#i can't wait to read a more decent translation but

[koumeowkami]

stumbles out of the 2wink climax event covered in blood (and tears)

[saffron-words]

Introduction and UtsuKare Translations Master Post

Some of you might recognize me as that Russian translator of Utsukushii Kare books from Wattpad. I decided to revive my tumblr to compile all the links and explanations here for those of you, MBM fans, who can't wait for official English releases of the books.

I could never keep a blog, so for now here I'll just tell how it all came about, and you can find links to all my MBM translations at the end (feel free to just skip the wall of text). So a couple of years ago I finally bowed down and decided to read Utsukushii Kare series in Japanese for language practice, even though I found the summary unappealing and I'm generally suspicious of overhyped media (as far as BL novels go, these books seemed to be The most hyped-up series in Japan). Much to my surprise, I loved it so much it was hard to move on. And while I waited for a chance to buy book 3 and Interlude, I gobbled up everything else related to the series that I could. The manga was only just starting, I didn't like dramaCDs (but I'm in the minority), and the drama somehow revived my love for watching Jdramas, even though I thought that this part of my fandom life has been over for years. When the second season started airing, I made a new friend in the Russian-speaking parts of the Internet who was even more obsessed with MBM than I am, and we fangirled to our hearts' content. At some point I promised her to translate the big sex scene from the end of book 3 as a gift for all the talks. I did, and since back then there was nothing for book 3 in any European language, as far as I know, I decided to post it online and give a link to English-speaking UtsuKare fans too. And since Wattpad doesn't allow copying text, and the browser translator feature from Google Translate was really inadequate, I also put up a link to the translation made with Deepl. As far as machine translators go, it is noticeably more comprehensible, and I didn't have the time (or skills to do the book justice, really) to translate it to English myself. Anyway, after this excerpt I thought I could manage one more important scene from book 3, then one more, and then I finally gave up and started translating it properly from the beginning. I also started correcting mistranslations in Deepl-versions that I kept doing for English readers, so some parts of the book are now much more readable than others. Now the third book is done and I started to work on book 2, Nikurashii Kare. I also translated several stories from Interlude and plan to do at least one more, but that is put on the backburner for now since I want to do as much of the book 2 as I can before book 4 in the main series comes out. Yes, we're getting a new Hira and Kiyoi book! This year too, probably. And unless it completely disappoints me or something terrible happens IRL, I plan to translate it as well.

So here are the links to everything I've translated from My Beautiful Man book series:

Book 3 "Nayamashii Kare" which continues the story past the movie (completed). The text is in Russian, but there are links to decent machine translations to English at the beginning of each part (I've also run through most of them and corrected the mistranslations). Or you can use the in-browser translation feature, but the results would be less readable.

Book 2 "Nikurashii Kare" which was technically turned into season 2 of the drama and the movie, but the script has deviated so much from the book, at times it's like a completely different story (in progress; about 1/4 of the book will be done with the next update which I plan on posting soon). I don't make Deepl translations for this since the official English release will be out in a couple of months.

Stories from other books in the series. The first part is a short scene from Nikurashii Kare, and the rest are stand-alone stories from Interlude. One of them had also been translated to English by Mauli before, but I didn't use her version when working on mine. The rest of the stories have never been translated by anyone else, as far as I know. These, too, have links to Deepl-versions at the beginning.

Disclaimer: my Japanese is not yet really on a level good enough to translate fiction, and there are bound to be mistranslations even if you read the original Russian versions. But I'm cross-checking myself on everything to try and keep those mistakes to minor things. I also know how to translate so I made sure that the text flows well, doesn't feel choppy and retains the same vibe that I get from reading the original.

[dribs-and-drabbles]

I was encouraged by @grapejuicegay to trash watch Pit Babe and so here I am but I have...questions...

Is Babe really getting off on hearing the sound of the engines?!

Why is Babe having sex with other Alphas (I can't believe I'm writing this 🤦🏽‍♀️) and not Omegas, especially if he doesn't like the way the Alphas smell? Is it because he's a 'Super Alpha' and prefers Alphas to Omegas? (oh dear god why am I doing this?!)

Isn't it a tad unfair to let him race using his special powers against others who don't have them?

I nearly choked on my water reading Pavel's tattoo thinking it said "Full Sausage" but then I remembered @slayerkitty or @sparklyeyedhimbo had already made a point of this and I thankfully realised it says "Full Savage" 😂

I actually can't stop thinking about how salty Babe's skin would be because that man would have been sweating in that car race...

Wait wait wait...are they really calling (translating) Babe having sex as the "concentration"?! Like it's a thing he needs to do to...release pent up energy?!...to focus his mind?!

Do we get to know if any of Babe's friends are also Alphas (or Omegas or Betas) or is he the only one?

Please! This is so silly (affectionate). They can't compete over a person...someone who has their own autonomy to say what he can do and with whom 😂 And, sorry, but Charlie, love, you should have had more confidence in Babe since you went to him as a fan.

How did Winner win that first one?... I can't believe this show has me googling how to win a drift race... "It's all about dominating the other driver..." ah, ok, now I get why they're doing this.

Oh, if I'd just continued watching I wouldn't have needed to google it 😂🤦🏽‍♀️

Kind of impressed by the actual drivers of these cars though.

Winner needs to take some advice from Elsa and Let It Go.

"I don't go into strangers' houses"... I smell a parallel in the future, it's that alpha stink.

*she squints* TINIDEE APARTMENTS?! Charlie is staying in the same building as Pat and Pran?! (*aaaand there she goes making it about Bad Buddy again*)

OMG what is it with villans and bonsai trees?! (I want a bonsai tree, does that mean I need to become a villainess? 🤔)

Why are they calling that guy 'Uncle'...he looks the same age?!

Okay, that was...not as bad as I first thought. Nut is a big bonus and Pavel and Pooh are doing a decent job. I do wonder if Babe and Charlie are endgame though or if Babe and Way are... Will I keep watching? Probably, now that I've started, but I may not do this each time...unless each ep throws up more questions. Thanks kk.

[suzukiblu]

WIP Wednesday Game

Taken from @kedreeva.

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

file names:

omega!Clark and hungry!Kon

gentle princely caretaking

the wet nurse omegaverse

trans Clark and cis Kon

weird Kryptonian bonding rituals

snippet from "omega!Clark and hungry!Kon":

Jon peeks out of his room down the hall, looking intrigued, and lights up at the sight of the chocolate chips and the big bowl Clark always uses for pancake batter. Clark smiles at him, and he scurries down the hall and into the kitchen. Clark asks him to set the table, and he does. He also steals a significant percentage of the chocolate chips, but Clark accepts that loss as pup-induced taxation. 

Lois's alarm goes off after Jon’s gotten out all the necessary dishes and Clark’s gotten the pans heating up, and she trudges sleepily out of their bedroom. Clark passes her a mug of the coffee he started as soon as he got up himself, and she makes a mumbly noise that he knows her well enough to translate as "I love you beyond all existence and where's the sugar". 

He passes her the sugar and leans down to kiss her cheek. She turns her face into his throat and bites his scent gland a little harder than happens to be decent in front of either of their pups, but given the invulnerability just feels like a chaste little nibble. Clark gives her a soft purr of appreciation and Jon sticks out his tongue at them as he finishes setting the table. 

"Grosssss," he says, making a face. "Don't be all mushy, we haven't even eaten yet!” 

“I’m afraid we can’t promise that, kiddo,” Lois says, then yawns against Clark’s throat before taking her coffee to the table. Clark gets the bacon in the frying pan and starts carefully pouring pancake batter, and Jon drops into his usual seat at the table. Lois makes sleepy noises into her coffee. 

“How many pancakes, Jonno?” Clark asks. 

“Ten,” Jon says immediately, holding up both hands with a charming little grin. Lois snorts. 

“Maybe if they’re very, very small,” she says wryly. “Baby pancakes. Infants. Tiny little dollops.” 

“No way, I want big ones!” Jon says. Admittedly they do have a higher than human metabolism–Clark does not think of Kon’s too-thin wrists–but ten full-size pancakes is probably still pushing it. 

“Maybe we’ll start a little smaller and work our way up,” Clark says, amused anyway. Jon pouts. Kon comes out of his own room already dressed and ready and sits down quietly at the table too, and Jon immediately brightens back up. 

"Hi, Kon!" he greets excitedly. Kon always seems to wait to come out last, and Clark's never figured out why. He’s not even sure the kid even wears his pajamas, or if he just sleeps in his clothes. He never sees him in anything but the clothes he wears to school and his Superboy suit and jacket. “Mom’s making pancakes!” 

“Sure,” Kon says. He obviously knew that, of course, given his enhanced senses and also the very obvious process that is Clark pouring pancake batter into a pan, but Jon’s clearly too excited to have thought that one through. Clark doesn’t comment either way, just smiles at Kon. 

“Morning, Kon,” he says. “How many pancakes would you like?” 

“Whatever’s fine,” Kon says, visibly repressing the urge to fidget in his seat. Clark hates that answer almost as much as the sight of his too-sharp face and those too-thin wrists and how close to stray he smells. 

“Three to start?” he suggests. 

“Sure,” Kon says. Clark can’t call it a victory, but at least it’s an answer.

