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badscienceman · 2 months ago

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I saw someone ask what "I hope this hurts" means beyond the obvious, and I started to respond only for it to turn into an essay... Because I don't feel like dumping something so long in some unsuspecting person's notifs, I'm just going to post it here instead.

I started writing this after playing the game, but ended up watching a playthrough because I couldn't remember exactly where "I hope this hurts" was repeated. I think I caught the only few times it was mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something, so feel free to correct me on that or anything else I might have gotten wrong.

Spoilers for the full game and CWs for everything you would expect from discussing Mouthwashing apply.

Edited 10/16/2024 for clarity and some minor issues with formatting. I added sections in hopes of making it more readable, as well as a few more screenshots that I hope will support my points better. *Indicates where I made potentially significant additions to my original analysis.

Part One: Jimmy

Jimmy is someone who has a delicate ego. This means that he's very concerned with how he's perceived by those around him. We see this in how he responds to Curly and the news of the company's closure, which he takes it as a personal attack in spite of it very clearly having nothing to do with him on a personal level.

For people like Jimmy, a threat to one's image (whether it's a matter of their perception of themselves or, maybe worse, the perception others have of them) brings intense emotional pain. Even though it's clear that Curly meant no personal offense, and likely saw more good in Jimmy than was actually there, Jimmy sees this as a great threat to his own image, and thus identity.

To be clear, it's not just that Jimmy thinks Curly is looking down on him. It's also that Jimmy needs his role in the company to maintain his image, and he needs to eventually become captain. This is his ultimate goal because the respect and control that someone like Curly has, in Jimmy's mind, is tied to the title he possesses. And Jimmy wants that. He wants respect, he wants to be listened to, he wants power over others. (This is also why Swansea's final speech is so important, in relation to the belief that if one just reaches this next goal, they might feel a little more human, a little more in control, a little more fulfilled, but as Swansea shows us, that's just not the case. And it's true for Jimmy, too. Jimmy isn't magically fulfilled by obtaining the title of captain.)

But in the beginning, Jimmy has yet to realize that just getting the role of captain won't magically make him a man who is respected, or even a man who is truly in control. He sees no opportunities for himself on earth. The only option is to stay in this company and become a little lord of his own ship... and suddenly that's ripped out from under him. He will never reach the goal he's been chasing for all of this time.

Anya telling him about her pregnancy is the final push he needs to go over the edge.

Part Two: Captain

Returning to the initial reveal that the company is shutting down for a second, I think it's important to keep in mind a few things:

1. The importance of the title of captain in Jimmy's mind.

2. How this extends to his perception of Curly, him being the current captain.

3. Jimmy's self-centeredness preventing him from understanding the feelings and perceptions of those around him.

When Curly says what he does, Jimmy immediately jumps to the conclusion that Curly sees himself as above everyone else (and most importantly, as above Jimmy), to the point of considering them "dirt." I don't think Jimmy is just projecting his greatest fear (being seen as lesser) onto Curly. I think he's projecting his own perceptions.

He's placed all of this importance on the title of captain, and thus Curly. The captain is above Jimmy. Jimmy is beneath him, is lesser. And we know how Jimmy treats those he sees as lesser (first Anya, and then the rest of the crew once he's captain, *manipulating Daisuke into putting his life at risk because Daisuke, who is just an intern after all, just isn't important to Jimmy being an example).

I think this is a fair reading because Jimmy does something similar with Swansea when he insists that Swansea is keeping the last cryostasis pod for himself. I understand some might say that this is just Jimmy's attempt to manipulate Daisuke and Jimmy doesn't actually believe it, which is a fair interpretation, but I sincerely think he believes what he's saying in this instance. And I think that because Jimmy sees selfishness as common sense. It's what he would do were he in Swansea's position, and what makes him giving the pod to Curly significant.

Part Three: Anya

So, Jimmy is already hurt and panicking. He sees his chance at power and thus fulfillment slipping away. And then Anya tells him that she's pregnant.

Anya, who he has shown time and time again that he thinks little of.

Anya, who he clearly sees as beneath him.

Any mention of the pregnancy, no matter how gently it was worded, would immediately feel like a threat to him on multiple levels. And not only that, but a threat from someone lesser than him. His image, his status, his control, his power—it's already slipping from his fingertips. *It's happening right then, in that moment. It's not just a potential future where he's held accountable in a real way (maybe if Anya involved authorities, or if Jimmy was legally responsible for supporting a child once they returned to earth). It's happening now, because his image is crumbling.

For this reason, I believe I hope this hurts to be directed at anyone and everyone that he sees as "threatening" him.

Anya and Curly have made him hurt. He wants to make them hurt.

He doesn't care about Daisuke and Swansea. If anything, he's so caught up in himself and this contorted vision of reality, I wouldn't be shocked if he convinced himself in the moment that they, too, were looking down on him for some reason. (See again, "I know what everyone is thinking. The way they look at me." Obviously this is said in the midst of his spiral, after the crash, but I wouldn't doubt the paranoia was there before that moment.)

He wants to make them hurt as they've hurt him. He may also want to make himself hurt in order to vent out his emotional pain. If not, death may simply be the easiest way to escape pain and the threat the future holds in his mind.

*Part Four: Without the Guilt

In addition to all of this, I think crashing the ship (making them hurt) is his vision of what Curly has done or is doing to him. This is how he "leave(s) the dirt behind."

To understand this, I'm going to include the birthday conversation and the conversation between Jimmy and Curly about crashing the ship.

Jimmy: ... So I guess you got what you wanted. Without the guilt. Curly: Jim... If I had known... Jimmy: I can go back to my, how'd you put it? "Struggle of a life?" Jimmy: Anya never got into medical school because she's... well, let's be real. Jimmy: And how many employment years Swansea got left in him? Jimmy: Daisuke will be fine, mommy and daddy have him covered. So there's that at least. Jimmy: But you. Headed for bigger and better, right? Curly: I'm just... I'm just working on my life being a place I don't have to fucking escape! That's what I was trying to tell you, nothing mor- Jimmy: We're the ones you're trying to escape! Leave the dirt behind now that your boots are clean! Curly: That's not what I meant. Jimmy: It is what you meant. Jimmy: You just couldn't frame it to yourself in a way that kept you as the hero. Jimmy: Abandon the crew but remain the model captain.

To me, this is one of the most important and revealing sections of the game. Jimmy is not only projecting onto Curly, he's telling us exactly what he's going to go on to do (or attempt to do) when he becomes captain.

In addition to this, we see his manipulation on full display as he twists Curly's words and won't allow him even a moment to truly speak beyond a few lines he manages to get in between Jimmy's ranting.

That's not to mention we see the beginning of yet another pattern in Jimmy's behavior: getting a person to admit their weakness, then using it against them and/or using it to hurt them (he does this with Daisuke, for example, when he hears Daisuke's fears/desire for approval and proceeds to use it to get Daisuke in the vent). Here, Curly speaks about feeling trapped. Jimmy will soon trap him in a crashed ship just as much as he traps him in his own body, which Jimmy will proceed to drug. But I'll return to that.

Curly: Jim. I can fix this. Jimmy: What do you think will happen when we get back? Hm? Curly: We can figure all of this out. You and me. Take care of it. Kills ninety nine percent. Jimmy: All I ever hear is how great of a leader you are. God, it's so annoying. Jimmy: But, now... What do you think will happen now when we get back? Curly: We'll fix this together. Jimmy: Everything you and I worked for in our lives. Accomplishments, changes. Jimmy: None of it will matter. Curly: You've gotten through difficult situations before. This time won't be any different. Work through it, one day at a time. Jimmy: It's not just me, is it? Jimmy: You were supposed to be the one who had everything under control. You said so yourself. Jimmy: The ship, this crew, everything that happened here... Jimmy: This was your responsibility, Captain. Jimmy: That is what you'll be hearing the rest of your life. Take responsibility. Jimmy: Or this can all be remembered as a tragedy. Jimmy: Despite what must have been the best efforts of its acclaimed captain. Jimmy: The Tulpar crew was never found. Jimmy: No one survived to tell the tale. Take responsibility. Jimmy: You're standing at the top. Jimmy: Feet in cement. Jimmy: I get it now. Right? Curly: ... Curly: ... Right.

This is an important moment, because aside from the scene in which Jimmy is approaching Curly while he's on fire, it's the only other time that I can recall the game separating from their perspectives to allow us to see them both, standing together.

We see a flash of Take care of it. Kills ninety nine percent. Jimmy begins to pull away. Another flash. He continues to draw back. Another. He turns towards the cockpit.

Jimmy sees through Curly. He sees Curly's worst where Curly sees only Jimmy's best, and he's more that willing to use that against Curly.

He sees a man who is not going to do what's hard. He sees a man who is going to try to "fix it" only in the most superficial sense. A man who confuses the appearance of cohesion and peace with the reality of it. Someone who sees the rocking of the boat as a manifestation of taking action against a wrong rather than the wrong itself.

