#i also started doing some basic writing for the actual script (not the code but the actual dialogue)

[pandaofsecrets]

We often talk about "the writers" as if they were some kind of hivemind, and that made me wonder, are they really? Well, let's find out.

But first, some general trends.

For one, with the grand exception of The Mime, which was written by five people, episodes in S1 were usually written by three people at most and there were a lot more solo episodes, which made it easier to figure out who was responsible for what in most instances. S1 also had a larger selection of writers, so I'm only going to focus on those who went on to work on the show from S2 onward.

For another thing, most of the writers don't have a lot of writing credits to their name, let alone experience working on anything good. The only ones that do are Fred Lenoir, who worked on Code Lyoko, and Matthieu Choquet, who worked on the adult series Lastman, based on the comic of the same title. And trust me, it shows.

Thomas Astruc

The creator and the one beefing with people on Twitter, he is the guy the fandom generally tends to point to when the writing goes sideways. However, for how much attention we give him, there's actually surprisingly little to say about the man.

First of all, he isn't even a writer. His actual job is as director and storyboard artist, and the only writing credit he has besides Miraculous is like 3 episodes of Wakfu.

Second of all, for how much shit he talks on Twitter, it's actually really tough to separate out this man's influence. He never gets solo episodes, and his episodes usually tend to have more than three writers total. Closest we ever get to unfiltered Astruc is Zombizou, which he wrote alongside Wilfried Pain, who is himself not a writer and only wrote for this one episode.

In S1, Astruc wrote four episodes:

The Bubbler (w/ Sébastien Thibaudeau)

The Mime (w/ Sébastien Thibaudeau, Michaël Delachenal, Karin Lollichon, and Françoise Charpiat)

the Origins episodes (w/ Sébastien and Quentin Thibaudeau)

He became a full-time writer in S2, which is when you'll notice the show started to become more serialized. From then on, he wrote for every episode except for "Action".

From what little I can gather, toxic positivity and the prioritizing characters' short-term comfort over their long-term development is an Astruc special. In The Bubbler, Marinette lets Gabriel take credit for a gift she made because it makes Adrien happy, which is sweet until you realize all she's doing is giving Adrien false hope, and clinging to false hope is Adrien's fatal flaw. I've heard people say the ending of S5 retroactively ruins this episode, but it left a bad taste in my mouth from the very beginning, subsequent writing decisions just made it worse. The same thing happens in Zombizou, where not only was the class encouraged to "set a good example" for Chloé by being nice to her even when she's treating them poorly, but the entire episode started because Marinette got on Chloé's case for something that was not her business, and Chloé was treated as the bad guy when she naturally didn't take that well. Zombizou is just bad all around.

Sébastien Thibaudeau

The head writer and story editor. Basically, everyone else's boss. He's literally only third to Aton Soumache (the executive producer) and Jeremy Zag in terms of influence. He gives feedback and suggests rewrites, works with the other writers to ensure continuity and correct runtime, and approves scripts for production. So, even if an episode was written by someone else, that writer had Thibaudeau looking over their shoulder and that script has his stamp of approval on it.

Like Astruc, he doesn't have a lot of experience writing. His only writing credits I can find that aren't for Zag shows are like 6 episodes of Sherlock Yack: Zoo-Detective, which I don't think anybody's heard of, and 2 live action movies I don't think anyone's heard of either.

In S1, he wrote 10 episodes:

Lady Wifi

Copycat (w/ Pascal Boutboul)

The Bubbler (w/ Thomas Astruc)

Timebreaker (w/ Michaël Delachenal)

The Puppeteer

The Mime (w/ Thomas Astruc, Michaël Delachenal, Karin Lollichon, and Françoise Charpiat)

Guitar Villain

Antibug

both Origins episodes (w/ Thomas Astruc and Quentin Thibaudeau).

From S2 onwards, he wrote for every single episode.

Thibaudeau is very good at his job. /s He's directly responsible for such memorable gems as that time Hawk Moth and Lady Wifi left Ladybug alone to de-transform despite having her literally at their mercy, or that time Adrien randomly got jealous of a fan that wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell with Ladybug anyway (especially not over her literal partner), or that time Alix had to apologize and learn a lesson about responsibility when she's literally the only one who did the responsible thing in that situation. Generally if an episode fails to make sense, he was definitely involved. Thibaudeau is also the big-brained lad who had the idea to sell Miraculous to broadcasters as a "formula show", despite the fact that it very clearly isn't one. And then tried to walk back on it anyway.

Fred Lenoir

Lenoir is generally one of the show's better writers, at least compared to the two I just mentioned. Her other writing credits include 9 episodes of Code Lyoko, and her favorite character is Plagg.

In S1, she wrote 4 episodes:

Stormy Weather

Horrificator

Kung Food (w/ Matthieu Choquet)

Simon Says

In S2, she worked on every episode except for Befana, Gorizilla, and Zombizou, and in S3, she didn't write for Animaestro, Miraculer, Startrain, Oblivio, and Desperada. In S4 and 5, she wrote for every single episode.

Out of all the writers, Lenoir is probably the least interesting one to talk about. I can think of really only three things to say about her. One, she's only second to Thibaudeau for the number of solo episodes, and all but one of her episodes in S1 have her as the only writer. Two, she's responsible for some of the best LS moments in S1—Kung Food and to a lesser extent Horrificator are some of the rare episodes where Marinette comes across more like a girl in love and less like someone's caricature of what teen girls are like. Third, she has no idea how contests work. Every single one of her S1 episodes involves a contest that fails to make sense in some way.

Matthieu Choquet

The show's best writer, bar none. Everyone else go home.

Choquet wrote 5 episodes of S1:

The Evillustrator

Kung Food (w/ Fred Lenoir)

Darkblade (w/ Léonie de Rudder)

Princess Fragrance (w/ Léonie de Rudder)

Volpina (w/ Léonie de Rudder)

In S2, he wrote every episode except for Befana, Syren, Zombizou, Frozer, Reverser, Anansi, Sandboy, and Santa Claws. With the exception of Glaciator, generally if an episode of S2 was really salt-inducing, chances are he had nothing to do with it. After that, he wrote less and less. In S3, he wrote Miraculer, Startrain, and the Battle of the Miraculous two-parter, and in S4, he only wrote one episode, Psycomedian. He seems to have left the show entirely in S5, and truly, I cannot imagine why. /s His favorite episodes are the Heroes' Day two-parter, and his favorite character is Chloé.

His episodes tend to be very low on romance, and when it does show up it's usually of good quality. His episodes are also where Adrien is at his most competent (with the glaring exception of Evillustrator), and he seems to show more of a preference for solo Cat Noir. Evillustrator needs Marinette to detransform so she can go on the date with Nathanaël, and Darkblade and Princess Fragrance see him fight the akuma mostly alone with Ladybug not even showing up until the last third of both episodes.

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

That's so cool! Have fun and enjoy the process of creation and learning new skills! I look forward to hearing more about it!!

Thank you my dear! I just spent almost 2 hours figuring out how to apply a points system to dialogue responses so you can't be a dick to characters the majority of the time and still get a good ending, next is figuring out day/night cycles!

[greenfiend]

For those still in doubt that Will flayed/influenced Hopper in ST3…

So when someone flays another basically what happens is, as Mike states they “[take] over their mind” and “basically become him”.

Now, it’s very interesting how in ST3 we see Hopper act childish- but exclusively in ST3. The very same season Will desperately holds onto his childhood.

It’s suspiciously very meta for him to say lines like this. It’s intentional. The writers didn’t just forget how to write Hopper. We are supposed to notice this abrupt shift in his persona and overall demeanour.

As Will says, he likes to hide. Interestingly enough Will and him share that in common. Note the “only used me when he needed me”. Same is true for Will using Hopper. Hopper still has moments where he is his “normal” self.

Whenever Hopper is “serious”, it’s really him. Whenever he’s emotional and kid-like, he’s under Will’s influence.

The Clues

So, let’s start by going over some of the major clues, shall we?

Him saying this to a Byers of course. Interesting writing choice.

The original script tells us that Will wears colourful clothes. That’s his style and he stands out because of it. Now it seems to be Hopper’s style all of a sudden too. It’s even noted by officer Powell here that it’s surprising to see Hopper dress this way.