[geneticcatalyst]

as promised, an exploration of my one pet problem in fandom, or: misinterpretation of jby's first death (ft. zzs)

heres the thing. i occasionally see people reference what seems to be a misconception of the (english translation) text in qi ye. both the fact that its a translation and the metaphorical phrasing make it pretty clear to see why they got the wrong idea, but i firmly believe its still the wrong idea. i am by no means calling the people who got this mixed up dumb or bad, i am simply leaning over their shoulders going 'wait no bestie pls read that again pls read that one more time!!' because this is one of my favorite books and this thing is a key piece of one of my favorite things about it.

i said i was gonna pull screenshots for this post but i think it will be a little while before i get to another reread and i can't ctrl+f the google doc so im just gonna whip this out from memory. if anyone does have this particular passage on hand feel free to pop it in here. the rest of the context/explanations are just from my cursory research, im not chinese or a historian.

cards on the table. the only thing i love more than unhinged gay romances is unhinged platonic soul mates. its catnip to me. i go feral every goddamn time. and i havent stopped losing my mind about zhou zishu and jing beiyuan since that first qi ye scene. what do those guys have going on? not even sure they know but it's A Lot. ive got like 18 other unpublished drafts trying to work that out slash losing my fucking mind at the lengths they go to about each other. that relationship is at the center of both novels even if the spotlight isnt on it. so I admit that my readings are colored a bit by how much i like that they like each other!

which is why im shocked baffled and, ok, lightly salted, to see a few people make the claim that zishu (personally) tortured/killed beiyuan in his first life.

so what the text says is that after helian yi stopped trusting beiyuan (after su qingluan's accidental death), he was basically put to death. but even the emperor has to have a half decent reason to execute someone. the text describes these reasons- ten of them- as zhou zishu's masterpieces. it also refers to them as great shames to beiyuan's standing. what's happening is that helian yi has zishu frame beiyuan for treason or other betrayals against the emperor/the country. it isn't specific as to what, but it doesn't really matter, because its all fake and zishu is really good at his job. so yes, it is fair to say that zishu is the INSTRUMENT of beiyuan's death, but he didn't kill him, he just laid the groundwork.

the text goes on to another slightly confusing line where it says something to the effect of that when each of these accusations were read out in court, each line drew blood from jing beiyuan. that's a metaphor! it's just saying that his reputation was torn apart and ultimately his fate is sealed, despite the phrasing there are no literal injuries happening.

also, i may not have the timeline perfect on this part, but in zishu's introduction in the beginning of the novel, the narration tells us outright that while zishu is partially responsible for beiyuan's death, he was like. cool about it. in what seems to be the first and only time he ever steps out of line or goes against helian yi's command (!), after setting all this up but- if im remembering right- before the news actually breaks in court the next day, zishu warns beiyuan. now this admittedly doesnt do a whole lot because the only other possible option (cut and run) isn't a very good one, but it's the only thing zishu can do. he doesnt have to, but he does it anyway (!). of course beiyuan doesnt even consider doing this, he's stubborn and heartbroken, but he really seems to 1. appreciate the risk zishu took here to try to give him a chance and 2. not hold the whole set up against zishu or take that bit personally.

so what actually happened at the end of beiyuan's first life? he was sent the 3 zhang of white silk. the text does explicitly say this once, but if you're not familiar with the practice it may not click. receiving the white silk from the emperor is what happens when you're too high ranking to execute like a commoner but you've fallen from grace and are being politely asked to hang yourself in order to clear your name. and of course beiyuan, stubborn and heartbroken, does. yes, it's a forced suicide, but it isn't a murder.

anyway, its in that secret conversation, where zishu secretly meets with beiyuan seemingly to try to convince him to save himself and beiyuan outright refuses, that beiyuan promises that if theres a next life (ha), they'll get drunk together. and of course against all odds, there is and they do.

the thing about the idea that some people might think that zishu killed beiyuan is that after that nothing between them makes sense. even if it was at helian yi's request, i just cant see that not permanently damaging the friendship, i don't think beiyuan could immediately pick back up being best friends in the seventh life with that memory in the way. why would zishu go out of his way to warn beiyuan one day if he was perfectly capable and fine with killing him the next? why would beiyuan not only be happy to meet zishu again in the seventh life but also go out of his way trying to save zishu's? none of their other interactions really make sense if you believe there was a murder done there. idk. it clouds the whole throughline of the story which is that they have a bond!

i think maybe people think it is in character due to the other ruthless murders, and they're not wholly wrong, but that's the kicker for me. zishu will murder all kinds of innocents no questions asked, but he's suddenly trying to give an out to his coworker and drinking buddy? hello? thats insane, and that's the point.

furthermore, if you think maybe it would make sense for helian yi to have beiyuan violently killed (since it keeps fucking happening later), i actually have to become helian yi's lawyer for a moment here and say that that doesnt make sense either. helian yi is sitting on a throne gained by shadowy means but he's the Good Guy Ruler and that reputation is important. hes not a cruel person and he may have become paranoid but he still has a shared history with beiyuan. plus, even the emperor has to abide by a certain amount of decorum when he wants to have people killed, especially when that person is also a high ranking member of court. beiyuan's status is basically second only to the royal bloodline, he's essentially the prev emperor's godson, as well as a previously close confidante of helian yi himself. the white silk was regarded as a privileged, dignified means of offing someone. helian yi is perfectly within social acceptability to do this to beiyuan with the pretext of beiyuan's disgrace. but it would be pushing the boundaries for the good and just emperor to suddenly have one of his top advisors and members of high nobility brutally killed like a common criminal. he could probably do it, but it would reflect on him and his reputation too. he could do it in secret, but would have to cover up the disappearance of a prominent court figure. it just makes sense to use the white silk as the neatest, most acceptable legal justice channel here. maintain emotional detachment, be polite, everybody's honor gets honored and such.

so that's the ted talk. theres even some beautiful fanart on here of white-haired first life beiyuan holding the white silk! he wasn't tortured or outright executed, and he chose to obey rather than escape or fight the false claims of treason even though his friend tried to give him the only out he could manage. to interpret things differently really skews the character motivations and plot for everyone- beiyuan, zishu, helian yi- in a way that warps the story out of believability, imho.

[verycharismaticdragon]

On Air Island - chapter 1 - part 3

[prev] - [story so far] - [next]

In today's installment, we are unfortunately hitting one issue this game has, which is that the quality of translation sporadically drops in some branches. Now is a good time to remember that this is a Korean indie game with a developer team that fits into one single screen in the credits. Fortunately though ya boy Dragon has been handling mtl for ages and knows exactly how to make it yield actual result instead of garbled nonsense, so I added the translation to the video and the 'script 👍 Lemme know if this format works!

(the transcript is available below the poll, under keep reading)

Ah right: A.H.M, Shishinao, and Shirashinao are all~ Naoto's nicknames. I'm pretty sure that's also a translation thing, but it's way funnier like this? Let's give him a few more. Naonao~

Anyway,

Transcript legend:

In-game text

Character speaking: dialogue line

regular chat message Donation: donation message

available donation messages

{ Alternative translation }

———— ———— ————

Hanse: The result for the 1st day settlement is! Mr. Fact in the 1st place and Honari for 2nd place!

[player] donated 50 Small Heart: (Voice) Hanse, don't be discouraged!

[Hanse, don't be discouraged!]

Predator: Ugh. Kissme3: Ha, ha, ha.

Hanse: ……………!

hasebuck: Ha, ha, ha. 9nine: Look how surprised he is hanmanse: He looks so cute...

Hanse: Wow......! I was surprised that you were able to post a voice message......

bbongGGu: Seems like he didn't know it So_yool: Adorbs

Hanse: But somehow...... Is it my mood? I feel like all eyes are on me......

Mr.Fact: You almost freaked me out? Don't freak out, it's only just begun. { What, huh? You almost got discouraged~? It's only the beginning, so don't get discouraged, yeah? }

jimjman: What is it? Wannable: ;; VivaViva: Why is he like that

Hanse: Ugh, I'm sorry, Mr.Fact......

OnlyHim: Hanse's expression is hardening in real time boksunga: Be mindful Mr. Fact;

Mr.Fact: Oh, but~ I'll never get to the top. You can't take a shot at me. Okay? { Oh, but~ Quit dreaming of getting to the top. You're no match for me. Okay? }

OnlyHim: <Chat deleted by cleanbot>. ASHA: He's so fake NARICHAN: He just live by his name, Mr. Fact

Honari: But they say to dream big, right?

hansevly: ?! Perish: Oh…?

Honari: Even if you can't. { Even if you can’t achieve it. }

kimbab: Be careful Hanse! PunchHim: This is exciting, someone bring me some popcorn. FactOppa: (nom nom nom)

Mr.Fact: What? You're interrupting me?

island: Is that you? RealFact: If you're rich and popular, you're older than me.

Mr.Fact: You're thick as a board~ You're not afraid of the stares? { Honari, you're thick-skinned~ Are you not afraid of the viewers' gazes? }

Elvis: Suddenly? UglyFace: Are you going to drag Honari here?

Honari: What? I have no idea what you're talking about......

Snitch: ... Fearless: I feel sorry for Nari… hanse1se: Do dum;;

Hanse: Okay, wait......

DUMMY: Refrain yoursel Hanse. outnow: I will ** yoiu if you touch Hanse!

DUCKACOON: What's all the noise, quack? We'll keep going, quack!