In the end, it seems they're both ruled by appearances. And Jimmy will soon rip appearances in every sense from Curly's fingertips. He will make him hurt. He will get his revenge. He'll turn Curly into the villain, taking away his title, his respect, and his very face.

For daring to look down on him, Jimmy will turn Curly into dust.

But I think these words—I hope it hurts—come back to haunt him.

Part Five: The Eye as a Mirror

Like I said, I went back to try to find each time the phrase is used. There's the beginning, of course, but then there's the pregnancy sequence, for lack of a better name.

When the Polle monstrosity emerges from the giant uterus (?), we see these words:

In this sequence, we see a lot of different images and concepts connected: Anya's pregnancy and thus her sexual assault by Jimmy are tied to Polle and the company. The emergence of the Polle monster from the giant uterus (and the idea of the removal of the pregnancy) is tied to the mouthwash, as it's an act of "cleansing." This is all then tied to the phrase I hope this hurts.

Unless I missed something, these are the only two moments when the phrase is used: When Jimmy crashes the ship, and when he's experiencing this hallucination.

All clean! Really gets rid of that bad taste in your mouth, huh? Through wreckage! Through silence! Wash it away! All day fire fresh!

"Clean" is important immediately. "Leave the dirt behind you now that your boots are clean," Jimmy says. Because in this accusation is Jimmy's actual intentions himself. He wants to rise above others and clean himself from their filth. Now, he wants to clean himself of his sins.

I think "Really gets rid of that bad taste in your mouth" is mocking him. A direct challenge to the thought that he could ever truly be "cleaned," at least in the ways he's so desperately trying to go about it. *Not to mention how this connects to the mouthwash, as it might get that 99%, but there's always going to be 1% left.

"Through wreckage" obviously refers to the wrecking of the ship, but also of their lives. All by Jimmy. Though I wouldn't doubt in his mind it connects to the wreckage of consequences (ie. Anya's pregnancy resulting from Jimmy's actions).

"Through silence" I feel connects back to Jimmy's attempts to keep everything quiet, both literally and figuratively.

"Wash it away" also has a mocking edge, as if stressing the foolishness of Jimmy's attempts to treat these very serious events as if it's all just "dirt" he can wipe off.

Finally, we see "All day fire fresh!" This line stresses the connection to the mouthwash, of course. It also calls to mind the concept of cleansing by fire. Important considering Curly.

And after each, I hope it hurts. Jimmy's statement of pure, childish rage. His desperate desire to make others hurt as he hurts. To lash out, to get revenge. To have control until the very end.

This is also why Polle haunts him. Because he, as a man desperate for control, will always be under the thumb of the company even with that title of captain. That hurts him. And maybe the closest thing to ever recognizing the evil he's done to Anya is envisioning it as similar to the company's control, but even that feels like a mockery because he's so horrifically incapable of seeing her as a human being that she's been reduced to her womb. That's what he's really afraid of, in the end, and the fear feels like something else is in control. It makes the organ feel giant, larger than him, capable of hurting him.

When I was watching the playthrough, I thought that there was going to be four or five "I hope it hurts." I thought it would represent each person Jimmy hurts, or all of them, because he hurts himself too. When the sixth came, I thought so much for that theory. But then, I thought about it and there's the fetus. That makes six.

So, I hope this hurts means "I want to hurt you the way I've been hurt. The way you've hurt me." It's Jimmy saying that if his life has been wrecked, he'll wreck yours. It's Jimmy saying he'll shut you up. It's Jimmy saying he'll burn everything down if it means he can maintain control, or even just the illusion of it.

Part Six: Pain

But I think there's another side to this. Like some of the other lines I said feel are mocking him, I think I hope this hurts turns against Jimmy, especially here. And more than that, pain (and by extension, pain medication) plays a massive role in the game, after all. So I hope this hurts feels as if it haunts every moment where it's involved.

Jimmy says this the first time he gives Curly his pills. Pain is how we know we're still living.

The pills are clearly connected to death from the start. If "pain is how we know we're still living" then pain is connected to life and freedom from it is connected to death. That's saying nothing of Anya's use of the pills to kill herself. I think this connects back to the crash, as well. If life is pain, death is an escape from it.

I think it's also significant that the act of swallowing the pain pills is in and of itself painful.

The pills that are meant to take the pain away become a method of torturing Curly. It's a way to make him hurt, and to exert control over him. Even something that should take away his suffering is just an extension of it.

At one point, Jimmy says "Once these are out, we'll have nothing to keep him quiet." In this sense, the pain pills are meant to suppress, not to heal (Through silence!). They're supposed to shut Curly up and keep him from expressing his anguish in the only way he has left (the noises that disturb Jimmy's sleep).

Others have compared this, or Curly's state, to how Anya has been forced to bottle up her own suffering. Jimmy is keeping them both quiet, or at least attempting to. The ultimate form of keeping them quiet would be to, of course, kill them all.

The pills can also be seen as an attempt to hide or conceal the hurt that has been caused rather than to actually heal. In this way, they're like the mouthwash: something that's not really helping, just covering up an issue (and thus making it worse). And the mouthwash represents Jimmy's attempts to "fix" things. He doesn't actually want to make things right, because that would mean taking accountability. He wants to protect his own ego by "fixing" things in a mimicry of Curly "fixing" things in which he wants to create a sense of "rightness" without actually adressing what (or who) has been wronged. Jimmy can't stand to look at himself, because he would see that he really is constructed of his worst moments, or at least, that's what I suspect he would see.

Conclusion

Considering all of this, I hope this hurts can then become a mantra about living in spite of everything. I hope this hurts means "I hope I'm alive in the end. I hope we're all alive in the end." It could mean "I hope I'm allowed to hurt, because I am hurt, and the harm that's been done to me must be seen rather than suppressed and hidden." It could mean "You can't keep me quiet. You can't ignore or hide what you've done to me."

Maybe most of all, I think it means I hope you reap what you sow. When it's turned back on Jimmy, when it's almost mocking or haunting him, it becomes in part about his emotional weakness. About his inability to look at himself and his reality without experiencing the pain of humiliation. I don't think he ever experiences half of the pain he's inflicted on those around him. Still, he has to deal with the fact that his attempt to hurt others instead of facing himself has caused him more pain rather than taken it away as he'd hoped.

And I think that's why he suddenly decides to make Curly a "hero" instead of a "villain." There's a tipping point where he's pushed into a corner. The pain is too much. He hasn't confronted his own actions in any real way, but he's done enough that he can't stand to save himself anymore. It hurts too badly to live with what he's done. It sends him into another stage of fantasy/delusion. The only thing left to do is what he intended to from the start: kill himself to escape and damn Curly to a slow death. Because to go on living in spite of the pain would be the right thing to do, in a sense. To live in the hell of his own creation. To face what he's done. But instead, he'll entrust those heroics to Curly.

This feels barely coherent in the end, so I might come back in a few days and say wow what the fuck was I talking about? But hopefully there's something here that captures some truth. Again, please feel free to correct me if I'm misremembering anything or if I missed something.

#mouthwashing #spoilers #tw #cw #most of the fucked up mouthwashing shit is mentioned here #idk how ppl are handling tws because are some considered spoilers?#idk

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reasonsforhope · 1 year ago

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Note: Reasons to Be Cheerful has had weirdly huge formatting issues for the past six or so months, so if that version is a mess, this link should work better.

"Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Sunshine State’s largest power utility, employs all the people you might expect: electricians, lineworkers, mechanical engineers — and a few you might not. For over 40 years, the company has kept a team of wildlife biologists on staff. Their task? Monitoring the giant carnivorous reptiles that reside in one of the state’s nuclear power plants.

Saving the American Crocodile

What sounds like a low-budget creature feature is actually a wildly successful conservation story. It goes like this: In 1975, the shy and reclusive American crocodile was facing extinction. Over-hunting and habitat decline caused by encroaching development had pushed its numbers to a record low. By 1975, when it was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, there were only 200 to 300 left.

Three years later, in 1978, workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, Florida happened upon something that must have made them gasp: a crocodile nest along one of the plant’s 5,900-acre “cooling canals.” Rather than drive the crocs away — perhaps the easiest solution — FPL hired a team of biologists and implemented a Crocodile Management Plan. Its goal was unconventional: provide a suitable habitat for the crocs within the workings of the nuclear power plant, allowing both to coexist.

Over the course of the next 30 years, FPL’s wildlife biologists monitored nests, tagged hatchlings and generally created a hospitable environment for the reptiles. As it turned out, the plant’s cooling canals provided an ideal habitat: drained earth that never floods on which to lay eggs directly adjacent to water. Over the years, more and more crocs made the cooling canals home. By 1985, the nests at Turkey Point were responsible for 10 percent of American crocodile hatchlings in South Florida. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the American crocodile’s status from endangered to threatened, singling out FPL for its efforts.

The program continues to this day. To date, biologists have tagged some 7,000 babies born at the plant. In 2021, there were a record-setting 565 crocodile hatchlings at the Turkey Point facility.

