#is it obvious i am like...really lazy to translate them

[fangomango]

I had originally typed this out..then my phone died and this didn't save so I'm retyping this very angrily >:[

He is such a bitch and...we love it

Something along the lines of "be prepared to share your room" idk I translated it months ago :T

Ches:What should I do with you? there's only one bed....

You SHARE the bed, you dumb fuck

God, you've clearly never read fanfiction 🙄

@crustybowlofcereal you were talking about this one I assume?

I wanna either to be hugged like this..or hug someone like this..no in between

So much work and concentration...to look emo /j

Glam....I just love his cute self so much

Roughly translated

Ches:how is it?

Glam:bad

I had it fully translated but I can't remember over like 200 sketches translations :') cause I've has these for months

I was gonna actually post a simple ches sketch but I remembered the translation for this one and it kinda sounds gay and we're all chesglam thirsty

Lordi: Is yours sleeping again?

Ches: Don't fuck with him, let him sleep

Now it's time to play south park :>

[meikuree]

stuff li aixue says

this is a quick compilation and translation of mandarin chinese segments in exordia, for reference purposes or just the discerning curious reader out there. quotes aren't limited to aixue, of course, but I wanted a catchy title.

I do have the memory of a single-celled organism and am not really skilled at combing through chapters for that one quote, so if I've missed something you're welcome to send it to me to be added.

spoilers ahead.

note: all mandarin chinese bits in Exordia are rendered solely in Hanyu Pinyin and not Hanzi, so I've done some guesswork for hanzi (in places where they're not immediately obvious) based on context.

Chaya's Protocol:

A woman in a red T-shirt trots right past her, headed toward the angel. She’s shooting video on her phone, chattering excitedly: “Jiào tā mén xiān yòng huā cài cauliflower hé xī lán huā tǒng pì yǎn bā, zhè cái suàn shì universality of fractal behavior de lì zǐ!”

=> 叫他们先用花菜 cauliflower 和西兰花捅屁眼吧, 这才算是 universality of fractal behavior 的例子!

ENG: right, tell them to shove some cauliflower and broccoli stalks up their ass then, that's a real example of the universality of fractal behavior!

note: ah, Aixue's memorable entrance. 捅 (lit. poke) 屁眼 (lit. butt) 吧 roughly means 'why don’t you stick it up your ass'. she's insulting the person she's talking about, presumably for saying something incorrect about universal fractality.

-

chapter 33:

Master Sergeant Zhang: Máo gān, zhè shì máo jiān. Wǒ mén xū yào jǐn jí kōng zhōng zhī yuán!

=> 矛杆、这是矛剑。我们需要紧急空中支援！

ENG: High Spear, this is Sharp Sword. We need urgent air support!

-

chapter 39:

Aixue: Wǒmen bìxū yào Pò fǔ chén zhōu… / Bù xíng! Wǒmen bìxū yào pò fǔ chén zhōu!

=> 我们必须要���釜沉舟... / 不行！我们必须要破釜沉舟

ENG: we need to fight to the very end... / no! we need to fight to the very end!

note: Aixue says 破釜沉舟, which is a four-word chengyu (idiom) that roughly means 'to pursue your last resort'; it literally means to sink one's entire fleet in an offensive, and figuratively refers to cutting off your own means of retreat i.e., to fight to the very death and leave yourself no choice.

-

and some trivia on other Chinese phrases:

lala (拉拉): Chinese slang for 'lesbian'. comes from lazi (拉子), from the novel Notes of a Crocodile by famous Taiwanese lesbian author Qiu Miaojin.

T / P: the Chinese counterpart to the butch/femme spectrum. T = tomboy, P = po ('wife') or also pretty girl, apparently.

tongzhi (同志): Huang Lim says this to Chaya. this is slang for homosexual in Chinese, but also means comrade (with historical communist associations), hence Huang Lim phrasing it as comrade first.

Li Aixue: aixue's name itself makes sense once you learn about her whole shtick with prajna, a fact that impresses me because Seth had already set her name into stone as early as the precursor short story for Exordia. just things that make you wonder if they'd planned everything out from the very beginning. anyway, Aixue sounds like 爱学, i.e., 'love for learning'. get it? there are many possible surnames with the hanyu pinyin Li, but my pet theory is that Li = 厉 (lit. 'powerful'), so that putting it all together into 厉爱学 means Aixue is an ultra nerd.

[oraclefreak]

Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase MBTI analysis: The Battle of the Labyrinth.

Annabeth as INTJ

Ni > Te > Fi > Se

Percy as ESFP

Se > Fi > Te > Ni

I think The Battle of the Labyrinth showed their cognitive functions really well. I am actually still doubtful about Annabeth being ENTJ or INTJ, but this book made me think of Se as her inferior function because of how much she questioned Percy for relying purely on it.

Se can work as more of an 'action' function, while Ni inclines more towards analyzing.

Strong Sensing users rely on their five senses, whether it's Si or Se doesn't matter because that description works for both of them. The main difference is that Si is about the past, whereas Se is about new experiences.

Se + Fi combo in Percy is obvious to me. He takes every action he can almost impulsively (or at least that's what it looks like to Annabeth), he trusts Rachel because he has witnessed how useful she was when he found her in The Titan's Curse. He knows she can see the monsters even better than him, so every little and big action and/or decision he takes is based pretty much on his friendship with Rachel; Introverted Feeling (Fi) took quite a bit part of his whole behavior, and the fact that he has Extroverted Sensing (Se) as dominant function just made him decisive, which for Annabeth was recklessness.

During the whole time Percy trusted Rachel "blindly", Annabeth couldn't help but analyze every single future event. Her Introverted iNtuition (Ni) was at its peak, and I can see this when they encountered a new path: Rachel said it was over there, Percy immediately started following her with no previous analysis other than the fact that Rachel helped him (therefore was his friend) and sensed everything much more clearly than him. But Annabeth was very suspicious of Rachel, not because of some jealousy, but because she perceived (N) everything around her and stated that it was a very dangerous path because of how it looked or that they went there before.

She has the ability to connect dots really fast. And in other scenarios where she explains Percy something, he can't catch the hint quickly, but to Annabeth is almost obvious because her thinking (Te - Extraverted Thinking) relies on her perception of things and what will happen in the future (Ni). But Percy has Ni as his inferior function, which I believe, in his case, means that it's not very well developed or he doesn't use it at all times like her.

Taking this last point into account, Annabeth's inferior function (if we follow the idea that she's INTJ) is Se. In The Battle of the Labyrinth she's suspicious of a lot of things and feels at ease when it's something she knows she's good at (e.g: when Hephaestus' spider was leading them and she was terrified, but felt immediately comforted when she had to do a physical thing she's good at — I read it in Spanish idk the translation and I'm too lazy to search it up but ikyk the moment, right?). Obviously, this could look like a strong Si, but because her Ni is showed from the beginning of her appearance (she knew Percy was a kid of the Big Three before he was even claimed). Inferior Se can look like a Si if the person is too ashamed of it, or if it's really bad developed, or if they rely excessively on their dominant and auxiliary functions. I think the latter is Annabeth's case.

