesn't show bad habits like other nobles.because of that Elrond has trust in a choice made by him.

--

I can't wait to see Hürrem in a dress Look forward to your design!!!!!

--

SLAYYY💅💅

Definitely!! If Elrond were a little older they would seriously make great friends!!

--

Wha?? Like Animals???How exactly does that happen????No wait, I don't want to learn For the first time, I reject the information with all my will.*I pick up the memory erasing gun in the Gravity Falls*

I'm so glad you like the nickname!! Giovanni will probably find nicknames for Hürrem at every opportunity like Nick did for Judy lmao.

--

LMAO I'm sure it will be wild hahhaha

LMAO sorry Giovanni, maybe they will write a fanfic for you in the future, stay hopeful.

And Giovanni will probably be like this after 5 minutes; Hey Hürrem, how do we filter The fanfics??

I'm searching something??

Hürrem: ಠ⁠,⁠_⁠｣⁠ಠ

LMAO

---

And LMAO Serenity's and Constantine's reaction would be priceless.

The dialogues you wrote were truly perfect.

But Constin, kiddo, you've got a photographic memory....

*suffers in photographic memory*

--

I'M SO GLAD YOU LIKE HÜRREM'S FANART I hope I got the colors right!!!

Thank you for your answers!!!🌸🌸

Have a good day 🫂❤️❤️

[nevertheblood]

i've been so awol that i didn't even realise i was tagged in a thing!! thank uuuu @ohhcinnybuns 💕💕

Fanfic Writer Interview

How many works do you have on AO3?

eleven 🥹 four ongoing, six complete, one sort of.... resting (I hesitate to say abandoned lol)

it's a small number but i never thought i'd get to this point so yay!!

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

love in the vein (2,219 words) - M, skk, complete one-shot (albeit part of a larger ongoing universe), 18-year-old prince dazai and his fiancé (trans) chuuya make out in a garden and muse about love and trust 👀written for a valentine's day challenge!

so show me why you're strong (ignore everybody else) (15,490 words) - T, ambiguously platonic skk, ongoing. mafia executive chuuya meets suicidal cat hybrid dazai and tries to give him a better life (against dazai's wishes)

my candy boy, my baby (2,495 words) - T, sskk, completed one-shot. written for the same valentine's day challenge as love in the vein! atsushi and akutagawa go on a valentine's day date and try to manage sweet confessions amidst emotional awkwardness.

we burn our blue love for a while (8,668 words) - E, buraiha trio OT3, completed one-shot, VERY SPICY. ango has a really great recurring threesome going on and he thinks only about the inevitability of love and betrayal. pwp but angsty.

or so I’ve dreamed, since I met you (55,948 words) - M, skk, complete. artists AU set in 1910s paris - realist painter chuuya meets modern artist dazai, who has synaesthesia, and a sort of rivals to lovers story emerges. past buraiha trio ot3, some angst but with a happy ending.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes! very rarely in a timely manner but I do try to. I spend a lot of emotional energy in my fics and I like to have discussions about it when people make comments c:

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably we burn our blue love (mentioned above)... I think it's not necessarily angsty due to the events of the fic itself (which is mostly smut tbh) but due to what happens in canon later on and how it's alluded to at the end of the fic... bloohooohoooo i will never NOT be crying over the dark era!!!!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

apart from the aforementioned angst, all my fics have happy endings!! probably the cutest softest fluffiest is my candy boy, my baby (also mentioned above) just bc it's a valentine's day fic and it's so tooth-rottingly sweet uwu uwu

Do you write crossovers?

never properly written one but I do have a bsd x borderlands AU living in my head. I also have a bsd kpop AU waiting to be written, and that counts as a crossover bc i've written kpop fic before and also I said so

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no, I keep to myself mostly... I'd like some of my works to get more love but I worry about reaching the wrong audience LOL it's a two edged sword fr

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes but it's gotta have angst and/or pining and/or fluff attached to it lmao i am EMOTIONAL ALL THE TIME at my core

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no~ not that I am aware of

Have you ever had a fic translated?

no

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

not technically but I've been back and forth with @nettlestingsoup and other irl friends on some delightful AU concepts before. should do that more often it's great for the brain

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

all-time gotta be royed. I am never leaving behind my funky little blorbos that got me PROPERLY into online shipping culture in the early 00s. they come back around every few years like a planet with a weird orbit and my singular remaining fma brain cell just buzzes like crazy and then goes dead again.

but rn I'm insane about skk since the last few years and I don't see that changing hehe

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

oh.... my kryptonite question.....

Kid Gloves is probably dead now. it's just been too many years since its inception and the things that made me want to write it in the first place. plus, I think my writing has improved a lot since then and I sort of cringe looking at it now lol

I have a fuckton of skz WIPs as well but I maintain that one day I *will* finish them ?? (denial) (delusional)

What are your writing strengths?

i like writing fun or snappy dialogue, i think it comes very easily to me (especially with the kind of semi-antagonistic ships that I really enjoy) and I like to show off with lots of in-depth extended metaphors too

What are your writing weaknesses?

movement.... action.... i'm really struggling to make my scenes not static BWUH

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

im literally a polyglot and i'm afraid of it for some reason. don't perceive me. what if I actually can't speak the languages that i speak and people on the internet find out??

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

arcane........... stares with big eyes

also star trek voyager, i dabbled in pariskim during lockdown but i could really go for some j7 and i know @nettlestingsoup agrees with me

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

or so I’ve dreamed, since I met you feels like my magnum opus, my first finished longfic with so much healing for dazai too.... and I had SO much fun writing and completing it;;; i wish everyone saw it through my eyes bc it is my precious baby of a fic..... 🥹

i think most ppl i would tag to do this have already been tagged?? but uh @nettlestingsoup even tho i tagged u twice already.... hands gently the thing (with no pressure)

[sketching-shark]

Wukong was always the villain? I read in a comment that he was the villain in everything and that he's like the Joker but with powers so i have this doubt now...

Ps: Sorry if this is ignorant btw

Hello anon! So while keeping in mind that I'm in no way an expert on how the Monkey King is perceived the world over, my general impression is that while Sun Wukong being portrayed as solely a villain is pretty popular in the east and increasingly so in the west, that's FAR from the only way that he's been portrayed. He is after all literally worshiped as a god in a number of places, and is even often considered to be a protector of children! It also can't be forgotten that he saved many, many individuals from everything from demonic goldfish to drought over the course of Xiyouji, and that at the end he becomes the Buddha Victorious in Strife. And that's to say nothing of his clear love of his monkey family, and that many of his actions are driven by his desire to keep them happy and safe. In any case, from the yaoguai perspective he seems to have done so much for them at one point that they were all 100% behind him when it came to waging war against heaven.

