#E-learning Translation Tricks

[andrewkthomas]

https://andrewthomas.mystrikingly.com/blog/the-growing-ambit-of-e-learning-translation-services

[luckyofthelawnvariety]

I've finished Etho's s7 hermitcraft so guess who's back with a slightly updated/slightly consolidated list of things about ethoslab I have noticed! or just enjoy!

(the previous list)

I have no idea when he learned to noteblock. I don't know if he knows. he knows how to noteblock tho. he's really good at it.

on that note, did you know that there is not a single piece of non-noteblock music in etho's s7 after the first episode? there might not even be any in the first episode. every single timelapse or montage is set to noteblock music

(he sang along to parts of his paper planes noteblock cover too. he was going shopping. I was entirely too delighted)

(also, there is some like...sitcom music theme that I don't know what show it's from. it's bothering me that I don't know. what you need to know is that throughout his s7 etho uses said sitcom theme as the transition before Shenanigans With Fellow Hermits clips play. his life is a sitcom. yes it is the noteblock version.)

I think that etho desperately needs minigames for enrichment. if he's not playing one he's working on one. he needs them and he will let them completely consume his life

the etho decked out 1 runs are hilarious, partially because it's funny to see him play it and realize how absolutely insane decked out 2 is, and how much of a madlad tango is. etho is still the same menace with great luck and skills. I had forgotten about the hole to the void in the middle out decked out 1 tho, that was a fun reminder

etho could make a career out of translating classic type games into minecraft. he kind of has, but it's a pattern.

he also keeps coming up with new games that are minecraft only and is good at figuring out how to balance them well.

again, king of minigames. he will in fact analyze them as much as possible. he caught on to the pattern of impulse's whack a mole game in like...2 rounds? maybe 3? he's good at pattern recognition and will put it to good use no matter the minigame

etho, I cannot stress this enough, is a little shit and enjoys being such. free glass is obviously an iconic moment, but I had forgotten about him scamming scar out of diamonds for "information" about the resistance, or about sneak-e-e's business model (you can't tax what you can't find!), or about how he kept being extremely ridiculous with beef in regards to record shop payments...the list goes on

etho is also very competitive. I mentioned this in the last list, but man...he joins like every single competition he can. he wants to win. he's not like, a sore loser, but he likes to win, and he'll get a little upset if he doesn't.

etho and beef have clearly known each other a long time and ngl I miss their interactions a bit. let them bother each other a bit more please. I want to see them trying to kill each other in ridiculous ways again please. or doing minigames together. they're so silly.

kind of similar, but etho loves getting a rise out of people and it is the best thing ever actually. it's fun watching him use dirty tricks to beat bdubs to sleeping for a prize. it's perfect actually.

that being said, I still really like when etho is just on his own working on stuff too. s7 has a lot of moments where etho will go "I'm gonna use this block palette!" and I will think "bro that's ugly" and then he will make an extremely cohesive build that I want to live in out of it. I think a good way to describe it is that for example bdubs is really good at detailed builds with texture and not much color, and a very realistic twist to them. etho is not afraid to use color at all, and embraces how the colors can work together or contrast. it's fascinating to watch and I love it.

he is also a redstone genius. I feel I am starting to understand how some things with redstone work. could I design something myself? absolutely not but I could work from a tutorial and not feel completely lost on why I have to use a dispenser and not a dropper now.

I think s7 etho is really experimenting a lot with style and how he wants to do things. he does a few more elaborate intros, for example, that are very planned out, but he also does a lot of the classic "hello everybody this is etho and welcome back to hermitcraft!" it's fun and it works, but I honestly feel he might be more confident in some ways now in s10, which is nice to see.

(side note—I think etho has some trouble with tone sometimes, where he really wants to make sure everyone's having a good time, but also he really wants to tease people. this works well with like Beef, who he's known a while, but especially in people he's known less he's quick to catch on if they take what he's saying too seriously, and clarify that he is teasing. it's nice to see tbh, just the clarity even with his audience)

speaking of llamas, I had not realized how recent some really big updates were. bamboo and pandas were new at the start of s7. the nether update came like halfway through?? I was more in the casual build side of mcyt at the time but man...I didn't realize how crazy that is to think about.

just...the way that etho visualizes builds is great. not just like, leaving space for farms, but filling in the spaces with a lot of details that make sense but also work with the space to cover anything it needs to AND to connect with the rest of the base. the sightlines thing is something I see a lot of other builders using but etho really uses them a lot in the Monstrosity in order to keep it from being Too Much as you walk through.

really just...he wants to have fun, and he wants to learn, and he wants to experiment and figure things out. if he can mess with some friends when he does it, that's a great bonus, yknow?

man. what a guy.

[pikahlua]

MHA Chapter 403 spoilers translations

This week’s initial tentative super rough/literal translations under the cut.

1 なんのためえにぃうーまれて nan no tamee nii uumarete What are you born for and

book cover あんぱんまん anpanman Anpanman

2 なぁにをしぃてえいきるのかぁ naani wo shiitee ikiru no kaa what are you going to do? (Note: The above lines are the opening lyrics to the Anpanman theme song.)

tagilne オールマイト幼き日の記憶ーー オールマイトおさなきひのきおくーー OORU MAITO osanaki hi no kioku-- All Might's childhood memories--

C (copyright) やなせたかし Yanase Takashi Takashi Yanase

3 思い返せば おもいかえせば omoi kaeseba If I think back,

4 誰もが通る道にあったモノだ だれもがとおるみちにあったモノだ dare mo ga tooru michi ni atta MONO da it's something that was on the path everyone walks.

5-6 原点と呼ぶにはあまりに柔らかな記憶 オリジンとよぶにはあまりにやわらかなきおく ORIJIN (kanji: genten) to yobu ni wa amari ni yawaraka na kioku A memory too soft to call my origin.

1 私がした事といえば わたしがしたことといえば watashi ga shita koto to ieba If we're talking about what I did,

2 ふとその道を振り返っただけだ ふとそのみちをふりかえっただけだ futo sono michi wo furikaetta dake da I only happened to look back down that path.

3-4 それがとても大事なものに見えただけだ それがとてもだいじなものにみえただけだ sore ga totemo totemo daiji na mono ni mieta dake da [What was there]* just looked like it was very important. (*Note: Literally the word here is just "that.")

tagline No.403　The End of An Era, And----　時代の終わり、そして　　堀越耕平 ナンバー403　ジ　エンド　オブ　アン　イアラ、　アンド---- じだいのおわり、そして----　　ほりこしこうへい NANBAA 403 JI ENDO OBU AN IARA, ANDO---- jidai no owari, soshite----   Horikoshi Kouhei No. 403 The End of An Era, And----  Kouhei Horikoshi

1 だから dakara That's why.

2 英雄らしく えいゆうらしく eiyuu rashiku "Like a hero."

3 キュウ…ン KYUU...N (Note: This is a sound effect for the drills destroying the gauntlet.)

4 死に方を選べると？ しにかたをえらべると？ shinikata wo eraberu to? "Choosing how to die?"

1 やっと yatto "Finally"

2 出し切ったな！ だしきったな！ dashikitta na! "got that out!"

3 「凝血」 「ぎょうけつ」 「gyouketsu」 Bloodcurdle

4-5 手負いのヒーローの恐さは散々教わった ておいのヒーローのこわさはさんざんおそわった teoi no HIIROO no kowasa wa sanzan osowatta "I've learned well how terrifying an injured hero is."

6 君には何も果たさせはしない きみにはなにもはたさせはしない kimi ni wa nani mo hatasase wa shinai "I won't let you execute anything." (Note: He means he won't let All Might do anything like a trick or a plan to fight back.)

7 その表情を待ってた そのカオをまってた sono KAO (kanji: hyoujou) wo matteta "I was waiting for that face [expression]."

8-9 君が最も嫌がる時だ きみがもっともいやがるときだ kimi ga motto mo iyagaru toki da "The moment you can't stand the most."

1 ジェントル‼︎ JENTORU!! "Gentle!!"

2 ああ‼︎雄英は安定した‼︎ ああ‼︎ゆうえいはあんていした‼︎ aa!! yuuei wa antei shita!! "Ah!! UA has stabilized!!"

3 行くぞ！行ってやる いくぞ！いってやる ikuzo! itte yaru "Let's go! I'll go for it."

4 わあああ‼︎ waaaa!! "Waaaah!!"

5 撮るのを止めるな！ とるのをやめるな！ toru no wo yameruna! "Don't stop taking video!"

6 ぐぅ!!! guu!!! "Ggh!!!"

7 雄英に吸われて狙いがズレたか… ゆうえいにすわれてねらいがズレたか… yuuei ni suwarete nerai ga ZUREta ka... "Perhaps my aim was off because it got absorbed by UA..."

8 まァいい…善性に抑えられていろ飛田 まァいい…ぜんせいにおさえられていろとびた maA ii...zensei ni osaerarete iro Tobita "Well, it's fine... Stay restrained there by your good nature, Tobita." (Note: He means basically "Get stuck holding up UA because you have a soft heart.")

1 レーザー一斉照射用意‼︎ レーザーいっせいしょうしゃようい‼︎ REEZAA issei shousha youi!! "Ready for simultaneous laser fire!!"

