#also translating some personal stuff

[wehavekookies]

New body (and skeleton) references for Victoro.

There is stuff happening in our She Is The Ancient campaign with his hexblood transformation that i am exploring some visual ideas for - currently roots growing under his skin and over his skeleton (more on that some time later :))

edit: added the roots spread over the skeleton.

[hanzajesthanza]

it kind of bothers me that witcher fans don’t really unite under sapkowski’s name like other fans of fantasy authors do (e.g. “tolkien fans”).

in practically any other fandom of fantasy books, save for the particularly rancid authors known for their disappointing and shameful behavior or views (e.g. jk r*wling), it’s just regular business to say the author’s name. but sapkowski’s name is treated like a dirty word in the witcher fandom, for really no good reason…

it must be asked — what is stopping us from doing so?! why don’t we call ourselves sapkowski fans. it would be much easier than saying “i’m a fan of the witcher, but only the books, i don’t consider the various adaptations canon, etc. etc.” … “half a hundred words, when three are enough!!”

[miniongrin]

Statute of Limitations (Immortals AU)

Wrote 800 words for an AU that’s been rotating in my brain for over a year that I still haven’t written, but I’m posting this anyway because I do what I want.

AU context, sparknotes edition: Ingo couldn’t get sent back directly to the future for timey-wimey reasons and spent 140 years immortal, chilling in the Coronet Highlands. Accidentally befriended/tamed/domesticated the feral cat of a man we know as Volo (also immortal) while he was waiting to catch up to the future and his twin. Now the Nimbasa trio has been reunited for over a year and Volo is the twins’ weird roommate and Elesa’s bitchiest bestie.

~

“Hang on,” Elesa says one night, as they’re sitting around the twins’ living room eating Sinnoh takeout, two and a half hours and two-thirds of the way into an hour-long documentary on Hisui. They keep pausing to give Ingo and Volo the chance to expound on whatever topic the documentary didn’t have the time or information to elaborate on themselves; Ingo’s infodumping is familiar and comforting, while Volo’s is a bit of a surprise but hilariously bitchy. Even when the documentary gets things right. “Volo—you consulted on this? Historically?”

“That makes it sound like I did so fifty years ago,” Volo sniffs. “I was a historical consultant on the topic. Mostly by mail; by the time they were making this, Cynthia was a little too popular for me to go wandering around Sinnoh without a good excuse for looking like her fraternal twin.”

So, yes, but in fifty words instead of one. Cool. “You like… you got paid money for this? Is this your job?”

Volo makes an dismissive sound. “Yes, I got paid for it, but it’s not exactly reliable work, nor does it pay greatly. As a historian, the best money is in research grants, but those are a little hard to get a hold of without extensive history at a university, and my need to shuffle identities every decade or so did clash with the need to accumulate that sort of history.”

“…So, yes but no?”

Volo rolls his eyes at her. “Yes, but no.”

Elesa mulls over that. She doesn’t unpause the documentary just yet, because there’s a niggling question in her brain now—

“Do you have a job?” Emmet asks before she can. “You’re here a lot.”

Volo huffs, deciding to take offense in that catty way of his, so Elesa jumps in before letting him answer: “Dude, you’re clearly loaded, I have never once heard you say a thing about hopping back and forth between here and Sinnoh and plane tickets aren’t cheap. Frankly, neither is this apartment, and I’d be surprised if you’re just letting the twins pay for it all.”

Volo regards her shrewdly for a moment, then hums as his eyes slide away. “Don’t worry about it.”

That is the least satisfying answer on the planet. She and Emmet immediately turn to Ingo for answers.

“I do not worry about it,” Ingo says immediately.

Elesa and Emmet’s eyes meet. Weird, suspicious emphasis with no real answer. Hmmm.

“I am Emmet. Are we harboring a fucking criminal?” Emmet demands.

Volo sputters. “I beg your pardon? That’s your first assumption?”

“That’s not an answer,” Elesa points out, entertained. “He’s only going to get more suspicious the more you avoid giving one.”