I think this book made their strongest cognitive functions shine. Of course I'm not saying Annabeth is indecisive, she's actually a very analytical person who knows when to take risks. Whether she's ENTJ or INTJ doesn't matter a lot to me, but in this specific case I think Se was her inferior function (which applies to INTJ). I also don't mean that Percy isn't analytical, he analyzes things differently. He's not dumb at all, it's just that his way of thinking doesn't primarily rely on connecting dots like Annabeth. Percy is most likely to see the big picture whereas Annabeth looks at tiny details, and I think this is why they are a very good duo and their relationship is well developed even though they are different.

Think about it like a workplace: they are working for the same goal and are put together to achieve it (which is similar to what actually happens, they just happen to want the other to be there most times). Annabeth does take more of an analyzing role, but sometimes her analysis reaches a tight situation where they have to escape somehow, and most "crazy" solutions come from Percy — and he does use his thinking (Te) for that, but has the perception and decisiveness quite characteristic of Sensing users and the fact that he's Se dom just makes him look like a total impulsive person to Annabeth most times, yet she's able to see his reasoning but can feel doubtful of it at times because of how much she tries to predict things.

I think this could be a little confusing for people who don't know cognitive functions... I am willing to answer questions! I also would like to know other people's take on this, but please keep debate in a respectful level (don't find me typologytok).

[inkedroplets]

fanfic writer questions

Thanks so much for the tag @sideguitars

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

Twenty. A good mix of one-shots and longer fics that I will finish someday...

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

534,441

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Supergirl but I've dabbled with Legends of Tomorrow and have a few unpublished fics for different fandoms that I might share

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Rich Girl With Issues (I swear I'm almost done with the last chapter. The flu kicked my ass but I'm finishing up. My weird Lena becomes a vigilante fic. I still am amazed that people like it as much as they do)

Maybe I'm Too Afraid to Admit It (Kind of cute Kara realizes she has feelings for Lena. I really don't know why this one resonated with so many people)

Somewhere You Can't Follow (My weird (and poorly written) Legends and Supergirl crossover. I would love to go back and actually rewrite large bits of this but the dialogue is on point, at least. Oh and Lena gets to see her mom again so that's a plus)

Denial is Not Just a River in Egypt (I have no memory of this place fic)

Nothing Gold Can Stay (My one and only kidfic but I love it to pieces)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do and I don't. I'm a lot more offline than I was when I first started writing and if too much time passes, I feel weird about responding since I feel like I'm bothering people but I am trying to be better about it. Because I really do cherish each one

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

Probably nothing I've posted yet would count but I do have one that I plan to post soon-ish that's so angsty I took a year to decide whether or not to share it.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think all of my one-shots have pretty standard happy endings. I think I'll say that either Rich Girl or Nothing Gold Can Stay will have the happiest endings (in my opinion) Wait (a little longer) and see

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I'll get the occasional weird comment. Nothing out of the ordinary. I did get a really rude bookmark once that kind of made me laugh. They hated the story yet still chose to bookmark it which is a choice.

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

I dabble in it. There's a snippet floating around somewhere on tumblr that I'm too lazy to find. I'll share it once I finish the first chapter. It's a bit out of my wheelhouse but its fun? Very different kind of writing than what I'm used to.

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

I write a lot of crossovers. I think when I write fic, I want to see something a little strange and unique that I can't find elsewhere. I'm working on a fic now where Kara meets Matt Murdock, that's not an interaction I ever envisioned myself writing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so? To be fair, I haven't ever cared enough to check. I don't think I'm popular enough to get a fic stolen xD

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Someone translated one of my fics into Russian. I was incredibly flattered that they liked it enough to do so.

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

No, and I think it's mostly because I'm quite a selfish writer? I know what and how I want to write so collaboration is quite difficult. Maybe I still have some leftover trauma from all the group projects of my past.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Supercorp, if that wasn't very, very obvious.

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

I'll finish them all!

16. What are your writing strengths?

I really don't know and that's not just me being modest. I don't really think I do anything particularly well?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Being succinct. Every ficlet wants to be a multi-chaptered story and every multi-chaptered story wants to be a novel

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

I think if implemented well it can be a great addition. If it's merely tacked on, however... I feel it not only doesn't add anything to the story but it makes the reader aware that they're reading a story. A bit of the magic is lost in the clunky execution.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

On AO3 Supercorp but I've dabbled in fandom for years and years. There's ancient Xena fic somewhere in my mother's basement

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Probably has to be Rich Girl but I really am fond of Swear Not by the Moon, as well. I've really enjoyed expanding the scope of Supergirl's world a bit and watching the characters slowly grow over the course of the story

No-pressure tags, of course: I never know who to tag in these until I finish these but if you like @rustingcat @vox-ex @sazernac

[wildflower-otome]

[Translation] Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles - Herlock Sholmes Short Story

Source: Code Realize Wintertide Miracles Switch Stellaworth Booklet Scan Credit: Kou

We had returned to London after quite some time away.

While my lover Sholmes and I were in the middle of a date—.

'—Oh-'

The sound of something snapping echoed along with the sound of his voice.

 Wondering what had happened, I turned towards Sholmes—.

‘Oh? Since when did you start wearing your hair down…..?’

Sholmes’s hair, which was usually tied up, had completely come undone.

Seeing his hair look unexpectedly different, Sholmes laughed as if not sure what to do.

‘Ah, no, I didn’t let it down myself. It would appear that the tie holding it up has snapped.’

As he explained, Sholmes touched his hair as if restless.

Similarly, apart from when it was time to sleep or after he had just come out of the bath, I never saw his hair this way either, so it was a strange feeling for me too.

‘If it makes you uncomfortable, should we buy a hair tie from a shop somewhere?’

‘…..No, I’ve got spares at the office. Let’s continue our date. I could not bear to have my time with you wasted on something that is just for my convenience.’

‘Heheh. You don’t need to worry so much about something like that.’

As he smiled and put his arm through mine, I drew as close to him as I could without it becoming difficult to walk.

And when I did, Sholmes’s free flowing hair touched my cheek.

‘Seeing it like this…..your hair really is very beautiful, Sholmes.’

‘Really? From my point of view I’ve just been letting it grow longer out of laziness…..’

‘.....H~m. That it’s so pretty even without you doing any upkeep on it is kind of unfair I think.’

‘Hahaha. To me, your hair is much more beautiful.’

As if in unison with Sholmes’s smile, the strands of his hair softly swayed in the wind. And as it did—

—Um, excuse me!

‘..........?’

A voice called out from a short distance behind us.

I had no idea who they were calling for but—

‘Oh, it appears they mean us? This voice isn’t a familiar one, however…..’

Sholmes immediately determined that the voice had been calling out to us.

As I stopped walking at the same time as Sholmes, turning around to look behind me—just as he had deduced, I could tell that two men were heading directly towards us, walking quickly as they came closer.

