#can speak the language but illiterate

[tomyo]

My determination is to go to Japan this fall but in an idea world I also come back and almost immediately go on medical leave for a hysterectomy, force my mum to partially run my business, and start Japanese classes to pursue a day job as a translator.

Mania at a dead end job has made me wish to simply return to my original purpose in college and figure out what I was gonna do with becoming a poly glot.

[majiburger]

grandma saw the batman sticker on my laptop and asked who that is, so i ended up explaining the bruce wayne lore to her in a dialect that less than 10,000 people speak

[lights-at-night]

vent

[vampireloverz]

learning spanish for miguel while he learns portuguese for me <3

[letterful]

And even second-grade Vietnamese can be abused. “In the Vietnamese context — and it might be similar to Chinese — words are like spells,” Vuong told the writer Hua Hsu in 2022, claiming English speakers have a basically primitive relationship to language compared with the peoples of the Far East. This is deeply insulting to Vuong’s much-invoked illiterate ancestors, who were apparently so in touch with the primordial metaphors that they never managed to convey basic information to one another. Of course, what can make the mother tongue seem like magic is the simple fact that one does not speak it very well. Like many children of diaspora — I include myself here — Vuong mistakes his own naïveté for insight. 

[oc-ideas-prompts]

Your bilingual character absolutely can say random things in their other language, as long as you as a writer understand why.

I grew up not knowing I was bilingual, which means I ended up being illiterate in my first language (Japanese).

I was raised largely by Japanese art, and as an autistic person, I ended up absorbing it WAYY easier than the American culture around me.

Now, I use Japanese a lot in English speaking areas for two main reasons:

1) I really need the practice

2) I'm really tired of people demanding I live up to American culture and ideals when that's not who I am

If your character says things in an 'inappropriate' language for the context, maybe instead of changing it, ask them why!

[hiccup-in-the-code]

How to train your dragon question (or I guess technically questions but related) that I want headcanon answers to because I'm interested in what y'all think, I'm currently watching Race to the Edge, and, so Gothi right? So in the movie the only time they acknowledge Gothi she only needs to nod or shake her head because that's all that her character is needed for, but in the show it's expanded upon that she doesn't speak and instead writes with her staff in dirt/sand/snow/etc. AND they make it a point that the ONLY people who can read her writing are Gobber, Hiccup, and Fishlegs.

We also know that it is not the regular written language as 1. We know that while there are definitely illiterate Vikings it does seem to be commonplace to learn to read and write on Berk, not just Stoick (and therefore extension Hiccup as heir) being a chief having to be able to read and write for treaties, Borks papers are a treasured and regularly displayed thing that are viewed, ALL of the teens are told to read the book of dragons meaning the expectation is that they are somewhat literate. 2. We get to see some of her writings and they are more so sketches, a "picture" language and occasional "chicken scratch".

Now my questions

1. Why specifically do you think Gothi doesn't speak? The two ways I've seen it explored in fanfics (that I unfortunately can't remember the names of at this time) were 1. Literally losing her ability to speak as a pack with the gods in exchange for her healer knowledge which, while very cool, is more based in mythology realm and Berk is definitely meant to be a bit more real (obviously minus the dragons, but for example they believe Thor doesn't like metal when the joke is that we know IRL the lightning is just attracted to metal as a conductor so the in world belief becomes silly to us, not fourth wall breaking but fourth wall joke writing kinda stuff) and 2. She had her tongue cut out as part of being the like, "level" of healer she is she needs to be "prevented from gossiping about her patients", which again, very cool. We know she's been nonspeaking and a healer since she was young so I think it may either be that she took a vow of silence similar to a monk, though this one would be related to her as a healer, maybe her "level" requires dedications such as a vow of silence OR maybe she was born mute and Berk had a belief of those with certain born disabilities were more spiritually tied to the gods and thus are put in positions such as healer.

2. What language specifically does she write in? Is it standardized across mute healers? Is it specific to her and if so how was it first translated? and on that note..