Play these transition scenes. The first one has Lucas asking Will for permission to take a shower, then we are shown Hopper showering. I suppose Will granted Hopper said permission. Then of course we have El asking “how can you tell when someone’s a host?” afterwards the first person we see is Hopper himself. A perfect example of a host. They answered her question!

We are often shown Hopper acting childish. Look at how he’s holding his pillow! We never saw him doing this in seasons prior. Then we have Murray outright calling him a “manbaby” and “children”.

When “Hopper” orders an alcoholic beverage he struggles with the pronunciation. Reminiscent of a young person attempting (but failing) to appear older and more mature.

We even are shown him being fed lines that came from a Byers.

Now for the major clue. Why oh why did they show Will while Mike explained that Hopper threatened him? Not just Will, but Will moving pieces on a board. He’s essentially controlling things! Bending to his will, if you will. I mean it makes sense. We know Will was very jealous of Mike and El and complained about them! Just like Hopper, he wants them to break up. Perhaps even more than Hopper actually does.

Then we have Mike referring to him as crazy! That’s their special word, so naturally “Hopper”/Will does not take this well. Look at his face! He looks betrayed.

The References

It’s extremely subtle, but we have another Byler/Jopper parallel here. Earlier in 3x01, we see Joyce holding Hopper’s left hand, very reminiscent of Mike holding Will’s right hand last season. Then we have Hopper communicating in Morse Code as he and Mike fight to lock/unlock the car door several times. Notice how we have a shot of his left hand doing the locking of the door? Same one Joyce held. I’ve tried to work out what he’s communicating but I’m falling short. If anyone wants to take a stab at it please let me know your findings!

Then we have the Back to the Future references. Again very subtle, but there nonetheless. As we know, Will is compared to Marty Mcfly a fair bit, ever since his very first appearance!

Do you recall the plot of Back to the Future? Marty travels to the past, accidentally changes some things, then has to bring his parents back together! Will does the same thing… through Hopper!

And just like Marty… things get a tad bit awkward…

Now keep in mind… these scenes all occur within the same episode. While trying to set up his mother and Hopper together through “flaying” Hopper, Will accidentally gets his mom interested in him (as Hopper). That is why he refers to Murray as “Freud” aka the Psychologist who created the theory of “the Oedipus Complex”. This is also why Robin drops that line about of the movie.

So… How?

If you recall back in ST2, Hopper is spat on by something and was trapped in the UD. Will is able to sense him and thus is connected to him. Hopper is a part of Will’s hive mind. I also believe they may be biologically father and son… but that’s for another post.

The Implications of All of This…

So what does this mean? I’m not fully sure, but it seems like Will has some abilities here. I have no idea if it’s future Will manipulating things, or present Will and I’m not so sure how aware he is of all of this.

But in regards to Mike… here are some funny implications…

ST3 shows us a Mike with a peculiar fascination with bears. Bears seem to be associated with Will and “bear” has a specific other definition…

Now the icing on the cake with this is the fact that Mike has made comments regarding Hopper’s weight multiple times! So, he’s well aware of Hopper’s “bear” status. Mike shows interest in bears because he’s interested in Will. Will essentially is a “bear” while he is puppeteering Hopper.

It’s also nice to know that Will actually did get that hug he yearned for from Mike. We just didn’t realize it. Mike and “Hopper” hugged a tad longer than normal too while Will was facing them of course.

To conclude, I know this theory sounds so silly and I sound insane, but I swear to you… this is real. I may be wrong about some aspects of this but I know Will influenced Hopper in some way. Remember though, it’s not a constant thing. Will only “used him when he needed to”. Will experienced being flayed in ST2, then he became the “flayer” in ST3.

If you have any questions or comments about this theory feel free to send me an ask! These things are fun to think and talk about.

[dramaticallytotal]

TDWT Headcanons: PT. 6

Part 1 Last Part

• Lindsay definitely is bringing some of her Admiral Lindsay Her Hotness attitude back for this season, just not as intense. She liked being respected for once, and she liked being relied on. So this season, she vowed she would find the in-between for herself.

• This season, she is even wearing a navy blue jacket that looks kind of like her admiral jacket along with a thick navy blue ribbon headband to replace her usual blue bandana.

• Heather actually has friends this season! Because as much as I love her Queen Bee, lone wolf thing, I think she deserves to make some friends. Leshawna is, of course, one. Harold is surprisingly another. And Noah.

• Leshawna and her have gotten closer, though there are still moments when they argue with each other. Harold respects her game, and they both relate to each other about their siblings, not liking them. It's sad, but it's nice to have someone relate to. Noah was a surprise for her, but it was a little after Action that he reached out and gave her his sister Nila's contact info since she knew what it was like to go from super long hair to short very abruptly. Plus, Nila had tips for growing her hair! Plus, plus, the two like to talk shit about other people with each other.

• It's why Heather hates Alejandro so much. Like, yeah, they need to try and pretend to have crushes on each other, but it's hard to do that when he got Harold to vote himself out. When he got Leshawana and her to fight worse than they ever have before, and when she could tell Noah had a crush on him and the guy flirted with him only to go and flirt with her. It created a lot of space between her and her favorite snark.

• No one is supposed to know about their separate deals with Chris to make the show more interesting, but some people have guessed who has a deal and who doesn't. Though Noah has guessed most of the deals, he doesn't know that Aleheather is scripted.

• Yes, Lindsay and Beth got attested in Paris, but not for what Celebrity Manhunt reported. She never touched the Mona Lisa, but Beth did trip over the ropes, and the security guard was yelling and Beth looked so scared, so Lindsay reacted, and by reacting, I mean , she slapped the security guard.

• Beth's mom, Clara, did bail them out because Lindsay's family were on their own vacations, and she couldn't get a hold of them. When they did hear what happened they of course, paid her back, but Lindsay felt like it's her responsibility to do it, so she agreed to pretend to forget what Tyler looks like and his name. It's to get the money to pay Clara back.

• Courtney, Noah, DJ, and Sierra are all published authors.

• Courtney writes guides on how to make study guides and other self-help type books. Noah writes video game guidebooks as well as coding books. He's actually paid to make the video game books. He's also a beta tester, but no one knows that. DJ writes cookbooks with his Momma. Sierra wrote, of course, books on Total Drama. Basically, guides for those just starting to watch. Like the who's who, the challenges, the teams, secret little Easter eggs she found.

• If Noah gets hurt during an episode, Chris makes sure to call his family and tell them how he's doing. He is friends with Noah's parents, so he feels like it's his duty to let them know how their kid is. (He definitely doesn't count himself in that 'their' no siree.)

• Alejandro is definitely trying his best to make the showmance happen, but every time he goes to flirt and make it seem like he and Heather have something going on, he gets distracted by Noah. Like the way he only wears his glasses when he's sure the cameras are off even though he looks positively adorable in them. Or the way he pouts when something in his book displeased him. Oh! Or the small smiles he gives Alejandro when he strikes up a conversation with the bookworm about his thoughts on books he himself has read.

• At some point, he does want to tell Noah that the showmance between him and Heather is just that, a showmance, but then London happened, and Noah was voted off, and maybe Alejandro feels guilty for letting his emotions take over seeing as Noah was actually a strong competitor.

• He also overheard Chris and Chef talking about how Noah had planned on getting voted out and how the kid did great! "I mean, he saw an opportunity and took it, Chef!"

• That's when he realizes that Noah had planned to get out and used him to do it. Now, normally, that would have probably pissed him off, but nope. It basically makes him swoon. He's whipped.

• Owen does actually hold a grudge against Alejandro for voting off his little buddy. (He doesn't know Noah was planning on it). Noah had told Owen that Alejandro didn't like being called Al before he left, and Owen knows his friend didn't tell him so Owen could mess with the guy. His little buddy told him and asked him to go easy with the nickname since he didn't want Owen to become a target. Target be damned! Owen made it his personal mission to call Alejandro, Al, as much as possible.

• Chris and Chef pseudo adopted Noah together, but Chef definitely pseudo adopted Izzy in his head.

• Izzy has shown Cody her hiding place she made in the vents for when he needs space. Look, she may be crazy but she draws the line at stalking/stalkers. (I know in her biography it says she's stalked boys, but I have elected to throw that out of my canon)

• Yes, Noah planned to get thrown off, but when he realized the producers/network wanted him to basically be a miracle worker after he was done with Aftermath, he was like, "What if...no? UwU" and wanted them to suffer, so he won his way back onto the show. Oh, he'll come back to his job after the show, but he expects a big raise.

