#it's just that it'll be weird and confusing visually

[gigizetz]

Everyone’s Tiresias designs now be like:

twinkfication: ACTIVATE

already brainstorming ab this

[biscuitsandwires]

In which Danny wakes up in a weird place.... again. (pt. 4)

(pt 1 here) | (pt 2 here) | (pt 3 here)

The first thing Danny really clocked about this Damian guy, was the fact that he was very serious.

He watched as Danny came down to the ground, seemingly unsurprised that Danny was flying at all, and strode up to stand in front of him before crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm sure you have several questions." Damian said, no beating around the bush with this guy.

"I mean, I woke up in a random mansion with a nice butler dude giving me breakfast and I don't remember how or why I'm here like, at all. So yeah, "several" isn't really cutting it."

Call him a smartass, but he was having a weird day, he'd earned it.

"Well, I will answer them as best as I can, Fenton. But you need to understand first and foremost that you cannot go home for a while."

That was... maybe the wrong thing to say to a halfa that could go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Damian seemed to realize that though, somehow, and gave him a smirk.

"Sure, you can leave whenever you like. But you'll die if you do."

That was more ominous than it had any right to be, really, but Danny was ready to listen. "Alright, lay it on me."

Damian nodded, staring at him for a brief moment before turning around and marching away. "Come with me, it'll be easier to explain with visuals."

Danny snorted, but followed along, trying to keep up with Damian's brisk pace but eventually just floating after a while to keep up. Once they'd gotten to the massive set of computers in the room, the screens bigger than a theater showing, Damian sat in the chair and started typing.

Danny watched him, but after a moment, glanced up at the closest screen. What he saw made his hands clench at their sides, his heart stopping in his chest. It couldn't be...

"This is where I found you. You were lucky I made it there before any more damage was done."

It was the school gymnasium at Gotham Central, where his own school often sent their school trip students. It was blown to pieces, rubble everywhere, what looked distressingly like blood in a few places but he hoped, god he hoped it was just oil or something.

There were no signs of bodies, or anyone hurt, but that didn't mean anything. Not when there was this much damage. Hell, even anyone nearby would have gotten hurt from that.

"It was a direct attack. They did not care who they hurt, as long as they got to you."

Danny blinked, taking in the pure destruction of the place, but felt pure confusion washing over him.

He didn't remember going on a trip to Gotham. Didn't remember much past... What was the last thing he remembered?

The longer he stood there, trying to think about it, the more his head started to hurt.

"Don't injure yourself, Fenton. I'll explain everything, but you have to trust me." Damian said, simple and to the point, but with authority.

Danny stared back at him, trying to think past the fog that was building, and nodded. "Alright. I'll trust you."

For now, at least. It wouldn't be the first time somebody tried to pull a fast one and he'd gotten hurt.

He wasn't going to let it happen again.

Damian turned back to the computer, typing up more things on more screens, and Danny could only stand there, bracing himself for the ride.

[numberonetacostan]

on behalf of all your followers, may we get some autism taco headcanons?

Hi there!!^^ Welcome back, and thank you for sending in your request!! :] All of you want autistic taco headcanons?! I better get started, then!!! *projects onto taco so hard*

Ask and you shall receive, autistic taco headcanons!

I don't think she gives a ton of visual indicators to show she's listening to someone. If she hears something in the woods that could be dangerous, she'll turn/move to look, but for a person? She'll maybe give a hum of acknowledgement. This could actually cause some tension with her and Mic, since it's so important to Mic that Taco listens to her, yeah? And even though Taco is making the effort to listen, Mic can't tell since she isn't physically showing it. Soap would probably end up getting involved and telling Taco to shape up and listen to Mic, Taco would argue that of course she listens to Mic, and when Soap brings up Taco not turning to Mic or looking at her, Taco is confused because what does that have to do with listening to her. She does not hear with her eyes. Soap would probably have to go over it with Taco and explain it to her so she'd get why it's making Mic (and probably other people but she cares more about Mic) feel like she isn't actually listening. She would then apologize to Mic and they'd be okay again! And Soap would ask Suitcase if she can bring the psychiatrist back to the island for yet another autism evaluation. She has more evidence this was just the last straw.

I like to think that Taco tends to be unaware of how frightening her... general thought process can be. She was alone for years, and is quite literally wired for villainy. I like to think that she schemes to help her fall asleep, so she has a whole bunch of plans cooked up that she never used, nor really intended to use. This unawareness would become a bit of an issue when she explains in-depth how easy it would have been to burn down the hotel and kill most of if not all of its residents. She wasn't going to do it, that wouldn't benefit her and could even compromise her hiding spots in the woods, but she was having trouble sleeping and needed to think of an evil plan. Why is she getting weird and scared looks, she obviously wasn't actually going to burn down the hotel. (Sidenote: She's right btw! We see the repairs done after Mephone hits the hotel with a plane is done primarily if not completely with wood. We see ONE exit to the hotel, that being the front door. No fire stairs on the outside. The bloody hallway is on the outside, rooms on the inside, meaning if anyone gets stuck in their rooms because of the fire outside or the temperature warping the door, they're out of luck. And if Bomb got caught in the fire? Boom!!! No more hotel!!! Sorry this is off-topic I am very passionate about how unprepared the hotel would have been for a fire.)

I like to think, as long as she can fit them in her shell, she keeps every single one of her possessions in there. Not sure if you're aware of my pocket dimension headcanon, but tdlr I like to think Taco has infinite space in there. It can be a thing for autistic people to need to have certain possessions on them at all times, to be carrying a bag with their supplies (whatever those might be), etc. I like to think keeping things in her shell is Taco's equivalent. That's another part of why it's such a personal and private space for her- if something happens to one of her Supplies it'll really stress her out.