2 オールマイトに当たっちまう‼︎ オールマイトにあたっちまう‼︎ OORU MAITO ni atacchimau!! "[But] I'll hit All Might!!"

3 彼は かれは kare wa "He"

4 スターの憧れだ！ スターのあこがれだ！ SUTAA no akogare da! "is Star's aspiration!"

5 スターと共に弔を追い詰めたXー66ーー…！ スターとともにとむらをおいつめたエックスーダブルシックスーー…！ SUTAA to tomo ni Tomura wo oitsumeta EKKUSU-DABURU SHIKKUSU--...! "The X-66s that cornered Tomura together with Star--...!"

1 FIRE ファイア FAIA "FIRE"

2 スターは不在だろ スターはふざいだろ SUTAA wa fuzai daro "Star is absent, you know."

1 あやばい a yabai "Ah, crap."

2 え e "Eh?"

3 オールマイト逝くっ オールマイトいくっ OORU MAITO iku "All Might will die,"

4 オールマイト逝く！ オールマイトいく！ OORU MAITO iku! "All Might will die!"

5 うん終わり うんおわり un owari "Yeah, it's over."

6-7 そんな…ダメだって！ sonna...DAME datte! "Something like this...is hopeless!"

8 オールマイトが OORU MAITO ga "All Might is..."

9 わしゃ…昔たすけられたんじゃ… わしゃ…むかしたすけられたんじゃ… washa...mukashi tasukeraretanja... "I...was saved by him a long time ago..."

10 どんな姿であれ…彼の死は どんなすがたであれ…かれのしは donna sugata de are...kare no shi wa "No matter what form he takes...his death"

11 おじさまっ ojisama "Uncle."

12 俊典… としのり… Toshinori... "Toshinori..."

13 時代の節目になる じだいのふしめになる jidai no fushime ni naru "will be the turning point of the era."

1 嫌だ いやだ iya da It can't be.

2 嫌だ--- いやだ--- iya da--- It can't be---

3 ---誰か--- ---だれか--- ---dare ka--- ---someone---

1 No.403 ナンバー403 NANBAA 403 No. 403

1 The End of An Era, ジ　エンド　オブ　アン　イアラ、 JI ENDO OBU AN IARA, The End of An Era,

1 And------ アンド------ ANDO------ And------

1 The Beginning ザ　ビギニング ZA BIGININGU The Beginning

tagline 想いは今一つにーー‼︎ おもいはいまひとつにーー‼︎ omoi wa ima hitotsu ni--!! Their feelings* now [become] one--!! (*Note: This word has MANY meanings: "heart, mind, thoughts, feelings, desires, wishes, hopes, etc.")

[flowerprose]

N A M E S A K E 🌷💀🏛️

for nanowrimo 2023

with my fourth rewrite officially started, it was time for an updated wip intro! some settings, conflicts, and character arcs have drastically changed, but we're hauling ass to finish this damn thing.

Genre: Myth retelling

Projected word count: 95,000

🏛️ SUMMARY

a hades and persephone myth retelling in which kore, newly dead, is taken to the underworld to rot as mortals do. when hades discovers she is the godly offspring of his older siblings, he tricks her into eating pomegranate seeds and siphons her abilities into his own domain, unleashing a curse that ultimately causes him to start to decay.

NAMESAKE explores stolen girlhood, death and rebirth, patriarchal structures, grief and atonement, and redeemed villains through lyrical, flowery prose. this novel is ideal for devourers of anne carson's translations, circe by madeline miller, and ardent readers of louise glück.

follow along as demeter receives her deserved redemption arc as her harrowing grief threatens the balance of life and death; kore blooms into persephone, queen of the underworld and polluter of the gaian realm with festering necromancy; and hades uncovers a love for humanity and what it means to have agency in a body robbed of it.

🌷 KORE / PERSEPHONE

flower maiden and queen of the underworld

a deathbound flower maiden lured into the underworld, where the rotten and fiendish welcome her home. as her flower-weaving evolves into necromancy and the routes to gaia emerge for the dead, she soon becomes lost in a world of carnivorous, wrathful summer, harnessed by her mother’s despair that has buried the realm in everlasting mourning.

💀 HADES

receiver of the dead and king of the underworld

a king-deity who's tired of the shadows and seeks to be the nightmare mortals dare not utter. but after succumbing to a vengeful curse that begins his undoing, hades loses his agency and godhood, and learns to survive without all the power and might his birthright afforded him. misanthropic goth king forfeits the body to bed a wife but finds the heart to love one.

🌾 DEMETER

mother earth and goddess of harvest & earth fertility

a mother who grieves a world without her beloved daughter. her disappearance creates a chain of events in which the dead spill into the land of the living while an unrelenting garden sweeps over the mortal plain and threatens to end all life.

nanowrimo ✨ official artwork ✨ writing tag

tag list: @mr-writes, @afoolandathief, @sapphic-story, @megarywrites, @blushroomx, @ozzie-scribe, @theskeletonprior, @muddshadow, @thepixiediaries, @nikkywrites, @bebewrites, @jhellfiregirls, @pinespittinink, @pink-prose-n-wiriters-woe, @phantomnations, @queenslayerbee, @antihell, @monstrousfreedom, @perasperaadastrawriting, @andromedaexists, @thebluesthourcommunity, @fearofahumanplanet, @bloodlessheirbyjacques, @stephwriteswords, @cljordan-imperium, @carminasolis, @kaatiba, @moondust-bard.

[100vern]

Jewel, I know your requests are closed but I desperately need to hear your thoughts on who in BTS would do this: https://www.tumblr.com/writing-prompt-s/739417828719034368/you-a-powerful-demoness-have-just-been-summoned

and why is it Namjoon (the potential for crack with this 148 IQ man who is also way more innocent than we think acc to one park jimin just takes me out)

i'm so sorry it took me so long to finish and post this but thank you so much for sending it bc i have been cackling about this scenario ever since.

the prompt: you, a powerful demoness, have just been summoned to earth. this man, this human, wants you to pretend to be his girlfriend for a few days so his parents will get off his back about it.

the gang summons a demon

pairing: namjoon x f. reader genre: supernatural au; crack warnings: reader is a demon and engages in demon behavior, swearing, namjoon makes mention of not being straight, heteronormative parental expectations, jk learns about arcane things on tumblr (which is not an original idea; i read a fic ages ago where taekook are tumblr witches but i cannot find it, so credit to that author or whoever came up with it first), unedited so any mistakes are mine. rating: e for everyone wordcount: 2k

It’s been years since you’ve been to Earth—even longer since you’ve been to South Korea.

“I haven’t been here since 1910,” you say, staring at the gobsmacked man across from you. He’s tall, with tanned skin and a bleached buzz cut; a smattering of tattoos dotting his toned arms—whites and rich hues of blue, imitations of some kind of ceramic art, you think; a golden hoop through his nose; cheeks with dimples so deep you’re sure they’ll crater. “People here definitely didn’t look like you back then, so I’m going to assume we’re pretty far into the future.”

“It’s 2024,” he answers, seemingly still a little dazed. He’s staring at you with wide eyes, jaw dropped. Normally it’s nice to be looked at like that, with all the reverence and awe you deserve, but Earth is not your favorite place to be. Doesn’t even crack the top fifty, if you’re being honest. “Did you say 1910? As in the beginning of the—”

You sigh. “Uh-huh. Hey, if you wouldn’t mind hurrying this up, I’ve got things to do.” The man continues staring. Could be a trick of the light, but you think he’s turning paler by the second.

Minutes tick by. Nothing but silence.

“Are you even listening to me?” you snarl, quickly losing patience you were never given. “I said I’ve got shit to do. My schedule’s booked solid for the next eight centuries, so I really don’t have time to be dilly-dallying in mundane human affairs. Your problems are always so boring.”

More silence.

Which is irksome, sure, but what’s worse is this stupid fucking circle you’re trapped in. Drawn crudely on the floor of (seemingly) this human man’s actual apartment, which would’ve told you all you’d needed to know, if you’d taken ten seconds to take in your surroundings upon first being summoned. This place has got books stacked floor to ceiling in every available inch of space, but you’re certain this person is a fucking idiot.

“Hello?”

The man shakes his head. “Oh, sorry, I just—I’m Namjoon? Kim Namjoon.”

“I don’t care.”

“Right, right.” He sucks in a deep breath. “Well, you’re probably wondering why I summoned you here today”—you roll your eyes—“and, uh.” Namjoon scratches at the back of his neck, anxiety oozing from every pore on his body. Definitely paler. “I am too, to be honest.”

“You what—”

“I didn’t mean to!” Namjoon hurriedly adds, all of that anxiety shifting quickly into pure panic. “It’s just—it was a joke! Mostly! Jeongguk said it as a joke, because everything he says is a joke, and I should’ve known that, but—I don’t know! I’ve tried everything else, and the longer its gone on the more desperate I’ve become, and suddenly what Jeongguk said as a joke didn’t sound so much like a joke anymore! I’m sorry! I didn’t think it’d actually work!”

It takes your brain a minute to translate and decipher the useless slush that just came out of his mouth, but when it does�� oh, when it does, you feel absolutely murderous. “You summoned me as a joke?”

Namjoon must see it, too. There’s no way you’re looking cool, calm, and collected right now, because you’ve seen the faces of others that have witnessed your wrath, and they were almost always on the brink of (if not outright) shitting their pants. This stupid, clueless human in front of you doesn’t appear to be faring much better.