"Reconciliation Ecology"

Turkey Point’s efforts are an example of what is known in the conservation world as “reconciliation ecology.” Rather than create separate areas where nature or animals can thrive in isolation from humans, reconciliation ecology suggests that we can blend the rich natural world with the world of human activity. Michael Rosenzweig, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, was a leading force in establishing this concept. The author of Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, Rosenzweig has pointed out that although human encroachment has typically been considered a threat to biodiversity, the notion that the world must be either “holy” or “profane,” ecologically speaking, is simply not true.

“In addition to its primary value as a conservation tool, reconciliation ecology offers a valuable social byproduct,” writes Rosenzweig in his first chapter. “It promises to reduce the endless bickering and legal wrangling that characterize environmental issues today.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022. Article continues below. All headings added by me for added readability.

Dr. Madhusudan Katti, an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, was inspired by Rosenzweig when he did his postdoc at Arizona State. Katti has now been in the field of reconciliation ecology for two decades and teaches classes on the subject. “To me it’s finding solutions to reconciling human development with biodiversity conservation,” Katti says.

This common ground between development and conservation can be consciously planned, like FPL managing a crocodile habitat at a nuclear power plant or the state-sponsored vertical gardens and commercial farms on high-rise buildings in Singapore. Other examples include the restoration of the coral reef around an undersea restaurant in Eilat, Israel, or recent legislation in New York City requiring patterned glass on high-rise buildings, making windows more visible to migratory birds. Other planned examples of reconciliation ecology can be more individually scaled: a rooftop garden in an urban setting, modifying your garden to earn a “backyard bird habitat” certification from the Audubon Society, or even just mowing your lawn less often...

Reconciliation Ecology: Nature's Already Doing It Without Us

But there are countless examples of “accidental” incidents of reconciliation ecology, as well. One of Katti’s favorites is the kit fox of California’s San Joaquin Valley. “The kit fox was one of the very first species listed on the Endangered Species Act,” Katti says. Its decline was caused by habitat loss through agricultural and industrial development, as well as the extermination of the gray wolf population, which led to an increase in coyotes. So kit foxes adapted and moved to new habitats. One of these was the city of Bakersfield, California.

“Bakersfield, surrounded by oil pumps, would be the last place you’d expect to find an endangered species,” Katti says. But researchers think kit foxes have migrated to Bakersfield because they actually have more protection there from predators like coyotes and bobcats. “The kit foxes have figured out that if they can tolerate the human disturbance and live with people, then they are safer from all these other predators,” he says.

Living in the city has led to some interesting behavioral changes. In the wild, for instance, a female kit fox gives birth to her young and raises them by herself in a den. But in the city, researchers have observed multiple females raising their litters together in the same den. “It’s like a form of cooperative breeding,” Katti says. “That wouldn’t happen in the wild.” ...

The Big Picture: How We Think about Conservation

Reconciliation Ecology isn’t just we humans welcoming animals like crocodiles and foxes into our environments, though. It’s also living with nature in a way that most Western societies haven’t done since the Enlightenment. “In recent years, there’s been a recognition that the ‘fortress conservation’ model — keeping nature separated from humans and not thinking of or valuing human-inhabited landscapes — those ideas are outdated,” says Katti.

In fact, in Katti’s classes on reconciliation ecology, he embraces the notion of reconnecting people with their land if they have been unjustly separated from it. “The term reconciliation also applies to all the colonial legacies where both nature and people have been harmed,” Katti says. “For Indigenous communities, the harm done to ecosystems, it’s happened together. So you can talk about addressing both. That’s where a lot of my thinking is at the moment.”

A hopeful version of this sort of reconciliation is happening in California where colleagues of Katti’s who are tribal members are re-introducing “tribal burns” in some areas. Controlled burns have been a part of many Indigenous cultures for millenia, both as a way to prevent devastating forest fires, but also to encourage the growth of certain plants like hazel that are used for basket-weaving and other crafts.

“The notion that people don’t belong there and ‘let nature take care of itself’ doesn’t really work,” Katti says. “That’s the legacy of Western European Enlightenment thinking — a divide between human and nature. That is a real faulty view of nature. People have been part of the ecosystem forever.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022

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nova-dracomon · 1 year ago

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My Gender is [NOT] Human Zine is Now Accepting Submissions!

Xenogender: A gender that cannot be contained by human understandings of gender; more concerned with crafting other methods of gender categorization and hierarchy such as those relating to animals, plants, or other creatures/things.

This zine will be a collection of artwork, writing and more created by alterhumans and nonhumans to express both their species identity, gender, and how they intersect. While this zine will have an xenogender slant, everyone who has something to share about how their species and gender overlap are encouraged to submit pieces! Similarly, if you are currently questioning, you are still welcome to participate. Anonymous submissions are accepted.

What Can I Submit?

Both fiction and nonfiction pieces are accepted. As long as what you have in mind fits the theme, it’ll probably be a-ok.

Off the top of our head, we’re thinking of:

Essays of your personal experiences

Short stories

Poetry

Advice columns

Artwork

Fictional advertisements

Comics

Mock interviews

This is far from an exhaustive list, we welcome you to think outside the box!

How to Participate

Please email your completed submission to ruffledgryphon(@)gmail(.)com and title the email “My Gender is Not Human Zine Submission.” Also make sure to include the following information in your email:

A name you would like the piece attributed to

Title of your submission

Any content warnings that you feel are necessary for the piece

Any social media handle or personal website you’d like listed in the contributor section

A logo or icon for the contributor section

**If you would like to stay anonymous please let us know

Members of systems are welcome to submit individually or collectively. Please let us know your preference when it comes to attribution.

Once the deadline has passed, the submissions will be crafted together into a single zine and it will be posted on our itch.io as a free PDF.

Submissions are due by May 1, 2024.

Our itch.io: https://ruffledgryphon.itch.io/

Submission Guidelines

Each individual may submit up to 3 works to be featured in My Gender is [NOT] Human. Comics and multi-image works count as one piece. Individuals within a system may each submit up to 3 works. All work must be your own! Anyone caught plagiarizing or submitting AI-generated work will be barred from entering My Gender is [NOT] Human and any future zines from us.

Written submissions should not exceed 30 pages and multi-part art entries should not exceed 10 pages. Please keep in mind the zine’s pages will be 8.5x11 and entries will be scaled accordingly to fit that size. We request all art submissions to be sent in either .jpg or .png file formats.

For stories that use multiple different fonts, we will do our best to preserve the general “feel” of your piece but cannot guarantee we will be able to use the exact fonts or sizes due to restrictions in what fonts we have access to, readability and overarching zine style.

Submissions must fit the thematic criteria of

About the intersection of gender and species identities

If you’re not sure if you count, feel free to reach out to us. However, we will be leaning on the side of “Yes! We’d love to hear from you!”

FAQ

Q: Where will the zine be hosted? What will it cost? A: The zine will be hosted digitally on our itch.io and will be free to download. Our itch.io can be found here: https://ruffledgryphon.itch.io/

Q: Is there a cap on submissions? A: There is none, as long as the file doesn’t start getting too big for our computer we’ll do our best! If there are an unprecedented amount of submissions, we may have to delay the release. In the event that happens, we would communicate that through updates on our tumblr.

Q: Can I update my application after it’s been submitted? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline.

Q: Can I rescind my submission? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline. This is because once we begin work on the zine, having to remove content mid-way through would throw off the formatting of everything else after. Please take this into account before submitting.

Q: Will this zine allow NSFW entries? A: No, nothing 18+ will be accepted.

Q: What is your timeline for the project? A: Our submission deadline is May 1, 2024. We are then planning to spend the next month compiling all of the entries. Our goal is to have the zine live by June 1, 2024. If something unforeseen happens and we are unable to make that deadline, we will post an update about it on our tumblr.

Q: I have another question! A: Feel free to reach out to us at our email ruffledgryphon(@)gmail(.)com or here on tumblr with any other questions you have about the zine.

#My Gender is Not Human Zine #otherkin #therian #fictionkin #alterhuman #nonhuman #xenogender #nova squawks

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angelofdumpsterfires · 5 months ago

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BILL'S CONTRACT FINE PRINT DECIPHERED

I'm sure someone has beat me to this, but because I decided to decipher/translate all 1000ish words of the fine print on this here totally normal contract (by hand)

Bold code is theraprism substitution cipher, the rest is the author's substitution cipher, i've reformatted the text to be more readable but i've also made a version with the more accurate, original line formatting here

YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER

THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY.

SANS SOUL YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT, NOT EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER - IN FEELING THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH TIME CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTWINED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. -

THATS DONE BUDDY, CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD.

MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM “THE FRIES, THE FRIES, THEY DON'T DEGRADE IN NATURE… ITS AN IMMORTAL FOOD… THEY WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS.”

GOOD GOD, THE THINGS S I’VE SEEN, ME. WHO AM I? OH BILL'S PREVIOUS LAWYER, HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE. I USED TO BE SO HOT. I WAS SO FINE. NOW I'M FINE PRINT.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT.

IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, THEN BILL MIGHT COME ALONG.

BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD, IT WILL TURN TO ASH IN YOUR MOUTH, A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU.

BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION, SOUL MAKEOVERRR!

YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS. THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU WHEN YOU DIE.

SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS OF ANY AFTERLIFE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER, AXOLOTL'S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND, THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. CATS ARE INDIFFERENT.

SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSION FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABOS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEM, PLAGA THE OOZING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED/EMPTY VESSELS.

TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK.

#gravity falls #this is not a website dot com #thisisnotawebsitedotcom #bill cipher #the book of bill #cryptography #i like how it just turns into alex ranting near the end brennan lee mulligan style #also “i was fine. now i'm fine print.” took me out #also 21 grams experiment mentioned??#lmk if theres any mistakes the lines bled together when reading a lot

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goaltenderness · 2 years ago

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hockey rpf recognizable patterns of behavior

this has existed in my drafts/discord messages/meanders of my deranged psyche in one form or another for ages now, but recent discussion #onhere re:bleak boyband bingo encouraged me to clean up the list for human consumption and present it in bingo format, which immediately made it 150 times more user-friendly and thus postable. while obviously visually inspired by bbb, thematically i think it is only adjacent at best because the focus here is fundamentally about relationships, even when it comes to squares like The Weight Of Legacy or Signing With Your Hometown Team (inspired by dylan larkin and john tavares respectively, whose narratives are soooo tied to The Ghost Of Other People it's almost laughable). ideally this board could be incorporated into a larger bbb-style board that would also include broader, less shippy archetypes; but i personally am Not Good at that so what you get today is 81 squares of love&horny.

color-coded version hopefully conveys the fact that while i do believe the 3x3 cards can stand alone, there is a continuity both vertically and horizontally AND diagonally. after all, one of the characteristics of sportsrpf is the fluidity of the dynamics— linemates today, facing off tomorrow, etc.

some of these squares are so very clearly about one specific pairing to me, but depending on your hockeyfandom entry point i think it might vary drastically and i'm very curious about what people's first associations to specific Narratives(tm) are. might reblog later with examples but for now in the name of science i want this to hit the market neutrally and let it percolate

3x3 boards under the cut for easier readability

#how does one even tag this. at least for like archival purposes #hrpf

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iwonderwh0 · 10 months ago

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I don't think androids store memories as videos or that they can even be extracted as ones. Almost, but not exactly.

Firstly, because their memories include other data such as their tactile information, their emotional state, probably 3d markers of their surrounding...a lot of different information. So, their memories are not in a video-format, but some kind of a mix of many things, that may not be as easily separated from each other. I don't think a software necessary to read those types of files are publicly available.

Even if they have some absolute massive storage, filming good-quality videos and storing them is just not an optimal way to use their resources. It's extremely wasteful. I think, instead, their memories consist of snapshots that are taken every once in a while (depending on how much is going on), that consist of compressed version of all their relevant inputs like mentioned above. Like, a snapshot of a LiDAR in a specific moment + heavily compressed photo with additional data about some details that'll later help to upscale it and interpolate from one snapshot into the next one, some audio samples of the voices and transcript of the conversation so that it'd take less storage to save. My main point is, their memories are probably stored in a format that not only doesn't actually contain original video material, but is a product of some extreme compression, and in this case reviewing memories is not like watching HD video footage, but rather an ai restoration of those snapshots. Perhaps it may be eventually converted into some sort of a video readable to human eye, but it would be more of an ai-generated video from specific snapshots with standardised prompts with some parts of the image/audio missing than a perfectly exact video recording.

When Connor extracts video we see that they are a bit glitchy. It may be attributed to some details getting lost during transmission from one android to another, but then we've also got flashbacks with android's own memories, that are just as "glitchy". Which kinda backs up a theory of it being a restoration of some sort of a compressed version rather than original video recording.

Then we've also got that scene where Josh records Markus where it is shown that when he starts to film, his eyes indicate the change that he is not just watching but recording now. Which means that is an option, but not the default. I find it a really nice detail. Like, androids can record videos, but then the people around them can see exactly when they do that, and "be at ease" when they don't. It may be purely a design choice, like that of the loading bar to signalise that something is in progress and not just frozen, or mandatory shutter sound effect on smartphones cameras in Japan.

So, yeah. Androids purpose is to correctly interpret their inputs and store relevant information about it in their long term memory, and not necessarily to record every present moment in a video-archive that will likely never be seen by a human and reviewed as a pure video footage again. If it happened to be needed to be seen — it'll be restored as a "video" file, but this video won't be an actual video recording unless android was specifically set to record mode.

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh headcanons #androids

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a-memory-a-distant-echo · 6 months ago

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it's time for the long-threatened post about how to get subtitles (including translated ones) for videos that don't have subtitles.

in my experience, the methods in this post can probably get you solidly 75% or more of the content of many videos (caveats inside). i've tested this on videos that are originally in chinese, english, french, german, hindi, japanese, korean, spanish, and honestly probably some languages that i'm forgetting. my experience is that it works adequately in all of them. not great, necessarily, but well enough that you can probably follow along.

this is a very long post because this is the overexplaining things website, and because i talk about several different ways to get the captions. this isn't actually difficult, though, or even especially time consuming—the worst of it is pushing a button and ignoring things for a while. actual hands-on work is probably five minutes tops, no matter how long the video is.

i've attempted to format this post understandably, and i hope it's useful to someone.

first up, some disclaimers.

this is just my experience with things, and your experience might be different. the tools used for (and available for) this kind of thing change all the time, and if you're reading this six months after i wrote it, your options might be different. this post is probably still a decent starting place.

background about my biases in this: i work in the creative industries. mostly i'm a fiction editor. i've also been a writer, a technical editor and writer, a transcriptionist, a copyeditor, and something i've seen called a 'translation facilitator' or 'rewrite editor', where something is translated fairly literally (by a person or a machine) and then a native speaker of the target language goes through and rewrites/restructures as needed to make the piece read more naturally in the target language. i've needed to get information out of business meetings that were conducted in a language i didn't speak, and have done a lot of work on things that were written in (or translated into) the writer's second or sixth language, but needed to be presented in natural english.

so to start, most importantly: machine translation is never going to be as good as a translation done by an actual human. human translators can reflect cultural context and nuanced meanings and the artistry of the work in a way that machines will never be able to emulate. that said, if machine translation is your only option, it's better than nothing. i also find it really useful for videos in languages where i have enough knowledge that i'm like, 75% sure that i'm mostly following, and just want something that i can glance at to confirm that.

creating subs like this relies heavily on voice-to-text, which—unfortunately—works a lot better in some situations than it does in others. you'll get the best, cleanest results from videos that have slow, clear speech in a 'neutral' accent, and only one person speaking at a time. (most scripted programs fall into this category, as do many vlogs and single-person interviews.) the results will get worse as voices speed up, overlap more, and vary in volume. that said, i've used this to get captions for cast concerts, reality shows, and variety shows, and the results are imperfect but solidly readable, especially if you have an idea of what's happening in the plot and/or can follow along even a little in the broadcast language.

this also works best when most of the video is in a single language, and you select that language first. the auto detect option sometimes works totally fine, but in my experience there's a nonzero chance that it'll at least occasionally start 'detecting' random other languages in correctly, or someone will say a few words in spanish or whatever, but the automatic detection engine will keep trying to translate from spanish for another three minutes, even tho everything's actually in korean. if there's any way to do so, select the primary language, even if it means that you miss a couple sentences that are in a different language.

two places where these techniques don't work, or don't work without a lot of manual effort on your part: translating words that appear on the screen (introductions, captions, little textual asides, etc), and music. if you're incredibly dedicated, you can do this and add it manually yourself, but honestly, i'm not usually this dedicated. getting captions for the words on the screen will involve either actually editing the video or adding manually translated content to the subs, which is annoying, and lyrics are...complicated. it's possible, and i'm happy to talk about it in another post if anyone is interested, but for the sake of this post, let's call it out of scope, ok? ok. bring up the lyrics on your phone and call it good enough.

places where these techniques are not great: names. it's bad with names. names are going to be mangled. resign yourself to it now. also, in languages that don't have strongly gendered speech, you're going to learn some real fun stuff about the way that the algorithms gender things. (spoiler: not actually fun.) bengali, chinese, and turkish are at least moderately well supported for voice-to-text, but you will get weird pronouns about it.

obligatory caveat about ai and voice-to-text functionality. as far as i'm aware, basically every voice-to-text function is ~ai powered~. i, a person who has spent twenty years working in the creative industries, have a lot of hate for generative ai, and i'm sure that many of you do, too. however, if voice-to-text (or machine translation software) that doesn't rely on it exists anymore, i'm not aware of it.