Apologies if I've mentioned this one before, but she is going to have a lot of trouble to adjusting to living indoors after having been outside almost her entire life. Fluorescent lights, buzzing electricity, the sounds of the people living with her, etc. It's going to be a lot to get used to, and she will probably spend a lot of time sitting in the dark because she's overstimulating and somewhat debating going back to being evil so she can go back to her nice quiet woods and no one will come talk to her ever. She hated it in the moment but it sounds real good when being in the mansion gets to be too much.

She needs clearly defined rules to know what to do!! EX: Mic can't just tell her not to lie anymore, because she'd take that as always needing to tell the truth, even if it's not something you should normally tell someone. If Mic tells her not to shout at people, she will do her best not shout at people- including shouting to communicate from further distances. She'll walk all the way over to tell someone something, and then walk all the way back, because she genuinely thinks that's what Mic wants! And after episode 14, she very much wants to do what Mic wants her to do to the letter!!

[quackity1999]

"i mean— it's a weird mix. some of you come in the form of letters, some of you are the weird, noisy pop-up ads, some people i meet in person. it's a variation of stuff."

LN ARCHIVES: MASTERPOST ON Q'S CHAT!!

OKAY. cracks my knuckles.

much like how other characters in the dream smp have physical manifestations of their twitch chat, i thought it'd be fun to apply that here — since this is a c!quackity ask blog.

anons function similarly to a twitch chat, which is why i decided that q's chat wasn't a duck pond for originality!

3 categories: people / actual pop ups / and letters or documents.

[ TAGGING SYSTEM ] + [ PINNED ]

POP UPS: this applies to all asks that aren't letters or in-person situations.

these asks are visual pop-ups (boxes, like those virus advertisements you get on a computer, ykykyk) that show up in quackity's peripheral vision. the pop ups can't interact with him physically since they're just text— but they pile up and overlap if he doesn't address them. he can swipe them away with his hands, of course. quackity either responds to them verbally (only if he's alone to avoid looking bonkers.) or mentally (if he's got company.)

examples ; THIS , THIS , THIS , AND THIS .

LETTERS / DOCUMENTS: these asks are formatted + physical, often delivered to quackity's desk. pretty cut and dry.

examples ; THIS, THIS , AND THIS.

PEOPLE: these asks are physical interactions. yk. when people are within his office, or give him something, or touch him, or come to give updates about LN— etc. anon examples: 🟣👓, ♾️🪞, and a few others.

examples ; THIS , THIS , THIS, AND THIS.

NOTE: literate interactions are NOT my primary style of writing. i'm an ask blog with some teeeensy aspects of roleplay— i almost always write in dialogue! yes, even in response to some literate interactions. i don't respond to rp starters unless i'm writing an event + have planned those interactions with another writer. respect that :3 thank yew!! [ also for the love of prime herself, pleeease, READ PINNED. it'll help. i swear. it's easy peasy lemon squeezy. 5 mins! ]

lengthy asks always tend to overwhelm / slow me down, and while that isn't a bad thing, i do prefer short-mid length asks on a regular basis. this doesn't rule out occasional long letters & shit tho :)

EXTRA INFO:

as for the anons side of things, i'd imagine it's similar to either watching a TV show you can send in notes / commentary / questions into, or literally being a citizen of LN. or, for some, working in the nation itself. (we need more workers pleasepleas.e pleas e its so fucking cool dude i love writing professional fancy shit olealplease i beg i beg i plead)

the anons cannot press too hard on changing what lore i have set up. you can add in little details if you like, or base details off of what canon i've already shown thru this blog (LOVE THAT), but anons aren't going to be aware of absolutely everything nor can they possess or control quackity's actions. keep that in mind <3

IMPORTANT: i've seen a few dsmp blogs using my pop-up idea, and while that's chill, i politely suggest taking inspo from the cc's interpretation of their chat. :3

i made quackity's anons function as popup ads rather than a duck pond or something basic, since it reflects his chaotic sort of character— from what i recall, tommy (?) had a nokia phone, jack uses his ingame headset, phil has crows and techno has voices.

bascially, i'd much rather see ppl coming up with their own versions of their anons/chat. or at least credit me for the pop-up idea!

i hope this clears things up :3 if there's questions or confusions i am more than happy to respond!

[fake-ascension]

ok im done wuthering my waves for the night

so far my thoughts are leaning towards positive since i was having fun the whole time:

the game does not feel polished at all and ran into a couple of weird visual/audio glitches.

the eng voice acting is hit or miss.

im not gonna judge the story at all because it would be like judging genshin halfway thru mondstadt, but after meeting scar i'm a lot more intrigued about the whatever themes the story is trying to say, because that fucked up fairy tale he told was sick as fuck. other than that im kinda ehhh at this point

im not a gamer, hyv games that got me REALLY playing video games besides a few select few so i dont consider myself 'good' at video games but the combat is fun and satisfying

the open world doesnt feel empty at all like i feared it would there have been plenty of shinnies to get distracted at and its a fun time

the echo system is a bit confusing and i still dont rlly understand how sets & stats work. but making 'artifacts' be pokemon you can run around and capture is SUCH a cool ass, but unsure how well it'll be in the later game statages

ended up with calcharo as my 5* and i'm glad because hes pretty straight forward and easy to use so its helpful during the learning process

i like how when you get new characters a little tutorial is unlocked and it walks you through the characters kit real time and its SO helpful in understanding what they do and if you like a character play style enough to level up a bit

i've been running around with calcharo and mortefi. switching around w danjin/aalto. i think sanhua is pretty and will probably use her when i DO get her, and i think i wanna go for changli when she comes out because boy is she PRETTY

silly thoughts:

the rave turtle echo is fuckin hilarious i love it

the world's fucked up problem being called 'lament' just makes me cackle and think of mr zy0x

i was expecting scar to be the edgy teehee so random im crazy xD type character but im pleasantly surprised by his introduction and im v curious about him

aalto is silly

mortefi is hot i like him, i had to pick a dude in this game it would probably be him (so far)

alright i think those are all my thoughts for now

[astramachina]