So you continue, just to watch him squirm. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Um,” comes his brilliant response. “Yes?”

“And who am I?”

He holds up his pointer finger and digs through the back pocket of his jeans. Pulls out a crumbled scrap of paper, nearly soiled from ass sweat and time, and his eyes squint as he tries to read it. “I—well, it’s probably not an accurate translation, you know, since—”

“What does that piece of parchment say, Kim Namjoon?”

“Nothing,” he lies. “I can’t read it anyway, so… a-haaa…”

Patience officially worn thin, you snap your fingers, delighting in the startled shriek that escapes him as the paper goes up in a plume of smoke. “I am going to give you one chance to be honest with me,” you explain slowly, leveling him with a look. “Who do you think I am, and why am I here?”

Namjoon pales further. Looks like he’s trying to melt right through the floor into a puddle of useless slush, and you’d be more than willing to speed up the process if it weren’t for this god forsaken demon trap.

“Can I—can I sit down for this?”

Kim Namjoon, you learn, has a friend named Jeon Jeongguk.

Jeon Jeongguk, you also come to learn, has learned magic from a website called Tumblr.

“There, uh. There are definitely blogs for that sort of thing,” Namjoon explains, tattooed fingers scratching at the back of his neck. He takes a very quick glance at you. “Clearly not very accurate ones.”

You hum. “That’s the only smart thing I’ve heard you say since I showed up in this shithole.”

Namjoon gawks. “Hey, my apartment isn’t a shithole! It’s the best I could afford, alright? There was just an article in The Business Times about how archaic of a system jeonse is—”

“Uh-huh. And this… website?”

Namjoon goes red. Coughs into his fist. “Oh, right, yeah. I’m gonna be honest with you—”

“I already said that—”

“—my parents are coming to visit from Ilsan in a few days and I need a girlfriend.”

You blink. Once, twice, three times. Long enough to replace the rug that had been pulled from under you, because you’re pretty sure you heard this human man allude to having summoned you so you can pretend to be his girlfriend.

All things considered, you’re impressed by how calm you are. This is not a trait most demons have, you especially, and it makes you nostalgic for the days you used to rip men apart limb by limb for less.

“Are you insane?” you ask simply.

“In my defense,” he explains around a wince, “Jeongguk said it was a love spell.”

“A love spell.” Namjoon nods. “And you wound up summoning a demon.”

“It… appears I may have done that, yes.”

“And you want a demon to meet your parents?”

“I mean… when in Rome, right?”

“I’ve committed at least four-hundred and sixty-seven separate atrocities there, so no, probably not when in Rome.”

Namjoon’s jaw drops. He tucks his knees closer to his chest. “Christ, that’s a lot. How did you have the time?”

“I’m immortal,” you deadpan.

“Right, right. Anyway, to answer your question: yes.”

Your eyes narrow. “How bad are your parents that you’d want me to meet them?”

“They’re fine, mostly. I just… am not what they expected in a son? Like, I have the hair and the tattoos and I dropped out of my engineering program in university to pursue art and poetry, so the least I could do is find a wife and settle down and give them grandchildren, but I don’t even know if I want to ever settle down. I’m also not… heterosexual? Entirely? Do you see that a lot—”

You sigh. “Misconception. Not to launch you into some kind of existential crisis, but the gods really don’t give a shit who you humans sleep with.”

“Gods? As in plural?” You snap your fingers. Namjoon’s fingers immediately go to his temples. “Damn, I have a really bad migraine all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“What’d you do?”

“Made you forget something.”

“Oh. What’d I forget?” It takes a second. “Oh, right, yeah. Um. What was the last thing I said?”

“Your parents wanted you to be an engineer and have a ton of kids but you like art and also not-women, sometimes.”

He flushes again. “I—yes.”

You sigh, arms crossed over your chest. All you want to do is sit down, or open a window. This apartment smells far too strongly of patchouli. “Look, I haven’t been to this place in a long time, but surely you aren’t undesirable by your society’s standards.”

“Are you saying I’m attractive?”

You scowl. “No. I’m saying there had to have been easier ways of doing this, and also can you open a window?”

“It’s February.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“It’s really cold outside.”

“I’m literally from Hell. Go put on a sweater, then.”

With a roll of his eyes, Namjoon stands and moves to the window. Cracks it open a millimeter, just enough for the cold to seep in, before he’s stalking off toward—you’re assuming—his bedroom. You think he’s shoving a garment over his head when he calls out, “You know, you’re really fucking bossy for someone stuck in a trap.”

You vow to kill him as soon as you’re free.

It isn’t often you’re held hostage.

Usually you can spot a trick coming a thousand miles away, but since Namjoon hadn’t meant to summon you at all, you’d been caught unawares. Doomed to be stuck in a demon trap, just like he’d said, which meant you didn’t have a ton of bargaining power.

At least that’s what you’re telling yourself, because as you sit across from Namjoon’s parents at some fancy restaurant, you aren’t convinced he isn’t a crossroads demon himself.

“So,” his mother begins, turning her attention to you, “what do you do for work?”

Namjoon elbows you beneath the table, giving you a silent warning to stick to the script. You’re only here under threat of force—because Jeongguk had stopped by Namjoon’s apartment, saw you in the summoning circle, and nearly fainted before going back to Tumblr to find a binding spell.

Except that one wasn’t great, either, because it only bound you and Namjoon together for three days instead of forever. And, as penance for all the chaos you’ve sown across the universe, Namjoon’s parents’ visit fell within that time frame, so here you are.

Out to dinner. With humans.

You’re pretending to be someone’s girlfriend.

You’re in for the most embarrassing ribbing of your existence once you’re home.

“I work with idols,” you respond, as convincingly as possible, because Namjoon had thought it’d be really funny. Get it? he’d said. Like false idols? You hadn’t laughed. “It’s very secretive, of course, but—”

You don’t finish your thought, because Namjoon’s mother looks delighted: face lit up with mirth, smile blinding, eyes half-lidded under the weight of her happiness. “Oh, how exciting! Has he told you he used to do performances to old H.O.T songs? Namjoonie, what was that one song you liked—”

“Eomma, please—”

“Wasn’t it ‘Candy’?” Namjoon’s dad offers from behind his menu. It’s the first thing he’s said all evening.

Namjoon whimpers, foregoing all social decorum and lectures on posture to sink further in his chair.

You do not, under any circumstances, feel a hint of fondness.

(Which dissipates not even twenty-four hours later.

“The blog was deleted,” Jeongguk says, eyes wide as saucers. “I—the blog is gone, I don’t know how to—”

“What do you mean the blog is gone?” The poor kid is overcome with panic and fear, tries to stutter out a response that makes no sense to you at all through his sobs. “Jeon Jeongguk, what do you mean the blog is gone?”

“I—it’s—I had it bookmarked, I swear! Once the binding spell wore off I was gonna send it to Namjoon hyung so he could send you back, but the blog is gone so the post is gone, too. I don’t—what do I even search for—oh my god, please don’t kill me, I think I’m having a panic attack, I’m gonna—”

And then this human man vomits all over your feet. Namjoon sighs as he goes to fetch a bucket, and you think it’ll be a miracle if any of these people—yourself included—live to see the end of the week.)

[ryfkah]

Rules: tagger gives a word, then for each letter of that word you share a sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with that letter.

I was tagged by @sophia-sol, who gave the word CURSE.

C - - confirm with Gaff whether apple tree can be shortened or if Florianne will need a box to reach it - confirm with Leather Pants Rob if heroic lighting effect can be altered or if Wyn will need a box to reach it  - replace lost handkerchiefs for Jocko & Rocko  - lipstick stains on Heon’s shirt (already?!)

[cowritten theater story]

U - “Until the spell ends,” Balei says – the word that’s being translated as ‘spell’ is something complicated to do with obligation and compunction, Polina has learned it but does not really understand it – “if I say anything that I do not believe to be true, I will be removed from the network.” [portal fantasy]

R - Ruthi turned round to lean against the counter, blinked at me, and then laughed. “What, you think we sent the casino into lockdown? It had barely anything to do with us!" [lady eve sequel noodling]

S - She had once been intimately familiar with the repertoire of rhetorical tricks – the volume shifts, the alterations in cadence and dramatic pauses to allow the effect of her words to sink in on her audience – that the Doctora used to compensate for the artificial quality of her voice. [robot casablanca]

E - “Everyone in this family thinks they can tell everyone else what to do,” says Zhenya, “and if they don’t listen, it’s because they didn’t tell them loud enough and maybe they should try again.” [portal fantasy]

What this is largely revealing is that my unedited drafts suffer greatly from excessive em-dash syndrome. Tagging anybody who wants to do it with the word WRING!

[mariapaulaaah]

Akemi invited Colten to spend the night with her family after the dance and together they enjoyed a friendly pillow fight.

Akemi: Give up, city boy!

Colten: Never, ranch girl! *laughing and trying to hit Akemi more times* You're pretty strong, is this all from riding horses?

Akemi: Almost, it runs in the family too. They say the Saoris are pretty strong.

Colten: So… another round, Miss Saori?

Akemi: No! *laughing* I give up, you win, Colten.

Colten: Sure?

Akemi: Absolutely! Where did you learn all these tricks?