3. Why can only Gobber Hiccup and Fishlegs read it? Fishlegs I understand, he's an academic, he would be interested just because. Hiccup I understand, both from a character perspective of like Fishlegs, being kinda an academic, wanting to learn for the sake of having the knowledge, but also as heir to the chiefdom, it would be insanely important to be able to understand your best healer. Which leads to WHY CANT STOICK READ IT? Idk just feels weird (I remember him asking Gobber what she was saying which is how I know he can't read it) and on that note, why is it Gobber of all people who can also read it? (Obviously the IRL writing perspective reason is that stoick is busy doing Chief stuff and we need a familiar character that is not one of the main characters sometimes to be able to read it) but like in universe why do you think it's him of all people? do you think it has to do with him being a descendant of Bork?

Just something I think about while I'm watching the very beginning of Race To The Edge again

[cinnabutcringy]

[ just a small cw; i'm gonna be talking abt racist stereotypes, not very in depth but still ]

i said this on twitter but i'll say it here too: reverse1999 is NOT a perfect game and i think people should stop acting like it's "the exception" because of the devs doing the bare minimum when it comes to some of the representation.

like, it's okay to like these characters. hell, if you're part of the groups that they represent (indians, for example) then i'm not gonna tell you that you can't like them or find them decent representation. i also understand the feeling of "i take what i can get" when it comes to representation in media of marginalized groups.

but at the same time, i think it's important to acknowledge that there is genuinely criticisms to be had of this game and its way of handling non-east asian poc.

for one, there's only about 4 characters that have dark skin (i would not personally consider joe to be one of them but i'm counting him just bc i forgot to in my twt thread and also to just cover my bases.) kaalaa baunaa and kanjira do not have dark skin. has no one considered why this is???? at all???

and on the topic of kanjira, she also is a character full of orientalist stereotypes. i like kanjira, i think she's a sweet kid, but aside from that, she's written to be a thief, con artist and is illiterate and homeless. i'm not saying that that's not a reality for some kids, but the fact that she was deliberately written this way is kind of a red flag.

there's also some smaller things that people have pointed out like most of the representation in this game of those cultures being things like the characters naming off foods, or just saying small phrases (i.e. centurion talking about burritos and enchiladas, and leilani saying "aloha!") and not actually having many cultural references nor speaking a lot in their language

don't even get me STARTED on the lack of african or african american representation in this fuckin game.

again. i don't want to say that no one can like these characters. i don't want to say that people cannot relate to these characters, or that people can't think they're good representation. that's not my call especially not if you're part of the groups of ppl they're representing (i.e. latin americans, hawaiians, indians, etc.) but i think it is important to realize that like

well, for one, no group is a monolith. there are probably ppl who feel this way but either don't get heard or are too scared to say so.

and two, even if you're not a part of these groups, you can still recognize the flaws in something and acknowledge that, most likely, it's part of a bigger problem in society--colorism, orientalism, whatever. it's in many gacha games and will continue to be, and r1999 is not an exception that should be justified or ignored because "it's better than genshin impact"

[paper-mario-wiki]

apologies if this question has been asked before, but how did you go about learning japanese? I want to learn, but don't know where to start besides learning hiragana/katakana so i can actually read

that's a tough question! because i dont really know how to quantify my japanese (it's not much, broken conversational at best, completely illiterate at worst), which is mostly due to how infrequently i study.

i can tell you one thing though, most people who learn language are trying way too hard to use their conscious mind to translate their mother tongue into their target language, and vice versa. to become fluent in a language, you must be able to speak it unconsciously. when you speak english (or any other language you know well), you're not needing to think about the things you say before you say them, right? and you also don't control the words being said by people in your dreams, right? that's because your brain understands the language as a tool for comprehending the world around you. that's why language immersion is so important. you have to have constant reinforcement that the color of the trees is 緑色, and that 緑色 means this color. the word "Green" should not come up even a single time in your mind.

this is the most important thing ive learned in language acquisition. you will not start by speaking adult japanese, or adult spanish, or adult german, or adult english. you always start by speaking baby language. even if you're only able to use the language in a broken way reflexively, if you keep it reflexive and keep training it through constant input, your skill will only become more and more refined.

hope this helps.