“And you, of course, are virtuously on my side,” Volo mutters bitchily. “The disrespect! And here I thought we had something. A camaraderie, if you will—”

“It’s not like you’re a poacher, Ingo would worry about it a whole lot if that were the case,” Elesa interrupts him. “I can’t really imagine you beating someone up—”

“I can,” Emmet says.

“—without going full-on crazy eyes,” Elesa corrects herself. “So this hypothetical crime you may have committed and have definitely not denied committing is probably, y’know. Petty. Which fits, because you are a petty, petty bitch!”

“I,” Volo says with dignity, “am the classiest bitch any of you will ever meet.”

“I am the classiest bitch in this room, but nice try.”

“You’re all cutting-edge fashion and avant-garde, that’s not the same thing as class.”

Elesa gasps loudly in overblown offense. “You take that back!”

“Ladies, you are both pretty,” Emmet intones. “Ingo. Has Volo committed crimes? Yes or no.”

Ingo pinches the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t have a valid birth certificate and yet has had a functional passport for decades despite being stuck at twenty-seven. Of course he’s committed crimes, we knew that already.”

“I am Emmet. I meant for money.”

Ingo shrugs and reaches for a new can of soda. “Well, that’s none of my business.”

“Ingo.”

“Look,” Volo sighs, “can any of you truthfully tell me that you’ve never talked to a particularly out-of-touch gentleman whose lone battling Pokémon is holding a useless nugget of gold worth more than everything you have on your person and thought, you know, I bet I have an island somewhere that I could sell this moron?”

There’s a beat of silence. Emmet snorts. Ingo puts a hand over his face that doesn’t hide the amused curl to the corner of his mouth.

Elesa cackles. “Oh dragons, you scam rich people for a living? I need to hear about this right now immediately. Story time! Funniest scam you’ve done, let’s go.”

“Accusing me of being a scam artist now?” Volo snips facetiously, but he’s smirking. “I will confess to nothing. …At least, not until I have the chance to check the statute of limitations for a few things.”

[disdaidal]

I don't want to brag or sound too optimistic about it, but after three weeks of training at a private college, I think my lessons with this one particular immigrant student (who has serious motivational problems lemme tell ya) are finally starting to get through and there's been improvement.

Only slight improvement so far but I have spotted some, so maybe not all hope is lost yet.

Remains to be seen I guess.

[baekuras]

Tomorrow I need to do an eye checkup in english (instead of german aka the norm) and I just checked if there are any better ways to explains things or tell people what to do etc instead of my basically direct translations and turns out

nope

it sounds exactly as stupid as i already worded it, no special words or better formed sentences around 10/10 school english is good enough (nice)

[castielmacleod]

Let him heal from his own issues or else <3

[235uranium]

hc that the reason ford is so terrible with earth computers despite almost certainly having encountered more recent technology + technology based on current era technology while in the multiverse is that he's gotten way too familiar with alien computers and keeps trying to make normal computers work that way

[apollo-cackling]

sometimes I wonder if my taste in media is - I remember once having read this memoir from an old chinese lady recounting stories from her life (she's ~80ish iirc), and in one of them, it was about how her sister developed... was it a cyst? abscess? on her stomach and got incredibly sick, and when it finally burst, one of their (adult) brothers... did. something to it to make sure it stays open, fearing that if not, it'd heal over before all the pus was purged

something like that, I guess. agitating a wound to make sure it doesn't heal over and cover up something worse, pressing at what hurts to make sure it's still here, I'm still here

[perilegs]

ok but has a man ever told you you have a dainty rook piercing area? i don't think so 😌

[metabolizemotions]

This season has been steeped in irony and parallels. The mental health arcs of Maya and Jack, addiction, the captaincy drama, Dixon's villainy // those in s3 esp. They made things more extreme and took them further.  

I understand the choice to isolate Maya and the team’s lack of support or compassion for her since her demotion, and the non existence of the union were plot devices for her mental health crisis storyline. But they supported Ross wholeheartedly, no questions asked? And what was the actual point of the union again?

Ross is a flawed and complex character, just like Maya. But the framing of their actions were different. They both made questionable decisions but there was only acknowledgement of what Maya did. Not Ross. Not Beckett. Their part in Maya's mental breakdown?