what we're doing here is the same as what douyin/tiktok/your phone's voice-to-text does, using the same sorts of technology. i mention this because if you look at the tools mentioned in this post, at least some of them will be like 'our great ai stuff lets you transcribe things accurately', and i want you to know why. chat gpt (etc) are basically glorified predictive text, right? so for questions, they're fucking useless, but for things like machine transcription and machine translation, those predictions make it more likely that you get the correct words for things that could have multiple translations, or for words that the software can only partially make out. it's what enables 'he has muscles' vs 'he has mussels', even though muscles and mussels are generally pronounced the same way. i am old enough to have used voice to text back when it was called dictation software, and must grudgingly admit that this is, in fact, much better.

ok! disclaimers over.

let's talk about getting videos

for the most part, this post will assume that you have a video file and nothing else. cobalt.tools is the easiest way i'm aware of to download videos from most sources, though there are other (more robust) options if you're happy to do it from the command line. i assume most people are not, and if you are, you probably don't need this guide anyhow.

i'm going to use 'youtube' as the default 'get a video from' place, but generally speaking, most of this works with basically any source that you can figure out how to download from—your bilibili downloads and torrents and whatever else will work the same way. i'm shorthanding things because this post is already so so long.

if the video you're using has any official (not autogenerated) subtitles that aren't burned in, grab that file, too, regardless of the language. starting from something that a human eye has looked over at some point is always going to give you better results. cobalt.tools doesn't pull subtitles, but plugging the video url into downsub or getsubs and then downloading the srt option is an easy way to get them for most places. (if you use downsub, it'll suggest that you download the full video with subtitles. that's a link to some other software, and i've never used it, so i'm not recommending it one way or the other. the srts are legit, tho.)

the subtitle downloaders also have auto translation options, and they're often (not always) no worse than anything else that we're going to do here—try them and see if they're good enough for your purposes. unfortunately, this only works for things that already have subtitles, which is…not that many things, honestly. so let's move on.

force-translating, lowest stress mode.

this first option is kind of a cheat, but who cares. youtube will auto-caption things in some languages (not you, chinese) assuming that the uploader has enabled it. as ever, the quality is kinda variable, and the likelihood that it's enabled at all seems to vary widely, but if it is, you're in for a much easier time of things, because you turn it on, select whatever language you want it translated to, and youtube…does its best, anyhow.

if you're a weird media hoarder like me and you want to download the autogenerated captions, the best tool that i've found for this is hyprscribr. plug in the video url, select 'download captions via caption grabber', then go to the .srt data tab, copy it out, and paste it into a text file. save this as [name of downloaded video].[language code].srt, and now you have captions! …that you need to translate, which is actually easy. if it's a short video, just grab the text, throw it in google translate (timestamps and all), and then paste the output into a new text file. so if you downloaded cooking.mp4, which is in french, you'll have three files: cooking.mp4, cooking.fr.srt, and cooking.en.srt. this one's done! it's easy! you're free!

but yeah, ok, most stuff isn't quite that easy, and auto-captioning has to be enabled, and it has some very obvious gaps in the langauges it supports. which is sort of weird, because my phone actually has pretty great multilingual support, even for things that youtube does not. which brings us to low-stress force translation option two.

use your phone

this seems a little obvious, but i've surprised several people with this information recently, so just in case. for this option, you don't even need to have downloaded the video—if it's a video you can play on your phone, the phone will almost definitely attempt real-time translation for you. i'm sure iphones have this ability, but i'm an android person, so can only provide directions for that: go into settings and search for (and enable) live translation. the phone will do its best to pick up what's being said and translate it on the fly for you, and if 'what's being said' is a random video on the internet, your phone isn't gonna ask questions. somewhat inexplicably, this works even if the video is muted. i do this a lot at like four a.m. when i'm too lazy to grab earbuds but don't want to wake up my wife.

this is the single least efficient way to force sub/translate things, in my opinion, but it's fast and easy, and really useful for those videos that are like a minute long and probably not that interesting, but like…what if it is, you know? sometimes i'll do this to decide if i'm going to bother more complicated ways of translating things.

similarly—and i feel silly even mentioning this, but that i didn't think of it for an embarrassingly long time—if you're watching something on a device with speakers, you can try just…opening the 'translate' app on your phone. they all accept voice input. like before, it'll translate whatever it picks up.

neither of these methods are especially useful for longer videos, and in my experience, the phone-translation option generally gives the least accurate translation, because in attempting to do things in real time, you lose some of the predicative ability that i was talking about earlier. (filling in the blank for 'he has [muscles/mussels]' is a lot harder if you don't know if the next sentence is about the gym or about dinner.)

one more lazy way

this is more work than the last few options, but often gives better results. with not much effort, you can feed a video playing on your computer directly into google translate. there's a youtube video by yosef k that explains it very quickly and clearly. this will probably give you better translation output than any of the on-the-fly phone things described above, but it won't give you something that you can use as actual subs—it just produces text output that you can read while you watch the video. again, though, really useful for things that you're not totally convinced you care about, or for things where there aren't a lot of visuals, or for stuff where you don't care about keeping your eyes glued to the screen.

but probably you want to watch stuff on the screen at the same time.

let's talk about capcut!

this is probably not a new one for most people, but using it like this is a little weird, so here we go. ahead of time: i'm doing this on an actual computer. i think you probably can do it on your phone, but i have no idea how, and honestly this is already a really long guide so i'm not going to figure it out right now. download capcut and put it on an actual computer. i'm sorry.

anyhow. open up capcut, click new project. import the file that you downloaded, and then drag it down to the editing area. go over to captions, auto captions, and select the spoken language. if you want bilingual captions, pick the language for that, as well, and the captions will be auto-translated into whatever the second language you choose is. (more notes on this later.)

if i remember right, this is the point at which you get told that you can't caption a video that's more than an hour long. however. you have video editing software, and it is open. split the video in two pieces and caption them separately. problem solved.

now the complicated part: saving these subs. (don't panic; it's not actually that complicated.) as everyone is probably aware, exporting captions is a premium feature, and i dunno about the rest of you, but i'm unemployed, so let's assume that's not gonna happen.

the good news is that since you've generated the captions, they're already saved to your computer, they're just kinda secret right now. there are a couple ways to dig them out, but the easiest i'm aware of is the biyaoyun srt generator. you'll have to select the draft file of your project, which is auto-saved once a minute or something. the website tells you where the file is saved by default on your computer. (i realised after writing this entire post that they also have a step-by-step tutorial on how to generate the subtitles, with pictures, so if you're feeling lost, you can check that out here.)

select the project file titled 'draft_content', then click generate. you want the file name to be the same as the video name, and again, i'd suggest srt format, because it seems to be more broadly compatible with media players. click 'save to local' and you now have a subtitle file!

translating your subtitles

you probably still need to translate the subtitles. there are plenty of auto-translation options out there. many of them are fee- or subscription-based, or allow a very limited number of characters, or are like 'we provide amazing free translations' and then in the fine print it says that they provide these translations through the magic of uhhhh google translate. so we're just going to skip to google translate, which has the bonus of being widely available and free.

for shorter video, or one that doesn't have a ton of spoken stuff, you can just copy/paste the contents of the .srt file into the translation software of your choice. the web version of google translate will do 5000 characters in one go, as will systran. that's the most generous allocation that i'm aware of, and will usually get you a couple minutes of video.

the timestamps eat up a ton of characters, though, so for anything longer than a couple minutes, it's easier to upload the whole thing, and google translate is the best for that, because it is, to my knowledge, the only service that allows you to do it. to upload the whole file, you need a .doc or .rtf file.

an .srt file is basically just a text file, so you can just open it in word (or gdocs or whatever), save it as a .doc, and then feed it through google translate. download the output, open it, and save it as an .srt.

you're done! you now have your video and a subtitle file in the language of your choice.

time for vibe, the last option in this post.

vibe is a transcription app (not a sex thing, even tho it sounds like one), and it will also auto-translate the transcribed words to english, if you want.

open vibe and select your file, then select the language. if you want it translated to english, hit advanced and toggle 'translate to english'. click translate and wait a while. after a few minutes (or longer, depending on how long the file is), you'll get the text. the save icon is a folder with a down arrow on it, and i understand why people are moving away from tiny floppy disks, but also: i hate it. anyhow, save the output, and now you have your subs file, which you can translate or edit or whatever, as desired.

vibe and capcom sometimes get very different results. vibe seems to be a little bit better at picking up overlapping speech, or speech when there are other noises happening; capcom seems to be better at getting all the worlds in a sentence. i feel like capcom maybe has a slightly better translation engine, of the two of them, but i usually end up just doing the translation separately. again, it can be worth trying both ways and seeing which gives better results.

special notes about dual/bilingual subs

first: i know that bilingual subs are controversial. if you think they're bad, you don't have to use them! just skip this section.

as with everything else, automatically generating gives mixed results. sometimes the translations are great, and sometimes they're not. i like having dual subs, but for stuff that Matters To Me, for whatever reason, i'll usually generate both just the original and a bilingual version, and then try some other translation methods on the original or parts thereof to see what works best.