Colten: You learn a few things when you have a twin.

PREVIOUS 《🐎》 NEXT

Translation below (PT-BR)

Akemi convidou Colten para passar a noite com a família depois do baile e juntos aproveitaram uma amigável guerra de travesseiros.

Akemi: Renda-se garoto da cidade!

Colten: Jamais garota do rancho! *rindo e tentando acertar a Akemi mais vezes* Você é bem forte, isso tudo é por andar a cavalo?

Akemi: Quase, é coisa de família também. Dizem que os Saori são bem fortes.

Colten: Então… mais um round, senhorita Saori?

Akemi: Não! *rindo* eu me rendo, você venceu, Colten.

Colten: Certeza?

Akemi: Absoluta! Onde aprendeu todos esses truques?

Colten: Você aprende algumas coisas quando tem um irmão gêmeo.

[mariacallous]

In 2017, soon after Google researchers invented a new kind of neural network called a transformer, a young OpenAI engineer named Alec Radford began experimenting with it. What made the transformer architecture different from that of existing A.I. systems was that it could ingest and make connections among larger volumes of text, and Radford decided to train his model on a database of seven thousand unpublished English-language books—romance, adventure, speculative tales, the full range of human fantasy and invention. Then, instead of asking the network to translate text, as Google’s researchers had done, he prompted it to predict the most probable next word in a sentence.

The machine responded: one word, then another, and another—each new term inferred from the patterns buried in those seven thousand books. Radford hadn’t given it rules of grammar or a copy of Strunk and White. He had simply fed it stories. And, from them, the machine appeared to learn how to write on its own. It felt like a magic trick: Radford flipped the switch, and something came from nothing.

His experiments laid the groundwork for ChatGPT, released in 2022. Even now, long after that first jolt, text generation can still provoke a sense of uncanniness. Ask ChatGPT to tell a joke or write a screenplay, and what it returns—rarely good, but reliably recognizable—is a sort of statistical curve fit to the vast corpus it was trained on, every sentence containing traces of the human experience encoded in that data.

When I’m drafting an e-mail and type, “Hey, thanks so much for,” then pause, and the program suggests “taking,” then “the,” then “time,” I’ve become newly aware of which of my thoughts diverge from the pattern and which conform to it. My messages are now shadowed by the general imagination of others. Many of whom, it seems, want to thank someone for taking . . . the . . . time.

That Radford’s breakthrough happened at OpenAI was no accident. The organization had been founded, in 2015, as a nonprofit “Manhattan Project for A.I.,” with early funding from Elon Musk and leadership from Sam Altman, who soon became its public face. Through a partnership with Microsoft, Altman secured access to powerful computing infrastructures. But, by 2017, the lab was still searching for a signature achievement. On another track, OpenAI researchers were teaching a T-shaped virtual robot to backflip: the bot would attempt random movements, and human observers would vote on which resembled a flip. With each round of feedback, it improved—minimally, but measurably. The company also had a distinctive ethos. Its leaders spoke about the existential threat of artificial general intelligence—the moment, vaguely defined, when machines would surpass human intelligence—while pursuing it relentlessly. The idea seemed to be that A.I. was potentially so threatening that it was essential to build a good A.I. faster than anyone else could build a bad one.

Even Microsoft’s resources weren’t limitless; chips and processing power devoted to one project couldn’t be used for another. In the aftermath of Radford’s breakthrough, OpenAI’s leadership—especially the genial Altman and his co-founder and chief scientist, the faintly shamanistic Ilya Sutskever—made a series of pivotal decisions. They would concentrate on language models rather than, say, back-flipping robots. Since existing neural networks already seemed capable of extracting patterns from data, the team chose not to focus on network design but instead to amass as much training data as possible. They moved beyond Radford’s cache of unpublished books and into a morass of YouTube transcripts and message-board chatter—language scraped from the internet in a generalized trawl.

That approach to deep learning required more computing power, which meant more money, putting strain on the original nonprofit model. But it worked. GPT-2 was released in 2019, an epochal event in the A.I. world, followed by the more consumer-oriented ChatGPT in 2022, which made a similar impression on the general public. User numbers surged, as did a sense of mystical momentum. At an off-site retreat near Yosemite, Sutskever reportedly set fire to an effigy representing unaligned artificial intelligence; at another retreat, he led colleagues in a chant: “Feel the AGI. Feel the AGI.”

In the prickly “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” (Penguin Press), Karen Hao tracks the fallout from the GPT breakthroughs across OpenAI’s rivals—Google, Meta, Anthropic, Baidu—and argues that each company, in its own way, mirrored Altman’s choices. The OpenAI model of scale at all costs became the industry’s default. Hao’s book is at once admirably detailed and one long pointed finger. “It was specifically OpenAI, with its billionaire origins, unique ideological bent, and Altman’s singular drive, network, and fundraising talent, that created a ripe combination for its particular vision to emerge and take over,” she writes. “Everything OpenAI did was the opposite of inevitable; the explosive global costs of its massive deep learning models, and the perilous race it sparked across the industry to scale such models to planetary limits, could only have ever arisen from the one place it actually did.” We have been, in other words, seduced—lulled by the spooky, high-minded rhetoric of existential risk. The story of A.I.’s evolution over the past decade, in Hao’s telling, is not really about the date of machine takeover or the degree of human control over the technology—the terms of the A.G.I. debate. Instead, it’s a corporate story about how we ended up with the version of A.I. we’ve got.

The “original sin” of this arm of technology, Hao writes, lay in a decision by a Dartmouth mathematician named John McCarthy, in 1955, to coin the phrase “artificial intelligence” in the first place. “The term lends itself to casual anthropomorphizing and breathless exaggerations about the technology’s capabilities,” she observes. As evidence, she points to Frank Rosenblatt, a Cornell professor who, in the late fifties, devised a system that could distinguish between cards with a small square on the right versus the left. Rosenblatt promoted it as brain-like—on its way to sentience and self-replication—and these claims were picked up and broadcast by the New York Times. But a broader cultural hesitancy about the technology’s implications meant that, once OpenAI made its breakthrough, Altman—its C.E.O.—came to be seen not only as a fiduciary steward but also as an ethical one. The background question that began to bubble up around the Valley, Keach Hagey writes in “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” (Norton), “first whispered, then murmured, then popping up in elaborate online essays from the company’s defectors: Can we trust this person to lead us to AGI?”

Within the world of tech founders, Altman might have seemed a pretty trustworthy candidate. He emerged from his twenties not just very influential and very rich (which isn’t unusual in Silicon Valley) but with his moral reputation basically intact (which is). Reared in a St. Louis suburb in a Reform Jewish household, the eldest of four children of a real-estate developer and a dermatologist, he had been identified early on as a kind of polymathic whiz kid at John Burroughs, a local prep school. “His personality kind of reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell,” the school’s head, Andy Abbott, tells Hagey. “He can talk about anything and it’s really interesting”—computers, politics, Faulkner, human rights.

Altman came out as gay at sixteen. At Stanford, according to Hagey, whose biography is more conventional than Hao’s but is quite compelling, he launched a student campaign in support of gay marriage and briefly entertained the possibility of taking it national. At an entrepreneur fair during his sophomore year, in 2005, the physically slight Altman stood on a table, flipped open his phone, declared that geolocation was the future, and invited anyone interested to join him. Soon, he dropped out and was running a company called Loopt. Abbott remembered the moment he heard that his former student was going into tech. “Oh, don’t go in that direction, Sam,” he said. “You’re so personable!”

Personability plays in Silicon Valley, too. Loopt was a modest success, but Altman made an impression. “He probably weighed a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, and he’s surrounded by all these middle-aged adults that are just taking in his gospel,” an executive who encountered him at the time tells Hagey. “Anyone who came across him at the time wished they had some of what he had.”

By his late twenties, Altman had parlayed his Loopt millions into a series of successful startup investments and become the president of Y Combinator, the tech mega-incubator that has spun off dozens of billion-dollar companies. The role made him a first point of contact for Valley elders curious about what was coming next. From Jeff Bezos, he borrowed the habit of introducing two people by e-mail with a single question mark; from Paul Graham, Y Combinator’s co-founder, he absorbed the idea that startups should “add a zero”—always think bigger. It was as if he were running an internal algorithm trained on the corpus of Silicon Valley-founder lore, predicting the next most likely move.

To the elders he studied, Altman was something like the tech world’s radiant child, both its promise and its mascot. Peter Thiel once remarked that Altman was “just at the absolute epicenter, maybe not of Silicon Valley, but of the Silicon Valley zeitgeist.” (Altman is now married to a young Australian techie he met in Thiel’s hot tub.) Graham offered his own version: “You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in five years and he’d be king.” Some kind of generational arbitrage seemed to be under way. In 2008, Altman began attending Sun Valley Conference, an exclusive annual retreat for industry leaders, where he eventually became “close friends,” we learn, with Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg. Yet, in the mid-twenty-tens, he still shared an apartment with his two brothers. Hao records a later incident in which he offered ketamine to an employee he’d just fired. He was both the iconic child to the tech world’s adults and the iconic adult to its children.