I think that perhaps a lot of the understanding of him as solely a chaotic villain is due to the fact that Journey to the West is some 1,400 pages long and a lot of it is about Sun Wukong's slow transformation from a violent yaoguai to a buddha. It probably is more exciting too to focus on the fact that he spent centuries as a literal yaoguai warlord, and that he waged his havoc in heaven as well as told Tang Sanzang that he had literally killed more people than he could remember during his warlord era. Of course, it can't be forgotten that this killing of countless individuals is explicitly said to be true as well of the lauded Tang emperor, but that's a contextual detail that can be easily missed. I personally think that a lot of Xiyouji brings up (although never specifically answers) many discomfiting questions about violence and power in the shaping of a society and to what extent religion might be able to alleviate (or even exacerbate!) the resultant suffering, and that Sun Wukong's actions are one of the main ways these questions are raised.

I bring this all up to say that the neat thing about Sun Wukong is that he is a very complex character who nevertheless does a lot of heinous things, but then again he's doing that in the context of a lot of other beings, both yaoguai, human, and even god, doing the same in the name of pursuing their own desires and ambitions. But this complexity often means that retellings--which by their nature of their length have to be a LOT shorter than the og classic--won't balance all of the parts of the Monkey King's character out because to do so sufficiently honestly requires a lot of context. So in the end we get a lot of flanderization of the Monkey King into either a cheeky and loving SWK or an ultraviolent unrepentant SWK (or the retelling will veer off into another direction of a quite popular brooding asshole SWK lmao). In the west specifically, however, this sort of simplification and flanderization seems to often translate into a "uwu dumb chaos monkey" version, so that even if SWK is well meaning he'll just commit one doofy blunder after another or go ignoramus murder on the situation. Hence the association with the Joker, who if my understanding of that character is right just does what he does because he wants chaos.

In all honesty though, I think this association is a big misreading of SWK's character. Besides Xiyouji making it obvious that SWK rarely starts any of the fights he gets into (never mind starting fights just for shits and giggles) and that he is very content to live in relative peace with his monkey family, he pretty much always has a very clear reason for committing the violence that he does, even if that reason is sometimes some version of "I want the thing and will beat you up if I don't get it." To give but a few examples: SWK commits his first murder in the book because his opponent the Demon King of Confusion had been brutally attacking the Mt. Huaguoshan simians and kidnapping their young; he DID steal a lot of stuff from heaven but only goes to war with them when the deities are literally breaking down the Monkey King's door and threatening his home; he murders over a thousand human hunters because they had been relentlessly hunting his monkey family; he burns down a Buddhist monastery because the monks conspired to kill Tang Sanzang and steal his robe; and he kills the Lady Bone Demon because she wanted to eat Tang Sanzang. These are just a few examples throughout the course of the work, but you can see how in each one it isn't a case of the Monkey King crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war as it is someone trying to hurt or kill someone under SWK's protection and him responding in like. There is no doubt that SWK can be a very destructive and impulsive monkey, but he also seems equally if not more likely to have thought a situation through and gone with violence anyway because the situation wasn't going to resolve itself any other way, and indeed he often only goes ahead with violence after giving his opponents the opportunity to stop and give up.

That said, I'd be willing to bet that an awareness of Xiyouji Sun Wukong's very deliberate decisions to kill and threaten are one of the main reasons behind the popular presentations of him as solely a villain, especially since the context behind his reasons for violence can be very easily lost. As it is, the Monkey King has been described by some as Xiyouji's first villain, and there are numerous reasons for thinking this is true. After all, no matter your reasons killing so many people you can't remember them all is still killing so many people you can't remember them all.

I hope you find this useful anon! Again I'm no expert, and if I'm missing something people should definitely feel free to point that out. And as always it needs to be noted that @journeytothewestresearch has kindly provided FREE pdf copies of the Anthony C. Yu English translation of Journey to the West on his website, so if you have the time and desire to do so you can flip through that and come to your own conclusions on what's going on with the Monkey King.

[madamemozart]

Charlotte Li may be the most Mary Sue who ever Mary Sue'd, but I would still unironically defend her with my life.

Would you believe it if I said my most notorious original character is now over twelve years old, which also happens to be her canonical age?? Yup, this very chick I created all the way back in 2011 solely as a self-insert to be shipped with my favorite historical figure and classical composer of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!! SAY IT WITH ME: CRIIIIINGE

Yes, she really did have an angel AND a neko/catgirl phase. Even both at the same time. She also had extremely long Rapunzel hair (at least it wasn't like 50 feet long, though - it just reached to her feet)! She gets some pity points for not having a princess, mermaid, or magical girl phase (at least, not that I know of), but knowing eleven-year-old me, she would have made Charlotte all those as well if given the idea/opportunity. I mean honestly, this snowflake would DEFINITELY have her own ice queen Elsa "let it go" arc if I was still invested in her when the first Frozen movie came out (granted, I was thirteen years old when it came out and still found myself obsessing over Elsa and Anna and giving my OCs their traits. Fortunately, I had the sense even then to realize Charlotte was a bad character).

---

On a less cringeworthy note, all of these Picrews were made by this person, whose name I believe translates to "Marine Cat"! I had been wanting to use their makers for a while, especially after they announced they would be deleting their makers in April of this year. I panicked when I realized I was a month late, but I was pleasantly surprised to see their makers were still up! Even more on a happy note, they have added in each of their makers that they wouldn't be deleted after all! And so, I've decided to show my love for the creator and their work.

If you happen to stumble across this, Marine Cat, your style is very adorable and I'm so sorry people have been trying to steal/profit off your work. I hope you're doing well in whatever you're taking up now (even if you're not making Picrews anymore). 💖

---

One of these days, I'll have to do a deep dive on Charlotte so I can just prove to you all how horrible she really is despite her cute design. But for now, these Picrews will suffice - I need new profile pictures, anyway. Bear in mind, I didn't use ALL of Marine Cat's makers as some of them don't have Charlotte's "uwu beautiful" jet black hair color.

