#and i was like. well clearly something is fundamentally wrong with me

[soggypotatoes]

watched the bluey episode dragon today and it changed meeee I spent hours drawing tonight bc I felt so encouraged by it!!

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[handweavers]

something that comes up for me over and over is a deep frustration with academics who write about and study craft but have little hands-on experience with working with that craft, because it leads to them making mistakes in their analysis and even labelling of objects and techniques incorrectly. i see this from something as simple as textiles on display in museums being labelled with techniques that are very obviously wrong (claiming something is knit when it's clearly crochet, woven when that technique could only be done as embroidery applied to cloth off-loom) to articles and books written about the history of various aspects of textiles making considerable errors when trying to describe basic aspects of textile craft-knowledge (ex. a book i read recently that tried to say that dyeing cotton is far easier than dyeing wool because cotton takes colour more easily than wool, and used that as part of an argument as to why cotton became so prominent in the industrial revolution, which is so blatantly incorrect to any dyer that it seriously harms the argument being made even if the overall point is ultimately correct)

the thing is that craft is a language, an embodied knowledge that crosses the boundaries of spoken communication into a physical understanding. craft has theory, but it is not theoretical: there is a necessary physicality to our work, to our knowledge, that cannot be substituted. two artisans who share a craft share a language, even if that language is not verbal. when you understand how a material functions and behaves without deliberate thought, when the material knowledge becomes instinct, when your hands know these things just as well if not better than your conscious mind does, new avenues of communication are opened. an embodied knowledge of a craft is its own language that is able to be communicated across time, and one easily misunderstood by those without that fluency. an academic whose knowledge is entirely theoretical may look at a piece of metalwork from the 3rd century and struggle to understand the function or intent of it, but if you were to show the same piece to a living blacksmith they would likely be able to tell you with startling accuracy what their ancient colleague was trying to do.

a more elaborate example: when i was in residence at a dye studio on bali, the dyer who mentored me showed me a bowl of shimmering grey mud, and explained in bahasa that they harvest the mud several feet under the roots of certain species of mangroves. once the mud is cleaned and strained, it's mixed with bran water and left to ferment for weeks to months.  he noted that the mud cannot be used until the fermentation process has left a glittering sheen to its surface. when layered over a fermented dye containing the flowers from a tree, the cloth turns grey, and repeated dippings in the flower-liquid and mud vats deepen this colour until it's a warm black. 

he didn't explain why this works, and he did not have to. his methods are different from mine, but the same chemical processes are occurring. tannins always turn grey when they interact with iron and they don't react to other additives the same way, so tannins (polyphenols) and iron must be fundamental parts of this process. many types of earthen clay contain a type of bacteria that creates biogenic iron as a byproduct, and mixing bran water with this mud would give the bacteria sugars to feast upon, multiplying, and producing more of this biogenic iron. when the iron content is high enough that the mud shimmers, applying this fermented mixture to cloth soaked in tannins would cause the iron to react with the tannin and finally, miraculously: a deep, living grey-black cloth.

in my dye studio i have dissolved iron sulphide ii in boiling water and submerged cloth soaked in tannin extract in this iron water, and watched it emerge, chemically altered, now deep and living grey-black just like the cloth my mentor on bali dyed. when i watched him dip cloth in this brown bath of fermented flower-water, and then into the shimmering mud and witness the cloth emerge this same shade of grey, i understand exactly what he was doing and why. embodied craft knowledge is its own language, and if you're going to dedicate your life to writing about a craft it would be of great benefit to actually "speak" that language, or you're likely to make serious errors.

the arrogance is not that different from a historian or anthropologist who tries to study a culture or people without understanding their written or spoken tongue, and then makes mistakes in their analysis because they are fundamentally disconnected from the way the people they are talking about communicate. the voyeuristic academic desire to observe and analyse the world at a distance, without participating in it. how often academics will write about social movements, political theory and philosophy and never actually get involved in any of these movements while they're happening. my issue with the way they interact with craft is less serious than the others i mentioned, but one that constantly bothers me when coming into contact with the divide between "those who make a living writing about a subject" and "those who make a living doing that subject"

[lgbtlunaverse]

This page from the adventurer's bible makes me want to cry

Like basically any neurodivergent dungeon meshi fan, I see a lot of myself in the Touden siblings. But I was blindsided by just how much I suddenly related to Falin in this little comic from the adventure bible's complete version.

It's about the Touden siblings' differing relationships with their parents, and why Laios still holds their treatment of Falin against them, while Falin herself doesn't.

We know that Falin was isolated and ostraziced by their village after she saved Laios from a ghost, displaying her uncanny affinity for magic. Her parents, instead of defending her, sent her away, which angered Laios so much he ran way himself before Falin even left for magic school, hoping to make a living so he and Falin could live together alone.

He tells Marcile this, but when she goes to Falin, she says she sees things differently. Her father sent her to magic school to protect her form the rest of the village without having to cause a conflict. He didn't explain that, and we actually see her burst into tears when he says it.

But, well... Laios was gone for a year before Falin went to magic school, and everyone else in the village avoided her. The understanding Falin has with her parents to me looks like one borne out of necessity, she literally didn't have anyone else to talk to.

And this is where we get to the page that made me want to cry

Like I said, I relate to the Toudens because I'm neurodivergent myself. that feeling of suddenly realizing you're disliked, but not knowing what you did wrong or what you should have done instead? Yeah... that's one I recognize.

When I was around 9 years old, the same age Falin is in this comic, a bunch of kids in my class decided to make a "game" where you lost if you touched me. It was basically the 'cheese-touch' from diary of a wimpy kid, except I always had it and couldn't pass it along. They'd pretend I was poisonous or disgusting and run away from me screaming or gagging. The point was to make fun of me. But my autistic little 9 year old ass thought "Oh I get it! It's tag but I'm always it!" So I... played along. Running at a boy and having him fall on the ground screaming in fake pain because you tapped him is, in isolation, pretty funny.

It wasn't until months into the "game" that I realized it was meant to be meanspirited. That the reason I was the one who was always 'it' wasn't an arbritrary rule but the whole point. Because I was weird and gross. I wasn't in on the joke, I was the punchline.