• Trent feels bad about Noah being voted off because he finally realized that someone else was suspicious of Alejandro, but Noah told him to vote for him so he wouldn't be made a target. He made a real convincing argument, but Trent still felt bad.

• Trent is trying to lay low, but he does warn Gwen about his suspicions, but everything gets crazy with the cheating plot. Which pisses Trent off because he knows there is no way Gwen would cheat on anyone given what happened with her mom.

Next Part

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #42 | 6.25.24 ๋࣭⭑

tis the season of Kayn

HAPPY SUMMER!!

Hope you're all doing well and keeping cool <3 I know for me it's started getting to.... the Hot Season. To celebrate the start of Hot Girl Summer (and the beta route going live), I of course had to draw the hottest girl, Kayn.

we must stay cool brothers

Now that we've paid respect to The Hot Girl, let's get into the devlog!

Writing has been fun this month. A lot of it has been dedicated to Etza edits and writing Kuna'a's route. We're getting to about the halfway mark with Etza edits, so we are definitely chugging along!

Sneaky peeky of a recent edit

For Kuna'a's route, I said I wanted to have his first draft complete or almost complete by the next devlog, and I'm VERY PLEASED AND PROUD to say their first draft is In Fact almost complete! This is, of course, the very, very first draft so I'll be going back in to flesh some scenes out here and there and rizz him up even more. But I'm happy with the fact that at least the very base draft is done ^^

This month, I did quite a bit of drawing actually! I finished rendering two of Kayn's CGs, meaning 8 out of their total 9 CGs are finished YYYEEEAAAHHHH!!!!!

it feels so good to see the ending cg titles ouuggHHHH

Because Fenir's beta will be going out soon, I wanted to make some headway on his CGs. This month, I ended up finishing 3 of his CGs and sketching two. I'd really like to get 5-6 of his CGs finished so that it's a similar amount to Kayn's beta, so here's to praying!

baby girl

I also finished Senja's (they/he) sprite and base expressions. His outfit was designed by very talented bestie @saffein-e so please thank them for doing god's work o7

Finally, this past month we worked mostly on Kayn's beta route and getting Fenir's beta route ready for Patreon access!

If you'd like to try out Kayn's beta, you can get access to it if you subscribe to my Patreon (tier Hydra). Beta access to Kayn's route will close as soon as Fenir's beta goes up which will be early July, so if you want to experience Kayn's beta, definitely make sure you subscribe before it ends!

Player feedback for Kayn's route so far has been really positive, which has been a relief, especially since Kayn's route is the first one I wrote so is arguably the roughest (I have a big soft spot for it and like it, but I'm obviously Biased). So I hope you're all looking forward to it!! <4

beta feedback: so real

I also have started the voice acting sessions for the characters, which is EXTREMELY EXCITING!! That's the last asset I need basically, so the fact we have finally entered a stage where we can start recording is crazy. Our current session is for Kayn's route, but in the coming months we'll be moving to the next routes similar to how beta-testing is going :')

Aside from Kayn's route, I've also been working on coding Fenir's beta route. Rereading his script and he's... a cutie, I'll admit. So I hope the Fenir fans are excited for his route to enter the beta phase!

LET'S.......... GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Last thing, but I also ran a poll on Alaris's release, basically asking whether you all would prefer a full or segmented release. The results were basically 50/50 LMFAO and that's the vibe I've been getting in general. So while I don't want to solidify anything yet, just let it be known that Alaris may end up having a segmented release, where the first four Central routes are released first, and the Fae routes a bit later. I'll see how I start feeling as the year goes on and where Alaris stands, but thank you all for the support and understanding for the poll <3

I was pretty busy this month, so I didn't have too much time to do market research :cries:

But............

I did see the new Haikyuu movie..................... And I am the biggest Haikyuu fan. Quite literally if you want to know everything about who I am as a person and creator, watch Haikyuu and you will understand who I am to my deepest depths.

obviously I had to draw baby

But aside from that, I want to give one last shoutout to our Hot Girl Summer cross-promo! If there are any games you haven't tried out in this little set, I highly recommend giving at least 1 or 2 of them a peek! All of the games are so charming and have some similarity to Alaris, whether it's a personality mechanic, hot Fae, or a fantasy/ adventure story :')

Links to each game can be found on the Alaris Game page under the magic and mystery otome section!

I'm pretty happy with the progress we made this month. While there's still a lot to do, it's satisfying to see Alaris come more and more to life with each month. See you all next month with hopefully more exciting progress!

[thewinastudyblog]

a day in my life as an web development intern (16/06)

i’m currently interning as a backend developer and am responsible for building an API using Flask(Python) and Postgresql.

09 - 10 = get there, turn on my laptop and open all the apps i need, most of the time it’s PyCharm for coding and Chrome cause I google a LOT. I also spend the first few 15 minutes trying to remember where I am and what I am supposed to do during the dat. and sometimes during this first hour I go get coffee.

10 - 11:30 = for my API, i needed to find a dataset that has all the schools in France with their gps coordinates, and so basically I found a database and wrote a python script to extract the data needed and then try to put a sample into my database.

11:30 - 12:30 = just like the schools, i also needed all the hospitals in france, and when I started looking at the dataset I was going to use for this I realized that there was no way I would get the gps coordinates from this specific dataset.

12:30 - 13:30 = here i went back home and ate a quick lunch.

13:30 - 15:30 = i found a better dataset and so i wrote a script to get the data i wanted from it and also tested putting some data into my database and made sure it worked. this script also involved clinics and nursing homes for the elderly cause I also needed them for my API. 15:30 - 17:00 = around this time I started trying to put all the data I imported from the school and hospital datasets into my database, and at one point I ran into some schools that didn't have a longitude and latitude, and I was like how do I fix that. So I spent around 30 mins googling and trying to write a script that could convert addresses into latitude and longitude, but it wasn't perfect LOL. 17:00 - 17:15 = spoke quickly to my supervisor abt this issue and what could be done about it 17:15 = turn off my laptop and monitors, pack my bag and go home.

as a whole, today was kinda fun ? even tho it was mostly spent struggling and trying to figure out how to do every single thing without using chatgpt (only used it once and it was at a time of dire need so I'm really proud of myself). honestly it's way more fun not using chatgpt cause you get to truly learn how to read documentation and know on your own how things work, and you also learn so much from trying and failing and i personally enjoy it so much !!! but yeah anyways, what's coming is definitely harder than what i've already done, but I've never been more ready. here's to more days of proving to myself over and over again how powerful my brain actually is and how good i am at this.

[spotaus]

Random fun fact (New Age Au)

So. I think I've mentioned I really like having language barriers, right? Well. Hear me out.

Nightmare is super well-rounded in his languages. Most dialects aren't too far off from eachother (like the romance languages using root words from latin) so it's not usually impossible to take wild guesses. He, Cross, Reaper, Geno, Ccino, and Dust are all really quick on either already knowing dialects or picking up on them.

Error, Fresh, Farm, and Lust all struggle with dialects different from their own, but can figure it out if given time.

Killer and Horror? They have it rough.

I haven't mentioned it really, but I've been chewing on these two having trouble w/ basic literacy when Nightmare hires them.

For Killer, he was exclusively taught the Old Tongue, the equivalent of Latin but for monsters. His temple didn't allow him to learn to read modern language, and it's only because he was clever that he managed to figure out how to speak it with Chara. He learned some words and phrases vaguely through signs around towns, but if he were given a book he'd probably not be able to read it, even in his 20s or so when Night brings him to the castle. It doesn't come up for months. His orders are usually word of mouth + the few written things he's given he can mostly understand. I think the only reason someone notices is because Ccino spots him in the library (with the cats) a lot, and because when Nightmare asked Killer's advice for how a letter was worded, Killer had to ask Night to read it out. (He can also speak so fluently + skilled that it never occurred to anyone.)

I also think Killer, in a force of habit, only writes his notes or messages in the old tongue. Very convenient when it's supposed to be coded. Not convenient when it's him letting Dust know he borrowed a robe from the stable.