[fireflyinks]

i LOVEEE the way you write hamzah can we get general bf hcss😭🙏🙏

boyfriend!hamzah headcannons

tysm!! loved writing this sm , thank you for the support!!

- first off, the nicknames he would give you! probably very basic, names like baby, babe, honey, etc. he would also call you girl and lady because he’s so sassy 😭

- speaking of his sassiness, it’s completely out of control. as well as being your boyfriend, he’s your number one gossip buddy.

- “girl, i know she did NOT say that to you…” “who does she think she is…” he lives for the drama

- if you’re a big reader and have a favorite book, he would try so hard to read it (which is so sweet because i swear this man is illiterate). maybe even for your birthday he would annotate it and give it to you. all of his annotations would be sooo dumb, like “BRO WHAT?” “EW” or just stupid jokes about the characters.

- he’s a secret hopeless romantic. like he acts all nonchalant in front of everyone else but when it’s just the two of you, he’s actually really sweet and loves doing stupid romantic stuff.

- do NOT open your own car door infront of this man, he will sulk up and be salty for the rest of the day

- IMAGINE ARCADE DATES WITH HIM OMG

- he is a BIG cuddler, but he denies that he likes being the small spoon. but when he’s really sleepy, he begs you to cuddle him. at any time of the day, he will drop everything to cuddle on the couch with you.

- he LOVESSS when you play with his hair, he will literally fold

- hamzah will use any excuse to bring you up on the channel, a lot like martin does with mandy.

- speaking of martin and mandy, you all go on double dates all of the time. he’s so happy that he doesn’t have to third wheel them anymore.

- he loves matching outfits with you. trust he forces you to wear camo pants with him!!

- hamzah films tiktoks with you all the time, like that one lipstick trend. also you would lip sync “promiscuous” with him, iykyk

- he’d also have you on the podcast all of the time, and sometimes have special episodes with just you and him when martin is busy.

- you and mandy would be best friends and make fun of your boyfriends together 🫶🏻

- hamzah is secretly very good at cooking, and it’s one of his love languages. you’d randomly come home to a full course gourmet meal on a random tuesday night. the only problem is he is extremely messy, and is covered head to toe in various ingredients.

- another one of his love languages is just quality time. he loves to spend time alone with you, and do things you both like.

- I LOVE BOYFRIEND!HAMZAH OMFG

[mercymornsimpathizer]

some random thoughts on that literacy study going around, since the op has turned off rbs

one of the things that is hardest for me to wrap my mind around is that literacy and linguistic fluency are different skills. its one of those things that is obvious when you point it out -- i mean, language predates writing! there are languages that have no writing system! --but that a person might not ever consider because we are (implicitly?) taught that written language is the purest or most essential form of language. but there are people who are profoundly illiterate (in the sense that they might not even know the alphabet/writing system of their language) who nonetheless can and do speak fluently, follow conversations, enjoy and understand music/movies/etc.; in fact that is the case for the vast majority of people who are illiterate or have low literacy. it is the written word, not the word itself, that they struggle with, right?

and then you have these students in the study who in a literal sense are literate. it isn't the problem you see with low literacy adults, or with children who are learning to read, where they do not recognize or know how to pronounce a word, maybe they parse a word incorrectly or substitute it with a word they do know. it doesn't seem to me that the literal act of reading is what these students couldn't do; if their task was to produce an audiobook of bleak house they would do a passable job. rather it was making meaning of what they read that they struggled with. its the reverse of what we would expect of a low literacy reader, who has no problem in general with what words mean, who can follow and connect meaning over a discourse, who understands and might even enjoy figurative, poetic, or idiomatic phrases, who may have a large vocabulary, but cannot connect those things to written symbols. presumably (?????) the readers in the study also don't in general struggle with those things, when it comes to spoken language.