Falin may have come to understand her parents' intentions, but she didn't always. The adventure bible actually tells us that she at first didn't even notice that the rest of their village disliked her. She clearly knows now, but she had to be told. So when her mom tried to exorcise her, she just saw it as an activity she got to do with a mother she usually didn't get to spend much time with because of her poor health. It's only Laios who notices something is wrong.

(Sidenote, Laios being hyper-aware of people's poor attitudes towards Falin but completely blindsided when he's in the same spot, like with Toshiro, is also very relatable as an eldest sibling)

It probably also took Falin months, until after her brother had left and she had no one but her parents, to realize why her mother had been doing all those things.

And I know they're not the same. Even misguidedly, Falin's mom was trying to help her, not make fun of her like those boys in my class. (Though, as a queer person who also cares a lot about the queercoding in Falin's storyline, a parent trying to 'exorcise' their child of a fundamental part of them the parent thinks is evil or corruptive? yeah... that's not perfectly wholesome)

But do you know what I did, when I finally figured out the game was always meant to make fun of me?

To me, it looked like I had a choice.

See, those boys eventually figured out I didn't understand that they were being mean to me. I'd laugh every time I managed to catch one of them, I was visibly having fun. And while it no doubt only made me more of a weirdo in their eyes, they never informed me that I shouldn't be enjoying myself. That the point was for me to feel hurt.

So now that I did know, I had a choice. I could either get upset, and let the insult land as it was supposed to. That wouldn't stop them, because making fun of me was the original goal. Or I could ignore it and go on as usual. They had already accepted that I didn't get it, and they weren't gona stop me from having fun, so why should I?

And the thing is that I had... one friend, in that whole class. One person who actually liked talking to me and hanging out with me. I was lonely. And the 'game' provided me with another social interaction, mean-spirited as it was, that I desperately needed. And it was so delightfully simple. Navigating actual friendships as a kid with autism and adhd was so fucking complicated, and I'd never know when I might break an inivisble rule. But I knew the rules to the game perfectly!

Sometimes, if I was chasing one of them, the others would trap him and hold him down so I could tap him. In those moments it actually did kind of feel like I was playing with them, rather than against them. And it didn't change much, they didnt start actually liking me. But they were willing to roll with the fact that I wasn't upset, and I took advantage of that because I needed to.

So you can look at Falin seeing the best in her parents as her being naïve, but I look at this page and I see myself, at first unable to differentiate between playing and being made fun of. And then later, when I did see the difference, deciding not to get mad about it because that'd mean losing that social interaction, and I couldn't afford to.

Like I said, Falin probably first realized this in the year she spent with her brother gone, and everyone else avoiding her like the plague. If she refused to talk to her parents, like Laios did, she'd have no one left.

I see a lot of people relating to the fight between Laios and Toshiro. that frustration when you realize someone you thougth was your friend actually hates you, and they never said anything, never gave you a chance to fix it because you had no idea that you were even doing something wrong! And I can see that, too. But sometimes, when people don't fully hate you, it feels better to go along with the pretending. Because adressing it won't fix it. Because the problem isn't a specific behaviour, it's you. And if they're willing to tolerate you, despite the fact that it's you, then you'll take it. Because other people do hate you, so this is the best you'll get.

[janmisali]

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult

[katakaluptastrophy]

One thing that has me gnawing on the metaphorical drywall is that Abigail Pent apparently never learned just how awful Jod is.

There she is, in the River, murdered by one of god's fingers and gestures, having been invited to the First so that she could kill her husband and eat his soul and...she's triggering Harrow by exclaiming that "The King Over the River is good!" when she learns some people survived.

Having worked out that there is something fundamentally, practically, metaphysically wrong with the River she...just assumes poor old god doesn't know and could do with some Cliff Notes.

And then there's the battle with the Sleeper. She's hiding from a mad, gun-wielding ghost, her husband shot in the stomach on the other side of the room, and her carefully planned exorcism in pieces, and Ortus begins to recite the Noniad. And realising the impossible thing he wants her to do, Abigail - who pages earlier expressed her doubts about god's omnipotence, prays: “Oh, God... God, please help me” (which makes her the only character who isn't a literal priest or member of a religious order who we see praying).

When she describes her childhood bedroom to Harrow, everything she mentions sounds like something of significance to her: her grandfather's bones, her desk, the bed where her brother sometimes slept, and "a pretty chroma of the Prince Undying, but a little cockeyed." (think mass produced 1950s Sacred Heart picture and you're probably not far off...)

Despite having formative memories of having weird devotional art in her bedroom, Abigail is miles away from that other enjoyed of Jod pictures in their living space, Silas Octakiseron. She's open about her heterodox views, and clearly has the knowledge to back them up (including, it should be noted, at least one degree taken on the Eighth). And she clearly has form with going off on a heterodox tangent, as Magnus seems to have a well-rehearsed pattern for bringing her back to an acceptable line. And while she's happy to acknowledge that her views aren't orthodox, she's not being pointlessly controversial: she doesn't mind being a heretic, but she's rather upset by the idea that Marta might think her a mad one.

Marta, meanwhile, is one of several characters who show us that Abigail's intensity isn't just the result of living in a theocracy: “No. The Second House doesn’t overthink the River...If we did we’d just have to fill in forms.” Meanwhile, Ianthe is clearly thinking about dogma with an eye less to worship than replication.

And maybe it's because I know a lot of people who are devout but heterodox, and in relationships only tenuously accepted in their tradition (or only in their specific bit of the tradition)...but I just have a lot of feelings about Abigail here. Someone who's willing to be frank and informed about the complexities inherent in her belief system, but who seems to be committed to her faith. She seems so willing to think the best of Jod, to pray to him even when she's intellectually aware it may not be quite that straightforward and...he doesn't give a shit. He isn't god. He's a stupid little man who looks down on the humanities and I wish Abigail Pent got the chance to say something devastating to him.

[snakeautistic]

One of the reasons I believed I couldn’t be autistic for so long was due to a fundamental misunderstanding of my social struggles. This being that I am not by any means incapable of memorizing social rules. Through observation and direction I can construct a broad framework of ‘socially acceptable or not.’ For example, I’m well aware that making physical contact with someone without consent isn’t acceptable. Or that stating blunt facts in a way that implicates someone negatively isn’t allowed. I know to avoid interrupting others if they’re already talking, to not walk away when I’m in the middle of a conversation. Crying, being unusually quiet and frowning indicates sadness. Someone smiling at laughing at what you’re saying means they probably are enjoying their time with you. An increase in speaking volume indicates excitement- either positive or negative. Sarcasm is often indicated by someone saying something absurd that you know they would never say, or you know to be factually wrong.

