#written slugsign

[boiledegghole]

wrote this on a pipe in the woods with a friend. translates to "no predators. we (are) peaceful and relaxed"

discovered, completely coincidentally, that slugsign is actually perfect for writing on pipes and other long, uninterruped surfaces.

much of my writing of slugsign has been on normal everyday papers and digital canvases, so i forgot that, in reality, it would likely be written on pipes and walls and such with far more plentiful space... how nice it is to realize that it works perfectly for that purpose!!

also, here's the direct translation, character by character:

"no predator (stop) you-me peace-relax"

[reksink]

A Little Survivor (With Grand Gourmand Bonus💚)

[0hmanit]

A New Friend - a short story I wrote using @boiledegghole's slugsign written form. I drew visuals and colored in white actions that relates to the slugcat so it will be easier to understand direct translation: line 1 - predator follow(me) line 2 - me give(food) to predator line 3 - peace between predator(now called creature) me line 4 - rain(cycle) comes, stay in shelter

[bitsbug]

i have a ton of question/suggestions for slug sign: 1. how do you indicate emotion in SS? my best guess is using cycles but talking about smth like sadness cant really be done that way 2. is there a specific way youre supposed to type out SS in english? 3. SS seems pretty heavy on context adding a kind of adjective system may help to fix issues with specification as well as free up room for more words. an example would be making words for "cycle", "food", "region", and "direction" and then changing the current word for "cycle" into "specify" so you could say [cycle] [<specification>] to talk about the specific cycle and plan or [direction] [<specification>] to talk about a specific direction and where you may want to go.. etc. words without specification still work but use context. 4. is there a way to explain advanced movement in SS, stuff like a flip or roll. 4.5. if not id suggest adding words for stuff like "sprint" or "crouch" and to go with it "then" to explain stuff for example [jump] [then] [crouch] [forward] would be a way to explain sliding

5. did you ever have concepts for a written version?

hooh momma! thank you for all the questions!

1)

Slugsign has a few emotion indicators, but not all of them are signs. We hop around a lot and dance and flip when we're happy; hopping in place is kind of a "this is good!" while hopping sporadically is "I'm excited!"

Using "loser" repeatedly or shaking on the spot expresses frustration, alongside signing "no" a lot and hitting eachother with rocks. Also insulting whatever you're mad at, we love to insult things.

Recently we've started using "peace" as a way of saying sorry, which wasn't even intentional it just developed during a play session. Sadness is characterized by a lot of "sorry" and crouching without movement and trying to shove yourself into corners. [Me] [loser] is used to express guilt.

2)

Oh hey, you actually use the exact method we use in this ask. We transcribe signs by placing them in brackets, for example: [give?] [Moon] [quantity-lots] [scav][object]. There's no official way you're "supposed" to though, that's just what we do.

3)

What you propose sounds like an interesting idea, but idk how much it'd be utilized. I mean for direction you can just.. point in the way you want to go. And "cycle" in reference to a day is considered the current one by default- you'd use "later" to specify a future one. I think what you're wanting is an abstracted "this" sign? which yeahh WOULD be nice actually..

I've thrown out the idea of having a grammatical word order thing, like [cycle] [food] and [food] [cycle] having different meanings, but Phen's worried that'll be really hard to memorize and cause confusion. Idk I still think it's cool and would add a lot of nuance, I'm gonna try to convince her on it.

4)

We probably could add those signs if y'all really want? I know people use it for their own co-op now, but in me and Phen's sessions we both already know the movement tech. It sounds really funny to teach someone about rainworld using slugsign though, I like that.

I could see condensing all those into a single "movement" or "example" sign: you use the sign and then do the action you're demonstrating. So a backflip would be like.. [example-run] [example-turn] [fast] [example-jump].? Could probably use some workshopping.

5)

..no not really!! I'm not a linguist or a language hobbyist, me and Phen are just winging this shit according to need, and I have NO idea how I'd go about making a written variant beyond transcripts. Besides idk if we'd really.. use it? That sounds super good for the worldbuilding aspect, but we already have the legend to reference. Anyone else who wants to take on the idea, by my guest.

[robotgirlservos]

Slugcat idea: the diplomat

Basically the opposite of the artificer sorta, a scug that can swallow rocks and spit them out as pearls (kinda like how arti makes bombs) which lets them befriend the scavs really fast, to the point of them often staying by your side and throwing their spears in a way that won’t hit you (to prevent annoying deaths by friendly fire). The diplomat can also create special pearls to give specific directions to the scavs, like a yellow one that means “go here” and a red one that means “kill this thing.” They are fairly weak on their own, and thus need to rely on their team of scavs to kill shit.