so where, exactly, is the problem? it isn't that the language itself is incomprehensible to them, and it isn't that they cannot (in the literal sense) read and write. naively it seems to me like those are the only two points where a person could fail. so what is it??? i guess it might really be the vocabulary that is the issue, in the same way that i could, for example, passably read aloud a piece of german language text without understanding it -- because its written in an alphabet I use, and I know the rules of german pronunciation, even though i don't speak german (i.e. i dont know what german words mean). or the same way that someone could sing in a language they dont understand by memorizing them sound by sound. that seems a little facile to me, especially since the words in bleak house are not really that obscure or unusual.

but like what else could it be. just that they don't read very much, and when they do read they don't "translate" it into their own words line by line? is it an issue of attention, or interest? do they assume (as the op posits) that they don't expect it to make sense to them, so they don't try to make sense of it? or its too embarrassing to admit to the facilitator that they don't get or are having a hard time? really and truly difficult for me to understand

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Jack Kerouac: "Are Writers Born or Made?"

Jack Kerouac:

Writers are made, for anybody who isn’t illiterate can write; but geniuses of the writing art like Melville, Whitman or Thoreau are born.

[Genius] doesn’t mean screwiness or eccentricity or excessive “talent.” It is derived from the Latin word gignere (to beget) and a genius is simply a person who originates something never known before.

Nobody but Melville could have written Moby-Dick, not even Whitman or Shakespeare. Nobody but Whitman could have written Leaves of Grass; Whitman was born to write Leaves of Grass and Melville was born to write Moby-Dick.

Artists of genius, like Jackson Pollock, have painted things that have never been seen before…

Take the case of James Joyce: people say he “wasted” his “talent” on the stream-of-consciousness style, when in fact he was simply born to originate it.

Some geniuses come with heavy feet and march solemnly forward… Geniuses can be scintillating and geniuses can be somber, but it’s that unescapable sorrowful depth that shines through — originality.

When the question is therefore asked, “Are writers born or made?” one should first ask, “Do you mean writers of talent or writers of originality?” Because everybody can write but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented new forms of writing and her imitators are just “talents.”

The criterion for judging talent or genius is ephemeral, speaking rationally in this world of graphs, but one gets the feeling definitely when a writer of genius amazes him by strokes of force never seen before and yet hauntingly familiar…

The main thing to remember is that talent imitates genius, because there’s nothing else to imitate. Since talent can’t originate, it has to imitate, or interpret…

Genius gives birth, talent delivers.

What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night sky can never be seen again… 

Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and see many times imitated by made writers.

Oftentimes the originator of new language forms is called “pretentious” by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.

Source

[aguinhac]

I drew berror a lucidia redesign, because I'm still sad he ain't a part of lucidia, I don't care if it makes sense or not, I am adding him to everything I can add him.

In retrospect I shouldn't have drawn him with this pose, consirering... You know, you can't see his glov-

Bonus:

look at him, he so silly.

B̵̖͎͕̞̪͐͗̏̔͊̈́́̒̌̕e̷̡͕̍͋r̸̨͕̭̹̟̓̈́̽̄́̒̈́͒͊͋͒̋̍͐̏̚͠͠r̷͇̞͓͍̫͚̩͎͍̫͇̊́̉́͊̽̃̓͋͐͒̋́̾̃̈́̚͠ȍ̵̧̙͑͋̂̔͊̆̽̀̔͆̓��̗̪͕͈r̶̢̡̢̮͔͈̗̪̮̙̱̰̘̠̭͉̙̣͑̿̑͜͝ and lucidia by @loverofpiggies

⚠️ Warning ⚠️ Someone getting overly upset about spooky scary skeletons below 👇

Ok, first things first, before having the idea for this, I had no idea what “Lucidia” was, I literally though it was the name of the redesign, but then I found out it was a series, I simply though it was just an UT AU, read like two pages, thought “coming from crayon queen this AU must be huge” and decided to just read it later, cause that's something I do sometimes. (still trying to find some time to read fatal error lmao)

One day I was scrolling through ask error trying to find a specific panel for reference cause I was planning a comic, and there were some asks about Lucidia, I read those and found out Lucidia was actually something completely unrelated to Undertale, and that error and fresh would now be their own characters instead of Undertale AUs.

because I am a whiny bitch, that thought scared me and I didn't want to read it anymore, but the voices in my head told me, just cause they are now independent characters is not like they are gonna disappear, and for me to man up and read the thing, so I manned up, read the comic, and there was like 5 pages.