WIP questionnaire tag

the indomitable @fortunatetragedy tagged me on this baby while i was away and boy howdy do i love talking about my projects.

diving headfirst into The Singularity Project (codename: T.E.S. CO) for this one, babes.

What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

The Vibes. Last October I was being harassed by a brain worm (lol) that did not want to become concrete in any way, and the only way I could get it down was by writing "the vibes" of what I wanted. Those vibes included "hazy 60s lounge", "synth", "Panos Cosmatos' style for weird ass stuff", and "burnt orange".

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

What Have You Become by MNQN, but more 80s-fied. And because I feel like it, it's end credits song would be I Remember by Tristam but like... slightly more melancholic.

What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

So far, it'll have to be Verne. Neither hero or villain, he's the protagonist's father, and while he isn't physically in the story (as far as I can tell) he inescapably haunts the narrative. By "saving the world" the only way he thought possible, he doomed his son to a life no one deserves. He's also a silly guy who thinks himself a god (derogatory) and is wanted for several crimes against humanity. Second fave is Mike, our deuteragonist. He's just a guy trying to make a living but his work crush has been acting super weird by knocking back 20+ cans of soda per shift and claiming he can "hear the Mall speaking to him".

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Tumblrinas (affectionate, gender neutral) would probably also be reblogging some horror webseries things (SCP, The Walten Files, The Backrooms, etc), as well as more classic horror such as Re-Animator, The Thing, and The Fly.

What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

.......Yes. When the story started to form I struggled with the idea of capturing it in a single medium. I am first and foremost a writer, obvs, but a lot of the story relied heavily on visual storytelling. I eventually decided to turn this into a "multi-media project", which means there's a huge chunk of writing, but there are also segments that can only be experienced through audio and visuals (and maybe some fun ARG-esque puzzles). Three POVs? Each POV has its own timeline and its own medium? Did I embark on a multi-month journey to learn Blender and video editing? Am I still trying to get the story down? The answer is yes. (Help me.)

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Yes. Mike has an anthill because it's the only thing he can keep alive.

How do your characters travel/get around?

In the 1911 portion? Via ship. Ernest Shackleton's ship on its voyage to the Antarctic, to be exact. In the 1981 portion? Via bus. Mike's too broke to afford a car. In the 2021 portion? Via car. [Cy] is the man with the plan... and also the car to drive his crew around.

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

Mike's journals, which covers the events of 1981 through 1983. This part is the bulk of the entire project, and the part that is mostly told through writing.

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) will you think draw your audience in?

So many morally gray characters. But also morally corrupt characters. And morally confused characters.

I hope you like your monsters goopy, and your effects practical.

Don't worry about the cult swearing they can save the soul of a poor young "confused" man.

The true friends were the transgender allegories we made along the way.

What is the point of Man vs. Machine when the Man knows not what he is.

The worm can talk and it has anxiety. I think it's gay?

What are your hopes for your WIP?

TO COMPLETE IT. LMAO. Mostly I just want to be able to stand up and say "Hey, look what I made! I made it because I wanted to and all my hard work paid off!" But I guess it would also be neat to have some sort of cult following? Would love to see fanart of what people think some of the characters look like! I wanna see fic! Give me fan songs I can blast while I drive! I wanna see certain YouTubers react/try to "solve" it so that I can sit there shaking my head. You know. The usual.

this took way longer than i expected so i'ma quick tag @ap0stle, @kairahara, @wrencatte, and YOU.

[donnyclaws]

i just wanna say i LOVE your writing style, it flows so nicely but has this fragmentation that really just emphasizes all the right things. it really feels like the perfect way to capture tiger crawls home

Blows myself up 💥💥 that's the perfect word for it I think. Literally normal scene writing stressed me out bc I was like oh everything needs to be written down but also shown, and also in a voice that isn't confusing, good grammer, idw be a fake analysis fan who has nonsensical writing. But I find it really hard to start and do and think in that way, didn't realize the whole 'stop doing parts of art you don't like' thing applies to writing too. And getting jnto b horror has made me even more fond of lowbrow writing that just isn't good at all, I love it because it is good it's jsut bad by one standard. Lmao. Love the idea of your ideas and themes being strong enough to outweigh its presentation yknow.

So with Hatchfiend I'd been sitting on a script almost all year and liked how it felt to read, tried to lean into the kinda chopped up nonsense word style my brain tends to speak in and really liked the result. It feels way easier to handle dialogue and actions, let's me indulge, and if there's a bit of writing that feels wrong in my gut, I'm not beholden to any rules about how to communicate it I jsut need to write something else that hits the just right isms. I'm sure it'll end up being hard to read for people, and unclear, but it's 4 me and I prefer that.