‘Hmph…..Cardia. Just in case, would you mind getting back behind me? I don’t sense any hostility from them but…..considering the level of safety in this area, there’s no guarantee they’re not up to no good.’

‘A-Alright.’

Following Sholmes’s instructions, I took a step back—despite them still being a short distance away.

It was obvious that the men were looking our way as they smiled and waved their hands.

Facing Sholmes, who was being cautious, hiding me behind him, they called out-

—Hey there. What a truly lovely pair of sisters we’ve got here.

—If you don’t mind, how about having some tea with us after this?

‘————’

‘............Huh?’

Sholmes stiffened.

I was having trouble making sense of the words I had heard just now.

...........U-Um-

Just now…..If I hadn’t heard them wrong-

—“Sisters.” Is that what they’d called Sholmes and I….?

‘Um…..Sholmes?’

‘.....Ha, hahaha. Of all things- Not even I could have predicted this.’

—Sholmes’s laugh seemed somehow lacking in energy.

Just as I was wondering what to say-

The men drew nearer to us with rapid footsteps…..finally arriving right before Sholmes’s eyes.

It would appear they had been trying to chat us up in order to take us to tea.

With an expression on his face that could be called friendly, one of the men went to speak to Sholmes.

‘—Hey, what exactly is it you want with me? My apologies, but right now I am in the middle of a date with my beloved.’

Hearing his “voice” as he spoke with a pleasant smile, they froze. Looking baffled, they once more took a good look at Sholmes’s face and figure—noting the “height difference” between him and I, who was hiding a little ways behind…..it appeared they had finally noticed that Sholmes was a man.

—P-Pardon us…..!!

Seeming truly awkward as they apologised, the men quickly took their leave.

…..However, it was even more awkward for us, still standing in the same spot.

‘.....Sholmes. Um, that was…..?’

‘My hair being unbound as the cause notwithstanding, to think I would be mistaken for a woman…..and that you and I would be taken for sisters is something I really did not expect.’

So speaking, he sighed.

All the same, since they had been able to realise that he was a man straight away, it appeared he had not taken too great a shock from what had happened.

Even so, Sholmes, in his own way, was likely at least a little perturbed—

‘.....If anything…..perhaps I should take this as an opportunity to cut my hair once and for all. If I do, there won’t be any more strange misunderstandings, like just now—’

‘Y-You musn’t!’

Hearing me raise my voice so suddenly, Sholmes’s eyes widened.

Still, there was absolutely no way I could accept what he’d said just now…..!

‘I-I like your hair, Sholmes…..! And also, if you cut it short, I won’t be able to do the hair care I always do for you after you have your bath…..!’

Hearing me insist so strongly, to the point that even I knew I’d gotten too worked up—

‘—Fufu, I see. That certainly would be…..a problem. We’d be losing out on one more reason for us to touch each other.’

Smiling, Sholmes nodded.

‘.....I understand. If it bothers you that much, I shall give up on cutting my hair. However, let’s see…..perhaps in exchange…..Cardia. Even if it’s just a little, why not try growing your hair out longer too?’

‘.....? Me?’

‘Yes. Ever since we’ve met, you’ve had the same hairstyle, right? Of course, even now you are more than lovely enough but…..’

Sholmes suddenly took up a tuft of my hair—.

‘I, too…..would love to see your beautiful, shining hair gently swaying in the wind.’

Without hesitation, he kissed me affectionately—.

[bunnidid-reviews]

I got the second Elle(s) book today and ofc read it soon as I could

Some thoughts:

- this book focuses more heavily on the inner world exploration, and I found the art to be even more dynamic and lovely in this one

- Blue takes over the host position from the previous book, because of the loss of her aunt and shocking revelation that Elle was adopted as a baby. The whole book is about rose Elle finding her way out of the inner world and back to taking control of her life

- we get a little bit more development on the other parts of Elle, since Rose interacts with them as she’s going through each of the inner worlds. But there’s not a lot there, if I’m honest? They all act like strangers that happen to be dragged into the story rather than parts of your very self who’ve always had a sense of being at least connected to you in some way. Especially since its implied that Elle has ‘had problems with this before’, and she purposefully made these inner worlds for each of them, we as the reader are left confused to how much they actually know eachother.. theres just not much there

- and as for Blue, the one part who’s been looming over both this book and the last, we don’t know much about her either, aside from being manipulative and stealing money and clout off her friends. If she’s supposed to be a persecutor part, she has no obvious drive outside just ~being evil~. (To quote my very own blue-colored persecutory part; “What a lazy bitch”)

- this.. ending..?

(The text reads: Wow! Embryos merged? So that means.. I really am six different people! )

Maybe it’s a problem with translation, but the tone of this picture and text really cuts off any of the built up tension thats been riding throughout the book.

- this book never explicitly mentions DID as being a diagnosis, so it’s more of a concept of multiple personalities being used in a different way…

I’m not someone who’s going to speak on what makes ‘enough’ trauma to create DID, because birth complications and adoption are traumatic, and it’s also not something I have experience with. I can’t speak on how this would feel for people who had twins and lost them for it to be portrayed this way, though. In the book, this is clearly stated to be some sort of Special Unreal Circumstance and I found that.. in weird taste..

-it’s not.. DID. I thought the adventuring through the inner worlds would be more about making honest connections and getting to know these parts of her more fully, but Elle’s journey was really just about pulling herself up by the boot straps and switching back out. She doesn’t really have trauma and this book makes it super clear

-I’m disappointed that there wasnt much time spent with brunette Elle because she really seemed to be grieving honestly in the last book, I thought theyd be helping eachother more. But its.. not reallyyy and its shown as growth anyway

-I like the series but I can’t really take it very seriously. It has the vibes of seeing all the major plot points of someone’s OC stuff without all the extra content that fleshes out the characters.

———

I might just be in a mood because I feel very out of place with my own DID at the moment(I’m usually fairly comfortable, but I think I might be having a DPDR episode), but I’ve been sitting on the Elle(s) series for a good few months now, and I don’t really get any deeper connection

I’ll get the next book anyway and see if any of it ties up more neatly. I know its the artists’ first comic I believe, so maybe theres not so much depth becauseeee offff inexperience. Or translation issues because I believe it came out elsewhere first. I dont know!