I told myself: there is NO WAY Lucidia is this short, and I decided to search more about it for two reasons: one I had the berror redesign ready cause I made it like a year ago for something else unrelated, but I was willing to change somethings about it, and by knowing more of Lucidia I was hoping I could it make the redesign better, and two, I was curious, I had read a little bit about it but I wanted to learn more, (maybe get some more info about errors?) so I started looking, so I read through some wikis and found- Almost nothing.

But I am a self proclaimed Dreamtale expert, I am used to going through wikis and finding almost jack-shit, so I instead I went directly on crayon queen’s blog, and I guess I found a little bit, but… when I did the Dreamtale comparison, I was not joking, searching Lucidia canon reminded me a lot searching for Dreamtale canon, the key differences being that when I searched for Dreamtale I knew that there was info, It was just scattered around, and I had some idea of what I was looking for because one of the first things you find in joku’s blog is character names, but when looking for Lucidia canon, I had no idea what I was looking for, or how much there was to look for, unlike Dreamtale that everything I learned helped me learn something new, in Lucidia everything I learned made me feel there was less to learn, if this makes any sense.

And even worst, there were moments where this fucking thing called me stupid, not joking, when I am reading through Dreamtale and don't understand something I can give the excuse “I don't speak Spanish” LUCIDIA in the other hand was all written in english, and I still wasn't understanding it, “I couldnt give the I don't speak the language” excuse anymore, it's laughtable the amount of times this series called me illiterate, Let me repeat, A SERIES called me DUMB, A SERIES THAT HASN'T BEEN UPDATED SINCE 2021, CALLED ME STUPID.

I can't say I haven't learned anything about it, I learned about spice named reapers, reaper ranking, proferror and circuit… and that's pretty much it.

Well, I might have wasted my time on an AU that I don't even know if it's canceled or not, and that in the end did not help me design the character, did not teach me about errors, and with such a small amount of info about it, didn't satisfied my curiosity, BUT, reaper x error (a ship that I do not like) became 10X times funnier, so there's that.

[lonestardust]

Do you see racist things? If you ever feel like speaking out I would love a chance to make sure I'm not accidentally doing or agreeing with anything harmful.

i really appreciate your kindness anon and i know your intentions are good but if you want, bear with me this long answer because this is exactly my issue; people not realizing there is a wrong foundation dominating these kinds of online spaces we're on. people falling for anything as long as it has a nice sounding veneer that softens the fallacy of it. and this is not (just) about fandom. people need to start treating political education and being principled as a fundamental duty we're fully accountable for and not just something we just want to make sure we're not getting wrong.

it's a labour that requires sacrifice of time and effort on daily basis. it's our responsibility to study, to understand the structures of oppression, to be able to point out all the contradictory positions people take and especially from lazy audience who just endorse anything by clicking a 'share' button.

Don't wait for someone to speak out or wait until someone tells you what has been harming them for too long. Acts that perpetuate oppression don't happen inside our bodies and it's only me who can tell that my stomach is hurting, the symptoms and patterns of harmful positions and acts are out there all the time they just fly under the radar for those who don't do the work to see them as a systematic behaviour, in the wider scope, that's how the privileged, the protected and the politically illiterate/indoctrinated maintain the status quo; by leaving everything on the back of the struggling people to fix, without reaching the stage of maturity of being finally capable of understanding and combating those tools of imperialism on their own (choice of words, language, ideologies, actions, online behaviour etc), people are just too lazy to lead with correct principles that's my issue. liberalism just never graduates from that school, it retreats back to individualism right after telling you its willing to care about the collective in an actual effective way. and during that period it just keeps on inflicting piles of harm for us, the principled, to undo and label as ideological hazard.