Steward: Hey MyMaster: So boring CLAPCLAP: Thank God

Mr.Fact: I'm not even in first place. { Ugh, you’re not the first place, what do you know. }

doremipa: Woah that's crossing the line tho hansefan: Do you think 1st place can do everything?

Honari: … … … … …

Hanse: Ha... ... ... ... ...

kimbab: Eeek Imcrazy: Maybe this is how he treats lower ranks

DUCKACOON: A decent meal was prepared for the middle ranks quack.

lalala99: So-so Thief Jin: Just so-so BeSlave: Hahhhaha So-so

Naoto: Why on earth would you give it such an unappealing name?

rusure: I'm losing my appetite haahaha Rolling: Is it that harsh? Know_all donated 20 Ordinary Clover: Yep! Let me explain so, Shishinao is Naoto Know_all donated 15 Small Spade: Rumour said that he resigned from a broadcasting company and started his own broadcast

Naoto: I mean, it's not exactly broadcast quality...... We'll see. Tomorrow, we'll go to the top. { Anyway, considering the level of the broadcast… Just wait and see. Tomorrow, I will move up to the top. }

Perish: Fighting~ Flos: What? Crying? NARILOL: Anyone think the rank won't be changed? Angelic: 1111111 180x181: 222222222 Know_all donated 20 Touching Diamond: Moreover there is a rumour saying that he is son of a politician, it's interesting fight between the father and son!

Alice: It's too overwhelming for me......!

Carat: But I'm pretty sure Hanse won't be number one. Melody23: What a fact we got here

Alice: Above all............... You're holding my meal as hostage!

c'monya: There was a rumour that Alice is come from a conglomerat family. Know_all donated 5 Amazing Diamond: She is an influencer going by the name ALICE KingCry: It's not a rumour, it's a fact. Know_all donated 10 Amazing Diamond: I don't really remember but i think she start knitting for a hobby and got famous

Alice: That's just so evil---!

BeAKing: She is offended? Imfather: Oh my god. LoveCute: She'll get home by helicopter then Know_all donated 15 Small Clover: Honeslty, if she is the daughter of the S Company's president, they might have support her

Hanse: So.... Naoto is the 3rd place, Alice is in the 4th place. But the gap in vote results between them is quite significant.

Igiveu: I wonder if she's ever had a good meal. koncijeu: No wonder she's so annoyed.

Is A.H.M okay?

Wow, ALICE has such a nice voice.*sarcasm*

(Voice) Hanse, don't be discouraged!

[sovaghoul]

🔮 Tarot Tips for Beginners 🔮

🔮🕯🔮🕯🔮

🪄 Choosing Your Cards 🪄

You might encounter different opinions on where your first deck should come from. Some say it should be a gift. Others disagree. I'm of the opinion that it should resonate with you in some way, whether that's the art, or the theme, etc., and the method of obtaining it (gift vs. purchase) is secondary. However, I do recommend starting with a Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) based deck, as that's the most common set of symbolism for Tarot. If you like the original RWS deck, great! Use it! Most commercial beginner Tarot kits come with this deck. If you want art that's more detailed but uses the same symbolism, try the Morgan-Greer deck. The "Radiant" or "Universal" versions of the RWS deck are other decent choices.

I also recommend a deck with a full book, rather than a booklet (or Little White Book, LWB), as there are going to be more in-depth meanings. LWBs generally only have a brief list of keywords. Full sets with actual books cost more, but in my opinion and experience, are worth it.

The simpler the deck, the easier it'll be to learn from. The original RWS deck has simplistic art, but every part of the picture was intentionally used to convey meaning, from objects to colors. Once you have a basic understanding of what meaning those symbols impart, it's easier to translate that to decks with more detailed and/or aesthetic art, where that art may or may not be as intentional.

In recent years, many artists and deck creators have begun offering "expanded" decks, with additional cards, usually in the Major Arcana, that add to the theme and/or aesthetic of the deck. For your first deck, though, I recommend sticking with the standard 78 cards; 22 Major Arcana, and 56 Minor Arcana.

🔮🕯🔮🕯🔮

🍷Prepping Your Cards🍷

One thing I was taught, was before using a new deck (even before opening it, if you like), is to sleep with it under your pillow (or at least near to you) for three nights, to let it absorb your energy. This is of course optional, but I've found it to be effective in attuning and aligning with the cards. Then, you may want to look through them in order, taking time to admire the art, and see if any symbols jump out at you. You can write these down if you like. Then you can shuffle them, with focused intent, adding more of your energies.

After all that, another thing I was taught was to wrap the deck in silk. The reason for this, is that silk doesn't "breathe," it doesn't easily let air through, as opposed to a material like cotton (if you've ever worn silk, you know what I mean!). It is an old belief that your spirit is carried on your breath, so if the deck can't "breathe" because of the silk, your energies will stay safely within it. This is also, of course, totally optional, but then the silk can easily double as a reading cloth. Fabric and crafting/hobby supply stores may have a bin of scraps, and that can be a good place to find cloths, whatever material you decide to use.

If I trust a person, I'm more than willing to let them handle and look through my decks. Some people advise only letting someone handle the deck if they're shuffling before a reading. Go with whatever feels better to you. You may start with not wanting anyone else to touch them, but relax about it later as you get more comfortable. It's completely your choice. But, with others' decks, it's of course, polite to ask first.

🔮🕯🔮🕯🔮

🗡 Learning Your Cards 🗡

If you have a full book with your deck, read through it, especially any introductory sections apart from the card meanings. Usually, the deck creator/artist will give a feel for how the theme of the deck conveys the traditional Tarot meanings, and this can help you understand their cards better.

You may want to keep a Tarot journal at first. One recommendation is to look through the entire deck, book in hand, and write down keywords, the meanings in your own words, and anything else that you feel can help you remember the meaning of that card (symbols that stand out to you, etc.). Some people do one card a day, or make sure they dedicate a whole page to each card, however long that takes. Others meditate on each card, and write down those results, whether in addition to other notes or not. Whatever works best for you is the right thing to do. There are commercial Tarot journals available online and in some stores, but if you don't want one or can't afford one, a regular notebook is more than adequate.

In general, the Major Arcana (or Trumps) represent forces out of your control, the Will of the Universe, forces acting upon you. The Minors then are things you can control, your own Will, how your choices can change the situation around you. Court cards can represent a specific person in your life or the situation, or an attitude or perspective you're holding in the situation. Each numbered card (or Pip) has a generalized meaning as well, such as Aces being beginnings and Tens representing completion.

Several places online have handy correspondance charts for quick card meanings, what the numbers of the Pips mean, and what the Suits represent, so you can easily discern general meanings if you know those two pieces of information. For example, a 2 can represent a choice, and the suits of Cups deals with emotion. So the Two of Cups could indicate an emotional choice. If such correspondances help you, keep that kind of chart handy as you learn.

Some decks also include reverse meanings. Personally, I don't read reversals, because I don't view the meanings of the symbols and colors in a card as changing just because it's upside-down from the reader's vantage point (because it's likely right-side-up from the other person's point of view! The orientation is relative, but the inherent meaning is not). If you want to read reversals, I suggest putting off learning them until after you feel more comfortable with their upright/standard meaning, just so you don't confuse yourself.

There are Kabbalistic (Hebrew mysticism) and Astrological associations with Tarot also, but they aren't necessary for learning and interpreting the cards. If, once you feel you have the basics down, and you want to go deeper, look into those associations then. But for now, especially if you aren't already familiar with Kabbalah or Astrology, don't let yourself get bogged down in the esotericism of those aspects.

🔮🕯🔮🕯🔮

🌟 Using Your Cards 🌟

Some people recommend reading for yourself first. I personally have trouble reading for myself, ever after 30+ years of reading Tarot. I'm too close to my own situations. But others find it the easiest thing in the world. Try it out. Neither result is "wrong" or "bad."

When you prep for a reading, you can do any number of things to set the mood, from an elaborate ritual-opening type routine, with candlelight and incense and music, to just sitting down and doing it. Whatever makes you feel most at ease. Whomever the reading is for should shuffle the cards, and concentrate on the question or situation they want insight into. This can go on for as long as they/you feel is necessary, until the cards "feel ready." This is an intuitive thing and doesn't have a time limit. If you're reading for someone else and don't want them to touch your cards, just ask them to concentrate on their question/situation while you shuffle.

The easiest spreads are the one-card pull (one card for something like, "How will my day go?"), and a three-card spread. The three cards can be past-present-future, or mind-body-spirit, pretty much any three factors to the situation. If something is unclear with the one card for a given position, pull out more cards, usually 2 or 3, to expand on it. At the end of a reading, I'll also look at the card on the bottom of the deck, and read that as "What it's not," something entirely unrelated to the situation that you can put out of your mind.

I usually lay out all the cards in a spread face down first, stating the position, and then revealing them as the spread progresses. I take note of which Suits show up multiple times, how many Minors, Majors, Court cards, and if there are repeating numbers. Sometimes you can find patterns to these things that help to reveal more information. I also make note of any cards that may fall out while shuffling; sometimes it's significant, and sometimes it's just because I have small hands.