O well, enjoy my short review

[percyramblesabouttadc]

so i drew up some designs of what i think the cast would look like outside of the circus🥺

i wanted to make them look different while still keeping aspects of their circus designs

NOW LET ME JUST..TALK ABT THE DESIGNS FOR A MOMENT!!!

i saw like a post somewhere that gave humanized zooble prosthetics and i just loved that so you know i had to incorporate that somehow! i also wanted to try and get some of the colors from their circus design onto them too bc i felt like that would be nice. i'm not super happy with their design, like i feel like i could do better but like.... i'm lazy atm.... i'll do that later!

for kinger you know i had to keep his piercing blue eyes. you know i did. it's such a fun and silly aspect of his character how could i not.(his design is kinda basic so i don't know what else to say about it i'm very sorry kinger enjoyers)

when it comes to Jax's design! i still wanted him to have some pink and purple so you could recognize him but also have it be different from his circus design so i did the best i could. i also kept his teeth yellow because it's a thing you can translate to a human design and it doesn't need to be changed. i like that Jax has yellow teeth because so do i. HE KEEPS HIS YELLOW TEETH👹👹

GANGLE!!! omg i do rlly like how i designed her! i still wanted to incorporate ribbons some how so i gave her a braid with a ribbon at the end, however i do feel like she changes up her hair often in order to use more ribbon because it's something she enjoys!!! to me she gives off scared ex-theater kid. for obvious reasons. did i do that vibe justice? idk you tell me!

ohhh Ragatha..how i love you so.. Ragatha! her hair is infact dyed! bc you know her hair is so iconic to her character but i originally didn't want her to be ginger, why? felt too close to circus her! but i didn't want to rid her of her ginger entirely. so i toned it down, made it a bit more orange than red and made it dyed! i think it looks nice:) she's also a waitress! felt as it might fit sense she does give off people pleasing therapist friend vibes.

and for last but certainly not least POMNI!!!

she was the one i designed first! and obviously she doesn't have her normal colors from her circus design other than her hair!(did you know that pomnis circus design hair is supposed to be black but it just ended up looking brown? yeah. yeah.) it's mainly because she is infact wearing her work uniform and she doesn't really get to express herself through it but also i just wanted to change for her to be really present. because i can😁 but you know i had to keep her looking tired and depressed bc thats pomni for ya

see like the reason i wanted to make my own designs was because i didn't like the idea of them looking so similar to their tadc counterparts, it leaves more angst opportunities when they look so much different from their original bodies. right now this is kinda some concept work, i might change things(cough cough zooble) but right now i'm happy with them!

holy moly this post is so long i am soososo sorry

[rou-luxe]

as the certified #1 Alfons enjoyer, could I get your opinion?

so I've been listening to your alfons playlist (it's really good) but I'm also making one for myself that has more songs I'm into as well, and I was wondering if "chosen" by dua saleh fits him? I only know him from the eng server (and a few translations), so I would like an expert opinion before I commit to adding it.

only if you have the time or want to check it out, that is!

NAH MY BROWSER BROKE TRYING TO ANSWER THIS ASK

HELP... I'M THE #1 ALFONS ENJOYER NOW... 😭😭 AND I'M BEING CONSULTED FOR THIS... HEKJFKDHVKDLFJ

oooo you're making a playlist too??? could you send it once you're done 😇

ngl I'm from english server too (I know a bit of JP but I'm lazy 💀). checking this out right now. I am always free for Alfons research... I'm going insane...

about the song you mentioned - the verdict is go ahead 👍 I'd say it is more about him in a general way. says a lot about intoxication and the thrill. but honestly if I'm not sure I go pull up the lyrics and do an analyzation before deciding 💀💀

I forgot to make the thumbnails for the other LIs to publish the playlists thank you for reminding me 🌝

rambling under cut

my irl said "you probably think the alfons playlist is a masterpiece don't you? 😔"

I didn't think much of it at the time

Until I went on a listening marathon

speaking of my choice in songs for these playlists... it usually includes (examples from alfons playlist) - LI singing to MC - MC singing to LI (I would like to point out "KOE" - ASCA and "MEMORIA" - Eir Aoi. The main songs out of place. These songs are mainly about grief and loss, or forgetting someone / something. Alfons' MC, post-curse.) - joke / troll songs / inside jokes especially in alfons'. more hidden though. (Tom Lehrer is the most obvious) - vibe of LI - music mainly (eg. Chogakusei, "Loveit?") - vibe of LI - lyrics only. sometimes these songs don't really fit the LI musically but we cope

usually when making character playlists I keep these playlists to myself or just leave them public but never mention them publically like on tumblr - my brain works differently and I understand every little reference but that means I'd need to explain these playlists 💀💀

there are few songs that I feel suit them perfectly in both music and lyrics. these songs tend to be near the top of the playlist. however - due to certain headcanons occupying my brain recently about Alfons' curse, some songs feel out of place

some songs made me curl up and cry when in alfons context specifically - "House of Memories" - P!ATD - "Flight of the Crows" - Jhariah - "KOE" - ASCA - "MEMORIA" - Eir Aoi

there will be an explanation for alfons' at some point... not now though irl life is getting pretty busy

[fujimiiiya]

I'm just a silent lurker and observer. Although I like many ships of Yuji that are considered proships, I'm still somewhat discreet about it. As in, I didn't make my stand clear on my bio and stuff or publicly interact with those contents. Maybe because I'm so shy and avoid discourse or ship wars etc that I see frequently plaguing JJK fandoms, too many of them becoming very toxic that it leaves me draining just from accidentally seeing it, even without engaging them. My X is also private account. Probably cuz I don't like all those ships. I started liking about 3 ships of bottom Yuji and just recently becoming more aware of Choita's charms and I have to say it began with me coming across some of yours and your friends' posts here that caused me to see this ship deeper and enjoyable and everything good, if I compare it with other ships. But tumblr is such a barren dry land for choita so I'm very grateful for all your and your friends' entertaining posts. I just couldn't help but follow you on X as well, your RPs are feeding me well on daily basis and your comments/threads are the cherries on top of delectable cakes. It's always so witty and entertaining so I have fun scrolling it everyday! This is probably the only time I'd send an ask. I have wanted to for quite a while, but back then your anon inbox was off. Anyway, I just wanna drop by to send my gratitude. Please keep spreading choita love cuz you're doing great job at influencing people ❤

Ps. I've been blocked several times by the japanese choita fanartists on X 😭 I suspect that's due to my bio that doesn't seem like I'm a choita fan. I know you are followed/mutuals with some of them and have seen you interacted with them, so I wonder if that's true. I hope you don't block me when you come across private accounts like me. I swear I'm a fan, I just...don't really want to make it public that I like incest ship...

Hi~ I appreciate the message you try to convey despite being shy. I don't think my love for choita will lessen anytime soon and I'm too lazy to find other fandoms as currently nothing interests me. I might just be a little more subdued as time goes.

I'm very happy to hear I can influence others to like Choita, especially bcs I don't do much. I'm not an artist nor am I a prolific writer who write things with tropes that are popular with many. I only mostly shitpost here anw lmao. I agree w/ here being barren which is why it's less entertaining for me.

I get your reason for private acc or don't wanna label yourself as proshipper. As for being blocked, it's as simple as they might think you fall into category of their DNIs. They usually put their DNIs in profcard linked to their bio. I suggest reading it before following them as some of them could be quite strict abt that. Google translate is built-in in app and browser nowadays so it's easy even if you can't read japanese at all. They are strict with who could see their contents bcs for various and obvious reasons, but being priv acc usually isn't a DNI but more abt whether you're fine with their contents or not. They are being considerate and wanna protect themselves as their works are derivative works that should be consumed only by the people who like the same things. So if you don't make it clear, there are some people (myself included) who would think twice whether it's okay for those acc to keep seeing our contents. And w/ priv accounts, bcs we can't see any impression from yours it makes some of us become more wary. I was really strict back then too but lately, I'm just too tired and don't really care anymore.