The fact that I had learned these broad rules made me think autism wasn’t a possibility for me. But being autistic doesn’t stop you from obtaining and applying information. (I mean that’s why so many interventions that ‘treat’ autism do result in the autistic person being able to pass as neurotypical.)

The difference comes from lacking the subconscious nuances and exceptions that come with those broader rules. For example- when is it okay to actually be honest? Some people will not be bothered by physical intimacy- but how would I know this? How can you tell if a group wants you to join in with their conversation? How to tell if this person is smiling and laughing politely or genuinely? How to tell if someone who you know very little about is being sarcastic?

There are not direct, easy to apply ‘rules’ for this, and yet clearly there are ‘right’ options. When the appropriate reaction must be determined by subtle body language or small shifts in tone of voice, ones that are near impossible to teach- I become completely lost.

That’s something I always find lacking with the general social skills advice given. It’s helpful to a point, but the truth is everyone is an individual. People express themselves differently, and react to your same actions differently due to past circumstances or temperaments. There is no one set of rules you can use for everyone, unfortunately. The majority of neurotypicals, while of course having miscommunications and the like, can rely on their subconscious to parse out any subtle changes they might need to make to their demeanor for a particular situation. My brain is much less adept at focusing down broader experience/rules into unique circumstances. (This is actually something that extends past social cues for me and I might make another post talking about it because I think it’s interesting)

Anyway rant over but yeah this was a huge mental barrier to seeking out a diagnosis for a while because at some level I ( ironically enough) took struggling to understand social cues too literally…

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[tritoch]

one thing i like to do when i'm feeling too unbothered and chill and normal is read venat discourse on twitter. makes me insane every single time it comes up. "she placed herself as a god above the ancients and judged that they had no right to live" "she was taking the only path available to her to stop meteion and defeat the final days because it needed to be a race that could handle dynamis" wrong wrong wrong! learn to read!

venat was stopping a planned mass sacrifice of non-ancient life by the only means available to her. that is the primary motivation for the sundering. shadowbringers says this to you, very very clearly. hythlodaeus in "a greater purpose," 5.0 (this is when you're chilling at the DMV together):

The Convocation of Fourteen─well, it was Thirteen at the time─endeavored to create a will for our star. They would repair the fundamental laws of order and halt the spread of destruction. But creation on such a scale required an immense source of power... Of those of us who still lived, nearly half offered up their lives in the name of salvation. And from their sacrifice, Zodiark was born. Just as we had hoped, He reached forth and halted the march of oblivion. ...Yet oh how the star had suffered. So many species lost. The land was blighted, the waters poisoned, and even the wind had ceased to blow. Once more did our people give of themselves to Zodiark. Another half of our race sacrificed to cleanse the world; to ensure that trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives would sprout and grow and flourish. The cycle of life had begun anew, and we reconsidered the means by which we might protect it. The Convocation decided thus: we would nurture our world until it was bursting with vitality. Then, when the time was right, we would offer some portion of its living energy to Zodiark... In return, He would restore to us those brethren whose souls had fed His strength, and together we would resume our role as stewards. There were, however, those who disagreed with this plan. They argued that enough had been sacrificed to Zodiark─that this new world should belong to the lives newly born. These dissidents surrendered their life energies in the creation of Hydaelyn, an incarnation of their opposing belief. And for the first time in history, our people stood divided... Know you, then, how this conflict ended?

Hythlodaeus is very clear: Following the first 50% sacrifice to Zodiark, the land was dying and there had been a mass die-off. A second 50% sacrifice (so 25% of the pre-Zodiark Ancient population) resolved that, cleansing the world and restoring nature and non-Ancient life. Afterwards, the Convocation planned a third sacrifice: they would "nurture [the] world until it was bursting with vitality," the "trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives" he describes earlier, and then sacrifice some considerable amount of that life to restore the Ancients comprising Zodiark.

People pretend that there's a lot more ambiguity on this point than there is, but it's quite clear that when he says "myriad tiny lives," he is saying something that encompasses the modern peoples of Eorzea or their very near ancestors (it's only been about 12,000 years since the Sundering. For comparison early modern humans emerged about 300,000 years ago, and there's no suggestion I'm aware of that evolution even exists on Etheirys anyhow). There's a couple very strong pieces of evidence for this:

First, anything that exists on multiple shards must have existed pre-Sundering, since there's close to no multidimensional travel (barring Ascians and the Exarch). Thus, all the player races, which we know exist on each shard so far, as well as, say, the Amalj'aa, the Kobolds, the Sahagin, and the Qiqirn, all must have existed before the Sundering since we also see them on the First.

Second, the phrasing of "trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives" positions "lives" as a category that encompasses everything that isn't trees and grasses. We can surmise that when he describes the Hydaelyn faction standing for "lives newly born" he's again describing basically everything that isn't plants. this again includes the spoken races of the current game or their ancestors; they are a clear part of what was at stake in the sacrifice.

Third, if that doesn't persuade you that Hythlodaeus is talking about lives like yours, consider that you've just spent the last few quests exploring the city full of giant ancient magic people going "wow! you're so small and childlike! what a miniscule living being you are!" When Hythlodaeus gives this speech about "myriad tiny lives," he is a literal enormous giant sitting next to you, a very tiny living being from his perspective.

This sacrifice, which Hythlodaeus explains to you in the DMV, is the crux of the matter and the root of Venat's choice. The time loop, her knowledge of Meteion, the debate over the right solution to the final days—all of that is secondary. She explicitly is unsure up until you meet her in the Aitiascope whether the time loop is stable and real and applies to you.