💚 ~ LINKS! ~ 💚 First | Second & Third Fourth | Fifth | Sixth Seventh | Eighth | Ninth Tenth | Eleventh | Twelfth

[fishyviolet]

(no worries about a fast response! it's also late for me lol, and this'll be kinda long. +kinda comes with the hc territory, but tw for discussions of trauma, death, and suicide) i want to start this by saying i'm not trying to like demonize you or be argumentative! hc is a special interest of mine and i love analyzing the themes of it. and i definitely agree that vincent and charles have a deeply toxic and unhealthy relationship in canon, and personally i think it's really weird for people to just portray them as uwu soft gay boys in love because it really just romanticizes a dynamic that isn't good for either character

however, i do also think that boiling it down to "toxic scary horrible for each other forever" kinda doesn't fit with the themes of the series, and i don't think charles and vincent are always destined to be toxic and horrible. one of the main themes of hc to me is how circumstance impacts the healing of trauma and mental illness, and how that goes on to impact relationships. almost all the characters in hc are deeply mentally ill & traumatized and prevented from coping with this as they're retraumatized again and again, with no access to help, a big part of the true realm which translates to the largely metaphorical false realm - charlotte is destined to be the abused heroine, anri lashes out at everyone in self defense, charles dies and tortures himself in his own afterlife, vincent dies feeling deeply alone, etc. the characters deeply yearn for connection - vincent asks charles to be present for his last moments, charles and anri enter a relationship, etc - but this is distorted by their circumstance. charles' mental health restrains him from opening up, anri is too guarded to truly be vulnerable, vincent's view of life is heavily distorted by his delusions, etc

and while ep 3 does end on a more optimistic note (it isn't happy, but charles acknowledges a lot of his own flaws and moves on from the house, with etherane's commentary especially implying that it's the start of a healing journey) the main hc series is still largely deeply tragic and depressing. i'd like to add some text from near the end of hc3, when charles is discarding a vincent vessel and discussing him, as i feel it speaks to his self awareness with vincent in particular:

q84: Weren't you supposed to keep him safe?

charles: ...Yeah. I really messed up. In the end, all I did was postpone the inevitable. No matter what, there's no way I could've helped him. There was no way of "fixing" him, either.

q84: Well, duh, you can't go around trying to "fix" people. There's no way of doing that, anyway.

charles: I knew that somewhere on a subconscious level, didn't I? That's why the House is the way it is. Were I convinced I could change him, or anyone... They would've ended up being the brainwashed, unnaturally happy versions of themselves. Never once have I wished for that. However, the images of people I knew still became distorted in this place. Especially Vincent's. I was so fascinated with the idea of him that I failed to see him as a real person. That's why in the House, he's all but an empty shell. An imaginary construct.

before laying him to rest. it took putting himself through horrible cycle after horrible cycle to acknowledge the flaws in his own life, because he clung so hard to every coping mechanism he could.

but heaven's gate is noted to be a much quieter (and in my opinion, softer) visual novel - it examines a world where the most harsh aspects of hc aren't present (scarlett isn't there, nobody dies) and while the characters are still in bad circumstances, they're allowed to connect much more, especially with vincent and charles meeting earlier

but this doesn't mean hg is happy, just less intense. the characters are still in bad circumstances and still have deep amounts of trauma. but hg presents the characters an opportunity to heal from that trauma, even if by the end of the game, they're still in bad places mentally - it isn't a happy ending, it's a world where they someday have the hope of one. vincent is alive and interacts more heavily with charles, charles has less stress, and anri doesn't move away. even before the end, charles and vincent get more direct opportunities to bond, especially in sharing their works - in particular, i think of the scene where vincent says he has something to show charles, and when charles asks if it's a love confession, vincent says "almost" and shares aether, a work about how isolated he feels. he may not connect to charles, but he's willing to expose a vulnerable part of himself - a deeply personal act that he isn't shown to take with any other character, even ones he makes an effort to be friendly with.

the main point where i disagree with you is that the ending scene is representative of why they're so bad for each other - because while i agree it calls out how toxic both sides of the relationship are, i also think it's less a moment of "oh, we're bad for each other, we can't be friends/together" and more a moment that can start their healing journey. it's a scene that explicitly parallels other moments in hc, but it ends on an undoubtedly optimistic note.

the ending scene is one where charles and vincent truly open up and recognize the flaws in their relationship - charles accepts that he highly idealizes vincent and has trouble seeing him as his own person, and vincent admits that no matter how much he wants to, he's never been able to connect with other people and craves a sense of control. they have extremely different reactions to their trauma - charles desires to become one with another person, to lose his own individuality, and vincent is so walled off from other people he isn't even sure who he's supposed to be outside of an idealized view of himself that he projects to other people.

the difference from the main series is that nobody dies, and there's hope in the future. vincent admits to charles he tried to kill himself, and that he wants to connect to others but finds it nearly impossible; charles admits he hasn't been treating vincent fairly and hasn't been trying to get to know the real him. the ending text in particular i feel is poignant. an excerpt:

Neither of us can find comfort in each other's words. Neither of us know what to do.

"I want you to live," I croak out, not to a corpse, not to an imaginary construct, not to a vacant shell, but to Vincent Fennell himself.

History repeats. I can't see his face.

"I see," Vincent says simply. No tears, no surprises. That's how Vincent Fennell is. Yet, his words sound almost thankful. Vincent gets up and extends his hand to me.

"Congratulations on graduating, Charles." I reach out and accept his hand.

The future still remains uncertain. Yet, I feel like I'll be able to fall asleep tonight. The sun rises. A new day has come.

this parallels old scenes in multiple ways - the entire scene, charles keeps repeating that he has a sense of deja vu, that he's been here before, mirroring vincent's suicide scene (also on a high location where he has his first true heart to heart with vincent). charles outright echoes frei's line on love and individuality - he wants to lose his own sense of self to connect to vincent due to his own self loathing. and most vitally, he echoes the scene of charlotte and c in hc2 where c asks charlotte to kill herself with him - both of them beg vincent/c not to die, not because they can convince the other to live, but because they want the other person to be in their life. "i want you to live." it's a selfish wish, but a wish born out of some form of care and connection.

at this point, their relationship isn't healthy. charles is just admitting that he really doesn't know vincent at all, and vincent is just admitting how distant he feels from everyone. but with the ending of hc3 being so heavily focused on moving on and healing (with etherane explicitly talking about how it was related to their own mental health journey), and with the ending lines of "yet, i feel like i'll be able to fall asleep tonight. the sun rises. a new day has come," i can't see this scene as just a pessimistic confirmation that the two are bad for each other.

to me at least, this scene signifies that though they've had a very rough and toxic relationship, vincent and charles are willing to acknowledge that, want to change, and in opening up to each other and confronting their flaws, their relationship can evolve. charles is accepting that vincent isn't the idealized person in his mind. vincent is accepting that he can't project a perfect image to everyone forever. they can never forget their past, but they can help each other heal from it

in conclusion because i know this is long as hell, i don't disagree that vincharles is a deeply flawed and often toxic relationship, but i also don't necessarily think it's inherently a cannibalistic and self-destructive one - i think hc tackles a lot of themes of uncontrollable circumstance hindering healing from trauma and mental health, and those things impacting interpersonal relationships, and the end of the series is largely about confronting those issues and trying to heal. and i think another big part of the series is that relationships that may be unhealthy due to unresolved trauma and mental health issues may not always be that way - and that hurt people, even if they aren't in a good state now, can help each other heal, even if the journey is hard.