[everythingblreview]

Short Introductions to BL Games (Part 1)

For the longest time I had the idea to do a short introduction to all the different bl games I played, as a way for people to figure out if certain games are for them or not, and this day finally came. So, starting from today I will do short introductions, with a general rating of the story, characters and so on of every game. (I try to give a more neutral opinion, but some things are still based on my perception of the game) In addition I will add some extra comments on every game, so people know what to expect.

This is NOT a recommendation list, just an introduction, you decide yourself if you want to play it.

The rating goes from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong).

Higher story rating means the it's more unique and captivating.

The higher the romance is the more developed and focused it is.

Sadness level is obvious, the higher the ranting, the more tissues you need. Level of disturbing includes content that can make you feel unwell as well as the amount of rape (we know bl game writers love them) so the higher the rating the higher the the amount of it in the game.   

CAGE -OPEN- (R18+)

Description:

Konno Teppei suddenly loses consciousness on his way home from work in the evening. He wakes up surrounded by ruins and old buildings. He, along with several other men, are in an abandoned amusement park.

An announcement suddenly informs them that the game is about to begin. The rules are very simple. For 8 days, the participants will continue their normal lives during the daytime. But once night falls, they will be forced into the old amusement park as the setting for their struggle to obtain a coin that will win them fifty million yen.

Genre: Action, Gore, Psychological, Violence

Story 3/5

Characters 4/5

Romance 2/5

Artwork 3/5

Sadness level 1/5

Level of disturbing 4/5

Language: Japanese, English (partly translated with Viusal Novel Reader)

Comments: It’s not voiced, the games has some really disturbing bad ends with themes like mutilation so be careful with that, the romance part is not very strong, MC is the “I don’t like guys”-type, also a good amount of rape and dub-con moments, the music of the games is really good, the game has several sequels and remake will be released soon

Gakuen Heaven 2 ~Double Scramble!~ (R15+)

Description:

Bell Liberty School, known as BL School. A near-legendary boarding school attended by elite students chosen from all over the country.

By some stroke of luck, I, Yuki Asahina, am among those chosen to attend this school. But on my first day, I was suddenly given a mysterious armband. Of all things, this armband is apparently the symbol of the ace of the school, the Student Body President.

Wait--does that mean I'm now the Student Body President?!

But there's no time to celebrate. Because the Student Body President has been reduced into nothing but a powerless servant....

Genre: School life, Comedy, Slice of life

Story 2/5

Characters 4/5

Romance 3/5

Artwork 4/5

Sadness level 1/5

Level of disturbing 1/5

Languages: Japanese, English (patch)

Comments: A light school life bl game, no heavy themes, MC is really fun, romance can be good or bad depending on the route, no graphic sexual content, not for people who prefer games with strong plot

Luckydog 1 (R18+)

Description:

It all starts with the slam of a prison door. Four captains from the same Mafia family, the CR:5, are taken out in one fell swoop and left to rot behind bars.

Lucky for them, our hero’s already there.

Gian’s just a run-of-the-mill wiseguy, passing his time doing petty jobs for the family when he’s on the outside and living the lazy life when he’s in the slammer. But those easy days come to an end when he gets word from the boss: if he can break the captains out, Gian will earn a spot at the top of the hierarchy.

Can he pull off a job this big, or is it more than even Gian’s fabled good luck can manage?

Genre: Action, Violence, Mafia, Comedy, Historical (US-America 1930s)

Story 5/5

Characters 5/5

Romance 3/5

Artwork 3/5

Sadness level 1/5

Level of disturbing 3/5

Language: Japanese, English (Online translation)

Comments: Strong-mined main character, gameplay based on luck of the MC, a decent amount of dub-con, it's mafia so don't expect them to be good guys

[cornus27florida]

questions 4, 5, 8, and 12 please. if you don't mind!

Thank you for asking there! Although as my most active and favorite fandom is "Cursed Princess Club" - forgive me to limiting on that webtoon fandom only there!!! IDM btw ^^

4) I do like slash pairings but just for funnies, although I prefer heterosexual pairings but I do love canon homo ones like Jamie/Leopold and Jolie/Nell.. but if not canon - as in the feelings not mutual, I didn't ship it. So most (non canonical) homosexual pairings in the CPC imho not make sense to me. Especially in order to do so - bashing characters, usually male characters one in order to make wlw agenda happen. Or the opposite, blb that actually just bromance at best becomes romantic without resolving the actual problem of the mentioned character in the story [I feel it's lazy writing for: X might gets redemption if he gets what he wants which is by somehow together with Z who also a male - simply for spits]. No hate for LGBTQ+ community as a whole, but I am big fan of canon compliant so any pairing like that [I feel I didn't need to list it, as it's obvious the examples from just the taggings] I likely won't read it or if I do stumble means I will never re read. I feel we could simply, respect each other? I feel we could make great fanfics without bashings. My cup of tea is loving canon pairings (or the ones that might have mutual feelings) which I see very often heterosexual ones, so I won't reading fanfics about pairings that not make sense to me - most of them it's pure fanon territory like "what-if" character A never likes B as well hating initial characterization of B, suddenly character C comes in to 'doing anything to lets A better' - even if that's mean bashing character B as harsh as possible

5) CPC still not ending so as highly canon compliant person, I didn't know whose pairing that will be "platonic" at the end or is possible they'll be romantic that maybe not right now but in the future they're dating/gets together more/marry etc. I feel there's "ship" but more like dynamic of the whole group of Background Princesses (Abbi, Renée, Bernadette, Sally, Deaneira, Jolie, Thermidora, Nell) - as they are very in click working together as making "CPC monster"... Which I feel we will meet them again soon as certain event leads to - CPC HQ

8) My non native English struggle first to understand the question then I guess... A local webtoon which the niche as webtoon will be always minimal compared to animanga, as well as it's local in my language's country to make it rarely known internationally (although translation exists for it)

12) Become so obsessed to being so active as daily doing editing for fandom wiki as well as running up before series ended, I used to be obsessed with my no. 8 series while reaching the top of achievement thus declared as admin... Now I do the very same for "Cursed Princess Club"

I am indeed doing absolute payless and likely thankless jobs - just for other people of fandom 'helped' some way with wiki

P.S. as conclusion: if you are enjoying CPC, I really hope to at least take part in venturing the CPC fandom wikia...

Literally built by shattered mind, stress, tears and sweats

[enbyleighlines]

Leigh plays Tellius prt 11

It's time to push around some priests!

I absolutely adore how Tellius has so many cartoonishly evil villains. Schaeffer especially is so much fun to hate.

Regrettably, I underestimated the boss, and wound up losing Boyd to a crit from his killer bow, so I had to do this map twice. Whoops...