The essential issue is the fact that the Ancients are supposed to be stewards of the star, and now they are going to engage in mass sacrifice of lives that Venat knows are people like her and her peers (mostly this is thanks to being a humanist who believes in the sanctity and dignity of life but she also has the confirmation of your post-sundering, totally humanlike existence). Just a quarter of the Ancients' original number remain, their society is in tatters, and what's left is in the process of actively betraying every ideal they ever claimed to hold by slaughtering the life they allegedly guide and care for (which they know to be ensouled!) to undo the great and noble sacrifice of their loved ones.

but venat's faction is weak. it's her and like 13 sorta-important people she knows plus maybe some unnamed others. they lack the numbers or the raw ability to make something that can defeat zodiark, and will need instead to lean on venat's abilities.

her morals do not allow her to stand by as the convocation plans a mass sacrifice of "lesser" life. her circumstances do not give her the time or ability to win them over through rhetoric or decisively defeat them with force. nor can she actually destroy zodiark, because then the final days would simply resume. nor, I assume, is she interested in straight up slaughtering what remains of the ancients until the convocation's plan becomes impractical, assuming she is even strong enough to do so with just the twelve and the watcher's ancient selves for backup. there is no longer an option on the table which does not involve great pain. left to choose between unacceptable options, she chooses the one route which seems able to protect the vitality of the world and uphold the ancients' mission of shepherding all life upon the star towards flourishing: the sundering.

[utilitycaster]

@thmtrnfrvns replied to your post “ok so I was wrong about The Emissary and the...”:

didn't matt say that if you popped the bubbles those people turned to dust? Like the bubbles are the only thing preserving them? I might be totally wrong but I keep seeing this question being asked so I'm confused

​He hasn't, and I actually want to cover this. The lore has thus far been noncommittal, both from an out of world perspective (ie, the EGTW, for which this serves as a potential plot hook should people wish to explore it) and in-world (ie, in the canon of Exandria from the main campaigns and other canonical works such as The Nine Eyes of Lucien). We don't know if it's possible; we also very much don't know that it's impossible.

Which is what I want to talk about, because it's weird to me that this idea spread so much within the fandom - that the bubbles are an outright lost cause. I mentioned it before, but the argument the gods should be destroyed (even from behind the Divine Gate) in some sort of retribution for Aeor barely holds up as is; it certainly won't bring back Aeor, and the Divine Gate serves to hold back the gods already so destroying it only in order to kill them is purely an act of vengeance. But it really falls apart if there could be survivors of Aeor.

It's very easy to hold yourself up as the champion for people who cannot speak. They can't contradict you; you can say their motivations and desires are whatever you want. This is something explored in modern political thought, both in the many critiques of the anti-abortion movement (fetuses are fundamentally agency-less things) and in, for example, Dara Horn's People Love Dead Jews. Obviously this is true for any fictional character - none of them can respond to their advocates directly - but especially one who can't even in canon speak on their own behalf. If you say that Ashton would be on Ludinus's side, Ashton might, within the narrative, prove you wrong; but if you say the Aeorians would be, well, who knows. They're dead. Unless they're not. Bringing back anyone from the stasis bubbles fucks over that argument twice: now there are survivors, and those survivors can speak. (Worth noting that the two Aeormatons we've seen in C3 directly have not been in Ludinus's favor, and that his generals at least had no vested interest in sparing the Aeormaton they knew about; this isn't about the people of Aeor or what was lost, it's about pointing at corpses and saying they'd have your back if only they weren't dead.)

This a pattern for the people making arguments in Ludinus's favor. They invoke the titans (dead long before the narrative, and the person who killed the last two of them was Laerryn Coramar-Seelie, whom they don't seem to condemn for it, and they never really talk about what life for the titans must have been. It's not about the titans). They invoke FCG (dead, and they didn't really like them much when they were alive because of, you know, the whole faith in a deity thing, but now that he's dead they can pretend he's a mouthpiece for them. It's not about FCG, or Aeormatons, or Aeor.) They tried invoking the characters who were vaguely critical of the gods in the past but didn't have the lore to back it up and those characters (Keyleth, Essek, Percy) have all sided very clearly with the Accord, so now they stick only to people who can't weigh in and disprove the point. They make up hypotheticals about Bor'Dor and Petrov, the former of which is, again, dead, and the latter of which is a minor NPC with but a slim chance of appearing again whether he lives or dies and both of whom are equally representative of how the Vanguard preys on disaffected young people and chews them up and destroys them while telling them it's for the best, and ignore the many, many living who have been irrevocably harmed by the Vanguard.

It might end up being true that the stasis bubbles are a dead end, and I think it's pretty likely they won't get explored in-game, but if someone says they're absolutely a dead end - especially when Ludinus is going to invoke the fall of Aeor - it's worth exploring why they're saying that. Are they just misinformed (in which case you should still examine their argument, for, you know, not knowing the source material sufficiently well to craft accurate premises from which to argue)? Or would even acknowledging the possibility that they're not a lost cause destroy their argument?

[libraford]

I know I’m a rando so apologies if this is over familiar but your work situation sounds a lot like what my friend was going through in grad school. She had been doing really well the first year, then the second year her advisor suddenly started finding all sorts of “fundamental issues” with her research project. He discouraged her from applying for grants and said her submissions were too poor to even consider. All sorts of really harsh criticisms that often contradicted each other and were hard to follow. She felt like she was going crazy. Then she learned he found a different student that he would basically be able to pay much less to do all his lab work for him, and he was clearly trying to force her out to make room for the newer cheaper student. Trust your gut, I don’t think this situation is your fault at all. Something fishy is happening with your company for sure. I’m sorry for all this trouble.

Yikes that's harsh.

Part of the reason that my crits have been so numerous and harsh is that this year I was expected to learn something new. And I understand it in concept, but I have been making mistakes that are typical of new learners. But because there was no SAFE place to make those mistakes, the pressure is on to do them correct the first time and every time.

Like with groups, right?

My first groups job I was doing really well, I thought. Up until we got to the football team, which was 45 minutes late to the location. And they lined them up by number even though we asked for tallest to shortest. And the coach said he wanted to do them by number. So I did them by number. When we got to the end of it, he saw how terrible it was to do them by number and we had to redo it by height. At this point, they're frustrated with me for not doing it right the first time. I am frustrated with them for not listening the first time and also being 45 minutes late. The tennis team was waiting for me on the other side of the school, so I did my best. I showed the photo to the coach before leaving. Boss didn't like what I made for the football team and had to go back and do it again because I fucked up. I told her all of this and she said that I should have accommodated them because they're the football team and they have to have the best, even if that means waiting 45 minutes for them to arrive and making the tennis team wait 45 minutes.