Anyway thankyou I'm very happy to hear that. I feel like I just want to get tiger crawl home (what I have so far) out of my system bc it's clogging up my brain, bc I kinda use thinking abt scenes repetitively as a weird emotional processor that's not very healthy anymore. And with other shit idk, I used to hate the idea of doing tiger crawl home or anyrbing else as writing bc it felt ljke necessity. Now I'm very excited abt this, between this and zines, I really like writing and I'm happy that this can be a medium to work in since full comics aren't of interest or ability to me. But also still let's me add visuals and do literally anything and I can make a dense ass old web page to host it on. Heaven.

ANYWAY THANK YOU THANK YOU sorry for the Ramble 🌈♥️♥️

[fruitycutie]

Mini essay about Star wars, jews, and nazis because it's fucking all i've been studying i'm sorry

cw / nazi ideology dissected a bit

I'm still just watching and greatly enjoying Clone Wars, so I'm not fully up to speed, but: While studying Judaism, I thought that a lot of the core tenets have probably inspired those of the Jedi.

And that the Nazi ideology isn't just an ideology in a vacuum, its also just as esoteric of a belief as Judaism, just kind of flipped on its head- Mein Kampf is kind of like a complete reverse of the Torah, taking the same tellings but completely inverting their morals and twisting them to overfit hatred.

it's a bit of a stretch to exactly 1:1 it, but it's really clear that it's an inspiration at the very least for what's on screen - it's a twisting in a similar way that the dark side is, and I think it's not a coincidence that when the dark side ends up with The Empire to it's name (idk how that happens but it'll be interesting to see) it all looks so totalitarian, so fascist in nature: because Nazism isn't a self sustaining ideology, its a diametrical opposite to Judaism, in the same way that the dark side is an opposite to the light, it maps quite well in my head I really like the metaphore and i think it fits both visually and idea-wise.

A lot of the resistance in the first non-prequel movies was worn-in and "homely" in the same way that old Jewish robes and homes would look, it evokes a similar imagery to the "poor peasants" in a sense, they were so welcoming of all aliens even if they were mostly humans - treating what could be seen as "alien" as equally human and with dignity. By contrast The Empire is this sleek, uniform, personality-oblitarating machine that turns people into tools - the exact aesthetic of the Nazis, with an animal-to-human dichotomy to boot.

Some people who did their homework would find it surprising that alongside the Jews with their Kasherut that mandated specific ways of treating animals in righteous ways before they are eaten that minimize their pain, the Nazis too had a fairly involved idea of how to treat animals. But this isn't to be confused: Unlike the Jews, who treat animals with a certain respect, the Nazis weren't treating animals with humane respect: they were treating humans like animals to begin with, so they found little need to differentiate. It can come across as a bit of a weird thing to just claim because it is a real world thing, but I think if we delve into the world of philosophical purely apolitical ideas - like "the idea of judaism has several strict but well-meaning tenets about living a good life, the idea of nazism is about taking those and maximizing their inversion as much as possible out of hatred" and not just, historical events like "nazi germany and the holocaust happened", it makes a lot more sense, I hope.

[feekins]

depression still sucks but I stay sillay🤞

meanwhile, looks like shit's kicking off again at the start of ch 5 of Trigun Maximum vol 2, so let's get into my thoughts and things and translation weirdness I find as I re-read it!

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and the Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

SO. first page. Brad's shoving Jessica into an escape pod. when Jessica tries to insist on staying, Dark Horse has Brad replying with "Get in the 'shell'!! We're at low altitude, we'll touch down soon!" which. always confused me. until I read the Overhaul's translation, which has Brad saying "Get in the ship! We're at a low altitude, so it'll land quickly!"

moving into Wolfwood's...flashback? dream? thing? we see this habit Dark Horse has of keeping in honorifics. I've noticed this throughout my re-readings (like Milly saying 'sempai' where, in the Overhaul, she says 'ma'am'...and they pretty consistently keep the '-san's and '-kun's and whatnot), but...idk. this is one of the more interesting instances to me. Dark Horse has the kids calling Wolfwood "Nico-onii-chan" and "Nico-nii" whereas the Overhaul translates these things as "Big Brother Nico" or just "Big Brother".

COMPLETELY UNRELATED:

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

...I mean, okay, Dark Horse?????

on the next page...idk, kind of context-changing translation discrepancies? at least, it changed my understanding of this bit. Dark Horse has Wolfwood saying to the kids "It would appear...I'm no longer fit to hold you guys..." and you can see his bloody hands as he says this, so previously, I interpreted this bit as metaphorical blood on his hands and/or maybe his hands are physically fucked up? but in the Overhaul, it's "It seems...I no longer have the right to hold ya..." and that drives the visual metaphor home way better imo.

BUT THEN...WE'RE BACK TO VASH AND WOLFWOOD'S ANTICS 😆

which leads to...

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

I MEAN??? OKAY?????

here's a translation discrepancy I'm attributing to Dark Horse doing weird localization things (again). it completely changes the context, messing with this recurring theme we see across vol 1-2 of how ordinary, nonviolent folks will turn to violence when their family is hurt or in danger. to quote Wolfwood in ch 4 of vol 1 of Trigun Maximum (Overhaul translation), "Even people who would never fight will pick up a gun if their loved ones are killed." I'm p sure I've said it before, but that goes all the way back to Vash going against Knives for causing the Fall (killing humans, whom Vash basically considers extended family, as Sensei explains in ch 6 of Trigun Maximum vol 1) and killing Rem (closer adopted family). so yeah, that thing Wolfwood says...that's something Vash knows intimately. so I don't think it's a stretch to say that perhaps that's a big part of why Vash keeps intervening (even when he's hurt or sick as hell;;;;;)...