// anonymous submission

Everything below is my thoughts/comments

Oh i absolutely agree w your points! I never really meant to imply that the ending scene of HG was meant to be purely pessimistic or that i was viewing it as such; obviously, admitting one's faults (Charles acknowledging that he wasn't seeing Vincent as a person) is the first step to healing them, and in this case specifically he goes a step further and makes an effort to amend that fault (indeed speaking to Vincent Fennel himself). I was more trying to reinforce how insane it is to me that some people see their relationship as being way more genuine than it actually is Despite context like this. like I personally completely forgot the dialog of the exchange you cited between charles and q84 just because my memory is shit (and i probably need to reread hc at some point soonish). im sure plenty of others are also just as forgetful as I am in this regard. but the ending scene in heavens gate is literally the climax of the story so it's a lot easier to internalize and remember and factor into interpretation and such. thats why i brought it up in specific: when this is the climax of the story, how can one forget that charles is completely deluding himself in regards to how he sees Vincent?!?

i agree that the climax of heaven's gate is very optimistic. I think if vincent and charles worked hard and had the desire to do so, they could theoretically enter a deeper relationship, whether that be a true friendship or a romance or whatever. i liek heavens gate

also re: the Daydream rpf bit that was mainly a joke LMAO i absolutely agree that what vincent represents in The House is far deeper than that! i just thought the connection was funny :] your thoughts are super awsome i will be rereading it if i ever wanna think abt hc agai yayyy

[floredaqueen]

20 Questions for Fic Writers (& Artists)

Tagged by: @buckysgrace 🥺❤️

Disclaimer!! I read ao3 fics, but I'm not able to post or type on the site because I don't have a computer. So everything I speak about will be related to tumblr, I'm SORRY!! ALSO, I will be replacing some answers about fics to art. Thank you, and I hope to see ya sooon♡♡♡

1. How many works do you have on ao3(Tumblr)?

A) I have 4!

2. What's your total ao3 (Tumblr) word count?

A) I don't even know, I don't keep track >///< (I will start doing so though.. at some point..)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A) Stranger Things and Fargo, and I want to start writing for Bullet Train too!! I'm an action girlie.. and I love a crazy man (Tangerine/Aaron Taylor Johnson). I hope to keep writing for Joe, Dacre, and Aaron.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A) I only have for 4 fics right now, but the order of the most liked would be Curiosity At First Sight, Mirame, Feeding Time, and A Bud in the Gun! I need to rewrite Pep because I hate the way I started it!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

A) Yes, I DEFINITELY DO!! I love responding to people. Everyone has been so kind and encouraging, and it's super refreshing to see the positive impact I'm having on these communities. I share my thoughts and expressions! I feel like what I do is purposeful, and I hope it continues!♡

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

A) None yet!

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

A) All of them end with an uplifting note so far! When I get to Nova and Eddie's story, their's will probably be the most somber.

8. Do you get hate on any fics (Art)?

A) Yes, actually! I usually don't voice my frustrations with it, but I take it as something to learn from! There was this one time where I drew Billy and shared it in a Discord server, and someone freaked out about it. They called him a "child beating racist,". It was as wild as it sounds.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

A) Damn right I do! Most of the smut I write or draw is passionate. Sweet, sometimes sloppy, but overall passionate.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

A) I haven't written one yet, but I would love to! I don't know what I would come up with, but I'm sure it would be fun!!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A) No, not yet! But I hope it never happens! If it did, would it be wrong of me to be like, "I'm famous, Mom!!"?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A) No, not that I know of?? If people asked, I would translate it! Or try to.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A) No, I haven't! But I would LOVE TOOOOO!! There are a lot of people i would love to co-write with, but not necessarily good enough yet to be on that level! I really want to, though! So y'know if anyone is down and goated with the sauce... uwu

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

A) ...probably Mike Ross and Rachel Zane from Suits! If not them, then probably Dick Grayson and Starfire.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

A) There's a Steve Harrington fic I'm working on that I'm getting progressively slow at writing! I want to finish it, but it's probably gonna be done by the end of January of next year.

16. What are your writing strengths?

A) I'm very good at synonyms.. also, I'm very good at easing my way into a scene! Also, it's good with coming up with specific scenes, too!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

A) I'm not good at transitions or dialogue, I always end up repeating myself, and I overthink, so my writing always ends up sloppy or vague.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

A) I'm fluent in Spanish, and I love DOING IT! It's fun to keep people guessing or to have them happy or surprised at the meaning. "Mirame," just means look at me.. but with the way my story is centered, it's sensual and gives a romantic connotation behind the relationships of the characters I'm trying to "portray"

19. First fandom you wrote for?

A) Five Nights At Freddy's... no, I will not elaborate! Next Question!♡

20. Favorite fic you've written?

A) So far, I'm proud of A Bud In The Gun! When I look back at it, I'm just happy I was able to portray the grief Chrys was going through the way I did! I hope more people find that one! I know it's starting off slowly, but it's a slow-burn, I swear it'll get better!

Thanks for the tag, Gigi!♡♡

Suggested Tags!!

@imyourdaninow @trinitywifey @heartbreak-sandwich @hg-deranged-edition

At your own risk! Lol♡

[esc-is-holding-me-hostage]

The annual pre-show quick-fire "reviews"

Guess who procrastinated for a month and a half on this post!

Albania An Albanian song starting with a woman going "AaAaAAaaaAAAAA"? Groundbreaking. Duje is a very run-of-the-mill Albanian folk power ballad and at this point, I'm kinda tired of these.

Armenia Music good, lyrics clunky.

Australia It is, dare I say, alright.

Austria A song that everyone thought is gonna be a musical shitpost turned out to be an absolute fucking banger, god bless.

Azerbaijan I'm not sure whether I actually like it a bit or it's just me being happy that Azerbaijan has finally let local artists write their song. Now wait until the twins flop and Azerbaijan goes back to swedes-for-hire next year.

Belgium It's fine.

Croatia Is it weird that I don't have much to say about a song like this? Mama ŠČ is shocking the first time you experience it, and I do like the layers of interpretation, but it's not something I want to return to after a couple listens.

Cyprus Imagine Dragons-ass production, ugh.