Some readers use a Significator, a card to represent the person asking the question. Usually, this is a Court card and is chosen based on the description (either physically or personality). For example, if the reading was for a young man with dark hair and eyes, and say, the Page of Pentacles in your deck looks like that, you'd place that card first. Or if the reading is for an intelligent and analytical woman, you might choose Queen of Swords. For me, though, this particular practice is unnecessary. I view the card that represents the Querant (the person asking the question) as giving insight into their current feelings regarding the situation at hand. Since that's a fluid factor, the card that represents them in a spread can and should change as well.

Never hesitate to look at the book or your own notes during a reading. You're under no obligation to memorize the meanings of every card. Also, don't try to force every keyword and bit of the meaning to apply. Read them over, and see what stands out to you, what connects to a previous card, what makes sense. This is an intuitive approach to reading the cards, and it can take time to cultivate. But in general, trust your gut. When someone shuffles the cards, they put the energy of the question/situation into them. So what comes out, is only what got put in.

Tarot in general usually isn't the best for yes-or-no questions. Asking how/what/why questions are better, so if the question can be rephrased, try that. Also, Tarot isn't "fortune telling," per se. You can ask about the future, but the answer may be vague or confusing, because the future depends on the choices you make between then and now. You can remember the advice or the idea the cards have, but don't expect it to be set in stone; even asking the question changes the situation!

Lastly, when I clean up my cards, I like to disperse the ones drawn for the reading through the deck, one at a time, in random places, and then shuffle. For me, it disperses the information from that reading throughout the deck, and so helps both the deck and me, the reader, continue to learn and grow in our understanding of each other.

🔮🕯🔮🕯🔮

If there's anything you feel I haven't covered, or something you want me to clarify, feel free to comment or message me privately. Happy reading!

[jumpscaregoose]

I must ask cuz I'm honestly super interested but know nothing about it so. How would u recommend for one to get into paradise? I'm pretty sure it's a multimedia franchise, but. I do not know any of the media LMAO

I'm assuming you're talking about paradox live so I'm gonna try my best to explain (if any mutuals want to chime in their opinions I would love that)

paradox live is a multimedia music project thing that is confusing as hell basically

the original format is a series of audio dramas you can find in the correct watch order with subs on youtube really easily. there's also some written translations if you prefer that

I absolutely suck at audio dramas because they're crazy understimulating to me so it took like. six months after I got into paralive to listen through half of them. I've only listened to the drama past live and a couple of the shuffle units. 2x speed is SO HELPFUL for me when I'm struggling to make it through

why? because there's an anime that came out last year. that's how it got me, and it's a lot more accessible if you're like me and can't do audio dramas. however it does do the sk2001 thing and go crazy off the rails in the last 3 episodes for basically no reason? so if you want the actual intended story you'll need to switch to the dramas for vibes and beyond. however also like sk2001 this anime original stuff is pretty fun (shoutout to episode 9 fr) so if you plan on watching the anime watch it all the way through (but be aware the ending is NOT the same as the dramas)

there's also EVEN MORE YAYYYYYYY. there's a "side novel" called memory that is NOT a SIDE NOVEL this is PRETTY VITAL INFORMATION don't wait six months to read it like I did.

if you're interested in getting into paralive here's what I recommend reading/watching in order: dramas up to vibes/the anime, live audio drama, memory novel, the rest of the audio dramas. shuffle units and other side stuff you can really do at any time

I'd also recommend listening to a few of the songs before you start just to get a feel for it. honestly just put on rap guerilla reload and you'll get a decent idea of each group's sound. I can also give recommendations because I do have favourites

and never forget that allen is the bible

[claireclaymore]

Everlark on movies

or why I just can't hate the movies - Part 1

This post will be polemic, and I am sure everyone will disagree, but I came here to defend romance aspect on the movies.

But first, some important points:

-I do agree the books were totally better while the movies failed in insert romance organically in the storytelling.

-And yes, everlark community is right in be pissed of with the director. He really didn't get the purpose of Peeta and Katniss relationship and that's shows.

-The producers forced the Team Gale and Team Peeta thing to increase the engagement. More Gale and Katniss were their crimes.

That said, what I strongly disagree are following accusations:

-"The movies are Everthorne propaganda and made that ship more popular than the canon one."

-"Peeta and Katniss didn't have chemistry on the movies."

-"On the movies, Katniss was actually in love with Gale, Peeta was rebound."

So this post will cover this fist accusation.

The changes for the love triangule

First movie did insert hits about Gale have a crush on Katniss (the book made this too, but it was implied). In movies Gale is a decent friend (he was there with Prim wait for her, alike on canon), so he is shippable and this create a interesting conflict on the audience, cause her looks like a good match, right?

But then there is Peeta. This guy that happened to be genuinely kind, and was willing to let Katniss win. And in script was implied he did knows it was an act whole time. So in the end of story feels like the audience is strongly divided between two good men, adding the political mess, we do have an exciting cliffhanger.

Then second movies happens and all doubts go away! Again edition cut iconic lines from Peeta, but Josh killed it in all his scenes. Peeta's essential kindness was well portrayed, in my opinion, and made audience really care for him.

It was criminal that they didn't delve deeper into the everlark bed scenes and add new everthorne scenes (that no one asked for), but rewatching it I didn't see much emotions on those kisses (and thanks Liam for having the expressiveness of a door).

In the other hand, the everlark scenes during the games were EVERYTHING! All the drama that was missing in the first film came in full force in the second! The force field scene is so much more theatrical!

And they made the beach kiss sweeter (and personally I love how heartwarming the scene was). I do remember applauding in theater (so... no chemistry my ass)

In short, my reading of the film is that Peeta is not just a cute and passionate friend who Katniss is afraid of hurting by rejecting him. She's falling in love with him. The desperation, the devotion, all of this is perfectly translated in Jennefer's performance. I seriously don't get how someone can see their interactions on arena and think he is the third wheel (and thank you director for don't include Gale's sad face to ruin the moment here).

Feral and in love (overdramatic? overreacted? Yes, but it follows the intensity of Katniss in canon). Will historians say that she is acting like this because of a friend?

Then the two last movies. They finally allowed show Gale being a asshole (I liked that change with calling Peeta a coward, they cut Gale's bullshit in Catching Fire, they had to put in some place). We still have to endure some Gale and Katniss scenes, but again, their ton are pale (basic soundtrack, no creative angles).

But what continues selling the ship is the adversity, the longing. Wherever Peeta appears Katniss just sees him! Gale stay on background or the camera forget him, he is just a desperate man looking at an amazing couple.

You are excellent door Liam!

And all angst, the forbidden love thing make people root even more for Everlark! So no! The movies didnt' sell Everthone or this attempt backfired (or if you disagree, at least see Jennefer isn't on board).

In conclusion, yes the movies made little for the ship, but this little was enough to introduce people to this amazing franchise. The details, the performing, soundtrack, edition all came together to the tip of the iceberg of everlark.

[khaleesiofalicante]

hi! i need to get something off my chest, like in shadowhunter world both tv and books, books is my favourite not because i hate tv characters (bc teh emotional vulnerability was very well done there- i literally it was so hard to wait for my school to get over so i could watch the show) but bc books is the original stuff which i fell in love with for teh first time, also why though all teh series are really good in shadow world but tmi holds a special place in my heart (no matter how imperfect it is in certain places) which i think also translates into my love for book!malec more than show!malec. (the height difference bugs me so much in show bc its not the right one, alec loves being shorter than magnus, but i love matt sorry harry but matt is yeeahhh...) idk why i have never been able to attach myself to show malec fics as much to book!malec fics. I think the only long show!malec fic i read was yours that you made about detective alec and lawyer magnus, but that was bc i love your writing and stories (i love the book!malec and mavid ones more sorry !! but i cant david is an original character but i love him so much, sry got sidetracked) tbh i also felt that the next malec fic would be show malec bc i cant (even tho i have read the lmlt i think it was named.. one of teh first long fics you wrote which had asmodeus and alec relation) imagine book alec having a relationship with asmodeus which is even remotely decent. but show malec have always been more softer and more communicative about their vulnerabilities. (which makes me realize now, i also love the intensity of book!malec more, huh)

Anyways i dont know why i blabbered, but i see so many posts about it but i am sorry show malec but book malec is it for me. or more like every book character esp jace and clary is it for me than show clace too. (i think it was also because of the actors though jace's actor did an amazing job in the later seasons.) But i can't wait for your new malec fic, i am ready to gobble up anything you put out there srsly, like i trust you are gonna make it worth it (like i never thought i would like the rwrb fic so much as i do rn, bc like in my hea di have already read teh book and i know what happens but yeah i should have known!)

Also have you ever thought of making a show and book crossover fic? i think you made one maybe i dont remember but like would you ever consider working in that world again?

No, I think this is fair. You're allowed to have a preference. I like book malec better too - simply because there is more to their characters and I usually prefer book versions anyway.

Regarding the fic, first things first, you can imagine them however you want! I know for a fact not everyone who read TLND imagined Alec as Sebastian Stan (I will stand by this casting!!). But it's how I, as the writer, imagined it. My castings are simply for me - to be very honest. I pick faces and people who help me visualize my characters better. But that does not mean you have to do it too. I'm sure people on ao3 who read my fics but don't follow me tumblr have no idea about any of these castings. So, yeah. You can imagine them however you want.