Their story involves escorting a scav that’s managed to find an ancient item of legend: a metropolis citizen drone, trying to get them up the wall and into metropolis with them in order to hopefully reclaim it for the scavengers. When they get into metropolis, they have to traverse through a war-torn version of it, peppered with craters and climbable hanging wires coming from them (to make up for the lack of explodey jump). When you make it to the house of braid’s central chamber where the chieftain fight happened in Arti, prepared to face off against this mythical beast, you find that it’s been completely eaten by the rot, reduce to a gaping, rotting abyss. (What happens exactly after that I’m not too sure, still brainstorming)

The explanation for the diplomat’s abilities is that they’re essentially a purposed organism created for anti-sliverist propaganda. The pearls it creates essentially have a bunch of anti sliverist propaganda written all over them. (Stuff similar to that one anti-sliverist in that communication arrays pearl.) Even other natural pearls that are within its proximity, blank or otherwise, are overridden and replaced with propaganda. This causes Five Pebbles to get quite mad when you entire his chamber and override all of his pearls with garbage data that’s essentially mocking him (he starts giving them his regular ass Slugcat speech, but gets interupted by the diplomat’s general aura fucking with his pearls).

So Yeagh- the diplomat. It might be a bit jank in practice cause scav AI could prove inconsistent when you’re relying on it similar to Rain Deer, but I think it could be a fun way to mirror the artificer’s campaign

I really like this idea, especially the escort mission. Though i think the diplomat being a proposed organism just for propaganda seems a bit of a stretch. Maybe they were made to view and document the surrounding area, with whoever's overseers on the fritz, or more likely the iterator is from further away than their overseers can reach. The pearls are audio and video of what they have seen so far. Pebbles still gets mad at you for existing somehow.

I think being able to direct your scavs would be really cool, though just being able to use slugsign might be better?

The diplomat throws spears just as well as saint, but can point with one to direct their scav companions to throw at certain walls to climb.

But yeah, rotting crater in the middle of metropolis is brilliant

Maybe they are trying to retrieve whatever lets them electrify their spears? Or the chiefs mask?

Either way, what do you think they'd look like? Im kinda imagining they have markings from being with scavs so much

[boiledegghole]

musings on various usages of tone indicators with the "pause in speech" sign

[boiledegghole]

havent been posting much lately but ive been doing a lot of slugsign. this is a stock phrase regarding one of my ocs in four different fonts- cursive slugsign, standard slugsign, blocky slugsign, and an attempt at thuluth-style slugsign calligraphy. translation and other tidbits under cut.

features a new sign that im debuting because this is my dialect and i can choose the weirdness! the "name" indicator sign (a sign similar to "me", but with more of a self-headpatting motion! i'm using it to denote that the following signs are a namesign. also, the plain L sign is pretty much a silent sign! it's just to indicate a pause in the dialogue, like a comma- mimicking the spoken slugsign mannerisms further.

also, see those three dots next to "cycle"? that is to indicate that the sign (cycle) is being repeated three times, to indicate that its not just plural (which is 2 dots), but a Lot of said sign (hence the 3 dots)

also, note: the "follow" sign used in this actually "wait"! this is because i fucked up a little 🥰

TRANSLATION:

"[name][enlightened]-follow-you sleeps [sentence end]. my [name][enlightened]-follow-you [pause], i sleep-many-cycles [pause], i not-eat-(for)-many-cycles. [sentence end]. sleep-many-cycles."

SIMPLIFIED TRANSLATION:

"Enlightened Attendant sleeps. I am Enlightened Attendant- I have slept for a long time, and I have not eaten for a long time- I have slept a long time.

[boiledegghole]

currently contending with the fact that slugsign doesnt have ways to distinguish between types of predator. in this case i used "cycle-kill" (water/rain) as the smaller descriptors of "predator" (in a vain attempt to describe one of those aquatic lizards. however i then remembered that rainworld has Many aquatic predators, so this doesnt narrow it down much)

(also, feel free to use written slugsign if you want!!! it's very versatile and fun

basic/direct translation:

line 1: water/rain-predator (cycle-kill predator(also i probably shoulda used the /neg for this sign but i forgor) grab (different from kill, as it isnt done while jumping) me, scavenger peace/spare me.

line 2: scavenger kill water-predator, scavenger carry-me out-of-way shelter

line 3: we (me-you) share (give-take) food (bug-food, specifically- a batfly is most likely), we relax

if you want a more detailed translation:

line 1: water predator grabs me, but a scavenger spares me

line 2: the scavenger kills the water predator, and then carries me out of the way to a shelter

line 3: we share bugs to eat, we hang out and chill

[boiledegghole]

unfinished simple short story, written in slugsign (written form)

direct translation:

line 1-

me food predator-food-bug. you(lacking tone indicator, indicating unfamiliarity) no-food no-shelter

line 2-

you(no tone indicator again) question me give food give shelter

line 3 (unfinished)-

me question (it cuts off here)

better translation:

line 1-

i eat a centipede (predator food-bug). a stranger has no food or shelter.

line 2-

the stranger asks me for food and shelter.

line 3-

i ask.