Meanwhile, Horror was much the same as Killer with picking up on writing from signs and people speaking, but he's just a lot slower to learn and wasn't very shy about how little he knew. His family basically speaks the opposite of whatever it is spoken in Orchard, not even the sane root words, so it's a tough learning curve to figure out writing. And sometimes Horror will do that thing where he doesn't know the word for something and pantomime it (or goes to find it himself). (In contrast, Killer just starts talking in the old tongue if he doesn't know the 'right' words lol.) Horror has less luck than Killer, but he does eventually figure things out. His handwriting is gorgeous though. Like, his home script is usually very flowy and smooth (writing technique) and so he basically does his own version of cursive!

I think when Killer is found out for not knowing how to write (at least in the common Orchard tongue) Nightmare asks Killer if he wants to learn. Killer, with some wounded pride, says yes. Nightmare has to trial and error through several tutors (Night tried + fumbled badly, and Killer got cagey when Ccino gave it a shot) before Killer finally finds one he likes. (I want her to be an Alphys, actually. Like, idk, maybe Outer!Alphys or smth? Someone who was new and inexperienced but VERY passionate.) This, over the course of months/a year, alongside his other training, improves him a lot. His writing default stays Old Tongue, but now he *can* read and write, with only a little difficulty.

For Horror, it took a mix of both Killer and this Alphys *and* Dust to help him learn. Bits and pieces of exposure therapy basically, easing him into it gently, slowly, making sure he doesn't get overwhelmed. He's a fat learner in physical ways (picking up Killer's fighting style, people's tones, etc) but reading and writing? Nah. Not his strong suit. It's missions that really help things make sense to him tbh. Associating letters + words + meanings from paper to the real world. Luckily, he has a support group, and much like Killer, he doesn't need to read/wrote to understand complex thoughts or emotions or concepts. It's just convenient to have as a skill.

Along this same line, I wanna say Fresh struggles a little with this too. I mean, he's clever af and Geno would never let his lil bro go uneducated but... I mean... Fresh writes in chicken scratch, his spoken word is almost like he's spewing riddles (his Slang), and he speaks in growls and clicks to his beasts for over 50% of his adult life. So, when introduced to a *new* language, even if only slightly different? Yeag nah. Not. Not his deal. He'll speak it eventually, maybe, and reading he might puzzle out, but writing? Nope.

[visualtaehyun]

Do you mind sharing your Thai language learning journey?

Hi there anon 👋

My memory is awful but I'll try anyway sldkslskd

I first got interested in Thai at some point in late 2022. At the time, kpop was my main hobby and fandom space so I stumbled across Semantic Error via DKZ's Jaechan, then remembered I'd watched Puppy Honey and Theory of Love (+ partly 3 Will Be Free as it was airing) a few years prior so I went to look up if OffGun had been in any more shows together. I'm not sure anymore if it was during my first or second watch-through of Not Me but I recall rewatching the tent scene in ep. 9 and very suddenly taking note of the pronouns they use, like- at the time, I'd spent years halfheartedly learning Korean to arguably little progress apart from being able to read & write, knowing some beginner vocabulary, expressions, and numbers - mostly, I'd gained a familiarity with the sound, speed, and structure of spoken Korean. Meanwhile, I'd never gotten a feel for Thai while watching the previously mentioned shows! So I don't know how or why all of a sudden but I think that moment of picking up on reoccurring words (and what would be more recurring than pronouns?) and those two little words (กู /guu/ & มึง /meung/) sending me down a rabbit hole of different registers of pronouns? That probably did me in 🤣

Next thing I remember is watching more Thai BL and mostly GMMTV because GMMTV BLs were the most easily accessible. And since I'd gotten a Viki subscription for Semantic Error, I also went to check out their selection at the time, which is how I found Cutie Pie, for example, the Viki subs to which also tickled my brain cause they gave some insight into wordplay and pronoun choices! I don't recall the exact order of things but at some point, while watching more Thai BL, I started lurking on twt as I was watching my first on-going show, Love in the Air, so I had to find fan translators on twt to make sense of actors' tweets and bts & variety content.

Yadda yadda yadda I became aware I was well on my way of developing a new hyperobsession lol so it was maybe around October to December of 2022 that I struggled to attempt to learn to at least read Thai. Hangul had been so easy to learn and opened up a world of recipes to me! So how come I couldn't find a helpful app or any starting point really to get a foot in the door with Thai and its countless consonants?!

I think it ended up being a combination of actually actively studying the Wikipedia article on the Thai script (but especially the IPA chart cause that made it so so much more accessible to me!) and an app called PTM / Pocket Thai Master which looks to be unavailable on the play store now??? but really helped me get more familiar with the look and sound and tone classes of the different consonants. After sufficiently cracking the code on Thai script, I started looking up and studying specific vocab groups, like seasons, days of the week, animals, fruits, body parts, super boring beginner language learner stuff :p

I was on vacation in Bangkok in May of 2023, at which point I started keeping a vocabulary booklet to reinforce writing, reading (which I was terrible at lol), and interacting with new words. I had already well and truly fallen in love with the language and that vacation made me fall in love with the people and culture as well. :)

Afterwards, I basically started surrounding myself with Thai media! It wasn't just Thai BL but so much variety content and tweets and other social media posts and Thai music and recipes and I'd long found NuNew to be my favorite so of course I was excitedly following his debut as a singer, too. I was and still am basically learning by immersion, looking up words in various dictionaries or on pantip or twt as I go, getting lost in deep dives around the most random things, and trying to keep up with viral expressions at all times in order to make sense of what my favorite Thai artists are joking about and referencing. :D

When Last Twilight aired, I bought a Thai copy of The Little Prince, thinking it might be a good introduction to starting to read novel-style language but which I only finished a few weeks ago because my perseverance is awful lol Last year, I also stubbornly bought both the English and Thai novels for The Next Prince and made myself read both, even if the royal language was at first difficult to get used to and novel descriptions were still largely new territory to me as most of my exposure to Thai had been spoken dialogue or monologue but rarely descriptions of actions, expressions, and feelings, or the flowery language of novels. So I guess my attempt to read ข้ามฟ้าเคียงเธอ (aka The Next Prince) made reading เจ้าชายน้อย (aka The Little Prince), which I've read in other languages before, a lot easier in comparison lol

This year I started actually speaking! One of my great-aunts is Thai so I'd had the opportunity last year to speak Thai with her for an entire evening but I was mostly listening tbh and struggling to form my own sentences or even psyching myself out from lack of confidence. During my first Bangkok vacation in 2023, I had an okay level of listening comprehension but only knew a few phrases and expressions to the confusion of a few hotel and restaurant staff members lol but during my stay in Bangkok this January, I tried to speak as much Thai as I possibly could, wherever I went, whatever I bought or ordered, whoever I met! If you don't try and put yourself out there and learn to go with the flow, you'll never dare to just speak and use the words you know and remember and learn via conversing. I was back home from that vacation when February began and since then I've:

gotten a new colleague* who sometimes helps out at my store who's Thai and my age so now I only speak Thai with her

started frequenting a local Thai restaurant, because I was missing Thai food already, the owner of which only speaks English and Thai (I'm German, living in Germany, for context :P) and seemed super excited to have a customer attempt to speak Thai so now I only speak Thai with him

met that same great-aunt again at my grandma's birthday party and this time actually spoke a lot more myself, almost exclusively speaking Thai with her

*When I told her I'd went to Bangkok mostly for a concert, she ofc asked whose it was and I've never been more excited as when I said 'Zee Pruk' and she went 'Omg ขนลุก!' and I realized that finally a flesh and blood person in Germany recognized the name and knows the artists I love 😭🙌 we then bonded over Jeff Satur, language learning, and Thai music and slang555

Honestly, I don't know that I've ever had much of a language learning strategy or a specific goal in mind. I'm just watching/listening to/reading all the Thai media I'm interested in and filling in any blanks along the way. Thai is such a beautiful melodic language and it's just a joy to learn, no matter how small or big the steps I take.