I also want to note, since I got another ask about this as well, that the casting I choose doesn't really affect the personality and behavior of the characters. It's the other way around really. Sure in the show Alec doesn't have blue eyes and Magnus is shorter, but those (among a few other differences) are completely irrelevant to this fic. If someone is put off by Magnus being shorter (in my fic, I mean) then that's their problem. It's such a mundane detail (for me) and I'm not going to be mentioning the colour of their eyes and their height every five seconds. This fic is rather different so I doubt it'd be mentioned at all (considering it's alec pov too - if you notice he is the kind of character where i don't write a lot of descriptions for the people he interacts with because Alec doesn't care about that a lot)

But yeah. It really shouldn't matter. At least I hope not <3

[tarotcard0]

So, I have now officially beaten every NES Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) game. I'm currently playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and I'm almost at the end, but I have to wait for the switch to recharge before tackling Chapter 8.

In the meantime, I want to write down some of my thoughts on Dragon Quest here.

Dragon Warrior 1 (NES) - Dear lord, just play one of the Remakes, the original is so tedious. There's a remake for Gameboy, there's a remake for Mobile, there's a remake for SNES, there's even a fan made RPG Maker Remake. Any one of those is a better choice than the original. Only play the original if your curious, or for studying purposes. Oh, on that note, the SNES version is Japan Exclusive, so you'll have to get a patch to translate it to English.

Dragon Warrior 2 (NES) - Not only is this the best game of the NES Quadrilogy, it's just the best Dragon Quest game I've played. How did they do so well on their second try!? It's so hard to describe the feeling I got playing this and realizing "Oh! This is the game all those other RPGs are referencing!" Now, I'm biased. I liked drawing my own maps and taking my time with that, so if you don't I also recommend going to the remakes. Again, they're available for Gameboy, SNES, and Mobile. Again, the SNES version is JP exclusive and has an English translation patch.

Dragon Warrior 3 (NES) - It's hard to describe why I felt a little disappointment with this one... Dragon Warrior 2 was just... So good! Like, how do you follow that? For some reason, everything in 3 felt... slower. Despite several quality of life changes, things like re-organizing my inventories felt more tedious than it did before, and when the story reached the Second Act (I'm not sure I used that phrase right) I fell into that same emotion that I had while playing persona 5 where the game just felt like it was dragging on. And because I can probably beat Dragon Warrior 3 4 times over in the time it took me to beat Persona 5 once, I have reason to believe this has to do more with the context of the plot, than the runtime of the game itself. I guess I'll go ahead and recommend playing he GBC or SNES remakes again, they certainly sped things up.

Dragon Warrior 4 - This game SUCKS! It's easily the worst of the NES quadrilogy. It's not the worst Dragon Quest game (Dear god it's not the worst), 9 takes that dishonor (At least, of the ones I've played so far), but the baffling decision to have all party members except for the Hero controlled by AI once you gain control of said Hero, makes it a very close second. I can't even recommend the remake, because I can't get very far in it. Once we enter the Remake dimension for this game, we exit Dragon Warrior and enter Dragon Quest, where the development team thought it would be a great Idea to transcribe everyone's accent to a ludicrous (and sometimes racist) degree. And, surprising no one, RPGs are just slightly impossible when you can't read.

---

I can't do another "Keep Reading" break, so those 3 dashes will have to do.

Well, now that I've beaten all 4 of the OG Dragon Warrior games, I'm wondering what I should do next (After beating TTYD of course)

Should I keep on with the series and go to Dragon Quest 5, or should I start on the NES Final Fantasy games (Of which, I've only beaten FF2)?

I'll end this post with a Poll.

Of course, I'm biased in favor of Dragon Warrior 2, but I'd like to hear what reasons others have for liking the ones they do.

Oh, and just to make sure this gets a decent sample size; the remakes count. If you've played Dragon Warrior GB, but not Dragon Warrior NES, then you've played Dragon Warrior.

[azukisoul]

Translation of HijiGin manga: Diary Exchange by saki1010_gt (Twitter)

I think about this manga literally once a week because I think it's akin to something Sorachi would write, so I'm sharing a translation here!

MANGA LINK | Out of courtesy to the artist I'm not reposting her art here, please visit the tweet, refer to the translation as you read along, and show the artist some love!

And the link to the Twitter thread of this translation if anyone is interested!

Translation

[page 1]

G: Oh, so you like me, huh, Vice Chief-san?

G: That's not a good joke to go along with this alcohol.

H: Even so, this is a once-in-a-lifetime confession. Don't make light of it.

G: Hmm.

G: Well, if you say it like that,

G: I can probably answer you through a diary exchange.

H: ...

H: Okay, sure!!

[page 2]

H: Who would have thought that a man one would assume to have dysfunctional relationships like him would suggest a diary exchange?

H: 70% of the world's HijiGin starts with physical contact (based on experience), how hard to get are we being, really? Even rural middle school students are more chill in their relationships than us.

H: Still, handwriting and way with words are also treasure troves of information on one's personality.

H: Maybe it's unexpectedly also a good way to know more about this guy who is the hardest to understand in all of Gintama.

H: I gave him some questions in my first diary I passed to him so he wouldn't have too much trouble writing his, let's see what his reply is...

G: The fleeting spring is slipping away and the heat is encroaching upon us, but I hope you are doing well as you are... Or whatever, doing that each time is a pain so I'm just gonna talk normally from now on like you told me.

H: Hmph, he's unexpectedly a decent writer.

G: Um, first off, my favorite food, right? It'd have to be sweets for sure. Anko and dango are my favorites, but recently I'm into fresh cream too... Yaaawn. I woke up early today so I'm getting kind of sleepy...

H: Hm?

K: My favorite food is sukonbu.

[page 3]

K: I can eat boxes and boxes of sukonbu. I also like foods that go well with rice. Stuff like seaweed tsukudani is the best.

H: Why is the China girl the one answering!? Anyway, the diary exchange thing got completely found out by the kids! Whatever happened to his personal life!?

S: A place I'd like to go have fun at would be a Terakado Tsuu concert.

H: Glasseees!! You too!?

S: Ah, but you don't have to trouble yourself with going with me. I'll just go with the Yorozuya. You can just get us the amount of tickets we need.

H: Plus, he's rude and no fun at all!

G: Wait, what? I was dozing off and suddenly the page got filled up somehow.

H: Yorozuya, realize that you've been infiltrated by an entity called your family! And either way, why don't you read the page back a little!

G: But this kind of thing isn't bad, too. I can say stuff that are hard to say out loud here. To be honest, about you, I... I actually quite...

H: *ba-dump* Huh? Yorozuya?

[SADAHARU PAW PRINT]

G: Man, that's so out of character to say! I'll never write that again! Well, then, until next time. —Gintoki

H: THAT DOOOOOOG!!! I CAN'T READ THE MOST IMPORTANT PAAAAART!!!

[twistedapple]

So the new event on JP Twst has barely started, we're only two episodes in, and a little bird told me there's controversy regarding Leona wanting to implement reforms but being allegedly held back in his endeavour.

Based on what I heard on this new controversy, it seems some people in the fandom don't understand that drastic reforms aren't going to be implemented magically. I can tell you about that, my government is currently trying to pull that shit and the whole country is very loudly against it (and by the time this post gets online, i'll be sleeping after half a day at one of the nation-wide protests of the day lol). My country had been doing that shit for centuries as well so like, talking with cultural experience and some modicum of political understanding there.

It's crucial to understand that reforms, depending on how much they will change the system, need to be implemented slowly, because there's a chance people will reject it. Let's be honest, most of us are more concerned about our daily life than whatever complicated stuff the government is handling. If there's a reform and it affects your life in a rather direct manner, the main concerns will be how your life is affected in the short and medium terms. There lies the trick of reforms: they take effects immediately, but the actual results aren't necessarily as quick to show, depending on what the reform aims to change at a societal level. This is why, when a reform may cause strong changes, test groups are selected to basically what happens and how people take it, before implementing the reform at a wider scale.

What Leona wants to do is push for further modernisation of his country. Decent goal in itself, however you have to remember that people tend to be quite set in their way, and as such need to be presented with tangible results/arguments as to how X reform will make life much better in the l9ng run for them and their family. Keep also in mind that it's OK we know Leona, we know he's not an idiot - however the population in general doesn't know him personally. What they know is more likely what they may hear and read from journalists and social networks. These two elements - especially social networks - are very important because they hold a lot of power over a population's opinion (among other things, such as easily organising protests and strikes to express disagreement).

This is why reforms can't be implemented suddenly/forcefully. It's not because meanie politicians and meanie older brother want to hold Leona back. It's basic political wisdom.

Anyway, my proposal is to wait for more story content and full translation of the the event, instead of losing your shit over some pick-and-choose translation that doesn't provide the full picture lol

[mentallyshattered]

This is part 22 of the "What if Yuu didn't want to go back?" Series!

(I, the author of this work, do not consent to this work being crossposted/translated without my knowledge or used to train an AI, ever.)

Masterlist

Sam's shop. I've never been there before, but it's about time to change that, I'd say. We need the distraction. Grim is enjoying it fully, probably thinking about the tuna he's sure to get.

And here we are! Admittedly, I'm not sure if we can afford anything that's not on sale, but it's worth a shot, right?

The shelves are stocked high, but not too high- many students are a bit short, so the items are only about two and a half meters off the ground at the highest. Despite that, there are stools along the ends of the rows, magically attached to their paths along the edges of the isles. I don't need them.

"Okay, Grim, can you smell the tuna or anything? I don't know where to look."