ANYWAY.

something interesting I noticed about THIS freaky s.o.b.:

in this panel, Dark Horse has him saying "And lost property is lost property, right? Am I wrong? Hmm?" meanwhile, in the Overhaul...he has a pretty distinct Spanish accent? like, saying "Lost property is lost property. Am I right, or am I right, jefe? Comprende?" and that accent goes beyond this panel, so. THAT'S interesting. 🤔

and, once again, the Overhaul's translation makes more sense, as we literally just saw this guy light his cigarette with this thing.

good wordplay in both translations! I'm not sure why Dark Horse leaves out that one bit, tho 🤨

and again, Dark Horse! ya really need to stop leaving out these vital bits...

AND FINALLY...

...Wolfwood.

my guy.

you were LITERALLY THERE at Fifth Moon.

...then again, this bit isn't about the big things, I don't think. it's about the little uncanny things Wolfwood's noticing about Vash as they continue to travel together...

[minevn]

Suuup I just wanted to ask what do you mean by "A yandere youtube vn" will it be like a date with markiplier where you click on the videos to do choices or will the gameplay be uploaded...sorry if this is a weird question I'm just a little confused no matter what I'm super excited to see it.

No worries, you're question is fine and valid, I'm glad you're asking cause others might've been confused as well, I haven't really talked about it much! As of now I'm still debating by how I'll release it but at first it was going to be a playthrough of Mine but Mine wouldn't actually be released to the public as a game, just as a playthrough of a game. Some examples of this being ARG horror games like Petscop or Lacey's games where they aren't actually playable but playthrough's are posted on YouTube. Most of my visual novels won't be like this but Mine is kind of a special case, it's my first project that I'll be coding into a game and it has some plot elements that I know I can code but I'm not actually sure if ren'py can. I still like the concept of posting playthrough's of fake games on YouTube, but I really want Mine to be playable, I have other stories that will be fake playthrough's though. Basically, if it can then Mine will be playable ad it won't be a playthrough, but if not then it'll be a playthrough on YouTube that way it can be more straightforward. The epilogues and the nsfw dlcs would be playable though! With the epilogues being free and the nsfw one being paid for like $1-2. If I release Mine for people to play(which I really want to so I'm gonna try my hardest!) then the epilogues and nsfw dlcs will be paid for, for the same price. But yeah, as of now I'm mainly working on the sprites, scripts, and cgs! I did have an idea I liked that I would only code in if I was going to post it on YouTube, you could like design Yani, like a dressup game, kind of going back to how Yani was like made for you! Also thank you all for your support, it means so much to me! Feel free to ask more questions if there's anything confusing, I'm not the best at explaining things :3

[fantasyfantasygames]

She's All Flat

She's All Flat, Fiona "Suta-iru" Malchevik, 2022

Ok it's a game with a "bust size" stat but stick with me for a minute.

Are you entirely out of romance visual novels? Wish you could play more of them? How in the world did that happen there are trillions of them? Anyway, She's All Flat will not give you another one. Instead, it'll give you a way to play the "actor of the protagonist of a visual novel as separate from the role she inhabits". It's meta.

This is a one-player-many-GMs game, wherein the 3+ GMs are needed to fill out a large cast of supporting characters. Some might play the same supporting character frequently (e.g. best friend, major love interests), but the key is that they aren't the center of the action. The player character / protagonist (whose name you select from a list of the most frequently used character names in romance VNs) is the person the camera follows, and the one with the most fleshed-out stats.

Your stats are mostly descriptive instead of numerical. You generally don't have "Computers +12", you have "Job: Programmer" or "Hobby: Hacker" or "Love: Video Games". The game uses a card-draw system where dialog choices (as adjudicated by the GMs who aren't in the scene) shift you from Spade (bad) to Club to Diamond to Heart (good), and your descriptors shift you toward face cards. Get a face heart and you come closer to the top of your relationship escalator, however you define that. I think the "bust size" descriptor is mostly there to be part of the joke of the name, because "flat" is the default option. (Choices like that play into connections with NPC preferences and nothing else, thankfully.) Also, "has no feet" is the default, and now that I think of it I've almost never seen a VN character below mid-waist. Maybe I play the wrong kind of romances.

The meta part comes in when you jump out of that VN and onto your two-dimensional "set", where GM characters help you change clothes and do your makeup and hand you a new script (metaphorically) and prep you for your next role, and you try to remember who the heck you're in a romance with in the new VN. Will you pick up the deck of cards while you're between novels and declare that this, too, is just part of a higher-level story?

It's got potential as a comedy game. You'd need a player who's interested in playing up confusion or hypercompetence, as opposed to someone who's just going to be unhappy at being overwhelmed. There's a good GM section on how to negotiate romantic (or sexy) play before you blunder into something where a player gets uncomfortable. There are notes on how to introduce additional players who are also VN actors in this weird cross-reality setting. The main thing it's missing is a set of examples in the style of a VN, which I was really expecting to see when I came in.