On my second go, I hatched a plan that would allow me to take down Schaeffer without any risk of getting one-shot by a critical hit. I first left an unarmed Soren in Schaeffer's killer bow range, knowing that he's immune to critical hits so long as Ike is adjacent to him. Then on my next turn, I had Ike deal the finishing blow, with Reyson hovering nearby in case I needed someone to make a hasty retreat.

Schaeffer's defeat lines are so funny. You don't get more cartoonishly evil than this.

Here's a visual of what everything looked like. I actually had to use Reyson to give Ike a second turn, because he wasn't able to kill Schaeffer in one round. I also had to put that priest in the lower left corner to sleep at one point, because I accidentally left Boyd in his range with a two-handed weapon.

Now it's time for this scene! I wonder if the writing on the wall actually translates to anything, or if it's just random gibberish that's been copy and pasted.

Do we ever find out just how many siblings Reyson has? Is having a ton of siblings a heron-only thing? Or was Lorazieh and his wife just overambitious? I feel like, with how canonically frail herons are, that childbirth would be difficult for them.

How does one translate a name into a different language?

Ranulf has returned!!!

I think this may be my favorite thing Ranulf has ever said. He is such a fucking charmer. Ugh, my heart.

I snorted at Ranulf calling Soren a "nervous little staff officer". Most people consider Soren moody and detached, but I think this is the first time someone has described him as "nervous". But I think it makes sense if Soren always seems nervous around the laguz.

And now we finally get Ike and Soren's relationship to A rank! Huzzah!

I also got Mist and Boyd to B rank at long last. And it looks like Boyd is the one who started crushing first. Unsurprising, really. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Boyd's love language is dunking on people and being dunked on. It's only natural he would fall in love with Mist, who dunks on Boyd like she's getting paid for it.

Yay! The infamous Aimee and Soren scene! I always wondered about this bit, though. What do you mean, there's only one of these in all the world? Then how does one also exist in Radiant Dawn? Is this a mistranslation?

Next was the bridge map! I could have looked up a map about which squares to avoid, but I was too lazy to do that, and instead relied on my memory. Which turns out was a bad idea, because I still fell into a bunch of holes! Even so, I didn't have any problems with this map.

Lucia! Behold, a true bicon.

I had to get Petrine and Soren's dialogue. I am a little sad we never get to learn more about Petrine being Branded. How does she feel about it? Has she experienced discrimination before? Surely her experiences have influenced her fanatic hatred of the laguz. And perhaps her overconfident personality is her overcompensating for a secret self-loathing? Idk, I think it would be interesting if they explored that.

I decided to give the killing blow to Boyd, as a bit of an apology, both for letting him die to Schaeffer, but also for putting provoke on him so he would take all the hits from the ballistae.

Ike and Ranulf's C-rank conversation was immediately available after this map, so yay! And man, maybe it's just my shipper goggles blinding me from the obvious, but um, how else am I supposed to interpret this line other than Ranulf hitting on Ike?

Ike being so unbelievably tickled by Ranulf's stupid puns gives me so much life.

And that's part 11! We are getting into the endgame, and I'm starting to get nervous. Will I defeat the Black Knight? If I don't, does it count as letting Nasir die? Does that go against my "no deaths" rule?

Ahhhhh, let's hope all goes well.

[incyrayinc]

Rnow I'm making some sketches of an alien species of mine demonstrating ways they do gender. Recently I decided that since they are robots who use drytech/hylotech, which is effectively biotech- they probably have freakishly advanced medicine. which means body modification is probably a well-studied field simply because it is Very Easy For Them To Do. (This is also probably means I'm going to have to cladize them to hell and beyond because as soon as you open that can of worms IMMEDIATELY the species starts diversifying into new clades. Which will be pain because designing ONE robot alien was hard enough ;u; ) Since they can do body modification so easily, not only would transition surgeries become small potatoes to them, but morphological freedom itself would likely become really abstract.

They probably have like an open-ended segment on their census charts when asking for gender or pronouns, haha

Problem is, right now I'm sketching examples of this species who've taken up such wacky xenogenders as human-core feminine, and I'm running into the autistic enby problem of Wait. What IS Human Gender? what IS a women? How do I demonstrate that these NON-HUMANOID ROBOT ALIENS are not only female, but emulating human-style femininity, WITHOUT putting eyelashes or fake hair on them?

I've already drawn one wearing pink biolights and metal paint and floral print because that was the obvious, lazy choice that kind of fits in the way I see the species tending to blur the line between gender and aesthetic. I've also started working on one that's more butch, but that one's proving harder ;u;

As it turns out, my internal perception of gender is REALLY FUZZY and poorly defined. great for when you want to squint at something you initially perceived as one gender to switch to perceiving it as another, because it's all abstractions to you anyway. Not so great when you need to actually pin even the smallest sliver of anything down lmao

Most likely I will just make them all a little abstract, since well you kind of HAVE to get a little abstract when you're translating human mammalian biont gender expression onto non-human giant metal cat substrate. Some things just don't translate 100% very well without getting a little ham-fisted and giving them boobs or something haha. Although maybe I WILL make one with boobs, considering how I am considering having them be REALLY GOOD at medicine on account of effectively using biotech. Who is going to tell the robot cat adopting a human gender she CAN'T modifying herself to have boobs? The robo-boob polic? lmao

They are probably going to look very Girl Cybertronian, kind of in the same styles as the likes of Arcee or Clobber.

I would also like to note, humans would probably have about as hard a time with these guy's concepts of gender as the reverse. They DO have a sexual dimorphism somewhat resembling mammalian two-sex systems, but they have basic group structure that more closely resembles a lion pride than a human tribe... but with a blend of intrasex-competition and intersex-display secondary sex features. So for example the 'males' might have a few features meant to make them seem more intimidating, but the more important feature for them is the pretty display features (brightly colored biolights) and associated flamboyant display behavior. The 'females' meanwhile are entirely matte black in color to camouflage at night, kind of like how birds have really showy males and more camouflaged females.

Working on this, I realized I should probably not label the aliens' sex as male or female, since those are human concepts and these are Not Humans. So instead I labeled them as either 'lion' or 'lioness', since that's how a human would probably attempt to describe or translate their sexes. Which just. it looks REALLY funny, especially next to the other labels. literally the one of them has a label that reads '([gender] human-core feminine (femme style); sex: lion)'. Idk there's something amusing and charming about that descriptor.

[sic-fayl]

Guild Member Next Door (kinda) translation - Part 16

Click here for the previous part - or click here for Part 1!

Disclaimer, as always: This is based on an MTL translation, I do not know Korean myself, I am trying more to stick with the impressions/vibes of a sentence instead of a strict word-for-word meaning - and most importantly, this is only for fun.

Now, here's the next part!

Title: Omg! Someone’s finally dealing with that hacker guild

Written by: AlwaysFilial [Night Spear]

Look up ‘strawberry jam’ and you’ll find the post by their guild master about the whole thing!

Doesn’t look like a ranked guild, but they sure got balls.

They’re straight up calling them hackers.