[boiledegghole]

work in progress slugsign script for an art piece i'm planning to do that takes heavy inspiration from thuluth arabic calligraphy!! since this is mostly just going to be a "tech demo" attempt at replicating the techniques i see in those pieces, i'm just going to use the fairly straightforward tale of the tragedy of looks to the moon and five pebbles.

translation below!!

so far it translates to:

(line1)- [name] lttm [name] 5p stay (for) many-cycles [sentence end]. they question[enlightened] cycles[enlightened, religious connotation]

(line2)- they(their) many-question[enlightened] give cycle-kill[negative] [sentence end]. they give-take food-cycle-kill

(line3)- they cycle[enlightened]-predator [pause], question[enlightened] kill[enlightened] cycle [enlightened]

-

so in normal words, translated to Cool english:

(line1)- enlightened figures looks to the moon and five pebbles have been around for a long, long time. they ponder the endless cycles of reincarnation.

(line2)- their endless pondering gives the rain. they give and take the water.

(line3)- they hunt the cycles, and ponder how to end the cycles (this line is unfinished).

also, if youre curious about what the big reoccurring squares mean, here you go! a nice tutorial on the written slugsign "tone indicator ears"! (...sorry for the terrible quality on some of them)

[boiledegghole]

i translated something my buddy was telling me about in vc into written slugsign bc i was bored. the "you you me" sign is being used to mean "they"

...im not doing a detailed translation of this one. but i can get it across. my buddy was like "ok so i work at taco bell right and ive been starting to zone out and daydream plots for stories and shit right. but my daydreams keep shifting into yaoi. and its like GOOD yaoi. (he then says something about a sickfic he came up with in which one of the characters is carrying the other out of the infirmary in a romantic way. i dont know the characters but respect)". and i made the "tone indicator" for this whole piece be the "enlightened" tone indicator. this is bc i believe that it was very wise and enlightened indeed

[boiledegghole]

an attempt at written slugsign poetry- i wanted to use really intricate compound characters with really short "sentences"

translation:

line 1: we(me-you) sleep (cycle-shelter), later that night (later moon-cycle) we rested (stay-relax, implied that they are awake and just chilling due to the extra detail)

line 2: shared (give-take) food, shared shelter, shared peace-relax

(used "shared peace-relax" instead of a proper word bc "shared chill vibes" just didnt really get across the connotations of the characters "peace-relax" well enough)

[boiledegghole]

If I may ask, how did you translate slugsign, a form a sign language, into a writeable language?

written slugsign is something ive been working on!!!! it's my own interpretation on what a written form of slugsign would look like!!!

i dont have a specific character list written down for it, as much of it is just "transcriptions" of the physical movements of the signs (with several signs "stacked" together as compound signs to take on a different meaning)!!

feel free to make use of it if you want, its really versatile and fun!!!

[boiledegghole]

been working on a written form of slugsign- its been a really interesting exercise to try and translate a visual (signed) language to a visual (written) language (rather than the usually audial (spoken) language to a visual (written) language).

each character is a "transcription" of a certain sign's body language and arm placement.

here's a rough translation of the writing, which is me testing out the versatility of the language by writing down the story of lttm's death

direct translation:

(first line)- cycle-predator lttm 5pebbles peace

(second line)- lttm 5p give-take(share) food-cycle-kill(rain)

(third line)- 5p kill cycle, 5p not give-take(share) food-cycle-kill(rain)

(fourth line)- lttm not take food-cycle-kill(rain)

(fifth line)- 5p(neg) kill(neg) lttm, lttm cycle (death and rebirth)

better translation:

(first line)- Five Pebbles and Looks To The Moon, who hunted the cycle itself, were at peace

(second line)- Looks To The Moon and Five Pebbles shared water/rain as their food

(third line)- Five Pebbles tried to kill the cycle (<-this line could use some refining, as the "tried" didnt get across with the language i had), Five Pebbles didn’t share his water/rain

(fourth line)- Looks To The Moon had no water/rain (to eat, is what is implied by the "food" sign)

(fifth line)- Five Pebbles cruelly killed Looks To The Moon, Looks To The Moon died and was reborn