I hope this ramble of a reply is what you had in mind, anon 😂 If it isn't- well- sorry not sorry? My Thai language learning journey is chaotic, entirely self-taught, and highly dependent on what media I'm currently into so it was never gonna be a simple answer :D

[emilysidhe]

MST3Knitathon, watching the top 100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater from bottom to top while knitting:

77. Episode 504 Secret Agent Super Dragon

Summary: Interestingly, this movie reads a bit like a sequel to a movie that was never made. After presumably an amazing high stakes mission in which he saved the world (not pictured), America’s best spy (code-named Super Dragon) has retired from espionage and is enjoying the good life in his mansion when a beautiful lady spy from his past tracks him down for a new mission: college students in small town Michigan appear to be being drugged with some new substance without their knowledge, as if an unknown syndicate is testing a product. Super Dragon won’t take the case until he learns that a former colleague has been killed investigating it. He negotiates a work release for his Q (a former mob safe-breaker in jail for his crimes), and heads to Michigan, where he uses secret notes his spy predecessor has left on mirrors in key locations* to track the drugs to doped chewing gum at the movie theater’s candy counter, then to Amsterdam where the mysterious syndicate is planning to take over the world by shipping the drugs everywhere.** The beautiful Dutch lady spy he works with in Amsterdam turns out to be an unwilling double-agent, having been addicted to the drug by the syndicate, but she double-crosses the bad guys and dies in the hero’s arms. The beautiful American lady spy wants him to come home and receive honors, but he and not-Q are going to stay in Holland while he makes time with a beautiful lady restauranteur who flirted with him when he briefly questioned her earlier in the movie. Fin.

This movie was filmed in Italian and awkwardly dubbed into English, with voice actors speaking too quickly and occasionally talking over each other trying to match the actors’ lips. There are also some extremely abrupt cuts that I assume were introduced in the dubbed version.

*Actually, the secret mirror messages thing is never explained. I’m guessing they were written by the previous spy because he’s basically the only candidate, but that doesn’t fully make sense because Super Dragon also finds them in Amsterdam and it doesn’t seem like previous spy made it that far before getting killed. shrug emoji

**the master plan is never fully explained either, but since withdrawal from the drug is 100% fatal without an antidote only they possess, we can infer that they mean to control people by getting them involuntarily addicted and holding the cure ransom

MST3K lore or notable moments: we get so little background on Gizmonic Institute or the world it inhabits that I suppose it counts as lore when Dr. Forrester says that he studied super-villainy as an undergraduate.

What do I think about it’s place on the list? I’m actually really glad I started this project, because I feel like knowing that I have to write about them is making me pay more attention and therefore appreciate the episodes more, so I’m having a lot of fun watching these. I’m not sure if this is retained from the original or introduced by the dub, but the way this movie lays out information is somewhat hard to follow. Things are always happening, but we don’t always know how one scene is related to another. It’s a very fun episode though, and in addition to the riff, I also really enjoyed the sketches about Crow’s script for a spy movie “for the nineties” where the hero talks in therapy speak, and Joel’s guide to spy murder puns (when you throw someone out of an airplane, you have to say, “They just stepped out.”) I continue to agree that each episode on this part of the list is just a bit better than the previous one. No change.

[just-a-carrot]

hi this is the aspiring game dev who sent that other ask. Yes I am hoping to create a visual novel in the future :3 any advice on where to start with that?

i see i see

well what i wrote in the other ask still is extremely relevant, so i would so that's still my top advice in general

but as for specifically VN stuff i would say:

Don't try to do a ton of complicated coding work right off the bat; start off very simply just trying for instance to do a scene that you've written with perhaps some placeholder assets just to get started, then expand from there; you can slowly add more complicated code and polish as you get more familiar with the engine you're using (i use ren'py for instance, which is very easy to jump into, and you can use the tutorial game to start out learning some basics and go from there!); this is why for instance my later arcs of OW and my later games in general are all a bit more polished coding and scripting-wise, because when i was just getting started, everything was brand-new, so i was just trying to keep things simple to keep moving, which is a good thing actually, because as a beginner it's so easy to get stuck in the mud and overwhelmed and it's so easy to lose motivation if you hit a lot of snags this early on; also for instance i don't even touch things like GUI until i've got at least part of the game itself coded, etc

Write a good chunk of your script first before diving in so you have a lot to work with once you start working in the engine.

Think about music like you're scoring a movie rather than like you're picking songs for a game. What I like to do is go out and just start listening to lots of music from the music sites I've used while thinking about the story and potential scenes. I download a bunch and just live with it for a while. Sometimes I'll listen to a song and know right away a scene it's perfect for, or it'll inspire something for a scene. Other times I really like a song but am not sure what to use it for yet so I'll just live with it for a while and see if eventually my head pairs it up with a scene. Other times I already have a scene and am looking for a song specifically for it. I feel like listening to and paying more attention to scores in movies and TV will also help you get a bit more of an ear for how to work with music in VNs.

Playtest a lot!! Again and again! You can insta-reload in Ren'Py with your new saved changes. I do this constantly when working to test out how my scenes look and feel. Even more so when working with more complicated animations as I need to ensure my numbers are correct and everything looks right lol.

[smokycinnamonroll]

HOW TO ADD A "CREEPY/SCARY/HALLOWEEN/ETC" MODE TO YOUR GHOST

want to add a spooky surprise to your ghost for halloween or just in general? not sure how to do it? maybe i can help! maybe not though idk.

Note: this is written for yaya, but the code basics should still apply for other languages!

first, we want to create a variable or two, preferably in wherever your initial variables are located. there's a couple ways you can do so:

... and possibly some other ways i'm forgetting. doing so here will *initialize* your variable, and presumably you want to start your ghost with the mode set to normal, or off. for the purposes of this guide, i'll be using the "mode" method, in case we want to add a silly mode or something later.

to initialize a variable in script input, first ctrl+s to bring up the input box, then type

%(mode = 'normal')

and hit the enter key. to check if it's initialized properly, simply bring up the input box again and input %(mode) — this should make your ghost display the contents of the mode variable in the balloon.

-

so, now we have our variable. but how do we use it?

to turn it on, you can use random chance:

to turn it off, you can either use the toggle, a different random chance in OnMinuteChange or similar, or simply add

(Note that the font i'm using here ligatures >= and <= — normally they're written without a space in between!)

or a toggle:

mode = "normal"

to OnClose.

-

using a case/when statement vs an if/else here is mostly a matter of personal preference - i'm a little more used to using case/when for things like this, but it's pretty much the same thing in yaya anyways, so if you don't like it, don't worry about using it!

to change the aitalk pool, you only need to change one thing:

-

There is also another way: one that requires dynamically loading *all* affected .dic files, using a second yaya.txt, dicif, and include, ... but i haven't actually done that myself yet! so, unfortunately, i can't tell you how to do that, or if it's any easier in the long run.

changing other functions may be a little different:

anyways, that's the basics of how to add a mode! since chains have a unique identifier anyways, there's no need to add a separate check for them.

Zichqec also has some cool text functions that you can use!

that's all i have to say about that! drawing surfaces is just a matter of drawing and surfaces. i'm not getting into all that, but there's a possibility of using dressups to change surfaces instead of trying to remember everything else. also, surface.alias can be used to group certain surfaces together! but like i said, not getting into all that.

remember to add checks to OnSurfaceRestore, OnBoot, OnClose, OnMouseMove, and anything else that may need to be changed! if you write your menus the right way, you may not even need to add if-checks for every little function, either. here's an example of a way to have fun with the menu, without sacrificing functionality too much!

hope this helped some!

-

guide made for etc jam 2025, in the first 48 hours of the event.

[tom-a-fox]

What languages do you speak?

Let's see... I started out learning Visual Basic. Later on I tried out Commodore 64 BASIC and Casio BASIC, I have more experience with the latter. I started learning Minecraft commands way back when command blocks were first added too. Probably before that too, but that's when I really started getting into it. Then a tiny bit of JavaScript, but I've forgotten most of that by now. (I already knew some HTML but I'm only counting Turing-complete languages in this list) Then I learned Python, and that's what I was most comfortable with for years. Later I tried some microcontrollers so I messed around with Arduino's language a bit (not sure if it's C or C++, it doesn't matter as I'll mention both later anyway) though I wouldn't say I actually speak that one. I know every command in Brainfuck, but I'm not gonna count that either as I have no clue how to write anything useful in it. During my college years I was taught C and PIC assembly, the latter was definitely interesting so I also taught myself a bit of 6502 assembly. At around this time I was fixing up some really old gamemaker projects of mine, and moved from the drag-and-drop blocks to the actual GameMaker Language. Then during the lockdowns I found the leaked script code for Psychonauts so I looked into Lua. (I first tried it at around the Minecraft time for the ComputerCraft mod, but only now did I really understand the language. In fact, Lua is what my own 3DS game was written in!) I learned C# for my job and that's by far what I'm most comfortable in now. If HLSL counts as Turing-complete (I think it does) I'm counting it here, also for job reasons. I'm also looking into C++ again for Nintendo homebrew but I just can't seem to get my development environment set up properly. And I think that brings us to the present, I can't wait to see what other languages I'll learn in the future!