(15 comments)

-Strawberry Jam will even livestream the match! So hack guild will probs have a ton of members eat some sweet sweet bans lol ^^

⤷Gonna camp out there jic so I won’t miss the best moment of this year.

⤷lmaoooo Kinda want that to happen rn lol They should’ve been eating bans for ages already

-Motsuena and Earth Star are regular Top 50, so they’re obvious, but who are the others? Are they just there to add numbers?

⤷Kittycat MeowMeowMeow = Wolfist who hacks his damage higher, neutaaaa = No clue tbh…? Was hanging around Poseidon a lot, so I thought they’d join Poseidon, but here they’re suddenly with the others??? Wild

-That synergy is wild tho haha. One side has Gunner+Shadow Warrior, so close range and long range - they’re winning already. Especially with Dead Job+Night Spear on the other side... Like, NS busts enemy camps and does good close range damage, but against both close+long range, there’s no way. Like, they have no chance, you seeing this? And with both sides without healer, that gap becomes insurmountable. Gunners can even regenerate some health when they do damage, so it’s an invaluable job here.

⤷Don’t call Wolfist dead job ㅜㅜ That term’s already taken by the class’ final job: Valkyries (aka trash) lol.

⤷ But that Earth Star kid has awful stats outside of speed, so all it takes is one hit and he’ll be a pancake.

Title: [Popular Post] I went on a deep dive to understand why they’re actually fighting.

Written by: Anonymous

Click here for ‘[Popular Post] Come watch those hackers go down! - True Strawberry Jam vs. Hack Poseidon Match’ (direct link: www.illusions2.net/board_10311124)

This is about a bigger situation!! So read that other post first, to understand this!!

So, first things first, I really think hackers should just eat their rightful bans and screw off already. Hacks suck and ruin the balance of everything and it’s so lazy and leads to problems for everyone. It’s the worst! But I’m also still kinda a newb, so I tried to read explanations, but I still don’t get what hacks really are or do haha.

(Duel_Mail.jpg)

Anyways, the point is I thought this was one of those normal matches, where people just fight for the fun of it. But I mean, it’s not a guild match, so there’s less happening and that’s kinda boring, so I asked myself: if it’s just for fun, then why choose the 2v2 that’s objectively less fun lol. Or is that just me?

Now, the reason the community board is overrun with this match is just because Strawberry Jam said they’ll stream it all lol.

And I guess even the Game Masters are curious enough to turn into voyeurs now? So, GMs, if you’re reading this, please improve the Moon Fairy in your next patch, you heartless bastards!

But anyways:

Click here for ‘[Popular Post] Come watch those hackers go down! - True Strawberry Jam vs. Hack Poseidon Match’ (direct link: www.illusions2.net/board_10311124)

If you scroll to the comments, do you see how most are from Earth Star (the speed hacker) and Captain Poseidon (their guild master)? There’s like 3 pages of them.

(Comments_evidence_caught.jpg)

Lmaoooo

I’ve decided I’ll let Earth have his redemption arc, if they win. I mean, I hope they lose, because watching people get what’s coming for them is really nice... But they say here they want their ‘baby’ back, if they win.

Huh? What baby? I kept checking the comments to try and figure that out and the screenshots below hold the answer lmaoo.

In conclusion: neutaaaa = their baby

I’m- LMAOOOO So who exactly is neutaaaa? Possibly one of only two girls in the strawberry jam guild. Here’s a screenshot and they’re the one right below Motsuena lol.

(Screenshot_011.jpg)

I’ve heard they hung out with Poseidon for like a month and that guild helped them level up, so that’s probably why, when you go through all the screenshots Poseidon has added in the comments of the other post, there’s a lot with them just hanging out together in all kinds of different places. But we’re talking about the guild infamous for hating newbies, so what gives? Like, they even helped raise their level... Well, maybe it’s actually a member’s alt account, or an irl friend of someone? I’m not sure, so let’s skip ahead.

(Screenshot_005.jpg)

Here. That’s the thing that made me write this entire post.

A week before the screenshot you just saw, Earth Star actually sold out his ‘baby’ and got him murdered in the guild zone lmao. Like, look at this... Like, what even… What was even happening here-

(Screenshot_015.jpg)

ANYWAYS;;;; It gets even funnier ㅜㅜㅜㅜ TT TT Earth Star and neutaaaa~ sitting in a tree~? (As you can see, it’s a screenshot of Earth Star confessing to neutaaaa, which I personally got from the Poseidon guild member Halloween Eggplant! Thanks again, Halloween Eggplant, this is amazing^^)

Strawberry Jam’s reason to fight: Down with the hackers!

Poseidon’s reason to fight: Let’s rescue our child!

lmao

LMAO

ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

PFFFF-

No clue how they lost their ‘child’ but… It’s so funny to watch; No clue if they’re good to each other either, but it’s just hilarious to me that a couple can join opposing guilds and then it jumpstarts a fight like this.

Tbh I’d love to see Earth lose and implode, but the GMs are blind bastards who’ll only get rid of him when they see for themselves that he’s hacking. Lol. I just want it to be the weekend already, so I can watch that livestream~

(315 comments)

-lmaooooo I love this new pov, it’s so refreshing.

-Isn’t that the infamous Poseidon ‘Hacker Dogs’ Guild? How’d it get so large??

⤷Well, hacking’s become more widespread recently.

⤷⤷Then shouldn’t the devs take out that guild already?

⤷⤷⤷Lmaooo GMs doing their jobs, you’re funny.

-I was there when they were fighting in the guild zone. Kinda wondered what was going on, but never would’ve guessed this lmaoo. Earth Star started this fight too, right? Think it’s only because his lover got lured into another guild?

⤷But why hire ppl to kill your lover if you’re dating??

⤷⤷Isn’t that exactly why? Seems obvious

⤷⤷⤷The adrenaline rush of losing your hard earned exp points.

- Guys, where’d you find the hacks they’re using?? Can I be Top 50 too, if I use those hacks??ᄋ0ᄋ

⤷Hah, kids these days really know how to make me cringe about my hacking phase

⤷Just search the forums a bit.

⤷Checked profile - born in 2012… Just crawl back into the womb pls

⤷⤷Hey... I know now I should’ve looked around by myself first, but don’t you think you could learn from this too? You’re so harsh... Have you never been 12 yourself?

⤷⤷⤷Lmaooooo Yep, I’ve never been 12 a day in my life ㅠㅠ

⤷⤷⤷⤷Stop bullying them... Poor cutie patootie has no clue what they stumbled into

-At what time they gonna stream?

⤷Can’t tell either haha

⤷During the weekend, you moron

⤷⤷Thanks for nothing, fellow moron.

-Kinda off topic, but that’s the Holy Waterfalls map, right? ㅜㅜ But you can’t actually stand on its clouds, unless you’re a Moon Fairy... How did Earth Star do that?

⤷??? Oh, damn you’re right

⤷Isn’t there an invisible ledge?

⤷⤷Wait really? Brb gonna check

⤷⤷⤷Woah, I read these comments, so I gave it a go and there’s really an invisible spot in one cloud haha. Maybe it’s a bug.