Fiona Malchevik goes by a different middle name in each game she designs. This one seems to mean "Style" in Japanese, unless Google Translate is lying to me, which is certainly possible. The trick in finding them is that her dozen different games are scattered across a dozen different itch usernames.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

ROLLIN INTO UR INBOX WITH MY MONUMENT MYTHOS PROPOGANDA. IT'S MY FAOURITE HORROR SERIES EVER ASIDE FROM LIKE MARBLE HORNETS PROBABLY. ok the first video is alled Cornerfolk and it seems unrelated to the rest of it but TRUST ME IT'LL TIE INTO THE PLOT I PROMISE. it's like. weird things with monuments around the world. the washington monument leads to another dimension. something is hiding in the statue of liberty. the evergiven got stuck in the suez canal and got hit with a nuke so now it's radioactive and walking around cairo. the pyramids are the tips of giant washington monuments (i think?? can't remember what the pyramids are tbh it's been a while since i watched it). there's so MUCH so if you want something to watch that'll keep ur brain confused but very intrigued i would highly recommend it!!! after Monument Mythos is its second season/sister series The Nixonverse, and then s3 is back to the name Monument Mythos so just. GO TO THE CHANNEL MISTER MANTICORE AND WATCH EVERY VIDEO IN ORDER!!! there are like 52 of them including a couple trailers u can skip over but IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!! WATCH ITTTTT

OHHH NY GOD THIS HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY INBOX FOR LIKE A MONTH AND A HALF NOW IM SO SORRY. I FINALLY STARTED WATCHING THIS TODAY i just finished season 1 and hooooly shit dude im SO intrigued. the visuals are sorta similar to ghe but in like a different context which makes them sooooooo fucking cool and interesting. i dont give a SHIT about american history but hoo boy i am so invested in president james dean and the weird floppy washington monument and fuckin. fungus trees and moving statues. i wanna know who tf keeps vandalizing national monuments because its all the same handwriting. oooaugh. im so intrigued. hell yeah make those statues fucked up!

[moonyfbm]

It's a fun way our brain works that is very obvious in children, bc you as you grow, you learn to control yourself and that certain things are not acceptable.

You sense something that sparks a very big reaction. So big that you get overwhelmed. And when we get overwhelmed, no matter the cause, we often get aggressive. We lose control. We need to get this overwhelming amount of reaction, emotion, energy, out of us.

So even when we feel this overwhelming reaction of just pure cuteness, and we have this urge to tense and stretch our muscles, squeeze or bite the source; we don't actually do it. We're able to control ourselves! Thankfully... It doesn't mean you want to hurt the animal, or any animals in general, or that you're a bad person at all. It just means your brain is overwhelmed. :)

Imma just nerd out a little. I have noone to talk to lmao-

---

It's in the same vibe to me as how our brain perceives wetness. Bc we actually can't really perceive being wet in itself, we don't have the sense receptors that recognise "wet," but we put it together with temperature and pain clues. Have you ever sat down on some cold stones and thought, "Oh god, was that wet? It feels wet." But really, it's just cold. Have you put your hand in a bowl of perfectly body temp water and not felt anything? Like not even the water, unless you move your hand around, of course. But in warmer or colder water, we feel it because we feel the temperature. You feel the water from the faucet or shower bc it's hitting your skin with some power/pressure, as well as you feel the temperature. When you move your hand in the ocean you feel resistence, if you hit the water it'll hurt and you definitely feel that.

---

Ohh another weird thing about our brains! We humans still have some weird defense mechanisms. The fight or flight aren't the only ones. Ofc we also have freeze, but another one is... laughter!

It's socially associated with happiness and joy, which makes it weird that it's also used as an uncontrollable reaction to smth uncomfortable, painful, shocking, or the like. It's why you see people laughing when they're told their family member just got run over by a car, or when someone feels threatened by another human, they can chuckle and giggle. It feels backwards.

One specific example that most people misunderstand and, therefore, abuse is the act of tickling. Our reaction to the tickling is laughter, so the tickler processes this audable communication along with the visual smile as a positive interaction. But it's not. Everyone that is being ticklish will scream for you to stop in between the laughter. It's not painful, it can be uncomfortable, but that's individual, so why is it seen as a defence mechanism? Our brain doesn't quite know how to respond to being tickled, so it's in this state of confusion, therefore it laughs. The laughter is uncontrollable, so even tho we're not enjoying it, we can't stop laughing.

Socially, we have made it into a positive interaction, and some do find it socially fun. But the act itself will still trigger our brain to go into defence mode. When the tickler don't stop when we say stop, people can quickly get quite angry. The tickler will then get confused bc "we were just laughing and having fun a second ago?"; but the person has been in a mindset of "stop stop stop stop" and "get off get off get off get off" and their communication not being understood, so ofc it'll then trigger an angry defensive reaction.

---

Hmmmm.

A lot of information don't reach the actual brian, but get processed at the stem. The stem can then decide the appropriate reaction and give that info back to the nervous- and hormone system; our two ways of communication!

---

A simpler fact that I personally enjoy a lot, is that our brain (and eyes) hiiighly favors glukose as energy source. The two organs crave it (and oxygen) so much; when we study and generally challenge our brain, we use up a lot of the glukose. That's why we often get snacky and want sweets like chocolate! We gotta make up for what we used.

Fun fact about schools in Norway! (If your teacher isnt an uneducated prick!) When we have big tests that last for hours at the midway and end of some schoolyears, and would be the only thing that day: our teachers will tell us to bring candy, soda, fruit, and whatever else kind of substance we want basically (that aren't loud or really smelly, like chips and popcorn for example). They know students focus better and does better when we have access to sweet snacks, and food in general. It's got something to do with stimulating our body bc we're sitting still for so long, as well as smth to do with giving our brain the energy it craves as it's being drained. Yay Norway!

---

Our brain is so weird and so fascinating!! Thanks to the biology classes I took, I can store these weird facts in my brain, along with some not as cool facts like..

..being able to explain the whole digestive system along with the whole urinary system. When I say whole, I mean from the very start to the very end with every detail down to the molecules.

The reason I mention this is bc I kinda hate how that's one of the few things my brain actually fully understood AND fully remembers. "Oh you took biology, that's interesting! What's some cool bio facts?" "Uhh here's how shit and piss is made..?"