"No need, dear customers! I'll show you, just follow me."

Grim and I follow the man in the patchwork top hat through the expanse of items and prices, recognizing him as Sam, the owner. As he leads us, an odd feeling settles itself into my being. What is it? Oh, that's it- though the shelves are short, the store is vast, stretching onward like a neverending maze. Following Sam through all this feels a lot like I'm walking through a limnal space, guided by a supernatural entity of unknown origin.

"Here we are!" In front of us, Sam is motioning to a shelf with stout cans of tuna stacked one atop another. Sure enough, the price tag on the edge of the suspiciously strong plastic reads "SALE" and is followed by a slashed-out price displayed above a price that's worth half the original, written in larger font. I don't need to look to know Grim's reaction.

"Thank you!" I wave to Sam, grab some tuna, and turn back. He's gone by then, so I just move Grim to my other shoulder and walk to the counter. Sam is waiting there, smiling as usual, and sends us off with an enthusiastic "Thank you!" When we pay and leave.

How unusual. Oh, well. I'll let Grim have a can of this now, and the rest can be saved. Now, where's a trash can?..oh, over there!

...huh. There's a spot in the trash bags over here that's cleared out, about the size of a first-year student. Why? I can't see any reason someone would clear this out. Other than boredom, but this looks like it's been here for a while now. How odd. Meh.

I trash the lid and walk away. We have better things to do. Say, for example, hiding pencil erasers in Ace's bag until he notices and says something, or trying to figure out what the hell is up with Korrak.

"Myeeh, do you hear that?" I stop walking, merely two steps from the indent, and attempt to fine-tune my ears. When I hold my breath, I hear it. Music.

I'm a sin, but I'm half of the hourglass, glass, glass

I don't recognize the song, but I hear it. There is definitely some kind of music playing. But from where? A quick glance at Grim's ears tell me it's toward the pile of trash.

I turn around, slowly, silently, and look a little closer. The music is decently loud now, but I can't see its source.

"Hold my can." I take the half-eaten can of tuna from Grim with one hand and lower the other to allow him to jump down. He ignores the platform entirely and jumps down without my help, landing on concrete and quickly deciding he'd rather move the bags with magic than with his paws or face. The one right in front of him glows somewhat, rises, and reveals a pair of beaten-up headphones plugged into a strange, once-white rectangle.

Grim looks at me. I reach in with my free hand, grab the headphones, and Grim releases the trash bag the instant nothing is under it anymore in favor of hopping onto my arm. When I'm fully upright again, I pass Grim his tuna.

"Myeeh, thanks." He returns to eating. I try and examine the device. It resembles a rectangle when viewed from the front or back, but looking at the top gives it a more almond shape- if almonds were pointed at two ends and not rounded at one. It's very thin, too, much thinner than an almond.

The music still plays. I can't identify the song, but this is probably on a playlist, so I wait for the song to end. It loops.

Dah dah dah dah, da-dah dah dah, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah

The music kicks up. I still don't recognize the song. The headphones don't fit over my head, but, in my endeavors to put them on, I see him, on the edge of my vision. Barely visible.

Korrak. I don't see Rook. Why is he here?

Ok, Yuu, hold on. You don't want to sound suspicious. That's your roommate and friend. He doesn't know I've seen him yet. So...

I turn to face him and ask, "Hey, are these yours?" He startles. Okay, maybe that wasn't the right move. Still, he attempts to reply- a series of quiet chitters and chirps I can't understand, yet still too loud to miss for my now cat-level hearing, even over the wind and faint music.

"Yeah," Mandible nods, presumably translating for Korrak, "those are ours. Thanks for finding them." I can't be sure as to why Korrak stutters and Mandible doesn't.

"Well, here you go. Your song is still playing." Indeed it is, the singer's voice calling out to be remembered for hundreds of years. Korrak, upon seeing my outstretched hand, visibly relaxes and reaches out to take it.

I've seen that reaction before, on videos, in photos, and in the mirror- not the magic one- when I realized something I saw as precious hadn't been stolen or lost, but was being returned to me.

I saw it in Grim's eyes, reflected from my own when I saw him before the entrance ceremony.

These must be important to them. They've probably had them for years and years, a persistent source of comfort through tough and easy times alike.

Grim was like that for me.

"Thanks," speaks Mandible. It takes me a moment to register his words as his, momentary confusion clouding my judgment of Korrak's voice vs. Mandible's jaws moving. The confusion clears with a single word rushing into my mind: ventriloquism.

Another question rises from the ashes of my puzzlement, burning like a Phoenix: why doesn't Mandible stutter?

Just as quickly, the question abandons me, and nothing more comes of the interaction- rather, a new one begins at the moment's end, with Rook walking up and playing a hand on Korrak's unoccupied shoulder. Korrak briefly panics, a flash of intense fear taking root in his eyes, but that fear is pulled up when he realizes whose wrist the black-gloved hand is attached to.

"Monseurs," Rook begins, nodding at me and Grim as well as Korrak and Mandible, "Come with me. You are going to brew potions in class soon, and I have been instructed to ensure that you all know the basics and how to apply them."

I approach when Rook motions with his free- well, not really, he's holding his bow with that one- hand for me and Grim to follow his lead. A short-feeling walk later, we're back at Pomefiore's main building, through the lounge, down a flight of stairs, and standing in a dark, basementy room that reminds me of medieval castles- if they were cleaned and the atmosphere of a damp, uneven-floored chamber were intentionally crafted. Rook leads us over to a cauldron, and I see the nearby bench against the wall. Epel is sitting there, head slumped a little to his right like he's drowsy, but not yet asleep.

Rook snaps his fingers. Epel jolts upright, his head turning rapidly from side to side until he spots us and hurries from his seat to a spot beside the cauldron. He's in his labwear, and, with a flick of his magic pen, so is Rook. Korrak follows suit, swapping his neatly-buttoned jacket, dress shirt, and Pomefiore-purple vest for a dull white lab coat and a pair of the goggles every Pomefiore student has. Mandible chitters something I don't know at him, and, a moment later, me and Grim are the only ones not in labwear- a fact soon made false. Clearly, my practice is paying off.

Rook waves his magic pen again, filling the cauldron with a shimmering liquid I initially fail to recognize as water in the opalescent lighting of the room. Epel looks at us all, moving his goggles down his face to sit over his eyes once Grim taps the clear frame of the cat-adjacent familiar's protective eyewear.

"Now, then," the vice housewarden speaks up, his voice steadfast, "Every Pomefiore student worth their salt needs a flawless pharmalogical grounding." He briefly moves away to fetch a cart with three levels, the upper two of which are covered in a thick, single layer of small glass vials with corks. The top jars look to contain herbs, judging by the faded green and slightly-wilted brown reflected and refracted by the smooth, light-bending surface of their containers. The ones on the middle level, however, appear to contain a collective rainbow of various spices, rocks, furs, and everything else Crewel hasn't let us touch yet, with the exception of equipment.

I squint at the sudden, unmistakable scent of mint wafting off the cart, in spite of the fact that it's on Rook's right and I'm on his left. Grim moves to cover his nose with his paws, but stops when he remembers he's wearing lab gloves and that might not be a bright idea. Looking over, Mandible's nose is twitching like mad- he and Korrak must be getting the brunt of it.

In asingle half-second, I realize Rook is holding his breath, his chest steady instead of slowly moving with his lungs, and then he pushes the cork down onto a vial I hadn't noticed him reaching for, closing it. The aggressive scent of mint wanes and blows away. Rook exhales and inhales, clearly relived. He's a hunter; his sense of smell is sharp. Too-strong oders must be overwhelming to him- they are to me.

A memory surfaces in my mind- falling asleep in a bed of mint, wild mint, dug up and moved to one spot, with Grim in my arms, and then it fades, vanishing like clear gel tossed into the sea. Another event rises into the forefront of my attention, more solid and vivid than the last. The mix of disappointment and sorrow that rose then comes with it, soon yet gradualy overtaken by the sense of apathy that settled into my being back then. That numbness stuck around for years until fate dragged me into this school to reunite with Grim and feel again.

Why did that particular memory surface? What is it that ties then to now, only now? Laying in a bed of mint- oh! My nose is sharper now, much sharper. Back then, I could lie in a bed of it and rest well, but now a meter and a half away is too close.

My familiar stands on all fours and stretches straight up, claws digging ever-so-slightly into the surface of my skin and coat. I snap back to the present. That's right, I'm busy. Busy doing what? Oh, that's right, Rook's helping with upcoming potionology work.

"Now, then..." Rook doesn't talk too much, evidently favoring the act of guiding us by our hands and arms, only commenting when the herbs become involved. Contrawise, he hums near-constantly, one of the melodies bringing the earlier encounter with Korrak and Mandible to my immediate attention. It's the same song.

Rook was there. Good. That means Korrak had some other company. I was a little worried, but now that I know Rook was there to keep an eye on them, some tension I was previously unaware of dissapates like smoke set free from a jar and into the cool evening breeze.

Soon, though, we are back upstairs, in the Backstage Room, discussing as we usually do. I hear someone say the time and our roommates leave me to complete my last two steps with ease, choosing to brush Grim until we're both off to bed. Korrak is asleep by the time we get there, and, soon, Grim curls up in his cat bed as I curl up in my human bed, and then we both close our eyes for the night. My dreams are a single, simple phrase:

"Memory Lane"

[applestorms]

doom, aspect complements, & oppressing social systems

some kinda half-baked (literal) shower thoughts on aspect complements, particularly life & doom, with, surprisingly, not too much on the captors but a decent section on jane. this is long as fuck, shit.