Czech Republic It's pretty good but I can't fully enjoy it because of the fucking controversy. Look, I think that the girls had the best intentions in mind when writing My Sister's Crown but didn't realize that singing about Slavic unity and "choose love over power" while having a russian member might come off as problematic. Classic ignorance over malice. Still, I wish they had someone Ukrainian-speaking in the band, at least temporarily for ESC.

Denmark This type of "uwu cute softboy" music is not my thing, but eh, it's fine, I'll let zoomer kids have this one.

Estonia Well someone had to fill the ballad quota this year.

Finland It's crazy, it's party, I'm going to throw hands if it doesn't win the televote.

France Fulenn flopped so now we're back to being aggressively French. Evidemment is a bop, I like it.

Georgia It feels like they had a song that made sense in Georgian and then asked a third-grader to translate it. I'm not opposed to silly lyrics in general, but Echo is clearly trying to be meaningful but then fails at basic english grammar.

Germany "We have Rammstein at home". Blood and Glitter is fine but, I dunno, it feels a bit too "smoothed out". It just doesn't go hard enough (bold words from a Slovenia stan, I know).

Greece The most remarkable thing about this entry for me is that I've been watching Eurovision for longer than Victor has been alive.

Iceland Wish Diljá stuck with the Icelandic version.

Ireland I didn't mind We Are One at first but with every listen it just kept getting worse. This is such a formulaic, cliche, cheesy love-love-peace-peace wet napkin of a song. I've already complained about Portion Boys making a generic "eurovision unity anthem" for UMK but at least they tried to be funny. This one feels like a lazy attempt to game the system WITHOUT KNOWING HOW THAT SYSTEM ACTUALLY WORKS.

Israel My god, so much hype before the song's release and we got this? There are so many parts in this song but somehow forgot to put in a proper chorus, it's like Sekret all over again.

Italy L'essenziale is the one Italian ESC song that I always forget about. And now Due Vite is bound to join it. Eh, at least my mom loves it.

Latvia Didn't care about it when the Supernova songs first dropped, but now I'm vibing with it so much.

Lithuania It's okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The "Čiūto tūto"s saved it from being totally forgettable.

Malta Somehow they've managed to find a half-decent song in the pile of garbage that was MESC. It's alright but I wish that I liked it more.

Moldova So "token pagan rave song of the year" is a thing now, huh? Glad to see Pasha's back.

The Netherlands It starts off really boring, but picks up around the second verse and becomes pretty good by the end.

Norway I think I like it but for some reason, my brain doesn't register it as a song??? It's hard to explain, but I don't see Queen of Kings as something you would listen to without some kind of visuals.

Poland Ughhhh. It's basically impossible to judge Solo on its own merit, but I'll try. And my impartial judgment is: I don't like it. Rigged selection or not, I just hate this kind of songs in general.

Portugal One of those songs that I like a lot but don't have anything specific to say about.

Romania The song's okay, and the vocals are good, but the staging is just beyond tacky. Dude, you can't pull off this type of cool, sexy image while looking like a wimpy history major freshman who barely ever shows up to class.

San Marino ... I'm a Piqued Jacks apologist now. Yeah, the lyrics are cringe, but the music? I enjoy it absolutely unironically.

Serbia "I just wanna close my eyes And just get it over with"

Yeah, dude, me too. The most relatable song of the year.

Slovenia I've jumped on the Joker Out hype train as soon as they were announced as Slovenia's participants and I'm riding that train all the way to Liverpool. Favorite song of the year.

Spain Hey, spaniards have finally gotten an artsy song about motherhood as their ESC entry! I have similar feelings about Eaea as I did about In Corpore Sano last year: absolutely mesmerizing on stage, but not something I would listen to casually.

Sweden She's gonna win, ain't she? I mean, Tattoo is fine, and the staging elevates it immensely, but it's such a predictable winner. I want more INTRIGUE, okay?

Switzerland Oh wow, boring AND tone-deaf? Switzerland is breaking new ground this year. I initially placed Watergun 31st but since then it sunk to the very bottom. Like, someone wrote this song, sat on it for several years, and decided that NOW is the best time to send it to Eurovision. Nothing against Remo, but "war bad, i don't want to go to war :c" is uhhh, rich coming from someone living in fucking Switzerland.

Ukraine I can't shake the thought that they first came up with a standard "I'm so cool, you can't hurt me, idgaf" song and then retroactively tried to give it a deeper meaning.

United Kingdom I don't even think it's a bad song and yet I lowkey hate it. It's the beat, it's driving me nuts for some reason. People hate the spoken word part, but I like it because you don't hear that bloody "dun-da-da-dun" for once.

[late-night-bear]

Thought I'd start posting out some of the creative stuff I've been working on, mostly since it stays in my head quite a lot and I think I wanna get it out.

For starters, I've been makin me a language known as Orekanav for my fictional world Plenith. I've wanted to make a language for years but it was only my latest attempt where I made enough headway to like be able to write some sentences in it! One of my favourite things about making it though is the writing system, as you can see above! I love making simple lil doodles and so this was an exercise in making distinct enough doodles that are simple enough to draw.

I tried not to rely too much on vibe because all I use p much is the Latin alphabet (and occasionally Greek alphabet for maths) so my feeling of which doodle "looks like" a sound is kinda based around that, and ideally I wanna make somethin a lil unique. Then again, I can't really change the fact that since I'm the one making these letters, that kind of bias is inevitably going to appear anyway, e.g. the fact that the letters don't combine together in any way into new forms, that the words and sentences are aligned left-to-right when I write them down, and that each letter represents an individual sound as opposed to a whole syllable or something, but this is my first language and I didn't wanna overwhelm myself with choices. So in the end I'm pretty happy with how these turned out and I like the sounds this language has! This being said I occasionally see stuff about fictional languages that have a normal writing system and a ceremonial one which is designed to be pretty and artful, and I might steal that idea for this language, but I'll get around to it another day uwu

Now I'll leave y'all with a lil fun fact: Orekanav is a rather ancient (and dead) language in the context of my lil world Plenith, belonging to what's believed to be the first human civilisation. However, the name of this language is probably not the one those people would have used (if they even had a word for it.) Rather, it's the contemporary folk who gave this language its name, derived from the root word orekan which translates to "meaning" in a spiritual/existential sense, and with a suffix -av at the end that essentially means "old". Altogether orekanav means "old meaning".

edit: there are also similar diacritics for "long o" and "long y", written as the letter ó and ý respectively.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

It's almost fascinating to me to finally see so many people doubting the localization that I've been doubting for years (at this point, a decade). I used to see people get so defensive of localization and "how much work goes into it". Frankly I don't care how much "work" goes into it if they're gonna change the script anyway, and the localizers clearly didn't care how much work the writers put into making the original script in the first place.