[al-mayriti]

AKKADIAN WITH VIVI - PART 1. CUNEIFORM, FONETICS, AND MORE

so. for christmas i got a grammar of akkadian, and i thought i would study it on my own as sort of a hobby, to detox from all of the other stuff i have to do, just for the love of it. i started this week and i thought it would be fun to share it over here because a few years ago i remember sharing some facts about akkadian and y'all seemed to enjoy it so i hope you like this :)

first of all, for those of y'all who don't know, i studied the ancient world in uni and have in total studied akkadian for a year (as in. in two different years for one semester each). but last time i studied it was in 2021 and as you can imagine. i cannot really practice it. so it's a bit fuzzy in my mind.

also, i studied arabic for a year but that knowledge is also slowly going away (i think I studied it in 2022 ? something like that) and i remember akkadian and arabic having tons of similarities (they're both semitic languages!) so i will be making references to arabic with vocab to refresh myself. also i thought it would be fun to add the other big semitic language, hebrew, to the mix as i have zero knowledge of it and could be a cool way to learn some! i will make some parallels throughout this project, but as stated i am not fluent in any of them so feel free to point out more similarities or correct me when needed !!!!

anyways, enough yapping, under the cut i'll discuss what i studied this week <3

first of all, as an introduction, i've said it before but akkadian is a semitic language - one of the oldest in fact, spoken circa 2500 BC to 75 AD. here's a table with the chronology.

this might look confusing, but it's quite easy to understand don't worry. basically, around 1950 BC akkadian or what it's typically known as 'ancient akkadian' (AAc in the table) split into two distinct dialects, babilonian (AB, mB, nB, tB) to the south, and assyrian (AAs, mAs, nAs) to the north. the grammar book, and almost all akkadian guides you'll find, teach specifically the ancient babilonian dialect (AB in the table), because that's the dialect in which the hammurabi code was written in, and most of classical texts. it was also the basis of what's called classical babilonian (BS in the table), a fossilized literary language that no one actually spoke (think of modern standard arabic). assyrian and babilonian for the most part are pretty similar except with some vocab, and that the babilonian has an extra vowel, the /e/. i think there's a part about dialect differences in this guide so i'll leave the full explanation for that :)

anyways, now that that's out of the way, let's continue onto the writing system, cuneiform. cuneiform was created by sumerians, inhabitants of sumer, basically the south of babilonia, that coexisted with akkadians from the beginning of written history (around 3000 BC). the thing is, cuneiform was made for sumerian and akkadians had to adapt it to their language. sumerian is not a semitic language (it is actually a language isolate) so there's a lot of complications akkadians had to overcome. for instance, they are one of the few semitic languages (possibly the only one?) that notes vowels.

CUNEIFORM

cuneiform script is form by two different strokes:

[clavo means nail in spanish]

as you can see, there's only a limited number of ways a cuneiform ideogram / symbol can be written, 5 in total!

the cuneiform ideograms can be syllabic or logographic. syllabic means they're only phonetic, with no meaning by themselves (think of the katakana system in japanese) versus logographic ones, which have meaning on their own (like kanji)

[V= vowel, C= consonant]

syllables can be V (𒀀 a), CV (𒈠 ma), VC (𒄠 am), or CVC (𒄨 kal). there's also polysyllabic symbols (𒁄 bala).

an example of logogram is 𒈗, which translates to 'king'. this is where the fun starts. so. again. the cuneiform language was made for the sumerian language. so all logographic symbols have the name of the sumerian word it corresponds to. in sumerian, 𒈗 is read lugal, so that's its name. in akkadian, the word is read šarrum, however. in akkadian dictionaries and in scholarly texts, these logograms always appear as akkadian name (SUMERIAN NAME). therefore, 𒈗 appears as šarrum (LUGAL). this is the standard for all logograms discussed here.

before continuing, we are about to talk about transcription and transliteration a lot, so just to have the difference clear:

transliteration is writing in the latin script what each ideogram represents, separating syllables with dashes and noting any technical information pertinent. for example, 𒈗 is transliterated LUGAL.

transcription is writing in the latin script what each word was pronounced like, following grammar and phonetic rules. 𒈗 is transcribed as šarrum .

here is a full example of the original text in cuneiform, its transliteration, transcription, and translation to spanish:

words can be written in cuneiform either syllabic or logographically, there's no rule about this, it usually depended on the scribe's preference or the space they had in the tablet.

there's various ideograms that are homophones, that is, they represent the same sound despite being written differently [this was probably not as drastic when spoken, but we do not know how akkadian was fully pronounced]. for example, there's various symbols that are read as e. in transliteration, they are noted with subscripts. therefore, they would be noted as e, e2, e3, e4... however, x2 and x3 are usually transliterated with ´ and ` respectively, so e2 = é and e3 = è. from x4 onwards they're always transliterated with the subscript.

there's also a thing that also exist in egyptian and that i absolutely adore, and that's lexical determinatives <333 they're non-phonetic symbols - that is, they were not pronounced and thus are not transcribed - that preceded or followed a word to make its meaning clearer. when transliterating these, they appear as superscripts, abbreviated normally in sumerian. for example:

𒀭𒀫𒌓 is transliterated as dMARDUK or ilMARDUK. d stands for 'dingir' (sumerian) and il for 'ilum' (akkadian) and both mean 'god'.

𒄑𒆕 𒄣 is transliterated as giškak-kum. 'kakkum' means 'weapon' in akkadian, whereas 'giš' is 'wood' in sumerian. in this case, it is used to specify the weapon is made of that material.

similarly, there's also grammar complements, written following logograms in order to help with the morphosyntactic value of that particular logogram in the sentence. again, these are not usually transcribed, and are transliterated usually followed by a . for example:

𒈗𒈨𒌍 reads as LUGAL.MEŠ. MEŠ is the plural complement, which means the word should be transcribed as 'šarru'; 'the kings', not 'šarrum', 'the king'. it sometimes is transcribed, and when it happens it appears as a superscript (šarrumeš).

𒉿𒈫 reads as GÉŠTU.MIN. 'géštu' means 'ear' in sumerian ('uznum' in akkadian), and MIN is the dual complement, which means it should be transcribed as 'uznān'; 'the two ears'

𒀭𒂊 reads as AN-e. 'an' means sky or heaven in sumerian ('šamum' in akkadian). e here is just e. in the context of this text, this word is meant to be plural, but depending on the case, the word could be šamu (nominative) or šame (acusative / genitive). the -e is there to make sure the reader understands this word should be read as 'šame'.

before continuing with phonetics, here are some of the most common determinatives:

DUG = karpatu: 'recipient' (קְעָרָה k'ara)

IKU: 'field', for measures

SAL = sinnišat: 'woman'

LÚ = awil: 'man', in professions and masculine ethnonyms

SÍG = šipātu: wool (صوف suf)

KI = ašar: place.