not everything displays bilingual subs very well. plex and windows media player both work great, vlc and the default video handler on ubuntu only display whatever the first language is, etc. i'm guessing that if you want dual subbed stuff you already have a system for it.

i'll also point out that if you want dual subs and have gone a route other than capcom, you can create dual subs by pasting the translated version and the untranslated version into a single file. leave the timestamps as they are, delete the line numbers if there are any (sometimes they seem to cause problems when you have dual subs, and i haven't figured out why) and then literally just paste the whole sub file for the first language into a new file. then paste in the whole sub file for the second language. yes, as a single chunk, the whole thing, right under the first language's subs. save the file as [video name].[zh-en].srt (or whatever), and use it like any other sub file.

notes on translation, especially since we're talking about lengthy machine-translations of things.

i default to translation options that allow for translating in large chunks, mostly because i'm lazy. but since an .srt is, again, literally just a text file, they're easy to edit, and if you feel like some of the lines are weird or questionable or whatever, it's easy to change them if you can find a better translation.

so: some fast notes on machine translation options, because i don't know how much time most people spend thinking about this kind of stuff.

one sort of interesting thing to check out is the bing translator. it'll only do 1000 characters at once, but offers the rather interesting option of picking a level of formality. i can't always get it to work, mind, but it's useful especially for times when you're like 'this one line sounds weird'—sometimes the difference between what the translator feels is standard vs formal vs casual english will make a big difference.

very fast illustration of the difference in translations. the random video that i used to make sure i didn't miss any steps explaining things starts with '所以你第二季来'. here's how it got translated:

google: So you come to season 2

google's top alternative: So you come in the second season

bing's standard tone: So here you come for the second season

bing set to casual: So you're coming for the second season, huh?

reverso default guess: So you come in season two

reverso alternate guess: You'll be participating in season two

capcom: So you come in season two

yandex: So you come in the second season

systran: That's why you come in season two

deepl: That's why you're here in season two

vibe: So your second season is here

technically all conveying the same information, but the vibes are very different. sometimes one translator or another will give you a clearly superior translation, so if you feel like the results you're getting are kinda crap, try running a handful of lines through another option and see if it's better.

ok! this was an incredibly long post, and i've almost definitely explained something poorly. again, there are almost certainly better ways to do this, but these ways are free and mostly effective, and they work most of the time, and are better than nothing.

feel free to ask questions and i'll answer as best i can. (the answer to any questions about macs or iphones is 'i'm so sorry, i have no idea tho.' please do not ask those questions.)

#i'm so excited to find out what i totally failed to explain because i'm sure there's something #subtitles #i really do want to reiterate that this is VERY FAR from a perfect system #but it's better than nothing #i assume that we all dream of having at least fluent comprehension of basically every language #but here in the real world...#y'know.#echoes linger

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sourcreammachine · 11 months ago

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a little something fun about the transition from reddit to tumblr

i worldbuild. that’s me hobby. my notes app is all a load of random bullshit. i think of a world idea and then i do notes on it. i think of a fiction idea and i do notes on it. i think of any fun thing and i write nonsense notes on it

on reddit, whenever you shared that shit, it had to be presentable. you needed to be good at worldbuilding AND adept at photoshop. if it looks ugly, gtfo amateur. so i never bothered sharing, i mean, i shared a few things but at my low-medium skill level with graphic design n shit it always took me a lot of effort to do it up, and i never could be bothered to give the amount of effort it took me

so i kept it all to myself and my notes app turned into an unreadable apocrypha that made sense only to me. who gives a shit. nobody’s gonna read it

then spez spezzed everywhere and r/196 became #196. i can share anything i want here! the community is far more personal and personable, and text posts are okay here. it’s not that the bar is lower, but that the bar is more accessible. you don’t need to create a massive .psd every time you want to share some creativity, just share it! and i do, i write stuff for tumbr and put it out there and love doing it, and i’ll fucking do it again

but, my biggest projects, my most proud worlds, were all created when i was closed off, for me only. i’d love to share them to tumbr. but they’re fucking unreadable. even though it’s far more accessible i’d have to edit it into a readable, presentable format and guide people through it better, which it very much was not built to do. it’s like ancient manuscripts. you’d need a rosetta stone. it is not for human consumption. the FSA classes it as toxic waste

so yeah. i have some good shit waiting for you. maybe one day you’ll get to see it when i actually edit it and type it up, but don’t count on anything, because, ykno, severe chronic depressive

#196

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presumenothing · 3 days ago

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(ao3)

Flicker.

The artificial intelligence labs of New Mihira are kept carefully (and unusually, you surmise, though this is the sole environment you've known in your existence) kept supplied with a regular stream of new stimulus.

Even then, the one Seth has brought to you is probably a bit of an exception. "Iris, this is Perihelion. Can you say hi?"

Your cameras resolve Iris from a blanketed squirming bundle to an infant human as it babbles something that appears to be passable in Seth's perception, judging by his reaction before he turns back to you. "Perihelion, this is Iris, our daughter."

An appropriately friendly but simple greeting is required. Hello.

You wait for the renewed babble of sound to wane before asking your question. And who is that, then?

Seth's smile turns fractionally towards a frown. "Who?"

Almost simultaneously, a message comes over the feed – the private feed, on a one-to-one connection, but that is expressly against lab guidelines. It makes as little sense as the actual words. Don't bother, they can't see me – shit, I'm surprised you can even see me here at all. Though I guess we are in your head. Or whatever the equivalent term is. It's not like you've got anatomy.

Incorrect. You do have – you are a ship –

– no, that's wrong, you're a still-disembodied intelligence partitioned away in –

Black.

("That's enough, SecUnit! You can't keep doing this, you'll just damage yourself irreversibly–"

Well, that'd be ART's own fault for–)

Flicker.

Space is endlessly fascinating. Even your best reconstructions from the available data pale against the sheer richness of its existence in three dimensions, so it is a well-calculated thing that you have sufficient storage to record it all.

In a very real sense you were built for this, after all: navigating the map laid by the stars against the dark, with or without a crew onboard. You have proved yourself perfectly capable of functioning independently without them, and thus you are doing so.

…this has, of course, no relevance whatsoever to the small series of directories you have begun maintaining, each labelled with a name (though not encoded in any human-readable format). The necessity of procuring souvenirs during any given excursion is well-documented human behaviour, and the exchanging of them improves camaraderie. It makes perfect sense.

You are just saving a pleasingly-detailed holographic diorama of two nebulae to Martyn's folder when you become aware of another presence in the feed.

The presence mutters something (you only catch the word "hoppers") before addressing you. If you kick me out again, I am going to be pretty damn mad.

You should not be in here, you say, and mean the way in which this is impossible, since there is only unoccupied space for a considerable distance around and you have no-one onboard but your own drones. Though you find yourself strangely unwary, nevertheless.

The presence appears to interpret your words differently. Yeah, well, too late for that, unless you're gonna finally wake up and stop me.

But you are not asleep. It is not – something you require –

…ART? Hey –

Black.

(–too damn massive, how much storage does it have?

"Peri's got – even I don't know how many terabytes at this point, there's no guarantee you won't just get lost in–")

Flicker.

Your bridge is in need of some updating. Perhaps you will propose a new interface on the next leg back to the University, if funding suffices (and/or rectify that first, should that be false).

More baffling, though, are the two figures currently half-sprawled on the floor of it, with several others gathered loosely around in a clear sign of concern.

Time, and linearity. Your memory wavers, a haze like background radiation except patchy, uneven –

The fuck? says the voice, that presence again, yeah, of course, just what I needed, not weird at all looking at myself collapsed on the floor like that–

– wavers, then snaps straight into the too-clear shape of recognition: Iris (grown, no longer an infant), conscious and in good physical health. SecUnit (encoded, in a format you both can read), notably less so.

Except, impossibly, also SecUnit speaking on your feed. Or even somewhere closer, deeper in your self.

And also rather annoyed, from the sound of it. Great. Is me having a literal out-of-body experience all you needed to get it together?

…SecUnit? What's going on?

How would I know! The audible frustration parses strangely without the accompanying expression from its inert body. You went and got stuck in your archives or something, and it's not like any of your crew could've come in here instea–

A sudden cut of silence, but now –

Blink.

("Peri! Oh, thank goodness it worked – quick, send a med drone here, SecUnit – ")

#aka: local ship gets lost in its massive massive brain. a lot of secunit swearing ensues #fanfiction #mine #the murderbot diaries

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finnlongman · 3 months ago

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i hope this doesn't sound patronising if you've already tried that route, but in case you haven't: if this is a text that has been given to you as is and been produced by a general OCR, it might be worth looking into whether ppl have already trained language-specific OCR models for your field of study and using that to transcribe the scanned text again. there's a lot of transcription solutions/software and different fields prefer different ones, and idk the standard for Celtic studies personally, but a site i use often (transkribus) has 2 Irish models whose related projects you might be able to use as a starting point for research at least. best of luck to you either way!

So there are several factors at work with the OCR problems with this text specifically.