TL;DR: aspect complements are nice in how they expand the meaning of each individual aspect, doom & life in particular are cool in how they have such overarching influence over the lives of characters and should really get more attention analysis-wise, ft. my own musings about how the alpha kids' lives are seeped in doom, in large part because of madame HIC herself. written in one sitting because i guess i'm insane.

the one thing i really, really like about the canon established by the extended zodiac is the way it splits aspects into complementary pairs. to me, one of the major appeals/frustrations of homestuck's classpect & lunar sway system is how vague and yet distinct the categories are, how blurry the borders are but how distinct of an Feel you can get almost instantly upon even just hearing the names of each aspect. e.g. i can say that [x] character from an entirely separate piece of media is a prince of doom, and even if you don't know jack shit about homestuck classpects on some level you can still get that, understand the implications that has on the character-- what "prince" means for how they treat others or the expectations they have for themself, the specific emotional connotations of what a person presiding over "doom" might be associated with. they play into long-established cultural categories, basically, remixed Jungian archetypes as some people might (and have) put it. still, i think homestuck has a pretty interesting way of interpreting these categories, which is part of why classpects can be so appealing.

homestuck aspects hold a lot of implicit associations that you can learn & guess at over the course of reading the comic, so setting up these complementary pairs works really well in my mind since it only strengthens the associations. take light & void, for example: light is associated thematically with knowledge, luck, and being in the spotlight. typically (at least in my own american context), the opposite of light is designated as dark-- but homestuck instead makes light's complement void, the aspect associated with nothingness, secrets, people & characters forgotten or left behind, waiting. following the logic of this video, void isn't even associated w/ the color black (typically associated w/ darkness) but rather the color white, pure emptiness, something that can't really be known, 道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。"The Dao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Dao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name," (Daodejing, Legge translation) or, alternatively, "A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. A name that can be named is not a constant name," (Ivanhoe translation) and so on and so forth. light in homestuck thus isn't just knowledge about the world, it is the world. it is, period. understanding the world, being a major player within that world is equivocated with being itself though this pairing-- and, in turn, a lack of understanding is associated w/ a lack of (meaningful? seen?) existence itself.

anyways, there are interesting things you could said about all these pairings (thinking about blood & breath and hope & rage in particular), but the one i really wanna focus on right now is one set that i think often goes overlooked, which sucks because i think both aspects carry a lot more weight in homestuck than people tend to give it credit for: life & doom.

life is the side to this i have less strong feelings/thoughts about, so let's maybe start with that. we have a handful of pretty relevant life players in comic so this is perhaps the clearer side of the dichotomy: while feferi doesn't get a ton of focus after her original introduction in hivebent (and especially after murderstuck, rip), jane, meenah, and the condesce are all pretty major characters so we have a decent amount to work with for analysis. i particularly like the classpect-navalgazing summary of life as an, "aspect of affluence," life players being people that grow up with a lot materially but in turn have a lot to figure out about the emotional/empathy stuff, who benefit from a kind of "dubious privilege," that makes their homelife cushy and gives them a hefty inheritance to fall back on, but makes all the social shit more confusing.

it's that struggle against the status quo that they simultaneously benefit from that really stands out to me here, especially because the main life player that i want to talk about is the condesce-- not just meenah, but )(er Imperious Condescension herself. so, to get into that...

homestuck really functions under a systems brain, which is obvious from the start w/ all the computer science jokes (that i definitely 100% understand) but easily expands past that as the series goes on. if you've gotten this far into reading this essay, you know what i'm talking about. what's been more relevant in my mind recently, though, is not just the ways in which homestuck itself is built up through these systems, but the way it both thematically & literally portrays social systems as well, as a general concept/working force in the universe even outside of more specific social systems like racism/sexism/ableism/etc.

from all the reading/watching i've done looking at peoples' various classpecting analysis (long way of saying i forget exactly where this comes from), i've come to view rage & doom as two sides of the same coin, or more accurately, two reactions to the same perceptions: both doom & rage are acutely aware of just how much the world & greater forces around them are fucking them over, it's just that doom reacts by giving in to the Inevitability of it all, trying to work within the restraints of the system surrounding them, while rage reacts by giving a giant fuck you and trying to tear it all down.

tying this back to life, the dichotomy of life & doom as complementary again has some interesting implications, specifically in how life players benefit from the status quo while doom players suffer so heavily under the weight of it. keep in mind: just like meenah, the condesce is a thief, the only real difference being that the condesce's power extends over a much grander scale of space & time. when the condesce kills off humanity, stealing life from the planet & replacing it w/ her own faux/more desirable replicas, she is in the process dooming humanity & the planet itself (parallel to roxy: steal void, create being, steal life, create nihilistic inevitability). as one of the major villains in homestuck, really second only to lord english, the condesce is thus not just an individual person but something like a system of power itself. as dirk says to jake on (A6A3:4864)

TT: Though the Baroness made very few substantive gestures of aggression, the global fear of her looming threat would trigger all the changes she needed. TT: Governments prepared for war, as if to defend against the invading alien armies she undoubtedly commanded. TT: But of course, she had no army. She was always the only one of her kind. TT: Instead, the world powers were only setting about to build her armies for her.

thus HIC, as the most powerful iteration of meenah that we see in comic, both benefits from the status quo as it is already established and has enough power to evolve/expand upon it herself, to the point where you can really see her as the figurehead/leading innovator for oppression, both on alternia and earth in the B2 timeline.

it's because of this that i think doom has a lot more influence over the plot/world of homestuck than people give it credit for. to give a more distinct example of this, while the alpha kids' game is called a void session, i don't think it's too far off base to note the ways in which doom hangs over it as well. looking specifically at some (alpha) kids:

DIRK is probably the least directly connected alpha kid to doom, being associated more w/ void through homestuck's systems brain & his various connections to equius (& nepeta), as well as the heart/mind pairing (and jake's hope influence sneaking into everything tbh w/ BGD). still, i think it's pretty obvious to anyone that's like. read through dirk's self-hating bullshit that he has a lot of doom-related thoughts, which can in part be attributed to HIC's influence on his apocalypse world, but also, and more notably in my mind, dave's lasting legacy on him.

alongside the typical patron troll pairings of john/vriska, rose/kanaya, dave/terezi, and jade/karkat for the beta kids, we also have the (less overt/clear) pairings of which troll resembles each kid the most: namely, karkat being the "john" of the trolls, leader-ship/social position-wise, jade being associated with both nepeta & feferi, and rose... being like kanaya, vriska, and terezi, i guess?? it's less clear for the girls i suppose, and perhaps not a super strong connection in general as the trolls are pretty distinctly themselves separate from the human kids, but the important detail here is the connection between sollux & dave, as the (not at all) "cool kids" and primary besties to the main leader of their respective group. visually, they can also be loosely associated through their trademark glasses, sollux's red and blue lenses being connected to the A & B universes of the trolls & humans respectively and dave's stiller shades being connected to paradox space & the greater universe of homestuck (and problem sleuth) as a whole after passing through a black hole.

dave's biggest connection to doom however is in his connection to doomed timelines and the dead daves all of his timeline-hopping shenanigans lead to. he kind of ends up constantly skirting around the edges of doom, in a way, utilizing terezi's seer of mind help to just barely avoid his own inevitable doom. you could almost define time itself as an aspect along those terms, actually, with the stress time players are constantly under coming from the impending doom hanging over their heads that they're always just barely avoiding, like a satellite constantly falling and missing the planet as gravity pulls it along into orbit. sick imagery regardless.

sidenote: perhaps i've been staring at this dumb aspect circle for too long, but it seems notable enough to mention that doom & time connect in a line that is directly parallel to life & space's connection. ALSO, just now remembering that i wrote an entire essay on space & time and those aspects' connection to life & death (the concepts, not just the aspects) way back in like, february, that i almost entirely forgot about until literally just now. guess i'll try editing that later?? (edit: i'm a doofus. i talked about the space/time stuff mostly in my kant essay. still gonna post something about death in homestuck later, though.) carrying on.

anyways, even looking past beta dave's connection to sollux, alpha dave is a character so seeped in tragedy that i don't think i even need to say all that much to make this connection clearer. his entire life as dirk dictates it is essentially just one big fight against an inevitable end, not only for himself but the entire rest of humanity as well, and the underlying implications that even if he had lived to old age he never would've been able to meet or raise dirk only hammers this in even harder. alpha dave was doomed from the start, not just from the moment HIC landed on earth but the moment skaia took his and dirk's baby meteors and damned them to separation.