DINGIR = il: god (إله allah)

and here are the most common grammar complements:

MEŠ: plural in people and things

HI.A (HÁ): plural in animals and things

DIDLI / MIN: dual

KAM: numerals

PHONETIC SYSTEM

vowels: there's three main vowel sounds - /a/, /i/, /u/. there's a sneaky fourth vowel tho (again. i'm pretty sure this is just in babilonian). the /e/. it appears in two cases:

when /a/ follows certain sounds (the grammar doesn't go more in detail?). for example; *ḥaqlum > eqlum.

when /i/ follows /ḫ/ or /r/. for example; *palih > paleh

other notes about the vowels:

when long vowels are the result of a contraction, they are marked with ^ (*rabium > rabûm)

long vowels could be expressed in cuneiform by reduplicating the vowel. like rabûm could be written ra-bu-u-um for example.

dipthongs are almost nonexistant. only /ai/ and /au/ exist (for example nawrum). most of the time they become /ī/ and /ū/, like in *baitum > bītum or *šaurum > šūrum.

consonants:

here's the whole table <3

some notes about them:

in terms of pronunciation, emphatic consonants /ṭ/, /ṣ/ and /q/ are pronounced like their arabic counterparts, so ط, ص and i guess a more emphatic version of ق respectively.

the /'/ alif is a funny guy. so. it is very residual in akkadian, it barely is there. it is the result of protosemitic fonemes that dissappeared in akkadian but can be found in other semitic languages, that aren't even written most of the cases. there's five fonemes in total, divided into two groups:

-/e/ alef / soft alef:

/'/ voiceless glottal occlusive: *'akālum > akālum 'to eat' (يأكل yakul, לֶאֱכוֹל le'echol)

/h/ voiceless laringeal fricative: *nahrum > nārum 'river' (نهر nahr, נָהָר nahar)

-/a/ alef / hard alef:

/ḥ/ voiceless faringeal fricative: *ḥaqlum > eqlum 'field'

/'/ voiced faringeal fricative: *ba'lum > bēlum 'lord' (بعل, בָּעַל ba'al)

/ģ/ voiced velar fricative: *ģarābum > erēbum 'to enter'

/ḫ/ is pronounced like the spanish j (or kh if you don't know the sound)

syllables can be open (they end in V), or closed (they end in C). a closed syllable + C makes a long syllable. this is important for accents!

the last syllable is always accentuated when it's long as a result of a contraction. also, in words that have three or more syllable, you gotta pay attention to the second to last syllable. if that syllable is long, then that's the accentuated one. if it's short, then the accent is on the second to last. for example, its (accent is boldened) akālum, iparras, but ibtani.

finally, when the word is followed by an enclitic particle, desinence or suffix, the syllable immediately before the suffix is elongated, which may change the accent of the word. for example, its bītu 'from the house' but bitīšu 'from his / her house'; ibni 'he created', but ibnīma 'he created and...'.

that's all for this week folks <3

[paradoxcase]

So I've discovered this new programming game, Artifacts MMO:

The basic idea is that you control your character using a script that you write which interacts with the public API, and every single game action taken using an API call, and every single piece of game information can be retrieved using an API call. Basically, if you ever played Runescape and thought, man, writing a bot to play Runescape for me might actually be more fun than playing Runescape, but I would like to not get banned, this game is for you

This would also honestly be a great teaching/learning tool. Like, if you want to get more practice with a language, or learn a new language, or learn how to do things like use an API, but you don't have any idea for a project you can work on to do that, this game is actually great for it. You can get some very simple scripts running without anything complicated, but there's basically no limit to how complicated you can make your bot. You can have up to five characters running at once, so if you want to mess around with multithreading or concurrency, you can do that, too.

Apparently the game restarts back at zero periodically, I think it's near the beginning of a restart currently, so the leaderboards are not too intimidating right now, if that matters to you.

I've been unemployed for so long and haven't had anything to work on, especially now that my computer is still being repaired. This game is filling a void in my soul. And it doesn't consume all my time, either, because a lot of the "playtime" is just I start a long-running script and then go do something else for 10 hours, and when I come back, progress has been made

[stiles-hoodie]

Life With Derek and Taylor Swift Songs

Songs I associate with Life With Derek, mainly Dasey, from Taylor Swift, and the stories I imagine in my head instead of properly writing them (until now, I guess) If there's any I missed that you have ideas for let me know, and yes this is long.

Tim McGraw: Casey Mcdonald and the way her blue eyes shine. Honestly, this is the type of song Casey would write. It’s cute, storytelling, and detailed. I imagine her writing this song not based on her experience but on a day when her hopeless romantic side feels sad. She imagines what she hopes to have but does not have. She wrote it when she first moved in with the Venturi’s or before Nora and George met.

Picture To Burn: There’s the obvious answer, where this could be about any of Casey’s exes. But honestly, I imagine Casey being dramatic and writing this song after Vicky kissed that boy she had a crush on. Or Vicky dating another guy Casey liked after the guy used Casey to get close to Vicky. 

Tear Drops On My Guitar: Another song about Casey being dramatic. But also Derek sad boy hours. He’s glumly playing his guitar and that inspires Casey to write the song, since she doesn’t own a guitar. But don’t tell Derek she wrote a song inspired by him, and don’t tell Casey what that implies… she’ll figure it out eventually…

A Place In This World: Casey Mcdonald. I think this one doesn’t really need an explanation, to be honest.

Cold As You: Could possibly be about Dennis or Abby walking away, but I honestly can’t think of anything for this one. Maybe Casey writes something like this about Vicky after being really mean at one point.

Tied Together With A Smile: Derek Venturi. This could be seen in Casey too a little bit, but she doesn’t try to appear as perfectly fine a lot of the time. She does when it comes to school stuff, but not with her emotions. Derek is the one to put on a fake smile, make a joke and manage to hide what he feels a lot of the time. Even if he isn’t hiding it well, he still isn’t as open about it right away.

The Outside: When Casey first starts at her new school

Stay Beautiful: Cory’s eyes are like a jungle and his butt is gonna sue! I regret nothing. Could be a cute Dasey song, but I just keep remembering Corey Plunkett.

Should’ve Said No: Truman or Scott the cheating scums

Mary’s Song (Oh My My My):  Dasey or Nora and George. I personally imagine Casey finding an old journal of Felicia’s and writing this about some of the entries. Maybe it was about Felicia and her husband before the divorce or an old high school romance.

I’m Only Me When I’m With You: Smarti and Smerek. Or the entire family together

Fearless: Dasey. Enough said.

Fifteen: “In your life, you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.” This song is just so Casey coded and with everything that happened with Max I feel like Casey just really needed a song like this at the time and i see this being one of her favourite songs from Taylor. 

Love Story: Dasey. I have this idea called The Shakespeare Debate it’s still a working idea, but it is Dasey. It’s basically Casey being really into plays and thinking Derek doesn’t respect them, Derek being really into film and script analysis and actually enjoying the dark tragedies of shakespeares plays. I also kind of made a whole debate scene where Derek manages to bring up Carrie while talking about Romeo and Juliet just to confuse Casey and end the conversation, but it actually makes sense and that confuses her even more.

White Horse: I just find this song so pretty and Casey being very into fairytales she would totally be into white horses

You Belong With Me: Emily whenever Derek is seeing a girl that isn’t her. Especially when he was dating Kendra

The Way I Loved You: Dasey

The Best Day: God smiles on my little brother, inside and out he’s better than I am. Makes me think of Derek and Edwin. I see Derek actually thinking very highly of Edwin and with his self esteem he probably thinks of everyone very highly compared to himself.

Change: Casey might be scared of change, but I see this song with her. 

Superstar: Derek Venturi

Crazier: “Not telling her is driving me crazy.” Dasey. After the whole Scott thing and Derek  realises he likes Casey. He hates himself for writing such a sappy song, but he also likes that he managed to write a song.

Mine: So freaking Dasey coded are you kidding me!

Back To December: Derek and Kendra

Speak Now: Derek when Casey married Peter. The kids are against George and Nora getting married in the beginning. Everyone going against Fiona’s wedding because dear god that was awful

Mean: Seems like a song Casey would write

Never Grow Up: Smarti and Smerek

Enchanted: Imagine after junior prom Derek with his guitar in the white jacket. Or maybe it’s sitting nicely draped over the foot of his bed as he is sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed after leaving early once Sally’s boyfriend comes to whatever diner they ended up in. He hears Casey, Max, Sheldon and Emily pull up from his windows at the front of the house as he writes a song about how he realised he’s in love with Casey that night when he saw her coming down the stairs to the living room in a beautiful dress that he actually found, not Emily. 

Better Than Revenge: Dedicated to Vicky and Truman. CD Rock totally performed this and Derek was very encouraging of the anger.

Haunted: My favourite song on the album and I mainly think about Dasey just because of the sound. The orchestra rock sound is a perfect combination for Derek and Casey.  It can be loosely inspired by Derek and Caseys anger towards Dennis and Abby after they left. It could simply be a song one of them wrote or they both wrote together, after a breakup. The fic idea i have is Derek writing this based more so on an actual haunted experience and from hearing ghost stories. Casey's classical did inspire him a little bit.