Now here we are, with people saying the same things I've been saying for years about localization (with regard to this franchise specifically. Not all localization gets to this extent).

From what I understood of FE14's changes at least, most were made because of cultural differences (like Marks/Marx being changed to Xander iirc). I haven't looked all that deeply into it, but at least from what I did see, most were reasonable changes (including the Soleil support disaster).

FE13 was my first side eye though of the localization, and the beginning of my distrust at the localizations' ability to keep FE4/5 any bit in tact with their canon selves (mainly in Heroes once that game came out, but also in any future ports or remakes... which to this day I still don't trust them with. I'm perfectly content with FE4 being available on NSO in JP only).

Specifically, the Henry stuff struck me as odd, as if they were trying to ignore the fact that this game has war to begin with, so it's not a happy go lucky franchise. It was as if they thought it was "too much" for western audiences... and then we got shit like FE16, and yeah. Apparently it was.

As for FE10 though, I can forgive those changes because they're not extreme and also, they're not propping up characters to be something they're not. They didn't change entire meanings. Ike wasn't invading other lands or being an aggressor, touted as being a savior all the while. No idea why they removed the entire extended script, but that's less changes made and more just... nobody knows why they did that. There were also just some genuine accidents/mistakes in the translation process from what I understood and not intentional changes (this is true of FE9 as well).

It's funny you mention not wanting to play games without dual audio. I've been that way for a long time now. Generally I do prefer playing games in English, and especially if I can generally trust the localization not to mess with things intentionally (like Tales games for example. I have very few I prefer blatantly in JP, like Graces, and that's mostly a voice acting/voice direction problem for me. But Legendia? Hard English (especially because Shiloh Strong exists and his voicing of Moses had me over the moon. He was my first real, genuine "wow, English voice acting is actually getting amazing" back in the wee days of voice over in the west not being taken too seriously). Abyss and Vesperia I'm pretty equal on, but I prefer English since it's my native language and thus easier to get through in said native language).

I can't say anything for FE15 in comparison to either its original script or FE2 because I haven't played FE15 nor watched a playthrough of it and have no interest in doing so.

Seeing other people (you in this case!) mentioning that they don't want a game not offering the JP script because of the localization changes absolutely sends me because I am so glad other people are recognizing this issue and not uwuing over "how much work goes into localization". Y'all mean how much work goes into altering the script to fit the localizers specific preferences, yeah??? Yeah???

I used to get so much flak for this lol; especially in the Jugdral department. I don't care if people prefer playing their games in their native language or if they want to listen to the amazing voice acting, and that was never my issue. It was always that I don't trust the localization and don't trust that they change things in good faith in FE (FE14 was the exception for the most part at least). FE16 came out and well... literally everything I'd be talking about from day 1 was proven correct lol.

Considering that the English translation prettied up Caspar's endings for Flower (changing "often out of control to "sometimes reckless" and removing the text confirmed Caspar's career involves invading other countries), while vilifying his non-CF ending (saying he had victims), yeah. Same with turning Rhea restoring the Church to her rehabilitating it. There's definitely reason to side-eye the changes made by the translation team.

TBH,

(bcs i didn't enjoy FE14)

FE16 and Nopes (and all Fodlan content) seriously made me reconsider my stance on the localisation.

After FE Tellius I knew (I mean after FE10) that changes/omissions existed but never thought they were deliberately made to push one character by destroying others, the general feeling was the same at the end of the game (we are supposed to worship Ike, the localisation played it up to 11, but FE10 does it on its own).

Now, FE16 ?

I was pleasantly surprised with FE15's voice acting so I thought the dark eras of lolcalisation were behind us...

But then Rhage popped up.

And with Rhage, I started to notice all little tweaks here and there made in the localised (some at least) scripts, that added end up with the result that "maybe Supreme Leader isn't that bad" that is pretty different from the JP/og version.

When FE10's loc said "Ike is the most awesome dude ever" instead of the jp FE10 saying "Ike is the most awesome dude", the Fodlan lolcalisation tries to give a different meaning to the solution/story given by the game!

As you pointed out, Caspar doesn't invade countries and is "sometimes" reckless, instead of being "out of control while invading the rest of the known world", his non uwu endings are worsened, Rhea was swapped by Rhage, the church needs to be "rehabilited" instead of "restored"...

I don't want to be overly critical and dissect everything when I'm playing a game, I'm playing first and foremost to enjoy myself but when I listen to Leigh's voiced lines and see this :

or this :

even if you're not thinking about localisation too much, you can see there is an issue in voice direction, which leads to discovering issues in script localisation and then... you start to ask "why", and come up with sad answers.

So, because Fodlan verse really disappointed me lolcalisation wise, even if I made exceptions earlier for FE14 and FE15, I can't be assed to trust the lolcalisation at all, so if a game has audio but no dual audio, it will be a hard pass.

Even if a kind soul, like the ones who made the FE Datamine site, compile and upload the script with the different audios to compare, it's a big no-no.

I know jp audio will not solve everything (especially if i still don't understand the jp script lol) but at least when the localised script tries to sell me the apple that is orange in the original script is akshually purple I'd have some clues about something being wrong.

More power to you if you like purple apples, but if I was supposed to get an orange apple, I would like to get this orange apple (or maybe red or yellow if needed), and not another product.

[chikarikotranslations]

Source: KOUGI | @kougiw Please support the artist by liking and retweeting the original art or following!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope it’s filled with love and goodness ^^

[haleigh-sloth]

(1) I’ve largely erred on the side of not saying this because I don’t care to rain on anyone’s parade, but since you mentioned feeling like the friendship between Tomura and Spinner can get blown out of proportion, I can think of at least one concrete reason for why that disconnect might exist. I obviously don't blame people for taking the official translations at face value, but I feel like Spinner's line about "bonding" with Tomura over games is another example of sentiments getting

Ahhhhhh lot of good stuff here

Putting a cut for length but also people who just don't wanna see this type of response

I feel this way about a lot of peoples' interpretations of the League and their interactions. Not just Spinner and Shigaraki, but all of them. I feel like a lot of gestures get blown way out of proportion. Shigaraki's "I just want them to be able to live how they see fit" does not equal "Their happiness is my priority, and I'm going to work to create a world where they can be happy". I'm sorry but those two are not the same thing, and I haven't seen Shigaraki act in such a way either. Those two goals may point in the same direction (they don't because he's a fucking liar to his own face and so is Toga to her own face), but that kind sentiment did not suddenly mean that he is prioritizing their happiness and wellbeing above all else. If that was the case, well, they wouldn't have formed a giant ass army to take on the world at war and risk dying (which one of them did) and Spinner wouldn't be in the situation he is in now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

I don't want to rain on people's parades either, but my opinions are pretty clear and have been for a while and people have had plenty of time to block/unfollow me as they see necessary. So at this point, I don't hold back (I try very hard to avoid being super negative though about any character in general). I used to hold back my not so popular (in the villain corner of the fandom) interpretations on the League up until recently. As we've gotten closer to the end, I've decided that I'm just gonna put my opinion out into the void even if many people--specifically in the little circle of blogs I occupy--don't like it. And many don't, and that's okay. My opinion doesn't change unless the manga gives me a reason to change it.