An interesting artifact of the past decade in American life is that the apocalyptic sensibility that came to grip U.S. politics during the 2016 Presidential campaign—the conviction, on both right and left, that the existing structure simply could not hold—had already bubbled up in Silicon Valley a few years earlier. By 2015, Altman had been donating to Democratic candidates and seemed to have seriously considered a run for governor of California. But he also told Tad Friend, in a New Yorker Profile, that he was preparing for civilizational collapse and had stockpiled “guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”

One view is that tech billionaires saw the brink early because they understood just how unequal—and therefore unstable—American society was becoming. But, inside the Valley, that anxiety often expressed itself in the language of existential risk. In particular, fears about runaway artificial intelligence surged around the time of the 2014 publication of “Superintelligence,” by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. According to Hao, Elon Musk became fixated on an A.I. technologist, Demis Hassabis—a co-founder of DeepMind, which had recently been acquired by Google—whom Musk reportedly viewed as a “supervillain.” That same year, at an M.I.T. symposium, Musk warned that experiments in artificial intelligence risked “summoning the demon.”

Altman had been itching for a bigger project. The next Memorial Day weekend, he gathered hundreds of young Y Combinator protégés for an annual glamping retreat among the redwoods of Mendocino County. The night before, he had beaten a group of Y Combinator staffers at Settlers of Catan. Now, standing before them, he announced that his interests had narrowed—from, roughly, all of technology to three subjects that he believed could fundamentally change humanity: nuclear energy, pandemics, and, most profound of all, machine superintelligence.

That same month, Altman sent an e-mail to Musk. “Been thinking a lot about whether it’s possible to stop humanity from developing AI,” he wrote. “I think the answer is almost definitely not. If it’s going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first.” Altman proposed his Manhattan Project for A.I. so that the technology, as he put it, would “belong to the world,” through some form of nonprofit. Musk replied, “probably worth a conversation.”

It fell to Chuck Schumer, of all people, to offer the secular-liberal benediction for the project—by then consolidated as OpenAI and led by Altman, who had sidelined Musk. “You’re doing important work,” the New York senator told the company’s employees, seated near a TV projecting a fire, during an off-the-record visit to OpenAI’s headquarters in 2019, as Hao documents. “We don’t fully understand it, but it’s important.” Schumer went on, “And I know Sam. You’re in good hands.”

How do people working in A.I. view the technology? The standard account, one that Hao follows, divides them into two camps: the boomers, who are optimistic about AI’s potential benefits for humanity and want to accelerate its development, and the doomers, who emphasize existential risk and edge toward paranoia. OpenAI, in its original conception, was partially a doomer project. Musk’s particular fear about Demis Hassabis was that, if Google assigned a potential A.G.I. the goal of maximizing profits, it might try to take out its competitors at any cost. OpenAI was meant to explore this technological frontier in order to keep it out of malign hands.

But in early 2018 Musk left. The organization was struggling to raise funds—he had pledged to raise a billion dollars but ultimately contributed less than forty-five million—and a faction within OpenAI was pushing to convert it to a for-profit entity, both to attract capital and to lure top researchers with equity. At the meeting where Musk announced his departure, he gave contradictory explanations: OpenAI, he said, wouldn’t be able to build an A.G.I. as a nonprofit, and that Tesla had more resources to pursue this goal, but he also suggested that the best place to pursue A.G.I. was elsewhere. An intern pointed out that Musk had insisted that the for-profit dynamic would undermine safety in developing A.G.I. “Isn’t this going back to what you said you didn’t want to do?” he asked. “You can’t imagine how much time I’ve spent thinking about this,” Musk replied. “I’m truly scared about this issue.” He also called the intern a jackass.

As OpenAI evolved into a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary, it came to house both perspectives: a doomer group focussed on safety and research, whose principal advocate was the Italian American scientist Dario Amodei; and a boomer culture focussed on products and applications, often led by Greg Brockman, an M.I.T. dropout and software engineer who pushed the organization toward embracing commercialization. But these lines crossed. Amodei ultimately left the company, alongside his sister, Daniela, insisting that OpenAI had abandoned its founding ethos, though, in Hao’s view, the company they founded, Anthropic, would “in time show little divergence” from OpenAI’s model: the same fixation on scale, the same culture of secrecy. From the other direction came Ilya Sutskever, who had made a major breakthrough in A.I. research as a graduate student in Toronto, and who would become perhaps OpenAI’s most influential theorist. He had once been an unabashed boomer. “I think that it’s fairly likely,” he told the A.I. journalist Cade Metz, “that it will not take too long of a time for the entire surface of the Earth to become covered with data centers and power stations.” By 2023, however, when he helped orchestrate a briefly successful corporate coup against Altman, he was firmly aligned with the doomers. The trajectories of Sutskever and the Amodeis suggest a more fluid category—the boomer-doomers.

Those who most believe in a cause and those who most fear it tend to share one essential assessment: they agree on its power. In this case, the prospect of a technology that could end a phase of civilization drew both camps—boomers and doomers—toward the same flame. Helen Toner, an A.I.-safety expert and academic who eventually joined OpenAI’s board, had spent time studying the fast-evolving A.I. scene in China, the United States’ chief rival in the global race. As Hagey recounts, “Among the things she found notable in China was how reluctant AI engineers were to discuss the social implications of what they were doing. In the Bay Area, meanwhile, they seemed to want to do nothing but.”

Yet OpenAI’s success hinged less on speculative philosophies than on more familiar systems: the flexibility of American capital, and Altman’s personal charm. In 2018, while attending the Sun Valley Conference, in Idaho, Altman ran into Microsoft’s C.E.O., Satya Nadella, in a stairwell and pitched him on a collaboration. Though Bill Gates was skeptical, most of Nadella’s team was enthusiastic. Within a year, Microsoft had announced an investment of a billion dollars in OpenAI—much of it in the form of credits on its cloud platform, Azure. That figure later rose beyond ten billion. Hao speaks with a Chinese A.I. researcher who puts it plainly: “In China, which rivals the U.S. in AI talent, no team of researchers and engineers, no matter how impressive, would get $1 billion, let alone ten times more, to develop a massively expensive technology without an articulated vision of exactly what it would look like and what it would be good for.”

Nadella appears only in passing in both of these books—he’s the adult in the room, and adults are famously not so interesting. But after Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar investments, his influence over OpenAI has come to appear at least as consequential as Altman’s. It was Nadella, after all, who intervened to end the brief 2023 coup, after which Altman was swiftly reinstalled as C.E.O. The year before, Sutskever remarked that “it may be that today’s neural networks are slightly conscious”—a comment to which a scientist at a rival A.I. company replied, “In the same sense that it may be that a large field of wheat is slightly pasta.” Nadella, by contrast, seems broadly allergic to boomer-doomer metaphysics.

The deeper dynamic of contemporary artificial intelligence may be that it reflects, rather than transcends, the corporate conditions of its creation—just as Altman mirrored the manners of his Silicon Valley elders, or as a chatbot’s replies reflect the texts it has been trained on. Appearing recently on Dwarkesh Patel’s influential tech podcast, Nadella, a smooth and upbeat presence, dismissed A.G.I. as a meaningless category. When Patel pressed him on whether A.I. agents would eventually take over not only manual labor but cognitive work, Nadella replied that this might be for the best: “Who said my life’s goal is to triage my e-mail, right? Let an A.I. agent triage my e-mail. But after having triaged my e-mail, give me a higher-level cognitive-labor task of, hey, these are the three drafts I really want you to review.” And if it took over that second thing? Nadella said, “There will be a third thing.”

Nadella seemed quite convinced that A.I. remains a normal technology, and his instinct was to try to narrow each question, so that he was debating project architecture rather than philosophy. When Patel wondered if Nadella would add an A.I. agent to Microsoft’s board, a fairly dystopian-sounding proposition, Nadella replied that Microsoft engineers were currently experimenting with an A.I. agent in Teams, to organize and redirect human team members, and said that he could see the use of having such an agent on Microsoft’s board. It did sound a bit less scary, and also maybe a bit less interesting.

Much like Altman, Nadella is now trying to shift the way the public thinks about A.I. by changing the way it’s talked about—less science fiction, more office productivity. It’s an uphill fight, and at least partly the industry’s own fault. The early, very public bouts of boomerism and doomerism helped attract investment and engineering talent, but they also seeded a broad, low-level unease. If Sutskever—who knew as much about the technology as anyone—could declare it “slightly conscious,” it becomes markedly harder for Nadella, three years later, to reassure the public that what we’re really talking about is just helpful new features in Microsoft Teams.

In other ways, too, Altman is contending with a shifting cultural tide. Sometime around 2016, the tone of tech coverage began to darken. The hagiographic mode gave way to a more prosecutorial one. David Kirkpatrick’s “The Facebook Effect” (2010) has its successor in Sarah Wynn-Williams’s “Careless People” (2025); Michael Lewis’s “The New New Thing” (1999) has been countered by Emily Chang’s “Brotopia” (2018); even Amazon’s great chronicler, Brad Stone, moved from “The Everything Store” (2013) to the more skeptical “Amazon Unbound” (2021).

Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative “sentience” and more on its implications for labor and the environment. Still, her case against Altman can feel both very personal and slightly overheated. Toward the end of “Empire of AI,” she writes that he has “a long history of dishonesty, power grabbing, and self-serving tactics.” (Welcome to the human race, Sam.) Hao tries hard, if not very successfully, to bolster an accusation made public in 2021 by his sister Annie Altman—that, beginning when she was three and Sam was twelve, he climbed into her bed and molested her, buried memories that she says she recovered during therapy in her twenties. (Altman denies the allegation.) This new, more critical vision of the tech founders risks echoing Musk’s vendetta against Hassabis—inflating contingent figures into supervillains, out of ambient anxiety.

Altman’s story is at once about a man changing artificial intelligence and about how A.I.’s evolving nature has, in turn, changed him—quieting, without resolving, the largest questions about work, power, and the future. Hao’s book opens in late 2023, with the brief ouster of Altman by Sutskever and several senior OpenAI executives, an episode now referred to internally as “the Blip.” When Altman learns of the attempted coup, he is in Las Vegas for a Formula 1 race. Sutskever calls him over Google Meet and tells him that he is being fired. Altman remains serene. He doesn’t appear to take the moment too seriously—perhaps because, in Sutskever’s zeal, he recognizes a version of his former self. Calmly, he replies, “How can I help?” He has become, in every sense, all business.

[ramblingsof-astridkai]

Got Bored, Made a Language

So for one of the stories I'm working on (Talmuran), I wanted some of the characters to speak a different language than the universe's equivalent to English. So, instead of just picking one of the real world languages that I know, I just decided to make a new one, so now I want to ramble about how I made Skothea.

I'm going to clarify that this is based on observations I've made while learning languages and vague ideas of how language works. I do not have a background in linguistics or etymology! I did my best to make this feel like a real language, but may have made some mistakes.

Characters and Writing:

Making the characters for the language was the most difficult part for me. I realized that my brain really wants to stick to what it already knows about language, so trying to make something new was hard. Eventually I just kind of decided to squiggle on the page until it made sense. I also said the sound repeatedly to make a shape that felt like it "fit" the noise the letter makes.

I also deleted/added some letters for the alphabet. I got rid of G, H, Q, W, X, and Z for this language. But I also added characters for "th" and "rr". Adding new characters made me think of how the language is viewed by the people who speak it as well, like since there isn't an H in this language, the sound for "th" is thought to be closer to a ß (sharp S/called an eszett) sound. (I don't know if that part of my explanation made any sense.) I thought maybe this would make the language feel more developed as it's own method of speaking/writing, than just making it seem like English with a different writing system.

I also wrote the characters out in a physical letter from the perspective of one of my characters, which was really helpful in realizing how writing the real language would work. Such as when I was writing a word that was cut off to the next line. I'm used to there being a "-" to separate the word, but I had used that as the symbol for a comma in this language. So instead I did a double arrow that attaches to where the word is cut off. I also showed this to my creative writing teacher, and she pointed out that the language is written in a cursive system. I didn't notice that entirely because I did make a few mistakes with some characters not connecting to the other letters very well (such as O, E, C, and U).

^ this is a chart I made for myself of what the characters look like. I may redo the numbers. I made the chart part a while ago in order to make other languages, this is not the first time I've done this.

^ this is a journal entry written in the perspective of the main character that I made to practice writing in the language, and helped me create words/grammar/sentence structure.

Words and Translating:

Holy fucking yikes- this had the same issue I had with making the characters but amplified. Trying to make new words for this is really hard, especially when your brain is trying to still fit what you're making into an understandable language. There were several times I thought I'd have a "light-bulb moment", write down a word, then realize my brain tricked me by giving me the word in Dutch, German, or Japanese to try keeping what I was writing somewhat understandable.

Places where that kind of bit me in the ass: I felt like I needed a word for "the" and instead of just making a new word I decided to just go with "th". Almost mad "and" just "und" before remembering that was German, and switched it to "ut" last second.

Something I really wanted to try doing is words that don't translate perfectly, because real languages don't perfectly translate into each other. One of those words is the (working) title of this story: Talmuran. The word would roughly be "bastard", but I also wanted it to be used more specifically as a curse onto someone for being corrupt, unkind, or a traitor.

Real languages not translating perfectly is something I also kept in mind for making the actual words. I made a few combination words that combined one action with another, an action with a feeling, or an action with an object. This makes a literal translation look confusing and jumbled, but it felt more like a language to me when I did it that way.

When writing what I wanted the character (Alastor) to write in their journal entry, I first wrote it in English. This made the idea of what they were saying come out easier, and also gave me a reference as to what I was trying to say. After that I did a literal translation between English and Skothea. This was helpful in developing a system of how to order words in a sentence, and what words actually mean. Lastly, I had to put it into the actual language and come up with the words. (TW for mentions of murder in the image below)

^ This is the translation draft I did in Ellipsus. It isn't my best piece of writing, but it wasn't meant to be.

Conclusion:

That's what I have for right now, it's subject to change because there are parts I'm not happy with. But I am proud of what I have so far! I also decided that sign language was going to be important, not only in this story but to the culture that speaks this language as a whole. So now I need to make a sign language because I'm terrified to mess up ASL.

[funstealer]

Interview with Teruki Uchise of 14th Addiction Loaded Fashion Magazine Vol. 6 (2014) English Translation:

Page 1 Born in 1971 in Osaka Prefecture. At the age of 18, he moved to the United States alone and then moved to Mexico. Based on the know-how gained locally, he established KMRii, a brand that sells handmade accessories. Established "14th Addiction" in 2007. Without being bound by established theories or preconceived notions, he creates products based on the experiences he gained from his own travels and his own unique values. "We have an atelier in Bali, and all products are handmade by local craftsmen." The brand 14th Addiction offers leather items and other products that seem to have a life of their own. The designer, Mr. Teruki, has a unique background among many fashion designers.

"I had a strong desire to go overseas since I was in junior high school, and it was influenced by the music, movies, and novels that I liked and was exposed to at the time. In particular, the book "Exiles" (by Robert Harris) had a big influence on me and made a strong impression on me. I left Japan as soon as I turned 18 and went to America to find myself. I spent a few years there, but I didn't really like it, so I went to Mexico."

A foreign land with a bad security situation. Gangsters, drug dealers, cult groups, etc. are sometimes in the news. In 1990, the young man in his 20s moved to Mexico on his own, and he didn't feel any particular fear. Instead, he thought, "If I'm going to live, this is the place."

"I'm from Osaka, so Mexico has a similar vibe to Osaka (laughs). When I started living in Mexico, something suddenly occurred to me. To begin with, Japanese people and Mexicans are different in size, and they might even pull out a gun. In a place like that, you can't win physically. So you have to win mentally. It's important to approach the other person without being wary as much as possible and have a heart-to-heart conversation. If you feel fear, the other person will definitely know, and you'll be looked down upon right away. That's the trick, or how to navigate the world, I learned in Mexico."

The thing he wanted most was survival skills. After that, at the age of 24, TERUKI's career as a designer began. He started making accessories by imitating the Mexican Indians he met there.

"Since I was a teenager, I wanted to acquire the ability to survive. Survival skills are the ability to survive in the ultimate situation of traveling around the world, where no one knows you or helps you. When exposed to such a situation, I always wondered, 'What can I do?' That's when I discovered accessory making, learned a lot, acquired the know-how, actually made things, and sold them on the street when they were finished. That's how I began my life."

Make and sell, make money, and move on to the next town. With the help of TERUKI's extraordinary survival skills, his skills were so impressive that even local colleagues in the industry respected him. Whenever they found a new technique or material, they would negotiate and trade know-how with other craftsmen. TERUKI's works were of such high quality that they commanded overwhelmingly high prices on the street accessory market at the time. "I was selling accessories near the resort town of Cancun, and during the Christmas season many tourists came from New York and other places. People from the film and music industries among them saw the things I made and said, 'Why are you selling in a place like this? You can go much further.' I remember that this gave me a lot of confidence and marked a turning point for me." Page 2 His only source of inspiration was his own travel experiences. After that, he continued to travel around the world, visiting America, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Holland, England, Germany, France, Spain, Australia, etc. In 2000, he launched the accessory brand "KMRii" and established an atelier in Bali in the same year. In his atelier in Bali, he created an environment where all production processes could be carried out, from production to the distribution system for overseas shipments. After that, he approached music festivals in various European countries and built a network with overseas artists. In 2004, he also produced a leather jacket for Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. In 2006, he handed over "KMRii" to a friend who had been with him since the company's launch, and in 2007, he established the men's brand "14th Addiction" and the women's brand "Catorce", which mainly focus on clothing.

"I didn't intend to start a fashion brand, but I made a few leather jackets, which were very well received, and the brand was born naturally from that. I don't feel like I'm in the fashion business at all, I just incorporate the inspiration I get from my travel experiences into my clothes. I project the people I meet on my travels, the scenery I see, and the messages I feel at each moment. My way of expression happens to be making clothes, bags, shoes, and accessories, so I definitely put my spirit into each and every piece."

The theme of this season is "Eternal Voyager." TERUKI has returned to his roots and created a powerful lineup by tracing his memories of his own travels. At the collection held in Tokyo recently, close friends of his, musician MIYAV- and director Takashi Tamura (Drum Can), also supported the show, adding a touch of glamour.

"I didn't go to fashion school or study fashion, but the experiences and knowledge I gained from traveling alone to unfamiliar places have really helped me. I don't want to get stuck in a mold in the pursuit of individuality, but rather, I want to break the mold and go all out! That's my message. I would be happy if we could give people who come into contact with our work a little nudge in the direction of wear it. I would like to continue making things like that."