It also makes me facepalm so hard when certain dumbasses drink their own piss and say "its good to get it back into your body".. like hun you clearly have no idea how the body works, even on a basic level.. XD

the concept of cuteness aggression is so funny. awww you're adorable I need to hurt you

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Erzsébet királyné (1940)

This was... an interesting experience.

Okay so, this is a hungarian film that I could not find any subtitles for but that I watched anyway because I thought to myself "eh, how hard could it be to understand a movie in a language I dont speak, its a visual medium after all!"

Turns out its very hard. Honestly, I dont think I would have understood the plot at all if I hadnt read a brief english summary on IMDB, which reads as follows: "Emperor Franz Joseph's young wife, Queen Elizabeth, is loved by the people of the country. After the defeat of the War of Independance, the daughter of the revolutionary General Latkóczy comes to her to ask for the Queen's support on behalf of her father. Little does she know that her journey is aided by the envoys of the Hungarian Legion, which is organizing abroad."

So yeah, I cant really go into detail about my thoughts on the story because I struggled to understand it, and I also can't talk about a lot of the other things that I usually talk about like the pacing because in order to judge the pacing of a story, I need to actually know the story and I don't. Which really sucks because I find this topic very interesting and I honestly doubt that it will be the focus of a lot of the future films, if it'll be the focus of any of them at all, although Im sure the tv shows will have some kind of hungary-plotline. And now that I think about it, Im pretty sure this was the only hungarian piece of media on my list (besides the 2004 hungarian proshot of Elisabeth: das Musical), and it wasnt even actually on my list initially, I only saw it because @.kronprinz-rudolf told me about it (they also told me about Die Tragödie derer von Habsburg (1928), I completely forgot to mention that, if you're by any chance reading this, thank you very much once again)

But anyway, while theres a lot of stuff I cant talk about, I can talk a little about the cuostuming and acting. The costuming is really good, end of sentence. The acting was pretty good across the board too, and I really loved Klári Tolnay as the protagonisz, Latkóczy Ida, she's very charismatic and I liked how sincere and passionate she seemed. I was pretty confused at the start because I thought she was Elisabeth because. idk, I guess I just saw a young woman in this movie called "Queen Elisabeth" and went "oh, that must be her!" but to be fair to myself, I do genuinely think she could have been cast to play her in a different film, she kinda has a similar vibe to the actress who played her in the trilogy. I also think Katalin Karády, who actually played Elisabeth, was great, she came across as very regal but also kinda strict and yet still approachable.

Aaaaaaand that's about it. If you ever find this film with subtitles in either english or german or find a subtitle file or anything like that, please tell me about it so I can actually understand it and write a proper review because I would really like to do that. If you have timestamps enabled and/or think that it would be weird to respond to this post once its a bit older, dont worry about it! I dont mind people interacting with any of my posts, no matter how old, and if you send me the subtitles the worst Im gonna say is like "oh, someone else already sent me the subtitles and Ive already properly reviewed the film, thanks though ^^"

And now one last stupid thing I noticed but couldnt fit in the main post:

This film has the first portayal of Rudolf as a child (chronologically) that Ive seen, and Im pretty sure it also has the first portayal of Marie at all. Idk, thats kinda wild to me

[castlebyersafterdark]

i'm only halfway through your fic but already i'm soooo appreciative of details you've paid to things like who manscapes? that's something you just don't get from many writers (dare i say perhaps because most are female?) and i LOVE that mike wouldnt have even given it much thought, this is immediately canon to meeeee. whereas will, groomed boi that turned up like THAT at the airport? oh yes sir he buys specially dedicated scissors/clippers at the very LEAST. (side note - i reallllllly hope a scene of jon teaching will how to shave his newly-appearing facial hair features in s5 pleassssseeee such good exposition for 'theyre growing up' !)

and i love the way you write about them playing with the underwear fabric - something i find missing from fic in general too, which is odd cos all genders can and do wear underwear, and its kind of hot to play with for any gender? i dont mean lingerie or sexy lace either - just your average underwear is such a nice way to tease.

what do you think of the underwear they've chosen for the show? we saw mike in his white briefs and vest, and i imagine will to have underwear that's more reflective of his family's money (even though they seemingly had more in s4), whereas mike's looked like his mom still bought his and they were standard. (a great detail considering that eddie teased him about his mom buying his clothes - it seems that beneath the hellfire shirt, he is still his true self, wearing those mom-bought undies). i think even though will's underwear will probs be a bit less expensive, it'll also be nicer and cooler in a way? whereas briefs are very...80s? idk. just not flattering lol. but i also can't see will in checkered boxers like jon wears cos his pants are way too tight. what do you think?

Oh, this is so sweet, thank you 🥲 I am such a slut for hyper specific details. I tend to overthink everything and hyper-visualize but I think that's the fun part. I love reading so many different writing styles but I tend to go for super realistic myself? I'm glad my body hair hcs were appreciated haha. Sometimes I pause and think - is this too weird? But no, it's interesting. And hot. And in character. Yes. Let's go.

And oooooh I must say, I am still in disbelief they went with that opening scene for mike? in the tighty whiteys?!? Good for them, we thank you for your film-making decisions. I kind of love that he's soooo basic. Mommy probably bought them (ew that sounded so weird but I am not backspacing HAHA). But it's an interesting character detail! Would he eventually put thought into wearing something nicer once he's dating Will, a boy who he hopes will routinely see him undressed? Or is he so unphased by that sort of thing? I honestly don't think Mike will put too much thought into it. They work. And Will kinda likes it. It's classic. I'm sure Will grew up on sneaking away with the Sears catalog to look at the men's sections. Classic basics might be a formative awakening for him as sexually confused young man (as is tradition for many.....)