For the long build up since s4’s finale of Maya's demotion and the aftermath in s5 & s6, this feels like a cop out non-resolution. And this whole storyline ending with Ross's scandal framed entirely as feminist triumph is self-contradictory for me.

I liked the slow burn of Marina’s storyline - the breakdown and reconciliation and the many //. Though I didn’t necessarily agree with the characterisation entirely, the performance of D & S were emotionally resonant for me. But I thought they dropped the ball in 617. Carina's scenes were more for the benefit of Ben and Ross. It didn’t help with the way they phrased the locker room conversation as a direct causation. It was a clever use of symbolism to encapsulate so much in ~ 1 min of screen time. But I hope they don't spoil the finale in wanting to tie up the loose ends. (Also, does that mean they won't ever change their duvets now that they are probably not moving?)

There seemed to be deliberate comparison b/w Maya and Theo - their demotion, initial captaincy, single-minded obsession and mental health issues. Also some similarities about how their partners have been affected. Although Theo's behavior was more flipped-switch than organic transition and it was mainly directed at Vic. With what happened to Beckett and the toll it would take on Vic, would she have her breakdown and Theo his wakeup call? Vic needs a hug.

Did anyone else find the kisses b/w Travis and Eli awkward? Or was it cos I think Travis had much better chemistry with Michael and Emmett?

It is interesting to see Brooke, a sort of nature/ nurture comparison to Jack. Similar DNA, dissimilar upbringing. Brooke seems more emotionally mature. Jack lacks boundaries and his way of caring is to impose his values on people and help them on his terms. While Brooke’s trying to meet him where he is - like finding Lila instead of springing their bio family on him. 

Since they made such a big hoo-ha about the forbidden love affair b/w Sullivan and Ross and Dixon’s villany this season, and both storylines are not resolved, I suspect the finale would have something to do with Dixon and the two lovers. But why should we care about Sulky & Tash again? They aren't even on the same page. Sulky has been consistently w/o much growth. Ross has been consistently inconsistent. Sulky is so much like Derek and Owen. Tash keeps pulling a Meredith with her "pick me, choose me, love me" speeches...

They love to hand Sulky the redemption arc he doesn't work for and somehow frame him as the hero... Maybe he pushes Tash away from falling debris and something happens to Dick in the process. Poetic justice. Or something something…?   

Somehow I feel that Andy still wouldn't be captain. Stay tuned for another season of captaincy musical chairs...?

[creamecream]

“I-I got a little paycheck,

You got big plans, and you gotta move,

And I don’t feel nothing at all,

And you can’t feel nothing small,

Honey, I love you, that’s all she wrote,

O-Ophelia,

You’ve been on my mind, girl, like a drug,

O-Ophelia,

Heaven help the fool who falls in love,

O-Ophelia,

You’ve been on my mind, girl, since the flood,

O-Ophelia,

Heaven help the fool who falls in love,”

[katyspersonal]

Do you speak Japanese? Or where do you source your translations? I don’t know the language but I like digging into translation differences!

Oh! I do not speak Japanese, however I am planning to learn the language + I've got grasp on oddly specific symbols and words because of digging in Bloodborne's Japanese script for SO. MANY. TIMES! The biggest help for me with some words and how they are composed was working with the document by Last Protagonist ( x ), and I also developed a habit of paying very close attention at katakana in names of people and/or places because of characters' names retranslation by @saintmicolash ( x ). (saintmicolash knows Japanese though, on the level of effortlessly translating messy text from fanart from Japanese users and all that and he super-helped me with solving localization team's riddles a few times, so if you are unsure of something about the script you can send him an ask.)

Basically, the simplest way I can explain it is that I've had to rummage within the original script so much that I could loosely "work" with Japanese excerpts even as is. I am familiar with people who DO know Japanese though so I double-check by asking them. I am very pleased that Soulsborne fandom learned and this time Japanese script of Elden Ring got into use INSTANTLY (and of course turned out there were characterization errors in English script that caused plague of inaccurate headcanons..... biiiig shock...).

[navree]

want to kiss whoever does e-pistulae on the mouth just for finally allowing me to have concrete dates about important moments in the life of monumentally influential historical figures (yes i know the date of when octavian decided to adhere to the will isn't that important but it's important to me i hate vagueries)