[youraininja]

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[black-crested-jaybird]

I will have "learned nothing" from that because the amount of time it takes to complete a task once I have started it has nothing to do with why it takes so long to actually start doing the task. For me, it's usually not doing the task that is hard. Starting the work is what's hard.

Tactics I (a very extroverted person with late-diagnosed ADHD) have developed over the years that help with this difficulty include:

- doing the work in public places (e g. coffeeshop, university study lab)

- inviting friends over to talk to me while I work/work alongside me (either at the same task or at a task of their own)

- listening to music/audiobooks/podcasts/videos/TV (the visual media are less helpful for me in particular as I can get "sucked into" watching and stop working)

- talking to a friend on the phone while working (this can help even more with task initiation as talking with the person becomes associated with working; I was once recovering from a cold and sitting around complaining about how awful I felt when a friend called. I almost immediately got up and started washing the dishes out of sheer habit)

- setting a timer to trick my brain into starting for a short time (usually once I begin I don't want to stop even though the timer has gone off)

- working on a task while waiting on another process (e.g. putting away clean dishes while waiting for the kettle to boil)

- doing a completely unrelated activity, especially one that requires physical movement but not mental concentration, e.g. going for a walk (good for breaking out of a state of inertia and for helping the brain process information in a new way; less good for task initiation but sometimes coming back to the task after this kind of break helps)

- ADHD medication (genuinely amazingly helpful when one has ADHD; at first there were moments of "magically" starting tasks, but after having used it for a while it's more like I'm able to better understand the way my brain functions and begin to build systems that support healthy productivity - including task initiation without deadline-induced panic, but also including being able to notice when I'm getting less focused and need a break, and building the confidence that not doing something the moment I think of it does NOT mean it won't actually happen [this confidence does not, however, translate to waiting to add things to my calendar. That still needs to happen IMMEDIATELY]

- allowing myself to engage in a fun or relaxing activity when I recognize that I'm struggling to initiate a task, because giving myself a reward in advance of the work can, despite everything I was ever taught, actually make it easier for me to do the work (this can be tricky if the reward is a particularly time-sinky activity, so timers or other external prompts to stop are helpful here. Also ADHD meds)

- working on a task in service of another task (e.g. cleaning the kitchen because I want to bake bread and need the counter cleared and the bowl washed to do that; the bread may or may not actually get baked, but the kitchen will be cleaner)

[melishade]

Os warriors e eren treinando com megs e ambos aprendendo um com o outro

Who's the real Hanji?

Translation: Warriors and Eren training with Megs and both learning from each other

Yeah this is something that happens in Dark Timeline. And arguably in the Chaos Timeline.

Megatron has to prepare them for the fight for their lives against Shockwave. He's training Eren and he is training the Warriors. Majority of the time, their picking up new tricks from Megatron because Megatron is the more experienced fighter, but Megatron does notice a few things and incorporates them when he can.

I can also imagine, because Eren does demand extra training from Megatron, that Eren would be the more experienced fighter in this timeline because he's asking Megatron for some extra training, he would take that knowledge and offer it to the Warriors. He's trying to get over his hatred, cross that bridge, and get Optimus back. And getting Optimus back requires everyone to be ready.

[recentlyheardcom]

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[kurishiri]

epilogue . . . alfons main story — mad love (with letter)

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ notice ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ this translation may not be 100% accurate or contain creative liberties due to characterization or narrative flow purposes. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost these or claim these as your own!

— cw: awkwardly translated smut; you know the drill by now 👍

After deciding to live by Alfons’ side——a season had passed.

Liam: So, did you find out Al’s weakness in the end?

We all surrounded the scones that Victor had baked during an afternoon tea time,

and Liam, who happened to have a break from his stage work, tilted his head.

Roger: Oh yeah, come to think of it, we did talk about that at one point. We even put on disguises and tailed him.

Elbert: And you had gone around asking what his weakness was...

With all eyes on me, I felt my face heat up from embarrassment.

Kate: About that, I’ve caused you all a great deal of trouble...

Liam: Oh, no worries at all. It’s just I was curious about how it went in the end.

Kate: Well... as time went on, I cared less and less about what his weaknesses were, so I still don’t really know.

While answering Liam, I reminisced on the days I spent with Alfons.

He would meddle in my life without any morals to speak of, and I had gotten worked up about finding his weakness,

but as I got to know him more through that——I felt myself more and more drawn to him.

Liam: Do you not know what it is, Elbie? You know, like if he actually can’t swim, or maybe how he’s repulsed by bugs and whatnot.

Elbert: He can swim, in fact, and he doesn’t seem to be afraid of bugs, I suppose...

E: Since he had first come to my manor, he had learned a variety of things, but he very quickly picked up reading and writing, mathematics, and cooking.

E: With dance as well... he picked it up before me.

(So that’s how it is... I can see that, he does seem to be the type to be able to do anything flawlessly.)

Since the stories Lord Elbert told about Alfons were all the complete truth, without a single thread of a lie,

I had always found my ear drawn to what he was saying on instinct.

Roger: But are you sure it’s fine to leave it like that, lil lady?

Kate: Huh?

Roger: Well, he’s still going out at night like he always had. Are you sure you’re not the least bit nervous knowing that without grasping any of his weaknesses?

Kate: ...Now that you mention it, if I said I wasn’t nervous at all... it would be a lie.

Even still, Alfons goes out to drink, and shows himself at the slums at night.

(But, that is all an important part of how Alfons lives his life too.)

(And... I don’t want to reject the meaning or value of what he does either.)

Kate: But still, I don’t want to threaten him with his weakness.

K: All that said, it is true that I want him to like me... so much so, he wouldn’t look at others.

Liam: Wowie, look at Al being a happy man if I’ve seen one.

Elbert: ...hehe.

Roger: If that’s so, then I think that’s all the more reason why you should find out what a different type of ‘weakness,’ I’d think.

Kate: What do you mean, a ‘different type of weakness’...

Roger: Of course, that of the body.

(The body.........)

Kate: ——S-since when did you sound so much like Alfons!?

—— Time skip: in the city ——

Alfons: For having finally seen the play that had been put on hold foreeever, you are awfully meek, aren’t you?

Kate: Huh!?

Today, I had a date with Alfons at the theater.

I very much enjoyed the play itself to the fullest... but there was one point where my attention was pulled from the stage to Alfons,

and suddenly the conversation I had about his weaknesses popped up in my mind, and I found myself at a loss for words.

(It’s all because Roger said all that...)

Kate: I enjoyed it very much! And I was really happy you invited me too.

Alfons: Oh yes, I am more than very aware how much you were enjoying it, as there was not even a single moment I could play a trick on you. That’s how enraptured you were.

Kate: W-wait, you were planning to play a trick on me...?

Alfons: My, did you truly take me as someone who would invite you on a pure and wholesome date with no other motives whatsoever?

Alfons shot me a bewitching side glance, and then suddenly his eyes relaxedly narrowed.

Alfons: ...That said, seeing your eyes sparkle as much as they did truly did tickle my good conscience.

There was not an ounce of provocation in his expression: it was simply a gentle one, filled with affection, and one I felt I saw more often coming from him.

(And to think that alone is enough to send my heart racing in happiness... I really am simple, aren’t I.)

This lover of mine may be ridiculous and a good-for-nothing...

But it was at moments like these when I realized those were the parts of him I had fallen in love with as well.

(I wonder, though, what does Alfons like about me...?)

‘I want him to like me... so much so, he wouldn’t look at others.’

The words I had answered Roger with were not a lie.

As the question came to me, I found myself so curious about it, I found myself itching to ask.

Kate: Uhm... Alfons.

Alfons: Yes, yes, what is it?

Kate: What do you like about me...?

Alfons: ... [surprised]

(Ah, he looks surprised...)

But, as though he wanted to hide the fact that he had let out his true self show, he averted his gaze right after.

Alfons: Let’s see now... I suppose your cat-like qualities, I suppose?

Kate: Cat-like...? You mean me?

Alfons: Why, indeed. See, you meow and stay close to me,

A: but then the next moment you sulk and become a tad prickly... in bed, that is.

Kate: Wh—!?

Alfons: Oh yes, and also how you claw into my back without holding anything back...

Kate: O-okay, you can stop there... I’ve heard enough.

Alfons: Ahh, goodness, and would you speak of the devil.

Kate: I understand now, so...

Alfons: There’s a cat over yonder.

(Huh...?)

When I turned around, indeed, there was a small cat atop a fence, looking over at us.

Kate: Oh... it’s so cute...

The cat hopped down from the fence and made its way to Alfons’ feet.

Kate: It seems quite attached to you, doesn’t it?

Alfons: If the mood strikes me, I come out to feed them, so it seems the cats around here remember my face.

(He said he liked the cat-like qualities of me... if that’s so, then maybe I could learn a thing or two from the cat...?)

When Alfons crouched down, the cat rubbed its cheek on his black glove as though it were a spoiled kitten.

Alfons: Hehe... it does pain me to say, but I didn’t bring anything today.

(Alfons... looks happy...?)

(M-maybe it’s alright to be more honest and be spoiled at times...)

(...Could I do it?)