My second groups job was a middle school that was asking me to do the team photo AND in between teams do candids for the yearbook. The kids were not behaving well and did not seem interested in taking a good photo, so I did my best even though the kids were fighting. Unfortunately, I made the completely reasonable mistake of leaving my aperature on too low between tasks and they ended up a little bit out of focus- which was not apparent in the camera but WAS apparent on the computer screen. This is a mistake that other people have made. I showed each photo to the coach before letting them go.

My third groups job was a class groups job, which all I had to do was follow the guide given to me. Which I did, up until about the 4th grade classes, which had their special classes going on at that time. Because of this, the number the teacher gave me was incorrect and I had to add students to rows in ways that did not reflect the guide because the other option was to disassemble the class group and reassemble it so that it reflected the guide. Teachers were rushing me to hurry up, so I made executive decisions. This was unfortunately the wrong decision. I also posed them in a way that was consistent with what my boss wanted, but not what the district specialist wanted.

On my fourth groups job, I was told all of the mistakes I had made in the previous jobs and that I need to take consideration all of the details and guides that were there for me to use because my previous jobs required her to go back and do them again, so I had better not make the same mistakes (all of which were different mistakes each time). I am upset. So to make it easier on myself, I asked the coaches if they had a specific way they would like to have them posed. The coaches, delighted that I asked, gave me their feedback on previous years and what they would like to change. And I, delighted that they had preferences, obliged. I showed the photo to the coach before leaving. My boss said I did well! She was very pleased with my work. The district specialist was not! He said that I needed to follow the guide because the numbers were incorrect and that I needed to follow the numbers. He tapes a guide to the back of my slate to use. I ask my boss if she could help me next time.

On my fifth groups job, I am disheartened by the amount of criticism I've gotten but I am determined to get it right this time. My boss is present. I am placing the students with the order given to me by the specialist. I walk away to double check. She tells me that its wrong- that I shouldn't have 9 people in front. I tell her that I was using the guide. She shows me her guide. The guides are different from each other. I ask her which guide I'm supposed to use and she says 'whichever one is correct.' I ask her how I'm supposed to know which one is correct and she tells me the theory of how the placement is supposed to go instead of giving me an answer. I get a little shirty. She tells me that this is my 5th job like this, I should know how to do this by now. I start crying. She goes away for the rest of the day to do admin stuff and I handle the rest of the day fine.

My critique says that I am unable to adapt to change and I am inflexible, struggles to take criticism well or think under pressure.

So I'm expected to do well because its my third year. But I have two different supervisors who don't agree on what 'doing well' is and my progress is not seen as progress so much as 'another mistake.' If my mistakes were consistent, then that would be indicative of refusal to take criticism. But because the mistakes are different every time, that's not the case. I WANT to learn. But I would like everyone to be on the same page about what they want from me.

And when I pointed this out, I was told I was being confrontational.

So I am feeling the rage right now.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

re: 405

This is gonna be long.

First, I'm bringing this post back around to remind people that kocchi is a pronoun of ambiguous plurality.

This means that an interpretation of "we" is just as correct as an interpretation of "I." Readers may interpret it differently, but on simply linguistic grounds, they are of equal validity.

You will often see this kind of ambiguous language used in Japanese, even with characters that are forthright. The reason is one part cultural expectation that the listener will read between the lines, and one part a willingness to accept two things as simultaneously true. This exists and is frequently found in English as well, there just isn't a direct parallel for kocchi itself.

What I want most out of writing this blog, aside from personal enjoyment, is for people to understand that there can be more to a story for you to engage with, think about, and be moved by, when you step outside the boundaries of your own language and culture.

I think that is a much more interesting space to be in than a gotcha-laden approach of trying to prove something wrong or bad.

But if we are going to talk accuracy, the fact is that the fan translation many people have been upholding as superior has just as many problems as the official one. It takes just as many creative liberties, they are simply different ones.

The fan translator centered an "I" reading and, rather than using either of the two pronouns provided by the text ("OFA" and あいつ, meaning "that guy"), added a narratively-charged word ("nerd") that did not exist in the original and which (as far as I can tell) Katsuki has never used when speaking to villains. As a translator myself, I really disagree with that second choice. The official clearly missed the callback, but noticed the theme of "everyone who has faced AFO until now" and went with "we." The rest was just style over substance which prioritized edgy language to capture the aggression of the line; this falls squarely in line with what Viz has consistently maintained as its in-house aesthetic. It's disappointing, but unsurprising to me.

Fandom oscillates pretty violently between vilifying the official English release and fawning over it. Whole fan theories are built upon nitty gritty bits of the official release's phrasing; people will get excited over how homoerotic a line sounds, and it's because of how the official translator worded it, rather than any innate implication in the original Japanese.

If you do not speak Japanese, your experience of MHA is fundamentally dependent on the work of translators. I respect that everybody has their personal tastes or hopes for how the series will go, but it is deeply demoralizing as a Japanese speaker and translator to see fans who don't speak any Japanese at all act as though their opinion has the same weight of authority as people who do.

You are entitled to your preferences, but please recognize that they are based in taste, not personal knowledge. Not all Japanese translators will even agree in their interpretations, but it weirds me out that some non-Japanese-speaking fans will use this fervor to spread misinformation far and wide that proclaims as inaccurate perfectly good official translations, simply because the choices don't suit their own tastes.

The lists of "times the fan translations were better" I've seen mostly contain instances where the fan translators took greater liberties than the official release did, and some fans just happened to like the liberties that were taken.

We all reasonably hated the "best friend" fan translation of chapter 359, but somehow that isn't a point forever against fan translations the same way mistakes in the official release are?

At this point, it makes me wonder what the point of writing about linguistic nuance is, if the interest is primarily not in learning but in being told what you want to hear.

I know posting this won't win me any favor with anybody, but it's how I feel. I'm bummed about 405's last line in the official. I do hope it gets revised. But the vibes around translation details are getting decidedly unfun.