JAKE's connection to doom is similarly primarily through sollux, though it's both more direct and less obvious than dirk's. putting his connections to jade and my space/life thoughts aside for another essay, jake's main link to doom is through erisolsprite-- fittingly, in the biggest catastrophe of a doomed timeline, in game over.

the mention of erisol in general actually brings up another weird, not-quite complementary connection between doom & hope, which is another line of connection in the rectangle that is hope/rage/life/doom-- notably, i believe optimistic duelist referred to these as the mutable aspects, the most abstract of the twelve. to bring back my point from earlier, i would also say that these are the aspects with the most far-reaching, powerful influence over homestuck, whether that be in-story in the world, through the systems of power and oppression that characters live under (in the case of doom & life), or on a meta level on the story itself, particularly when it comes to what is or isn't allowed to happen/plot contrivances & coherency, etc. (in the case of rage & hope).

sollux & eridan's dynamic in A5 really establishes doom & hope as two opposing viewpoints, complacency & utter surrender in the face of a horrible fate you can never escape versus faith & imagination to the point of fucking lunacy & calling a magic wand a "science stick". in erisolsprite, it's really the doom that comes through the strongest, perhaps in contrast against jake's own pitiful attempts to hope himself through the in-game social awkwardness he wants to pretend doesn't exist. in parallel to fefetasprite's complete silence (but simultaneously, implied perfect support & friendship), erisolsprite is an asshole that can't stand anyone and especially not himself and has completely given up on any remaining semblance of hope-- kind of a thematically nice conclusion, actually, finding the middle ground of sollux's doom & eridan's princely destruction of hope after all their conflicts from earlier in the story. or it could be, if it weren't so fucking miserable to look at. point is, i think jake's hopelessness (or perhaps more accurately, his inability to access hope) later in the story becomes quite synonymous with doom, similar to dirk in how neither of them can see much of a future.

ROXY is actually probably the least doom-ridden of the entire group, which i suspect may come from the fact that she is herself a void player and thus is more at home in the context of a void session, even if all her friends are being shitheads the entire time. really, the points where roxy is the most bitter & doom-ridden occurs before they even enter the game, when she is still under the strongest influence of the condesce, like how roxy continually pushes back on even starting the game at all just as a fuck you to HIC.

fittingly, i think it's actually the absence of doom that makes roxy such a strong & great friend once she gets her shit together in-session. she kind of has an opposite arc to the rest of the alpha kids, starting off completely doom-ridden thinking that she's never going to meet her mom or her friends and constantly paranoid that HIC is going to fuck everything up, only to re-evaluate once she's physically with her buds and have more faith in the future. a good example of how life & doom are connected to social systems (or not just any specific system of bigotry, but moreso the general feeling of having greater powers outside your control that have a major influence on your life) maybe-- roxy must extricate herself as entirely as possible from the status quo, from world-wide and/or world-influencing figures' expectations, before she can start focusing on and figuring out what really matters to her and pursue those goals, e.g. getting sober.

and of course, our beloved life player, JANE. as a life player, jane's connections to doom are a lot more obvious than the previous three, but i think that only strengthens this idea of doom residing over the alpha kids' session (and homestuck as a whole, really). where you have to look more to the generally miserable, nihilistic sentiments of the other kids to see the influence of doom, jane is literally and regularly brainwashed to the values & ideals of HIC. note some of the specific orders that her tiaratop gives her (A6A1:4153):

You put on your highly fashionable UNREAL HEIRESS THOUGHTWAVE TIARATOP and flip it on. It immediately hums to life as its blazing fast processes mingle with your thoughts. It is the most efficient computing technology in the world by far, as long as you don't wear it for too long. But aside from a few migraines, you can't possibly imagine any OBEY drawbacks that CEASE REPRODUCTION could come with SUBMIT merging CONSUME your thoughts with EMBRACE YOUR CULLING experimental technology CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER from an STAY ASLEEP extremely powerful DIE corporation, wait what?

or, one by one, categorized loosely:

OBEY, SUBMIT, CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER, STAY ASLEEP: obvious implications, again ties to the idea of doom & life dictating overarching social systems/order. the last one is notable in that it also ties jane to jade's narcolepsy, which fits the whole crockertier/grimbark arc that happens later on when those two meet.

CEASE REPRODUCTION: perhaps more HIC specific, in that she hates human reproduction. i think i might address this more in that time/space essay, if i ever get around to editing/finishing that.

EMBRACE YOUR CULLING, DIE: the "DIE" part of this is pretty on the nose w/ HIC's stealing of life aka eradication of humanity, but the "EMBRACE" part of the culling one really solidifies a connection to doom.

what stands out to me is that it is unclear how much of these subliminal teachings jane is meant to internalize & apply to herself personally versus spread & share & execute in her job as an heiress & tool to HIC. it's clear from the way that jane talks to jake in the jail cell that even while in full-crockertier mode she at least in part goes against some of these teachings, telling jake on (A6A6I1:6443):

JANE: You do remember our recent agreement to have "a zillion babies," don't you, Jake? I do hope you were not planning to renege on this vow. JAKE: *Sob sob sob...* JANE: Our children will rule the empire when we are gone, which of course will be never, because we will be eternally young and beautiful and immortal and in love, for ever and ever.

clearly conflicting with the whole "CEASE REPRODUCTION" thing, though she does admittedly treat him with quite a bit of disgust at the same time that she's telling him he's doomed to be a baby making machine or whatever.

point is, as a life player, and especially as a life player under the direct influence & control of HIC, jane is in that conflicting & confusing position talked about earlier, where she simultaneously benefits from privilege & has extensive control in deciding which standards she wants to, as well as extends those expectations onto the people around her (e.g. for a more minor example, think of how she dictates the grammar of her friends when speaking to them online), but is also stuck in a position where she deals with some of the most significant negative side-effects of such standards.

jane's gender fuckery really sums this up best: she both loves & idolizes gumshoes and the traditionally masculine aesthetics and attitudes that come w/ them, but is also in one of the most obsessively feminine, stay-at-home, stuck-in-the-kitchen 1950s housewife archetypes ever. she's a girlboss heiress to a capitalist, corporate empire, a job that is itself very traditionally masculine in the inherent power it holds, but resides over one of the most traditionally feminine spheres it possibly could. jane is made of life, she was born into and built out of the status quo & social standards of the world she landed on and reaps all the benefits & consequences of such, trapped in a system that protected her, in her house by a father that loves her, and constantly keeps trying to break out even if she doesn't even understand the full magnitude of what she's doing or wants. crockertier jane is really just the epitome of this-- a form that dooms her just as much as it benefits her, wealth that cushions her ass and means absolutely nothing, a title that she cannot be extricated from, for better and for worse.

[fioras-resolve]

i really pity the localization team behind Bravely Default. i'm not talking about the bravo bikini thing, or the aging up of the characters, those are topics that were broached in 2012. i'm talking about attempting to capture the energy of the many, many move names in a game that was designed for a Japanese audience.

like, the Arcanist moves are all named with a single Kanji. The move that inflicts doom is 屍, Shikabane, and this was translated literally as Corpse. The move that instakills any sleeping unit is 昏, Tasogare, and it is also translated literally as Twilight. the passive that increases magic power if the user's MP stat ends in 0 is 零, Rei, which is translated directly as Zero. while i can't deny that these are, in fact, what the words translate to, i can't help but feel like something was lost in translation, particularly the conciseness of writing everything with a single character.

Swordmaster has the opposite problem. this job's skill names are all Japanese proverbs or other turns of phrase. The first skill you get with it is 海老で鯛を釣る, Ebi de Tai wo Tsuru, which literally translates to "To catch a sea bream with a shrimp." It's a metaphor for making a small investment and getting big returns, which is a decent name for a skill where you wait to get attacked at half damage before countering at double damage. But the problem is twofold. One is that there's not a great English equivalent. Like the Bravely wiki says "Something for Nothing" could also work as a translation, but that leads to the second problem: You can't fit an entire English sentence in the confines of a command menu. English text just takes up more space than Japanese does, as we saw earlier with Arcanist having a four-syllable word written with one character. So how did they localize this command? Well, it's called Nothing Ventured. They tried to find equivalent versions of each. So we get move names like Squeaky Wheel and Before Swine, which to me read awkward as hell and barely feel like they match with what their skills do at all? Like one lowers enemy BP and another is a magical counterattack? Probably the most nightmare thing to translate is the final skill for this job, 薩摩守, Satsuma no Kami, literally The Governor of Satsuma. It removes MP cost for two turns. I'm sure that makes sense if you know Japanese history and about the Satsuma Rebellion, but it's too long for a skills menu and also uncommon knowledge in America. So the command was renamed to Free Lunch.

Another thing lost in translating every skill to English is the fact that, well, some skills were named in English to begin with. Specifically in Katakana, Japanese's transcription system for non-Japanese words. If I were to make a guess as to why Sky Knight's skills like Crescent Moon and Genocide (translated to Crescent Moon and Decimate respectively) were in English to begin with, I'd wager it's because English is a really easy way to sound cool to a Japanese audience. Merchant skills like Acquisition (translated as Payoff), Ripoff (translated as Salesman), and Speculate (kept as is), on the other hand, were probably that way because Merchant is, you know, the capitalist job, and it's hard to get more capitalist than the English-speaking world. But the problem is that the choice to have these skills be English words is lost when, for the localization, every skill has to be written in English.

I can talk about how a lot of these localization choices kind of water down the appeal a lot of these moves had in the original Japanese, but I want to stress here that being the translator on a game that is unapologetically by and for a Japanese audience is an unenviable task. It's something I've been thinking a lot about as I get into my own localization efforts, even though a whole Japanese game is obviously a lot more difficult to localize than a short Toki Pona one-shot fic. But it's really interesting, and I hope I've managed to convince somebody reading this of that too.