As for Will, I'm sure when he gets the chance, he gets nicer stuff. He likes looking good, feeling good. Patterns, different cuts depending on his choice of pants. Especially with those skin tight light wash denims he favors! He is so not a 5 pack kmart boxers kinda guy if he had the option, ya know??? Absolutely not. If he's matching his little belts to his fits, he's picky about what goes underneath.

[lee-hakhyun]

orv is the first and probably only time i'd ever translate something. i just figured out everything on my own, so it's probably a mess, but here is the stuff i use (under the cut, because it's quite a lot)

for unedited mtl, i take screenshots, upload them to discord, download them on my phone, translate with papago's text on img, and then upload them back to discord to read (you can skip this if you just want to read the images on your phone instead). the translation is rough but it is readable.. though it may take a bit to figure out what terms are which.

make sure the text on the screenshots are spaced out enough (or the ocr will combine lines into a mess), and it'll end up looking something like this

these are the visual settings i use, theme colour doesn't matter but dark mode is easier on the eyes. this takes like.. 5 minutes. it's quite easy (but tedious haha)

now if you want to edit mtl. i'm not sure how it is for others, but it takes me a while. hours to days for a single side story chapter depending on complexity ^^;

while you could just ocr the images to get the text, i've found it to be pretty unreliable. for any sentence that doesn't feel right, i find it easier to just type it out directly into the translator (papago mainly, deepl if the sentence still comes out weird). learning hangul is really not that hard! here's a good video that you can start off with

and for diphthongs specifically, this video explains it really clearly

if you'd like to start learning korean, this guy has a lot of good beginner videos too (the playlist is in the description). it's not needed for editing mtl, but knowing basic words and grammar helps a LOT

for typing, i used a website that had the korean keyboard up first. i copied the sentences, very slowly. and eventually i memorized it. at that point i ditched the website and downloaded the korean keyboard layout. for windows at least it's windows key + space to switch language to korean, then right alt to swap between hangul and english, and right ctrl after typing out hangul to bring up hanja

i work with the korean and mtl side by side, and bounce back and forth while going sentence by sentence. sometimes you don't need to do anything other than just rewording the sentence to sound more normal, but when it doesn't make sense that's when i start typing it into the translator

so. you throw a sentence into the translator, and you still can't figure out what it means? mirinae!

this breaks a sentence down, explaining the grammar and you'll be able to tell if there's any words that are werid

here's an example. now when doing this, there might be a word or phrase that stands out. that's probably what's wrong with the sentence. either you typed something wrong, or it's something that a translator can't pick up. google it :) there's probably someone else who already asked what is means, or it's a term that namu.wiki usually has. namuwiki is like a less serious korean wikipedia, but it usually has the terms you need. do look for other sources though, because namuwiki isn't the most accurate sometimes..

add en. in front of a namuwiki link to get a mtled page (example)

if it's a standard word though, just use naver dictionary :)

and for hanja, i look at this as well as googling

if i'm still confused on how a word is used, i'll go to twitter and look at how it's used in different contexts

and finally. keep a note of those terms that are book specific or that the translator have problems picking up. it will help so much when you don't have to go down a hole every time that term comes up again. or just terms that come up a lot. it helps to keep things consistent :)

here's a snippet of my notepad. there's definitely a better way to do this. but i don't feel a need to find anything else right now

how do u set up machine translation?

OK SO

First of all, I downloaded a website translator. I use mate translate, a firefox extension. It's an absolute lifesaver for navigating ANY site not in English.

Using that I made an account on Munpia and bought the sctir chapters as I translated. Munpia doesn't let you select text, so I used an OCR website! (Aka sites to get the text from images)

Now the two that I used were imagetotext, which is quite fast, but likes to fuck up and malfunction, forcing me to restart the process a lot. Bc of that I switched to prepostseo, which works well enough, but does require you to do a captcha test every. single. time. And I am SO FUCKING BAD at those that I went half insane.

So what I would do is to take a screenshot of whatever page I'm on, get the text through the OCR and paste it into Obsidian (I make two separate files for each chapter - RAWs and TLed) until I have the whole chapter.

Now, the formatting does get kinda fucked up. While I use the text on Munpia as a reference, I fix up the formatting of the text.

This is where it gets a little complicated: I like to use Azure to translate. It's a service offered by Microsoft, which includes a translator that, in my experience, is a little better than other machines. And since I don't edit the text this has proven to be VERY useful to me.

But setting up Azure is an absolute bitch and a half so I could also recommend Papago. They include definitions of certain words too, which is really useful. You're just gonna have to do it bit by bit.

Lastly? I recommend learning hangul. It's super fuckin fun (to me, but im a huge nerd) and it will help you with understanding when something's mistranslated a LOT.

The translations are pretty.. Well, they're unedited machine translation. But at least you won't have to wait 12 years for all 870 chapters to get translated. I say that you enjoy the process (It's very very repetitive and I highly recommend putting on a show in the meantime!) and just.. well, just have fun.

I've found that I really enjoy some of the descriptions even when they're not the best. And good grammar gets overestimated anyways. Talk to any older immigrant and they'll tell you the most fantastic stories while inventing sentence structures never before seen (Speaking as a child of immigrants here lol)

And gosh even with the translations being fucked up I've still had so many moments where I got so emotional I cried. The author is a wonderful writer and I can't wait to learn korean enough to be able to read the original text

That's all for now! If it sounds complicated, thats because I do NOT know how to keep myself short ^^