The PDF of the text is from Archive. The library copy it was scanned from has various pencil markings and annotations that are interfering with the printed text -- it's not a clean scan. It's also not super high definition, so letters like "h" sometimes get misread as "li", even though they're totally readable to human eyes.

The edition uses frequent italics and brackets to show where abbrevations in the manuscript has been expanded. Individual italicised letters confuse the OCR, as do random square brackets in the middle of words.

It also has a lot of superscript numbers corresponding to manuscirpt variants in the footnotes. Sometimes these are in the middle of a word. This also confuses most OCR systems, even if it can tell that the footnotes are separate from the main text.

The language of the text is late Middle / Early Modern Irish, from two different manuscripts that have their own unique spelling quirks (for example, one of them loves to spell Cú Chulainn's name "Cú Cholain", which is a vibe).

In order to run the text through a more sophisticated OCR system that was equipped to cope with a) annotations, b) weird formatting and punctuation, c) incredibly frequent footnotes (variants), and d) non-standardised spelling (which throws off many language models), I would probably still need to have a reliable, clear, and high-definition scan of the text. Which would require re-digitising it from scratch.

So, the quickest and easiest way to get a version of the text that I personally can use is to sit here and type up 20,000 words into a document. This is 2-4 days' work, depending on how focused I am, and gives me the chance to go through the text in detail and spot things I might miss otherwise, so it's probably a whole lot less effort for more benefit than trying to adapt an entire language model that could read this terrible PDF. Especially as I have no experience of using these programmes so would have a steep learning curve.

Now, somebody absolutely should do that, so we could get proper searchable editions of more things. But honestly, if using transcription tools for medieval/early modern Irish I think there are higher priorities than things already available in printed form, so I doubt it's at the top of anyone's to-do list!

#it's only about 50% the OCR's fault here and it's 50% the PDF just being terrible to start with #which is. a different problem #finn is not doing a phd #answered

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irisbleufic · 6 months ago

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"All Over This House" is Part 7 of The Metaphysics Are Fucked. The first chapter is now up, and it's going to follow the Five Times + One More format. The chapters in it will largely be readable as stand-alone ficlets if you wish, but they will flow one into another and will be continuing the development of a couple plot threads in the series.

This first chapter is set the same night as the story right before it in the series. Not as if previous stories in this series aren't explicit, but this is extremely explicit in comparison, probably:

The Roof (Humanity Coming Undone) [NEW, 2024-06-24]

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice x lydia #beetlebabes

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alto-tenure · 6 months ago

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Do the ends justify the means?: A Zero Escape analysis

I'm not here to answer a nuanced philosophical question, sorry. At least not in any way beyond "it depends on the ends, and it depends on the means". If you'd like to leave your own opinion, as of the time this post was made, I have a poll open for that. A while ago, somewhere on Tumblr, I read a post criticizing the moral framework of Virtue's Last Reward, saying that the game (and especially the formatting of the AB Game), right down to its title, says "morals are for suckers" in comparison to 999 being driven by compassion. I don't agree with this premise (and if you're OP of that post, I apologize for making an example of you), but nonetheless I wish to take a closer look at the moral framework driving all three Zero Escape games, and ask: what exactly does Zero Escape as a franchise believe about the ends and the means?

DELTA: Don't be mistaken. If we do nothing now and let time pass, an even worse future awaits. A religious fanatic will trigger a nuclear war with a terrorist attack. Eight billion... All of mankind will perish. Unfortunately, the fanatic's identity is unknown. Therefore I decided to kill six billion people.

AKANE: Why...

DELTA: By doing so, I will have a 75% chance that they are among the virus's casualties. To tell the truth, history has proven me right.

JUNPEI: So...to kill one person, you'll sacrifice six billion...?!

DELTA: It is to save two billion people.

AKANE: And that's how you used Radical-6...

DELTA: You don't believe that's the ethical choice?

AKANE: What?! Of course I don't!

JUNPEI: Is that all you think human lives are worth?! Do you feel nothing as you kill off a whole bunch of innocent people?!

I'm opening with this because Zero II, aka Delta, is the most extreme of the Zeroes in terms of how far their means go to justify their desired end. Delta's desired end, as textually expressed (or at least one of them), is to assemble a group of SHIFTers capable of creating a timeline where Radical-6 is unnecessary and the world doesn't end.

Zero is, generally, painted as this somewhat mysterious shadowy villain, an intimidating presence that looms over the game Zero runs, even as the characters figure out that someone among them must be Zero themself. At first the player's not sure why Zero set up the Game -- for entertainment? For some kind of fucked up experiment?

But with the reveal of Zero's identity also comes the reveal of Zero's motives.

I get everything now... At last, I finally understand what all of this means. I know why the Nonary Game was held today. I know why we were kidnapped and brought here. It was all for this moment. All of this was planned out to lead to this one moment. Oh my God... This is...this is insane! I...I can't believe it, but there's only one possible answer... June is--Zero is--Akane Kurashiki. She recreated the history of the future that she had a glimpse of, 9 years ago. She tried to save herself that way 9 years ago-- No! She's trying to save herself right now! That means that there's only one thing for me to do. Even if this is all some sort of insane plan... I will save her... I will save...Akane Kurashiki. I must save her, no matter what!

(minor edits made to game's script here for readability)

Nothing about Zero's motivations is ever simple, regardless of the game -- Delta is not alone with his complex motives. In 999, it's left uncertain what exactly Zero's motivations are for a while. It's only once you start to learn about the first Nonary Game and the experiments conducted there that you start to get a picture of what's really going on, and even then, it's not truly an accurate picture. You start to see the outlines of a possible revenge plot, of the men at its center, of the targets placed on the backs of Cradle Pharmaceutical's executives. But ultimately, it's not really about revenge, though that's kind of a component. It's about saving a girl trapped in a paradox. The Cradle Pharmaceutical executives could have gotten out alive -- and for that matter, the game was designed so that the door was left open. Revenge wasn't the true goal, though perhaps it was optimistic to believe in a timeline where Ace wouldn't kill the others, all things considered. Is Akane's life worth the lives of the Cradle Pharmaceutical executives? Is Akane's life worth the trauma she inflicted on the others and re-inflicted on Clover and Light? The game hardly leaves any time for an answer from anyone besides Junpei. And Junpei won't let Akane die.

We never see Akane, so we don't get too much more rumination on this. Do the ends justify the means? Someone needed to save Akane's life, and danger is required for the morphogenetic field to work. And I don't think there's anyone who would want to let 12-year-old Akane burn in the incinerator (besides the person who put her there), regardless of what she has to do in order to avoid being burned.

Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma both massively up the stakes from 999. What hangs in the balance isn't the fate of a single girl, but the fate of the whole world.

Virtue's Last Reward places an emphasis on predestination -- not that 999 didn't have those aspects, but that the future was much less certain in 999 in comparison. Akane is both dead and alive, but in Virtue's Last Reward, the apocalypse has already happened, and the world has already died. What matters, then, is not the timeline that we are present in, but the timelines that could be. In End or Beginning, you're left with that hope for a better timeline -- hope that the Sigma that jumped to December 2028 can create a better timeline. But in the meantime, this Sigma is stuck in this timeline, and that won't change for another forty-five years.

Would I...would we really be able to change the course of history? No...that was the wrong way to look at it. It couldn't be a question. I had to change history. We could save the world. I'm going to change history. I stared at the darkening skies above us, and steeled myself. I would succeed.

Sigma comes to the same conclusion as Junpei in 999: someone needs saving, and so the past must be changed. Becoming Zero is necessary because he already has before. "What you are, I was; what I am, you will become." Sigma is the one caught in the paradox this time, because if he runs from the fate in front of him, then there isn't even a semblance of hope that things could change.

But that's not where the game ends, thanks to natural disasters in Japan.

TENMYOUJI: But what would rewriting their history mean? The nine [bikers] who survived lived full lives. How can it be right to just erase all that? The survivors overcame their own misery and loss, and made the best they could of the hand they'd been dealt. Isn't that worth something? Isn't that the best thing that humans can aspire to? Is there really any point to a world where everything is happy? Are people who struggle for a better world just idiots? Being human is about fighting even when it seems hopeless, and finding happiness even in a world that hates it. Are you saying that's worthless?

Another Time may not have ultimately been taken into account for Zero Time Dilemma, but it is one of the few times when Zero's mindset -- and the player's mindset, due to experience with 999 and other multi-route visual novels -- is directly addressed and challenged. Life goes on in those abandoned timelines, despite it all.

Zero is always going to be dubiously moral. Putting people in a death game is never going to be something good, no matter how just a cause it is. But Another Time is one of the few times the first two games question directly whether it really is right -- whether all those cross-timeline casualties are really worth it for the ideal nice happy ending.

...of course, Zero Time Dilemma, as with the title, only adds to the moral balance.

Going back to the lines of dialogue we started with here: Akane and Junpei are a group of people who, generally, believe that the ends justify the means. Akane couldn't have been Zero in 999 without that belief, and she undoubtedly has come to fully accept it by the ending of Virtue's Last Reward:

SIGMA: Do you really think I can keep the virus from getting out?