Last Kiss: I imagine this being a cute song for Sally and Derek when she moves to Vancouver. But also “I'm not one for dancing but for you I did.” Works for both Dasey and Sally and Derek. He did take her to the dance.

Long Live: Just Life With Derek as a show 

Ours: Cute George and Nora song. Felicia was against them, the kids had to grow with it. It just a cute song for them too me.

Electric Touch: A CD Rock song sung by Casey and Derek. The first time Derek manages to actually sing in front of people properly without psyching himself out.

I Can See You: Dasey. But also (even though I don't ship them) I can see this as a Truman and Casey song when she's in her rebellious phase

Castles Crumbling: After Casey breaks up with Max and she quits cheerleading,  and she is trying to find herself again. Also her transition from being popular at her old boarding school and starting at a public school. The haunting feel to it makes me think of haunted and since its a duet makes me think of Derek and Casey working on this song together after her and Max breakup, which is after the episode where Casey helps him write a song for Sally. They work together on a few songs after the episode.

Timeless: The epitome of Dasey for me. Just like Mine. I see both Casey and Derek writing this song by themselves, but I really like the idea of Derek writing it though.

Safe and Sound: In Life With Luca Skylar mentioned that Derek would sing her to sleep because the dark freaked her out. I just imagine this as a lullaby he would sing to her and Marti with his guitar.

State of Grace: Dasey

Red: Casey reflecting on her relationship with Max possibly. Derek and Casey write it together and that's where we get the guitar solo 

Treacherous: Dasey

I Knew You Were Trouble: Casey dedicates this to Truman 

All Too Well: Someone made a really good edit to the 10 minute version for Dasey

I Almost Do: Derek almost tells Casey his feelings multiple times. Wants to call her multiple times while he's out of the country as well, and she wants to call him multiple times despite being with Peter.

Never Ever Getting Back Together: Casey and Sams on again off again relationship

Stay Stay Stay: I can picture Derek showing up in his hockey helmet after his first fight with Kendra.

Last Time: Dasey duet… possibly

Everything Has Changed: “freckles in your smile” Duet with Derek playing guitar. 

The Moment I Knew: change up a few lyrics this can be used for absent parents on someone's birthday. I picture this one from Derek's perspective, though since it mentions Christmas lights and I'm Sixteen Smartplugs aired on November 5th, making him a November baby. I don't know the date production wise. 

Better Man: Same as The Moment I Knew, but with Casey and Dennis. Some minor changes and the song works well with a dad who wasn't around.

A Message In A Bottle: “You got me hypnotised, by freckles and bright eyes.” this entire song I feel like Casey would dedicate to Derek. She might've been late in telling Derek her feelings before he left for Paris, but this was the best she could do.

Welcome To New York: Casey's year in New York

Blank Space: I think this works for Derek's persona he had in the beginning of the show. Casey definitely viewed him this way before finding out he's actually a really good date.

Style: Dasey. Sidenote: I also picture Derek having his bisexual moment in College with this song. Derek can have his James Dean and his feelings for Casey at the same time.

Out Of The Woods: Dasey

Shake It Off: Someone made a really good edit for Casey to this song. But also Dereks crazy legs. That's enough said.

Wildest Dreams: Dasey

This Love: Dasey

I Know Places: Dasey. Also Derek's secret boyfriend while his band takes off. I have a full story idea about that. I guess his hidden relationship with Skylar's mom works as well. 

Clean: Derek eventually having to let go of Casey after she marries Peter and has Luca. 

You're In Love: Dasey

Dancing With Our Hands Tied: Dasey. There's a nice edit to this song someone made as well.

Cruel Summer: “He looks up grinning like the devil!” I'd so Derek coded you can't tell me otherwise. 

The Archer: Casey and her anxiety, but also Derek and his which isn't as obvious then Casey's but she can see through him when it does come up the same way he can see through her.

Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince: Dasey. “Ripped up my prom dress.”

The 1: Dasey

Exile: “you never gave a warning sign” “I gave so many signs.” I feel like this part in particular is very Dasey coded. But Derek is Taylor's POV and Casey is Bon Iver's. Derek gave so many signs about his feelings for Casey, but Casey took longer to noticed then took even longer to finally think about the possibility to actually give it a try, by then though Derek left for Paris. I don't believe he just up and left with no warning, he definitely had his warnings Casey was either in New York or wasn't taking them seriously. Our boy tried leaving for Spain and Vancouver he was wanting to leave for a while, once he finally had a good reason he took it and the reason was 100% Skylar's mom going to Paris while pregnant. 

This Is Me Trying: both Derek and Casey can relate to this one. Lizzie can throw into the mix too, especially in Vacation With Derek.

Illicit Affairs: Dasey. Theres a really good edit to this as well.

Tis The Damn Season: Dasey

Tolerate It: Even without knowing too much about Peter, I think this works for how Casey feels about her marriage. This could also work for a lot of her relationships on the show as well. Max and Sam were simply tolerating her feelings, but that's really it. 

Anti-hero: both Casey and Derek coded

You're On Your Own Kid: I see this more for Derek. 

Midnight Rain: I can see this working for Dasey

Question…?: I can see this working for Dasey as well.

Paris: I think this one is pretty obvious.

Hope you enjoyed this!

[anyhs-themes]

HIATUS (en)

What about my themes? I'm not taking commissions anymore, but all my themes will continue to be available for now, however I'm no longer updating them, so use them at your own risk!

Where to find me? You can still find me on my personal blog (@anyhsalinas). And if you have a theme/HTML/CSS/JavaScript related question for me, as long as it's a simple question I might have time to help you, so send it to my personal blog (here) ONLY. Don't even try to ask about these things on my other social medias where the focus is not coding, please, otherwise I'll block you (I had people doing this before and I get very annoyed by that, respect my spaces, please).

Why I'm quitting?

One of the biggest reasons why I loved Tumblr was the ability to customize our blogs however we wanted and turn it into our own space with our own style. And that's why I started making themes for myself and for other people. But over the last years Tumblr has kinda neglected this feature of the platform:

Clicking on a blog through the dashboard now takes you to a default dashboard-like page (this) and not to the customized version of the blog (this), which turned customizing your blog into something pointless because we take a long time customizing our theme only so that it might never even be seen by anyone;

This change also made it possible for people to send me messages without even seeing the rules for messaging me first;

And let's not forget the fact that now we need to contact Tumblr's staff to ask and wait for their permission in order to use JavaScript in custom pages, which makes things so unnecessarily more difficult for people who want to use our custom pages (they say it's for safety reasons, but it's still possible to use scripts on the main theme, so what's the point?).

Let's talk about writing posts as well:

We can no longer use basic HTML codes on posts which made it impossible for me to post tutorials (since it blocks the codes I'm trying to teach) -- which made me need to create a blog on Blogger to post my tutorials there, and have to simultaneously take care of two blogs on the exact same topics, which is kind of annoying;

Also the new post editor has been very buggy for me. Sometimes when I try to copy a portion of the text I'm writting it just won't copy no matter what. Sometimes it will duplicate paragraphs on its own for no reason...

Tumblr has also made some bad decisions (in my opinion at least) over the years of what kind of content to allow in the platform which caused serious problems to the platform itself (as you might have seen in the news around that time), but even before that also caused a big change in its community and the majority of the blogs I loved (the meme, poetry and fandom blogs of shows and bands I like) moved to Twitter (I still refuse to call it "X", lol) and other social medias. So most of what I loved about this platform is gone forever and the only things still keeping me here are the things I have saved in my blogs, my liked posts and drafts (mostly custom content and mods that I found here for The Sims, lol).

I haven't been using Tumblr regularly in... years, actually. Only sometimes I pass by. And I no longer enjoy developing themes for this platform because now, after all these changes, it has turned into something kinda pointless. Also, I've been busy with other projects that are bringing me more joy at the moment, such as my Youtube channels and crafting. So I'm leaving behind this part of my life... I don't like saying this is an end because I can always change my mind. But unless Tumblr goes back to making our custom theme as the main page of our blogs (instead of that default dashboard-like boring page), I don't think I'll go back to making themes for this platform.

But thank you all for your support in this blog and for using my codes through all of these years! Wish you all the best. 💕

— Anyh's Themes (2013 - 2024)