I'm just so tired.. I've seen so much betrayal and sustained so many moral injuries from so called communities on here (lgbt circles, fandoms, people with their nice sounding liberal zionist shit and harmful normalization positions on the Palestinian struggle and the current ongoing Genocide etc etc) that pinpointing individual incidents feels in vain.

the term 'community' has been reduced to some depoliticised liberal abstraction where individuals conflate indulging in sexual consumerism and fun activities with collective work. and it points to a larger contradiction where selfish pursuits are masked as liberating and empowering (people who say shit like joy is resistance from the comfort of their couch. i see you), at the expense of emergency mobilisation, investing labour in political education and cultivating real connections based off shared values and struggles. especially now... just the levels of self gratification on here.. the people who treat politics/people's lives as an secondary backdrop to their blogs to show off moral integrity between their usual content. the romanticising of colonial violence or the total negligence of it, the reduction of the global south struggles to english ready made appealing content. all the selective celebrity culture garbage, etc.

I don't speak out here because for most people, politics is about appearing radical online from time to time and not about being able to defend a position with conviction and sacrifice a lot for it.

and because academics, western degree holders, big blogs (often run by a white person), the english-speaking diaspora voices, are more preferred, promoted and listened to

because articulation in english, layered with academic jargon, is constantly mistaken for sound politics.

I don't speak here because myopic victim narratives are centered over structural critique.

because identity wins over principled politics - every single time.

and I'm not interesting in pandering in front of a people here who selfishly give all their time to hobbies and self indulgence and cause harm by endorsing and agreeing on things they think they comprehend from the moral perspective. they don't listen let alone put labour into being responsible individuals. idk that's why i said before i feel like a hypocrite for being here in the first place. I have my other online circles where i find the sound political ground i seek so here I just try to stick to fandom content and nothing more, i just can't help sometimes the way i get angry at the things i see, but again, that's on me for choosing a space where performativity dominates, I'm responsible for that I'm very aware.

Apologies for the long reply Xx

[thunderin-brainstorm]

it's not easy having a name that's just two letters of an alphabet that isn't used in this world! the vast majority of people RB meets in Hisui speak Sinjori, the modern descendant of a former common language called Ranseigo, aka fantasy Japanese. Hisuian Sinjori remains close enough that the Galaxy Team personnel from Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn can still easily communicate with them. while apparently Arceus was kind enough to brain-blast her with the ability to speak Sinjori upon getting dumped into this world (but not the ability to read or write it, dammit), that doesn't change the fact that RB's name is, uh, going to be a little lost in pronunciation for most Sinjori speakers. she doesn’t usually try to correct them, but it takes her a hot minute to recognize when someone’s calling for her like this

Professor Laventon speaks Galrish of course, which is something she doesn’t figure out until a good three or four months into her stay in Jubilife. lucky for her, Galrish is identical to English, so it’s nice to have someone she can speak her native language with again (even if Galrish doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, still rendering her functionally illiterate). unluckily, something about the British accent does make RB feel like he’s calling her Arby instead. she knows that there’s no real difference in pronunciation, that she really can’t begrudge him or anyone in Hisui for not saying her name precisely as she wants them to, but this small detail in a veritable ton of general cultural differences is still a little disheartening regardless…

until she meets Ingo and is DELIGHTED when this stranger not only pronounces her name perfectly despite the Sinjori, he also automatically and effortlessly executes the smoothest handshake she’s ever experienced (which honestly isn’t a high bar, as she’s instinctively tried for a handshake with just about everyone she’s met in Hisui and been met with blank awkward looks every time). it’s a very gratifying moment of validation that is only somewhat lessened by the fact she is at the moment drugged to the gills from a Turtwig’s spore attack and is struggling to stay awake, but that’s neither here nor there

[mewguca]

luna, thanks for breaking down the character differences between vanilla and downpour because I'm too much of an illiterate gremlin to discern those nuances, it is much appreciated!

may I ask if there's anything from the officially published fanfiction that you did like on its own merits?