Spinner and Shigaraki--I have a lot of issues here, MAJORITY of it due to fandom hyping them up as more than they are. And look, I don't care when stuff is clearly fanon or headcanons. Posts that are meant to be taken that way are usually pretty clear about it. But these are whole analyses based off of this overblown bond/friendship that literally only Spinner seems to acknowledge/be so attached to.

I don't doubt Shigaraki views everyone in the League as a friend in some capacity. I don't doubt that at all. I don't doubt that he cares and genuinely wants them to live how they want. However, I would like for someone to show me where he pays the same type of special attention to Spinner that Spinner gives to him. Imo, Shigaraki treats them all pretty equally--Spinner included.

I didn't know that about the Japanese, and yet, I still felt this way. Assuming that someone who has a good understanding of Japanese can correct your statement, I'm gonna take your word for it since I can't say shit otherwise lol. But cool--yeah that particular line is used quite a bit. And I get it! It's fun especially if you ship the characters or just enjoy their interactions.

But I feel like people overlook the fact that Spinner's idolization and attachment is literally negative and is a challenge in his arc, not some cute uwu friendship that was just about video games (when would they have played video games in canon??? WHEN????).

Spinner decided to seriously devote himself to Shigaraki (which in itself is a weird not great thing to do) during MVA, because it looked as if Shigaraki had made progress and overcome a barrier and become this all powerful destructive god who can make dreams come true (dreams for someone who wants to lash out at least). But MVA was not any of that. MVA was Shigaraki doing exactly what AFO wanted him to do--get worse emotionally, spiral more mentally and become even more unstable, and hate himself to the point that he sees no point in thinking or hoping for change for the better. Perfect, all according to keikaku. And THAT is when Spinner was like "FUCK YEAH THIS GUY". I know Spin didn't know that, but come oN guys THE TIMING OF IT IS SO FORETELLING.

AND IT WAS. Because look now. What has turned me completely off to this dynamic is the fandom hyping it up as a pure devotion that isn't stemming from a lot of self-worth issues and negative idealization. Spinner associates Shigaraki with destruction, rage, anger, and misery. That's also what Shigaraki associates himself with, and that's exactly what AFO wants. And man, he sure got it out of both of them.

And I'd like it if people acknowledged that more for what it is, but it's just reduced down to "two gamers that AFO groomed and took advantage of". And I feel that is just super oversimplifying what actually happened. AFO didn't groom Spinner from the age of 5, he took advantage of a vulnerability he was able to pinpoint super quickly after Spinner made it painfully obvious.

I like Spinner more on his own, and I like the potential for him to face the reality that him ignoring his gut instincts in favor of that dream of destruction he associates with Shigaraki eventually led to him making things worse for Shigaraki--unintentionally. I mean he hasn't made shit hit the fan YET--but man if things aren't looking ominous as fuck right now. AFO is counting on Spinner? Oof. But the potential for drama here is exciting, and I'm ready for it.

But yeah. I agree--it's overblown imo. It has become a plot point in Shigaraki's arc in a negative way. So I feel people miss the mark when they focus on how devoted Spinner is to Shigaraki during all of this mess, because that's exactly why things look the way they do lol.

[honey-milk-depresso]

Uuuum, rosaria mc with diasomnia? Can't think someone else other than them

Decided to eliminate some requests from my inbox (using my notebook-)

And YES- I'm so happy a lot of you requested for Rosaria s/o, because I love Rosaria UwU

I tried splitting, but I kinda got lazy for Diasomnia I apologise >.< (cuz I only did Malleus :')) )

You can impose a rather intimidating front to others, disliking things that bores you and having to work overtime.

Some might say you're extremely lazy; guaranteed to skip classes or dorm leader meetings when possible, being the first one to leave when forced to attend. You're quite infamous for such truancy.

You are, quite frighteningly, skilled in fighting, violence without brute, a keen intuition. You, however, you won't admit it out loud, that you remain indebted to your peers unselfish warmth and goodwill, and you would protect them when necessary.

The intimidating, lazy yet grateful s/o (Rosaria)

Riddle Rosehearts

One glance from you was enough to make him gulp. You have some sort of menacing aura even Riddle can't explain well enough.

Being the dorm leader of Ramshackle, Riddle is furious on how you don't take dorm leader meetings seriously. Besides Malleus (due to them forgetting to tell him-), you are constantly reminded of such, yet you never attend any of them.

When you're forced to go, you seemed sulky and bored, not paying attention to what everyone else is saying and discussing.

He's annoyed by it, and he always nags you with furious passion about you needing to attend them, as well as other important periods like classes.

You remind him of Floyd, just more "mature" and less lighthearted. You glare back at him, unbothered by his own angry face, and told him off.

You constantly get on his nerves! It's so irritating!

After much persuasion, nagging, fussing over you, sometimes nagging you not to skip lunch and other basic care you seem to have neglected,

he realises you're not as bad as he first thought you were.

Sure, you're still as lazy as ever, still skipping classes and meetings,

but you were more willing when others force you to attend, albeit still grumbling, you actually walked your way to Heartslabyul to attend Riddle's Unbirthday Party when he gave you an invitation, with no one else forcing you.

Riddle realises you're quite solemn. Not saying that you're intimidating front don't translate that, but you feel grateful that he didn't really leave you or give up on you despite your behaviour.

He was surprise when you fought with Leona during his overblot event, stating how you won't lose for him. <3

Trey Clover

Oh boy. He only knows about you because of how Riddle passionately and VERY furiously rants about you not taking anything seriously, and that you're disrespecting the school.

Trey also never sees you walking around campus, or in any class since you never attend them either. Divus is most upset about it-

It was only when he decided enough is enough, tired of having Riddle's blood boiled to an inhuman degree, he made his way to Ramshackle with some pastries in a basket to perhaps bribe you into coming to classes and meetings.

That wasn't much of the case.

You knew, and you harshly decline them, much to Trey's surprise. You told him off, saying it was none of his business, and that he shouldn't bother. Trey was taken aback, not knowing what else to say as you slammed the door on him, leaving him stunned.