One last thought: if you well and truly want to experience MHA unfiltered, learn Japanese. I mean this sincerely, I'm not trying to be a jerk. We live in an age where it is easier and more possible than ever to acquire a new language, talk to people around the world, and absorb yourself in culture and history.

If you want to remove middle-men and develop your own relationship with a work unfettered by the tastes, biases, or choices of others, learn the language. It won't be easy, but I can guarantee you won't regret broadening your horizons and discovering even more beautiful stories in the world.

[melonsharks]

Tell us everything about the parent trap au immediately please please please

to give u an insanely quick rundown with a wip art i have:

aziraphale as elizabeth. wedding dress designer under his pen name A.Z. Fell. (hes an artist as confirmed in s2 and the whole "drawing on napkins" thing elizabeth would do appeals to me immensely)

crowley as nick. owns a vineyard. I NEED HIM TO OWN A VINEYARD SO BAD. shoutout to Old Vines on ao3 for changing me in a fundamental way. he makes wines and he tends to the vines and he is so passionate about it to an abusurdist degree. he yells at his vines when they arent growing right. you already knowwww.

when they meet for the first time, they don’t meet on a boat like in the movie, they actually meet at a wedding party :J crowley was a wine collector, just starting out. he loved offering aziraphale samplings of his most vintage collection out of impulse. (he likes seeing the way aziraphale savors them) (he’s besotted) Wants to own his own vineyard one day. aziraphale, on the other hand, has dreams of becoming a fashion designer of sorts, always drawing ideas on any scraps of paper he can find. his designs are very old fashioned, but thats like… part of the appeal. his work very much reflects who he is, and the people who flock to it understand that.

they enter this kind of… whirlwind relationship, they get married, and then eventually adopt two golden haired blue eyed baby boys. twins. :J warlock and adam.

they break things off because aziraphale leaves... alluding to their recent breakup in season two, the reason he left was because "we both clearly had very different ideas on where our lives were going. so. i packed up and left." (parallel s2 divorce 😋 they don’t know how to talk to each other) (aziraphale throws a book at his head after this argument, like the hairdryer in the movie LOL. it was pride and prejudice. crowley still has it.)

aziraphale leaves with adam. warlock is left with crowley. crowley eventually leaves London because he finds he cant stand being anywhere near Aziraphale (hes just irresistible in that way), and he goes to California where he finally fulfills his dream of owning a vineyard. a nice one on Napa, Northern California.

Aziraphale’s wedding dresses become more and more well known, Adam grows well-adjusted. Same kid you know from the show and book, natural born leader, a good head on his shoulders. (Aziraphale has no idea why Adam is like that, but he is so proud)

Crowley’s vineyard (The Garden Of Eden) grows and grows… Warlock is spoiled rotten, but he does love actually working at the vineyard with Crowley to and he and Crowley have a really good relationship…

Eventually the kids go to a summer camp together in London (i dont know if they . do this in the UK, but suspend your disbelief if you will) Adam meets The Them there, then meets Warlock after a nutty fencing thing, they kind of hate each other at first and the rest is history :J

side characters UM. LOL. idk……. i mean i kind of know but not really? theres just so many possibilities that make the rounds in my head. chessy could be anathema OR nina (ive had people suggest eric too?) and martin could be newt OR maggie (ive also had people suggest muriel????) gestures vaguely.

as for meredith…….erm…………🤷‍♂️ ive had everything under the sun suggested to me and i still……have no idea. LOL. gabriel, lucifer, shaX, FURFUR, THE WIFE FROM THE NON-SPOILER SPOILERS. I DONT KNOW. IT ALL FEELS WRONG. its hard to come up with this role in particular when these gay bitches literally only have eyes for each other. always. forever. u know. i think lucy is like. the classic answer. but idfk.

ask me about . more things if u want. this is consuming my every thought.

anyways the cover im working on for. for something:

[roaenexists]

Pick-A-Pairing Tarot and Oracle readings for the collective.

From left to right we have Pairing One: Leather. Pairing Two: Starburst. Pairing Three: Cerebral.

Pairing One: Leather.

You have been getting a little too big for your britches, as my grandma would say. You have been communicating and behaving in a way that has showed those around you a haughtier side of yourself than I know you'd prefer. In other words, you've been coming off as a bit of a bitch and we both know you're capable of better than that. You need to do some inner child work and tap back in to a learner's mindset. You don't have to fundamentally change who you are, just walk it back a bit. Did you ever love learning? Did you ever used to value the input of those around you? Tap back into that energy and you'll be surprised at how naturally it comes. Past You is here to support Present You. Stop trying to rush to your future self because right now you're missing the mark. Open yourself up to the lessons your friends and mentors and colleagues have for you, and embrace the youthful spirit you've been neglecting. Come home to yourself.

Pairing Two: Starburst

Recently you've ended something and then immediately begun something new that, quite frankly, you are ill-equipped to handle. I'm inclined to think it's a relationship, though for some of you it's a new job, or a personal project. But y'all all got one thing in common: You are going about this all wrong. You had your head in the clouds about what was going to be required of you, and how quickly you were capable of providing it, but the reality of the situation is that you have all the wrong tools, most of the wrong perspective, and none of the energy. You aren't seeing the situation clearly, most likely because you haven't been doing the necessary work on yourself to make sure you were ready for this new journey. If it's too late now to walk it back, don't panic. Set aside some time to really refill your emotional, spiritual, and physical cups. Make your own health and well-being the priority, at least for long enough to recenter and reassess. You cannot expect a battery to work when empty, and you cannot care for others without first tending to your own needs.

Pairing Three: Cerebral

Shit sucks right now. You're in a situation where you are powerless and/or unhappy, with the caveat being that there's no fucking reason you shouldn't be seeing and, more importantly, feeling progress already. You feel you've learned all you can from where you are, you've made all the moves, and all that's left is to move on. The good news is that it's only a matter of time. If you can bear down and get through time then you will be able to pursue your own idealistic future, which includes physically moving location in some way, and probably also mental health support services. Will you actually make it there is up to you, but overall this draw is giving big Trevor Project, "It gets better," vibes. It's corny but it is literally in the cards. You are moving forward. Time and space are not separate, so the longer you press on, the farther you are from where you want to leave. Things are changing. This is inevitable. If you can ride the tumultuous waters, they will eventually calm down, and you will be able to take control of your vessel in the way you know you need to. You know you are meant for different; you just need to believe it until your experienced reality is reflecting that truth back to you. Take this energetic hug from me and Spirit and know that your future is full of potential. If you need to vent you can DM me. Just keep going.