I'm assuming you're asking about characterization and narrative, instead of gameplay / world design, so I'll focus on that. on a meta level, I love the fact that downpour exists as officially published fanfiction / an official AU. It's really inspirational tbh, and it makes me feel better about making fanworks

for actual game stuff , I'll start with Spearmaster.

I like that SRS forms an attachment to their messenger, especially since they initially seemed repulsed by it. It's more interesting that they didn't immediately bond, as it creates some internal conflicts (guilt) within SRS. I also like that NSH warns them not to get too attached before it returns; it's a reasonable suggestion and may be influenced by their current loss. (of LTTM)

I could nitpick a lot here but I'm going to try and omit that for the sake of brevity and efficiency. (general statement about the ramble)

I like that NSH gets upset and stops talking to SRS for a little while, and that SRS becomes a bit desperate and anxious. It humanizes both of them. I also like that NSH says something irrational and emotional about suns sending their messenger to the wrong person, and that they immediately reflect and retract their statement. They seem emotionally mature here. I also like that SRS's question (would that have helped?) can be interpreted in multiple ways; perhaps it's a genuine inquiry out of desperation, or perhaps it's a more snide remark to ground their friend. Perhaps both. It's neat, I think.

I like NSH's broadcast to FP. I think the wording could be stronger, but it's still convincing to me. I can feel the emotion here. I can hear NSH's voice as he speaks these words in his mind. And I like that NSH asks FP to reflect upon his actions, rather than insulting him or threatening him. Again, you can interpret in multiple ways, and it serves multiple purposes. Self-reflection seems to be a weak point for DP Pebbles, especially with all of the shame. So, this remark serves as Genuine Advice, but it can also serve as... a Curse of sorts? Foreshadowing? That he must overcome this weakness of his, and that he cannot run from it forever. yay

I like Moon's final broadcast. I'm glad she got to have a moment like this, and it's fun to voice this one, too. It's sweet, and it says something about her that she wanted her final broadcast to be uplifting and warm. She wanted people to remember her and smile...

This broadcast between SI and WO may actually be my favorite, though. (of sm broadcasts I mean) I'm a huge bennie (ancient) fan, so hearing more about them is awesome. I like that different Cities had different cultures and politics, different rituals and behaviors, and (implied) different "eras" over time... I enjoy that this characterizes the bennies as diverse and fascinating, and that different Iterators had different relationships with their citizens. There's a lot to chew on here without too much to wade through, and I wish we had more broadcasts like these. I love it. <3

Other Spearmaster things I liked:

SOS lizard betting <3

SRS studying sign language to communicate with SM. i dont like the worldbuilding around the mark and the puppet faces here so I didnt include the full screenshot, but I like the idea of SRS trying to establish two-way communication.

NSH purposing a messenger to troll people is fun, even if I'm not fond of the details

TRANSCENDENTAL INVERSION! is a fun phrase; I really like it lol

Artificer:

this one white pearl

Rivulet:

I like the mass rarefaction cell. I like the heart symbolism around it a lot; as someone with heart issues, it makes me happy to relate to a fictional character with them, even abstractly.

I like how it ties things into a neat little ring; FP kills moon, but he also gives her life. It's very powerful, at least conceptually. I just wish that when he gave her his physical heart, he gave her his metaphorical heart alongside it. She just wanted to speak with him one last time, and it sucks that's unfulfilled. But I appreciate the potential, at least. And I do love a reconciliation. I'm glad they made up.

also mass rarefaction cells are fun and useful! gotten a lot out of them, I think! yay.

I also like some of moon's dialogue in riv campaign and that she checks her unread messages.

Saint:

There's not really much to talk about here, but I like some of the Echo dialogues quite a bit. I also like the dialogues in Rubicon but I don't feel like getting another screenshot

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets remains the goat forever.

I have a particular fondness for Eight Spots on a Blind Eye, as well. Probably because I voiced these lines, haha. But I think it's cute for someone to acknowledge your enthusiasm for exploration, and I like how sweet they are. yay