⤷⤷⤷⤷The holy waterfalls are suddenly full of people looking for that one spot. Guys, let’s stop flooding the place ^^; I’ll leave now too

-That neu-dude looks like such a noob... He allergic to cosmetics? Or is there no hack for them? God, I wanna send him a ticket so he’ll at least go fix the eyes. They’re so plain, it hurts~ㅜ ㅜ

⤷You’ve legit made me curious if there’s any aestetic hacks out there.

⤷Doesn’t the earth guy dress all extra on purpose and then just drag around the plain guy to stand out more?

⤷⤷Confirmed attention whore frᄃᄃ

-I think the nnewb is actually a LilFor refugee lol. Kids running around in that cheap-ass cape always are lmao. Apparently it was some kinda status symbol in LilFor. So now they still use it here lol.

⤷lmfaooooooooo

⤷Used to play Little Forest too, but never heard of that lol.

⤷lmaoooo checks out.

(Next Part)

[littleeyesofpallas]

Am i crazy or is issue 4 of Boy Wonder the first time batlore has mentioned the idea of feeding people to the Lazarus Pit to fuel it? Because it feels obvious but seeing it on paper i feel like i've have inverted dejavu --like I should have a memory of this bit of lore existing already but instead my mind draws a blank. I've got a lot of beef with Ra's and the League of Assassins and everyone surrounding them, as characters, and as concepts, and as fixture of lore, but one of the things that always bugged me, but that I never really feel like it's the right time to bring up is the persistence of the phrase "head of the demon" and the idea that that's a coherent translation.

"Ghul" is not a/the arabic word for ""demon"" it gets conflated as such because old western orientalists were lazy and halfassed linguists who consistently took distinct cultural concepts and just pigeonholed them into vaguely, superficially similar western concepts. Not just erroneously equating the two, but using said mistake as an excuse to completely avoid explaining any of the actual cultural distinctions. Ghul, aka Goule, aka Ghoul is bit of pre-islamic arabic folklore that survived christianization and the rise of islam, and made its way west via France and translations of 1001 Arabian Nights. It's a creature(?) that digs up fresh graves to eat corpses, which is why in modern contexts it tends to be conflated with zombies, as flesh eaters.

But the ghul doesn't have any implicit undead qualities, or even expressly humanoid ones. Literally it's only key defining trait is that it eats corpses. has absolutely nothing to do with the (then) established western concept of a "demon." (And I'm not even going to start on why the western concept of a "demon" is itself a bunch of hodgepodge bullshit stitched together from half a dozen different translation errors.)

Anyway, point being, if the pit eats corpses that makes the pit itself the ghoul, and I think that's a neat justification for the stupid name, al-ghul.

[3wisellamas]

Some insights from the Japanese version of chapter 2!

(I'm not THAT great at Japanese, and am NOT a native speaker, it's been years and even then I never got super-fluent, but I can still read a little, and just used my dictionary for the rest. So, if anyone wants to correct me on this, go for it.)

-In case you missed it, Spamton's speech is translated REALLY interestingly, using "death" in English instead of "desu" (since they're pronounced the same), spelling daisuki (love) as "die-suki", uses Watakushi (formal and gender-neutral, though not exclusively, pretty much anyone can use it) as his pronoun but replaces "kushi" with the numbers 9 and 4, which are pronounced Ku and Shi but whose sounds out of context can mean "death" and "pain/torture" and are therefore considered unlucky numbers, etc. Also, less horrifying, instead of BIG SHOT he just says he wants to be "BIG" -- which, given that he's a literal email spambot from the 90s, has some implications...

-Seam's pronoun is...Atashi? o____O Which is, like, really feminine. The girly girl pronoun. If they don't straight-up identify as a different gender in Japanese, I guess we're supposed to interpret this as them seeing themselves as being more feminine?

-King and Queen both use Watakushi, with Queen even using it and all other words referring to people/specific topics in [brackets] sorta similar to Spamton (though in Japanese this translates more as just being in quotes), along with other formatting quirks like everything she says being enclosed in <!-- HTML comment tags -- >, making her seem more computer-y.

-The Addisons don't use any pronouns at all. None. They NEVER say the equivalent of the words "I" or "Me" ANYWHERE in Japanese.

-SCC all use male pronouns:

Sweet and Cap'n both use Ore (very masculine, tough guy, arrogant, connotations of being a delinquent/gangster).

Interestingly, Sweet rarely refers to just himself, but as part of the whole group (Oretachi), while Cap'n does both.

K_K uses Boku (standard friendly male pronoun)

-Susie also uses Ore, which makes sense for her since despite being almost exclusively a male pronoun, she doesn't care about that shit! She is tough and you WILL respect her.

-Now for the big one! Swatch also uses Watakushi (gender-neutral, formal). Now, literally anyone can use that or its less-formal version Watashi, male, female, or otherwise -- it's pretty much just the default pronoun (I use Watashi whenever I speak Japanese, since I'm NB). But, in this case, without any English equivalent to go on, I think we can officially say They/Them Swatch confirmed!!

-I've seen others bring this up before, but I'll include it for completeness: Rouxls Kaard uses Yo as his pronoun, which is...basically Watashi but EXTREMELY formal and a little old-fashioned, only really used in writing rather than speech. So, pretty accurate to him!

And now for some more SCC stuff, since I focused on those scenes (for obvious reasons):

-Sweet and Cap'n both speak pretty normally, albeit VERY informally, with the latter using slightly harsher/even more casual language and not really ending his sentences properly, but K_K's manner of speaking is different. He basically speaks in either a really lazy or cutesy manner, rarely using difficult kanji and ends every sentence li~ke thisssss!!~

-In Japanese, K_K's nickname makes a little more sense -- the line where in English he says "K_K is short for 'Cakes.'" is instead "K_K wa 'Kēki' no ryaku da yo~" or "K_K is an abbreviation of Kēki (Cake)!~" In Japanese you abbreviate something by either using the first kana of each word or, especially in cases like this with a shorter word in katakana, the first English character of each kana. So, his name is Kē Ki -- KK!

-Instead of "See ya! Smell ya! Hear ya!", they all just say goodbye, but in their own way:

Sweet: "Mata kaiou!" (Until we meet again!)

Cap'n: "Mata na!" (See ya, very casual)

K_K: "Mata ni~" (Same as Cap'n, but in a much more cute, childish manner)

-Instead of lemon drops, K_K talks about lemon jelly. Which...explains a lot of the Japanese fanart I've seen with K_K eating it.

-Instead of saying Queen gave him candy for being so sweet, Sweet says that Queen gave him a nickname that translates directly to "Little Sweets/Candy Boy". And when he hears it, Cap'n says he wants to be called that too!

-Cap'n drops the freaking k-word! Granted, it's referring to the damn Berdly statue, which, I would use that word to describe too, but still. Someone wash this boy's mouth out with soap!

-"Boku wa sweets daisuki!" / "I love sweets!" Shippers, this one's for you.