[deluxewhump]

This isn’t about any one thing specifically, but in my 4+ years here and 3 million years in fanfiction circles it’s something I’ve thought about more than once regarding dark topics in fiction and harassment (and if you're sick to death of the subject, i feel you, skip the read more, it’s just my opinions)

I try to imagine what I would think if I was someone who anonymously (or not anonymously) harasses and tries to censor writers on the internet. I assume I would feel pretty righteous. And if you’ve ever felt righteous you’ll likely agree, it feels really good. I wouldn’t do something like that if I didn’t think that I was clearly in the right. This would probably come from the idea that the content in question is harmful. Harm itself is a large, ambiguous concept. If I believed that writing certain things was inherently harmful (not just to certain individuals who don’t want to see it, which is their right, but in general), I would certainly feel vindicated in my behavior.

Personally I think harm is more complex than that, and I think a majority of people here believe censorship is more harmful to society than any illegal, immoral, or disturbing thing someone can depict in fiction. The issue with crying “harm” is that it is so subjective when it comes to fiction. I’m not saying fiction exists in a vacuum, but it is not the same thing as real world harm, which unfortunately can also be leveraged in bad faith to distort arguments with hyperbole and diversion.

If I was in the business of trying to censor writers on the internet, and I was a stickler for nuance, I might say that the *way* someone depicted something was not correct, responsible, or heavy handed enough in the moral messaging of “X is bad.” This might be a mental compromise I would make in order to justify to myself the fact that I’m advocating for censorship. Criticizing someone’s handling of something is fine by the way, it’s the harassment and trying to get them to stop writing it bit that I’m taking issue with. I would probably feel really good about harassing and criticizing people I thought were wrong for depicting serious things in a way that didn’t sit well with me. I would probably secretly feel (because to admit it plainly would be embarrassing) like a bit of a vigilante. It might come from a deeply personal and complicated place, or just a place of general beliefs I’d picked up. I’d bet money that I would consider myself left leaning on most things, maybe even strongly so. I wouldn’t like to consider that my goals are ultimately conservative, because that would cause me mental discomfort. But “conservatism and liberalism” in the sense we’re usually talking about them is not a binary. It’s more of a circle, and you can find yourself batting for another teams tactics real quick if you’re not methodical and honest in your thinking.

These conversations often devolve into and circle back to “for the love of god just please tag everything” which I agree with. But that is not the reason why people continually harass other people. It’s more that they think the content should not exist at all, which is what I just don’t fundamentally agree with. I also think human beings tend to enjoy feeling like they have intimidated someone they’ve decided is wrong or bad. I try not to be too dug in on absolutely everything I think. If I’ve put personal biases into my little profiling opinion feel free to suggest where I’ve gone wrong lol. One other thing— there’s all kinds of things in books these people would have to say, to be true to their own logic, should not be in print. What do you say then, should we pull it? I wonder if they’d say that with their chest or if it’s relegated to the internet for them.

[sp1resong]

"of two minds", an experimental... short story... comic... thing.

(transcript under the cut!)

y’know, it’s funny.

what is?

the very idea of contradiction itself necessitates cohesion, or coexistence, or… whatever antonym you want to use.

what do you mean?

well—if two contradicting ideas couldn’t coexist in some way, we wouldn’t have a concept of contradiction in the first place. the very idea of it is, in itself, a contradiction!

…that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

we’re not talking about things that make sense, are we? contradictions aren’t supposed to do that. that’s, like, the whole point.

well, yeah, but what you’re saying should still have meaning. you can’t just—say nonsense that sounds smart but isn’t.

i agree! good thing that’s not what i’m doing. it’s not nonsense.

you yourself said it doesn’t make sense.

but that’s not the same thing, now, is it? nonsense can make sense, so why not the other way around?

i never said i believed that second thing, either.

you do, though. i know that full well.

…i do. but even so—that doesn’t matter. it feels like you came up with a point and are now desperately trying to grant it merit despite its obvious flaws.

what do you mean?

well—first and foremost, contradiction doesn’t claim that the sides can’t coexist. quite the opposite, actually. its very nature is coexistence where there shouldn’t be any.

blah, semantics. but really—if they can coexist, even a little bit, then clearly, they’re not as diametrically opposed as they seem. where is the line drawn?

that’s… not the same thing you were arguing a moment ago.

so what?

you can’t just—change the subject. that’s not how this works.

i still stand by what i said, i was just using the wrong word, or something like that. you pointed it out, so i started talking about your word. same difference.

you’re impossible.

why, thank you.

regardless—i don’t see what that has to do with any of this.

what doesn’t it have to do with this? contradiction is in our very nature. we invented a word to put a name to that divide, that fundamental fission. and yet—it’s only natural, isn’t it?

i’m not sure what you’re saying here.

but if you didn’t understand, neither would i.

that doesn’t mean i know what it means in any—

—and that, too, is contradiction!

no, it isn’t. i understand the words you’re saying. i know what the words mean.

what i don’t understand is—your point. what you’re trying to say.

and what a shame that is. we’ll never come to a conclusion at this rate.

yes we will. we always do.

…what are you arguing, anyways?

hm?

it seems like you’re just here to disagree with me. you’re refuting my points, but you never make any of your own. do you even have an opinion?

of course i do.

do you? or is it just the opposite of what i’m saying, regardless of what that is?

…does it matter? we both believe what we’re saying.

and back to contradiction.

hm?

we’re one and the same, and we both believe what we’re saying. and yet we disagree.

this wouldn’t be interesting at all if we agreed.

that’s beside the point.

it is.

what… is this, anyways? what’s the point?

a socratic dialogue for the new era.

…it can’t be. you’ve never read socrates. besides—you said it yourself. we both believe what we are saying.

we’re both right.

you get it, you get it! i knew you would! we are the contradiction!