But Trey didn't really leave you afterwards, instead doing the same thing again, but with no pastries. It was quite stupid, even he himself thought so, but it was worth to try.

Eventually, you finally let him in, and he looks in horror how he realises you didn't clean up much of Ramshackle, still looking like, well, a ramshackle.

He helps you clean up, even if sometimes you're maybe too sceptical on why he helps, he genuinely feels this isn't the right environment to live in in NRC.

Eventually, you warmed up to him, your actions speak louder than words when you finally, FINALLY, attend one meeting each month at least, just so Trey wouldn't suffer hearing Riddle's outburst, and helping him in the kitchen, forcing him to let you help him (to which he sweatdropped-)

He does sometimes have to hold you back from attacking people who insults him (although very rarely-), and he tells you he's alright, so long as you're with him. <3

Just don't murder anyone please-

Malleus Draconia

Malleus is not intimidated by you. Well, not to say he doesn't feel tense around you, he just isn't scared when he sees your intimidating looks.

He himself is like that, too. He probably sees that as your normal resting face.

In any case, he also doesn't attend dorm leader meetings, but that's because no one tells him. You on the other hand, he hears from Lilia, have always gotten constant reminders, yet you choose not to go. Malleus is quite intrigued by your behaviour. You choose not to go? How interesting.

He also doesn't see you walking around campus, since you also skipped a lot of your classes.

He was curious as of to why, and decided to ask you that question himself by going to Ramshackle. While he has been there a few times, he doesn't see you there surprisingly, he wonders what you're doing most of the time.

Either way, he finds a very irritated and messy you, your hair ruffled in different directions, clearly neglecting to comb or brush your hair properly. He wasn't bothered by it, and asked you quite bluntly.

You squinted and frowned. You told him off by saying it was none of his business, and that he shouldn't be nosy in other people's lives, before you slammed the door on him.

Malleus was left outside of Ramshackle speechless and shocked by this, telling Lilia, Silver and Sebek, and of course Sebek was furious about it.

He was quite surprise, no one had the guts to tell someone like him off, even he knows such.

Malleus decided maybe he should try having you and him attend dorm meetings, since you would know when they start, and he would help you be willing to go. And that's what he did.

Every day, he goes to your dorm, asking when meetings are and asked if you would like to attend with him. At first, you found it ridiculous, but just so he wouldn't bother you, you begrudgingly gave in and went with him to those meetings.

Malleus smiles, now with you having to willingly travel with him not just for meetings and classes, but also just hanging out with him, although you grumble a little.

Eventually, you told him in a blunt manner of how you were grateful of him having to spend time with you, and he smiles upon hearing you would protect him if he ever needs help.

While Malleus don't need much protection, he feels safe knowing you'll stick by his side. <3

[pianostarinwonderland]

How do you feel about the release so far? Did live up to your expectations?

I'm really really amazed with the localization! The presentation (font, font styles) is beautiful, and you can tell that there's love poured into the writing. I'm currently buzzing with energy at 1am because of how fun this localization has been.

There are a lot of things I can say about the translation.

Starting with gameplay translations, first I love how they translated the grass/tree element to flora! It's a smart reference to Flora from Sleeping Beauty, and it's such a beautiful word. I also love that they use cosmic for void. It sounds so much more magical.

Groovification is rather interesting. Personally, I don't see a real reason to change it, but I guess they wanted to add a much fancier term for it.

I never thought I would actually see the word phial be used until I saw the translation for the small blooming honey. They're really testing out people's vocabulary knowledge, huh? 😂 They also used secret smorgasbords for the bigger snacks for leveling up episode– oh I'm sorry, vignette levels, and I think that's so cute.

Speaking of which, vignette is probably one of the few words that I never actually heard of from this game. I really like that they used such a big word for this. It's also so pretty. 😭

Thaumarks may sound weird, but honestly, it's so much prettier than madols. I still love my magic dollars, but thaumarks is such a smart decision. It's a combination of thaum, which is a measure of magic (and then there's the word thaumaturgy, which is the practice of performing magic) and marks, a currency in Europe (old or current, I'm not entirely sure). It's also a really good way to make us feel that we are truly in a foreign country. Madols works for the JP version because Japanese people aren't used to dollars, but for people in the US and Canada (and in many other parts of the world), dollars is their currency, so they had to change it up. Adding a deep English word also helps.

Personally, them changing ATK to POW for the stats is weird, but I understand that they don't want to confuse it with the card type Attack. This is probably one of the few localized terms that I'll choose to ignore.

Okay, gameplay terms that struck me out of the way, I want to talk about the story translations.

Firstly, the way they translated Crowley's infamous "watashi yasashii no de" line. I am honestly so happy at the different translations they gave for him. From kind to magnanimous, the team really had fun with changing it up. And honestly, it makes the language feel more natural and fluid. I enjoy it.

Grim's whole "Great Grim" schtick also gets changed up! Extraordinaire (my personal favorite), genius... it's just so so good. It adds so much character to him.

I'm a bit bummed that they stuck with headmage. It's not bad, but when there is already headmaster, you just want to ask why they had to make a new word for it.

Then to the other more infamous localized term, housewarden has grown on me throughout the month, so I don't mind it as much now. Interestingly enough, Azul says dorm leader in the prologue, and I nearly wanted to kiss him for it. I genuinely hope they don't edit it. I was thinking maybe it's a thing that some people prefer housewarden, particularly those who prefer tradition, but others want to go with something else like dorm leader. Funnily enough, Kalim's R school uniform story shows him saying housewarden as well.

I absolutely adore Rook's nickname translations. Monsieur Dent-de-Lion for Ruggie and Monsieur Spontané for Floyd are the ones I know so far, but the way they're spelled, they have that spirit of Rook that I always felt the fan translations of his nicknames lacked. It makes me so happy.

Now the most fun part: the gen z slang. This game has managed to put in such high-end vocabulary and uwu speak in this fucking game. One of Idia's robe lines has him saying hewwo. I'm not kidding.

And don't get me started on Floyd. He has said YEAH BOIII in his basketball R card while slam dunking a basketball and YEET in his robe story.

And don't even get me started on Cater. This man???? I can't count the amount of iconic lines he has because he has so many???? He even goes "Click "Share on my awesomeness." in his battle start line, can you believe this guy? I have a feeling Disney was absolutely high doing Cater's dialogue, and they did it so fucking well.

You can really see how much love and care they poured into this translation. It feels so relatable and yet they don't fail to add in high-end words. I'm so glad that they put this much effort into the localization, and I hope that it gets better from here on out.