As I thought about this and that as I looked on——all of a sudden, I had an uneasy feeling about the cat’s hindlegs.

(Hm?)

Kate: Alfons, is that cat injured...?

—— Time skip: basement ——

Roger:This little guy probably got in some scuffle with some fellow strays. At any rate, I disinfected the wound, so it should be fine now.

Though the cat didn’t have the most pleasant look on its face as it swatted its tail, Roger still treated it.

Kate: Thank you, Roger.

Roger: Don’t worry about it. I plan to take all my dues.

Alfons: Then do take your needed dues from the cat, who you treated, and not Kate, alright?

Roger: Even so, though, to think you’d bring a cat back with you... is this also Kate working her magic on you?

Alfons: Now I have not the slightest clue what you may be talking about.

Roger: You hate them, don’t you? Cats, I mean.

Kate: Wh—!?

(He... he hates cats!?)

(But... the day after we met he had said how he liked cats,)

(and today, he also said how he liked my ‘cat-like qualities’...)

Hit by shock, I turned a questioning look at Alfons without thinking, but...

Alfons: It would seem the notion of love and hate mixing together is just out the window for someone such as yourself.

His smile seemed nothing short of forced, and he didn’t tell me which was the case.

—— Time skip: Alfons’ room ——

After we let the cat go back to where it resided, I took a shower and changed into a night dress——

And before doing anything more on the bed, I opened my mouth to speak.

Kate: Do... do you really hate cats?

Alfons: ...Of all things to ask your lover while kissing, that is it?

Kate: mn... because... nn... you said that I’m... like a cat...

K: And, I don’t want any hate mixed in... I just want you to love me...

Alfons: You really are a fool, aren’t you... taking all that baloney as the truth.

A: Yes, I do like cats. But it’s just I don’t have the best memories with them, so I hold some complicated feelings.

A: But, as for you... it’s different, no?

A: Indeed, you are like a cat... but because you are positively darling, and my plaything.

Kate: mngh——

While taking in his deep kisses, his words echoed in my mind.

The said ‘memories’ with them——surely, I wouldn’t hear a word of it from his lips.

But, I felt the rumor that led to Roger meeting Alfons,

the one where ‘a human had turned into a cat,’ had something to do with it.

And there was not a doubt in my mind that such a memory was a wound in a place deep in his heart.

(There is a chance that is Alfons’ weakness.)

(But, I would never ask him to bare his wounds like that either...)

More importantly——I wanted him to have fun, and make him feel good, carving happy memories into him.

So much so, they could cover his old scars, so they would fade away to the point it became a source of nostalgia.

Kate: Alfons... put out your hand.

Alfons: ...Hehe, just what are you plotting now, I wonder...?

He put out his hand for me, with his gloves still on.

And I bit the tip of his gloves, slowly pulling it off.

At this point, ‘taking off his gloves’... became a signal of sorts for the start of a sweet night to come.

Usually, I was the one who felt my breathing go ragged from seeing him take off his gloves, but——

Alfons: ——Ahh... you’re quite good.

When his gloves were off, the skin of his hands laid bare.

I dropped them on the bed, and rubbed my cheek on his palm.

Kate: mn...

Alfons: Oh my... I thought you were trying to tempt me, but is it that you want to be spoiled?

Kate: ...I’m imitating a cat.

K: Because you said you liked that... I was watching...

Alfons: Aha, well look at you, a studious soul you are.

A: ——ngh...

The moment I licked his palm, Alfons’ fingertips reacted.

(...!)

Alfons: ...Jumping on me like that is quite cowardly, you know.

(Did I really jump on him? Or...)

Kate: ...mn...

As though to test it out, this time I put his fingers in my mouth.

Alfons: ...ngh... ha...

My tongue traced him, and a sigh escaped from Alfons’ lips.

Kate: ...Are ay hands your weagness...?

Alfons: No... I wouldn’t say so...

A: ...But when I think about how you are the one doing this... it tickles.

(...!)

I felt happy from Alfons’ reaction, the root of my mind sweetly melting into a puddle.

I pretended to forget about my shyness, gently setting it aside——

And, just like Alfons would have done, my tongue licked from the base of his fingers to their tips.

Kate: nn... ha... is that all...?

Alfons: ——No.

A: It also feels really good.

(...That makes me so happy.)

Kate: I found your weakness... the one to make that makes you feel good.

The happiness melted my mind into a puddle, and once again I put his fingers in my mouth.

——And that was when our roles reversed.

Kate: ngh... ahh!?

Alfons: ...When I play around with your tongue like this, it seems like I’m mixing inside of you, and it does turn me on.

Kate: ngh, uhh... ngh——!

Alfons: Aha, by any chance, do you enjoy it when I rub a little above in this place too?

While playing inside my mouth in the way he wanted, making a mess out of me, Alfons narrowed his eyes, as though spellbound.

Alfons: Say, Kate... How about I tell you about the weaknesses that make me feel good?

Kate: ngh, uhh...?

Alfons: I do so enjoy it when you cling to me in the morning, and the feeling of your soft hair.

A: And it’s best if you want to be spoiled.

A: Oh, and the pain when you scratch at my skin because you can hardly take the pleasure. I can feel it to my soul.

A: And also how you tend to kiss with your tongue when you’re about to come.

A: Your lips say no more, but you push your hips, begging for more too. It very much turns me on.

Kate: ngh... ha... wha... nn...

Alfons: ...And when I say all these shameful things to tease you...

A: You sulk and look away with your pouting lips, no? I happen to be quite weak to such a look.

A: Ahh, it seems my fingers are in the way now, so you can’t hide your face, isn’t that right?

Kate: ngh... ha...

With a sound, he pulled his fingers from my mouth.

Alfons: See, do you understand now?

Kate: haa... haa...?

The pleasure from him playing inside my mouth, along with the flood of words that were filled with affection and desire poured into me all at once, making me dizzy.

Alfons: I’m quite weak to you, perhaps.

Alfons then licked his fingers, which were wet in my saliva, as he smiled.

Kate: ...That’s unfair of you.

Alfons: Ahha! How so?

Kate: Saying things like that... make me so happy, I might end up forgiving you for everything.

Alfons: And what’s wrong with that? I implore you to forgive me for everything then.

He pushed on my shoulders, and I fell down on the bed.

Unable to muster any strength, I spread my legs out clumsily, letting them hang,

and Alfons licked my wet spot from the bottom up.

Kate: Ahh...!

Alfons: Goodness, was sucking on this spot enough?

Kate: I... I mean...

Alfons: I’ll keep licking then. For you see, I know veeery well what your weaknesses are to make you feel good, yes?

—— Time skip: dining room ——

Kate: ...hehe.

Roger: In a good mood, aren’t you, lil lady?

Kate: Because I found out Alfons’ weakness.

Roger: Kicking off with the dirty jokes during breakfast, I see you’re full of energy.

Kate: T-that’s not it...!

K: ...But he said that I was his weakness.

I was so happy, and when I remembered his words, my chest felt hot.

(Perhaps, more than I thought,)

(he might like me so much that he wouldn’t look at others... or something like that.)

(Or is that a tad too careless of me to think?)

Alfons: Goodness, Kate, revealing my weaknesses so soon to that man over there now?

Kate: Eek!?

All of a sudden, I heard a breathy voice in my ear, and I jumped up and turned around,

seeing Alfons there, leaning back in his chair with furrowed brows, as though blaming me.

Alfons: And here I thought that was meant to be a secret between the two of us... how your cruelty hurts my poor heart.

Kate: Eh—!? I-I’m so sorry...!

Alfons: No way, apology not accepted.

Resting his chin on his palm and his elbow on the back of the chair, Alfons flashed a grin my way.

Alfons: Said heart is positively filled to the brim with jealousy. Do remedy this, why don’t you.

(Ahh, jeez... I’ve been wheedled again.)

Yesterday night, I was made to do many embarrassing things,

and today, as though he hardly had enough, he had me dancing on the palm of his hand.

Kate: Okay, I understand. ...I’m sorry for speaking so openly about it like that. I love you very much, Alfons.

Alfons: No, no, that won’t do. Won’t you put some more passion?

Kate: Hey, don’t get too over the top...

But, even so, I couldn’t help but forgive him for that——

So, perhaps in the end, it was I who had a weakness for Alfons.

Was it delicious?

Tonight’s dinner was full of foods that tasted good even while cooled, no?

All that said, we ended up feeling really good, and the tablecloth ended up getting messy, either from you or me.

Oh yes, and the dazed look you had as you stuffed your cheeks with the fig sauce and the juicy steak was very darling.

In fact, so much so, there was a time during the meal I wanted to deeply connect with you and make you moan. Ahh, or was it two times? ...Or three?

It was so fun, I forgot. Do you happen to remember, Kate?

...Just now, you got excited from remembering, didn’t you? What a naughty one you are.

They say that human memories become stronger the more they are remembered.

So that’s why, always remember it, over and over, recall them, and carve them into your mind.

My shape, my heat, the way I move, my voice, everything.

Tomorrow, and the day after that, always and forever... I will do so many things that make you feel good, you will end up remembering even if you loathe to.

Ahh, I don’t think I will do any more naughty things tonight, so worry not.

Good night, and may you have sweet dreams. And tomorrow as well, may we enjoy this most amusing tragedy to the fullest.

← prev fin. both ends clear

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