…you’re not being helpful. you refuse to explain your ideas, you just… say words.

i don’t need to explain. you understand already.

then what’s the fucking point!?

to settle this. to make up our mind.

but we are of two minds.

precisely! contradiction is coexistence is contradiction!

this is going to go on forever, isn’t it?

we’ve always moved on before.

but we come back, again and again! arguing a new point in the same way, and no one ever wins!

would you rather go through life never questioning anything?

of course not! i just—argh. you’re intolerable.

whatever do you mean?

you’re unbearable! i can’t stand this! nothing you say holds water, but you don’t fucking listen!

you know—you know i’m right. we’re the same person, after all. but you refuse to listen when i tell you—

tell me, then. i’ll listen.

what do you believe?

…i believe that you’re wrong. that we ought to do things my way.

but what is your way?

…

i knew it! you exist to be the opposition. you know i’m wrong, but you don’t know what’s right.

…

…what’s yours?

hm?

what’s your way? saying things that sound smart without—without caring if they’ve got any substance?

…

see? you don’t have anything to say, either. we’re both wrong. we’re both right. i hate this.

i just want to agree! i want things to make sense! i want to say things that mean something—i want to understand. understand the world, understand myself, understand what we’re fucking saying.

i’m sick of this.

you could do to care a bit less.

see, that’s the problem with you! you don’t—you don’t fucking care! you speak nonsense and then act like everyone else is at fault for not understanding it! because you don’t care! you don’t care and i fucking hate you!

you say, as if you have anything of meaning to say!

i have more than you! at least when i talk, it means something!

no it doesn’t! you’ll never come up with anything but derivative, trite bullshit if you’re so obsessed with making sense!

oh, so now i’m spouting bullshit, and not the bastard who has never in their life even tried to make sense!?

you’re so set on making sure other people can understand what you’re saying—every little bit of you is lost in translation! you have to follow in the footsteps of others for anyone to get what you’re talking about—none of what you say is yours!

that’s not—god. i hate this. i shouldn’t—you shouldn’t be here. we should just make up our fucking mind.

but you said it yourself—we are of two minds.

if we thought you were right, we would have moved on by now.

but we would have done the same if we thought i was wrong.

why are we still here? separate? stuck at the crossroads? rent apart by indecision?

what is wrong with us?

…it’s just the human condition, i think.

“human.”

…

semantics again, my dear sock-puppet.

…i’m not even going to respond to that. are you trying to insinuate that you’re the ‘real’ one here? that i’m the construct? that goes against everything you’ve said thus far.

first of all, have you even been listening to what i’ve said thus far?

…second of all, that’s not what i meant at all.

we’re just talking to the mirror, really—but we’re more than a reflection of the other, aren’t we? and neither of us is quite our whole. we’re uncertainty made manifest. a tangled mess of contradiction trying futilely to untie itself.

so: sock puppets.

interesting analogy.

…so who’s the left hand, and who’s the right hand?

oh, so now you’re capable of having a little bit of whimsy.

…i think you’re probably the left hand, because right brain-left brain or whatever. since you’re the one who keeps going off about logic.

…i want to be the right hand.

why?

we’re right-handed, and i’m the one we usually act on—

—that’s not even true. whatever. more realistically, we’re both both hands, anyways.

yeah, you would say that, wouldn’t you.

am i really that predictable?

yes.

for ‘uncertainty made manifest’, it sure is easy to figure you out.

even cacophony has a pattern to it! a method to our madness—because every method is madness.

that doesn’t make sense either.

doesn’t it?

no.

oh, you’re no fun.

nothing about this is supposed to be ‘fun’.

nothing is ‘supposed’ to be anything!

the only reason it isn’t fun is your nonstop bitching.

if i wasn’t here to be the voice of reason, you’d fucking… i dunno. do something stupid.

start giving people bullshit advice and spreading misinformation on the internet, or run off and get hit by a car, or… something.

my point is, i’m the one keeping us alive and reasonable.

yeah, and? what’s the point in that if we’re miserable all the time, because we’re too scared of saying anything meaningful to even try?

but it’s not meaningful! all you say is fucking nonsense!

and all you say is fucking trite!

how do you expect to create any original meaning if nothing you say has meaning to begin with!?

how do you expect to create anything you can care about if you refuse to say anything unique to yourself!?

i’m only being pragmatic!

i’m only trying to be happy for once in our fucking life!

you’re a liar—you know what you’re saying means nothing and you say it anyways!

it doesn’t have to make sense to be meaningful!

what’s the point in meaning if no one else can understand it!?

what’s the point in trying if everything you say has been watered down for others’ sake!?

i’d rather be unhappy and right!

and there’s your problem! you keep thinking about this in right and wrong—it’s not! all of this is subjective! all answers are equally correct!

but that’s not true! nothing is entirely subjective—there’s always an answer we settle on, there’s always a right one! there’s always a wrong one!

we always choose one answer because of you! because you’re too fucking scared to admit that maybe there isn’t a wrong one! maybe there doesn’t have to be! maybe—

—shut up, hyde!

…oh, so i’m hyde now? i’m the bad one? i’m in the wrong? and of course you would—

—stop. stop. i hate you. god, i hate you.

…

…i think right now i hate you too.

…

but this won’t end until we agree.

it won’t.

and that will never happen.

maybe not.

because we both know we’re right.

so we do.

so we’ll be here forever. arguing about nothing.

maybe we don’t have to.

argue, i mean.

…what do you mean by that?

maybe we can coexist. maybe we can hold both beliefs. tempering and strengthening the other.

but we are powers opposed.

maybe we don’t have to be.

it’s like schrodinger said.

the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box.

the path curves both left and right until you reach the crossroads.

every answer is both true and false until a conclusion is reached.

…

but even then, that implies a conclusion. a collapse into a solid state.

we are already at the crossroads of our belief.

precisely.

and we haven’t fallen into one yet.

but we must.

must we?

can’t the two states combine to one without losing what makes them themselves?

the cat must be dead or alive, for it is a material being. but we are thought. we are consciousness. we are not bound to one or the other.

such is the magic of our nature.

indeed.

so really, there is only one question:

can we coexist, or must we fight forever?

can we have chaos guided by logic?

can we have meaning carved by contradiction?

can we walk both paths, and the sacred middle ground?

can we shape ourselves through synthesis?

can we be one?

were we ever two? does it matter?

we are arguing the same point, after all.