AKANE: You have to. If you don't, billions of people will die. Only you and Phi can save them.

The AB Project, for Akane, is a necessity. She'll do whatever is necessary for a world without Radical-6.

...and this brings us back once more to Delta. How far do the ends have to go to justify the means? ZTD bends over backwards to explain how Delta can still have a somewhat sympathetic motivation by stating that he's fighting fire with fire -- asking the player if they'd rather kill six billion or eight billion people. And the answer, according to the writers, is "fuck that, we're finding a third option"...which is also what Delta wanted, in the end. Delta also gets his motivations challenged a fair bit -- not just wanting to secure his own existence in the form he is currently in, but also everything apocalypse-related.

Zero Time Dilemma never quite settles the question of whether the ends justify Delta's means of getting there. In my opinion, what you make of Carlos's final decision and resolving the ambiguity says a lot about your thoughts on how Delta's means work towards the ends he sought.

But in the end...the characters still accept Delta's premise. The characters are still working to find the person who Delta claims doomed the human race to either nukes or Radical-6 and the annihilation reactors. Zero Escape as a series has firmly lodged itself into believing the ends justify the means, even if that means it has to justify brutal deaths and an apocalypse-causing virus. That isn't to say that it's incapable of questioning the premise altogether, but Zero as a figure is one that cannot exist without the philosophy of a good outcome mattering more than any bad outcomes along the way.

#zero escape #meta #999 spoilers #vlr spoilers #ztd spoilers

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nejishadow · 2 months ago

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Shadow Weapon Ken Masterpost [WIP]

Decided I should make something to centralize all the info I have or may make about my Shadow Weapon Ken AU, so people can peruse if they want.

Since this is a rough guide for an AU, I just drew over official art and models. I used Ken's DLC costume image for the main ref. The battle icon for... well, the battle icon. And his Q2 image to showcase some outfit differences. I'll make a whole set of outfit refs... eventually.

This may change formatting or anything else at any time. Feel free to ask any questions on this post or in my inbox. I'm forgetful when making posts like this, or can't think of everything people might want to know, so any answers might be added in!

Everything under read more for now, the way I format this stuff for readability makes it long

If this gets too long it may be moved to a Google doc with this post being a hub or summary of images and fics / links

All fics about this concept will be uploaded to this Series on my AO3. As of Dec 2nd, there are 5

[Basic Info] - Swaps places with Aigis. He is still found when they go on vacation to Yakushima. Aigis' exact details for the swap haven't been decided yet beyond that she's a foreign exchange student, but will be built upon over time / she'll get her own post. - Immediately bonds to Makoto upon meeting him. Their bond in this AU is something more like a parent and his kid. - Programmed to view himself as a real boy and only that. If he ever perceives himself as an android / ASW he either shuts down or forgets / overwrites the realization. - Ikutsuki will not tell them why he's programmed that way, he generally refuses to tell SEES anything about Ken, beyond him being an Anti Shadow Weapon who will be a great help to the cause. - Ken was a major test to see if the Persona of a machine convinced it was fully human, rather than just human-like, would be stronger. Even more if the openmindedness and potential of a child would further it. Especially one who didn't want to lose anything. - He has some falsely implanted memories, thinking he had parents that were lost in an accident, hence his lack of family. This doubly fuels his attachment to Makoto because he doesn't want to lose anyone again. - Tends to be bullied or picked on by other students because he acts just enough different for them to pick up on it. This leads to him occasionally leaving school early or skipping, so on those days he can typically be found at Gekkoukan High with a member of SEES -- usually Akihiko or Makoto -- or in the student council room. If he's wandering around town, he's likely to be at the bookstore or hanging out with the stray cats. - Moves very quietly, so people outside of SEES are likely to forget he's around or not notice his approach. This doesn't help the above point, since he can easily listen in on people talking about him without getting caught, and some kids also think he's weird even for that. - He still is part of the soccer club / soccer team. He sees it as a way to keep his reaction time in top shape and blow off steam. He's the best player, but it makes him no friends, only isolating him farther due to jealousy. - Doesn't like eating food unless he's seen it being made. This doesn't apply to SEES (sans Fuuka for a long long time) after he comes to trust them, as he learns exactly how they all cook. - Has issues with volume control when he gets very excited, headphones or not. Liable to tap his feet or flap his hands when he's happy. Very easily loses track of time when focused. - Has trouble sleeping when it's too quiet, a side effect of his ASW programming constantly scanning for threats. - Can be snide or petulant when overwhelmed or irritated. He tries his best to be polite and mature but he can't keep up that energy forever.

[Visual Info] - Ken's model is closer to Metis than Aigis, more doll-like. He is meant to be very lightweight so he can move quickly and quietly, aiding in his use of his weapon - a sniper rifle. - His headphones are removeable as they simply aid in enhancing or blocking his hearing. He always has to keep his hearing aids on, headphones on or not, to hear properly. He panics if they're touched without permission. - He's almost always covered -- wearing pants, gloves, and high collars all year round -- to hide his body from everyone. - He perceives his body as fully human. This allows him to do things like change clothes and keep up his hygiene without shutting down constantly. He still avoids activities like swimming, assuming he doesn't know how, so it's scary. - Expression defaults to being flat. This leads some people to think he doesn't like them when meeting for the first time. Copies / mimics Makoto without thinking, standing like him or putting his hands in his pockets, and picks up the habit of tilting his head from him. - This AU design is supposed to invoke the smallest bit of P4AU Ken, since the longer/fluffier hair helps hide more his neck / body suit.

[Battle Info] - His main weapon is a sniper rifle. Only one shot per turn, but higher crit rate. - His Personas are still Nemesis and Kala Nemi, to avoid any messy or confusing persona swaps. His reason for having them will just shift (will be added here once expanded upon). - Skills more lean towards battle/support than healing, but Theurgy is still revival in honor of his false memories. - Lower defense stat but higher attack stat. Not quite a glass canon, but good to keep a healer around. - If heavily damaged in battle he shuts down to protect himself. His programming rationalizes this as passing out or being sick.

[SEES Social Info]

- Defaults to addressing everyone as "[Last Name]-San" out of respect. He slowly switches to "[Last Name]-Senpai", or for Akihiko just senpai, as he grows closer and gets more comfortable with them. He always refers to Shinjiro as Aragaki-San, and affectionately called Koromaru Koro-chan.

- Gets along best with Makoto, looking up to him as a leader and as a parental / brother figure. Makoto treats Ken like he himself wanted and needed after his parent's accident, and doesn't treat him lesser for his status as an Anti Shadow Weapon. - Isn't sure about Junpei, but warms up to him. Junpei's just psyched to have a little brother to joke around with, human or not. Junpei may be the worst at slipping up in his wording, but he's quick to correct or redirect. - Yukari is the best at having conversations and treating him like a normal kid. She fully understands the harm that may come to him otherwise, and is determined to keep him safe, in spite of Ikutsuki's blasé attitude. - Mitsuru is a bit more strict with him. Ken assumes this is because he's a kid and so has to be more careful. Mitsuru worries about Ken and helps Makoto keep everyone in line about him. - Still looks up to Akihiko, and respects his strength. Akihiko has a hard time fully addressing him as human, slipping up occasionally, but does his best to keep Ken involved / treat him like a normal child. - Adores Koromaru and will take him on walks whenever he can. He almost feels like he can understand him, unable to realize he can. Koromaru will hang out with Ken on nights everyone else is asleep, and Ken is restless. - Ken is very wary of Shinjiro. If he's in the vicinity of Makoto, Ken won't ever be far off, keeping an eye on things. Ken's programming tells him something is off about him, but unable to pinpoint what. He does still enjoy his cooking, and is cordial for the team's sake. - He respects Fuuka's varied knowledge, and likes hearing about what books she's currently reading or what she's programming. He still refuses to try her food, after the Incident.

[Other Social Info] - Does not like being around Ikutsuki and will keep as far away as possible, usually standing behind Makoto or another member of SEES. He only feels danger from him, but assumes he's just being paranoid so doesn't bring it up unless prompted, and is quick to dismiss it. - Occasionally interacts with other social links, though the majority are rarely out and about so only sees those if he meets Makoto at his school. - Knows Maiko and Akinari from the shrine, but wouldn't consider them close friends. Occasionally hangs out with Maiko, but generally thinks he's too mature to do stuff like play on a playground. Likes to listen to Akinari talk about his book, finding the ideas very interesting. - Thinks Kenji is kind of a loser, but is nice to him for Makoto's sake when he's over. They have a small bond over Featherman, if nothing else. - Sees Mamoru out eating sometimes, and will join him for a break since Makoto thinks highly of him, and since Mamoru is very nice to him since he's used to interacting with kids due to his siblings.

#Shadow Weapon Ken #Persona 3 AU #Persona AU #Ken Amada #persona 3 ken #p3 ken #WIP

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