#i guess since im talking about pdfs

[kinocharlley]

does anyone know any software that converts pdf to jpg/png with out loosing quality and it's free? i tried a bunch of sites and softwares and either file was too big or i was loosing quality...

[shukuchiisms]

I logged in via phone today and just saw a Reply to my post about kumihos having both fox and human ears, made by @icykalisartblog and I would like to address some points made by the text.

While I don't believe the poster had any intentions to insinuate I was lying or something like that. we all know very well how the internet folk tm works, so let me clarify first and foremost that I never had any intention to spread false information and that I was just using the material I own to talk about my passion for those myths. Now:

[TL DR: Thanks for pointing those out and sorry for my mistakes, but it wasn't intentional in any way, since this one would look gigantic if I just replied on the original I gonna let this here]

The poster claims [and with some solid evidence] that the art I posted from the book Wunwudocheop (or my PT BR translated version at least) is, in fact, edited art from paintings by Shin Yuk-bok, AKA Hyewon, a satire/erotica painter from the Joseon era. And being honest, it is no surprise that they might be in fact, some of my sources had been incorrect in the past and might be so again, but regardless, those pics I posted are extracted from the version of a Joseon dynasty art book that I physically own.

So, just to reiterate, I had no intention to post misinformation of any kind, and I trusted the sources I own. Since I don't possess knowledge of the Korean tongue, I can't verify the correctness of those translations myself. Because like I said before, we all know how the internet works. and I apologize for committing such a mistake, and that at no point I alternated those images in any form.

Now, addressing these tags on the post in specific.

While I don't have the book Yojeon, Dokkaebi, Kumiho & Yulyeong" by Im bang & Yi Ryuk physically with me at moment, I have the Portuguese version in pdf, and it does have the exact the same text word by word I posted on the original, but in Portuguese of the "The salt seller and the fox" tale, as you can see here:

And while I don't doubt that could be discrepancies between the versions, I have no evidence that proves either translation is more correct than the other. Aside from the poster's insinuation that none of the books owned by them possess any tale mentioning that they have fox ears or tails, which gives no indication of which one is the most correctly translated material...(While if I had to guess, the Portuguese translations might have confused different versions of the tale and attributed them to a more famous author by mistake. Since it's not unheard of).

Nonetheless, Mayer, Frederick J still quotes this exact version of the tale in his own works, thus proving it was not a completely fabricated one.

The book Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Tales. [PDF version] Also has a direct mention of the exactly same tale:

The Mythica encyclopedia also brings the following text:

We can also consult the "The Tails of the Kumiho" text by Tayida Phanich:

So, while you do have a point and some of my sources might be wrong and even invalid in their points, the whole "Kumihos do have both fox and human ears" is still validated by other sources.

Anyway, I will go back and edit the original post when I get the time to remove the invalid sources and add new ones that still affirm the subject as being true.

[its-surprising]

so recently i finished reading the terror (which was… something), and as i went to sleep that same day a fragment from one of the early chapters of the book came back to me (not in a dream fortunately, though that shit do be haunting me). as i was reading the book, i didn’t focus on small bits that i would usually stop on and research, as i really just wanted to reach the ending of this brick of a book, but something that caught my eye was a chapter of franklin’s talking about the search parties sent out to look for leads. i remember vividly that i read a fragment clearly stating that lt edward little before joining the franklin expedition actually sailed with crozier before (and james clark ross), and i remember that so vividly because i went and screamed about it to my friend, because…. THATS INSANE??? and for some reason i just left it at that and read the rest of the book, mostly thinking that i hallucinated that fragment entirely, or remembered it wrong actually. well i have came back now to the early chapters and found said fragment, and no. i was not wrong. the fragment (in chapter 9 franklin, page 139, of the 2018 edition of the book by transworld publishers) clearly reads “little, an old arctic hand, sir john understood, a man who had gone south with crozier and james ross eight years earlier“. since i am not a native english speaker i looked up a polish translation of the book, thinking that maybe my brain wasn’t braining properly, but turns out no, i'm not that dumb. but i digrees. i think if you type that fragment into google, word for word, in quotes there should pop up a version of probably illegal pdf version of the book. and i think i went a little insane with this, because a) my read of edward in both the book and the show was of a man who clearly never before was put in those kind of conditions, possibly tried his best, though failed miserably (there is a scene in the book also, where at the “go for broke” meeting he proposes going out into land and getting wood. as to be expected, the men in the room literally laugh at him. so he doesn’t seem to be experienced with the polar climates at all, as seem to be most of officers on the ships), b) i have done little research (pun intended) and checked up two things. first, the 1839 ross expedition’s list of officers that i managed to find. there is no little, and the only edward (also a lt) there is one with surname bird.

we know from ed’s little biographical dictionary that he became lieutenant in 1837, and unless he didn’t serve as an officer on the ross expedition, there is no mention of him anywhere that i could find.

from this tiny biography of edward’s voyages we also know that little’s closest ever ship to either arctic or antarctic was in 1842 to south america. which is not very close. attentive readers may have also noticed that when the ross expedition set out in 1839, edward little was busy on the board of britannia.

(also while doing this cool little research i have found out that edward possibly met franklin before joining the expedition, and according to lady franklin letters, her husband held little in high regards, which i found interesting)

so now i just really want to know, did dan simmons just straight up decided to make stuff up for fun or…... cuz if so, then he really do be writing fanfictions out there (or maybe someone is more informed then me, just a random person on the internet, in that case PLEASE HELP ME)

but i guess now in the terror universe edward little has served under crozier before (also with thomas jopson, who historically served under crozier), which is something for me to think about when i want to make myself really sad in the middle of the night. or maybe it’s just supposed to show how franklin has no idea who these people who serve under him are, that man is wasaay to old to be out there in the cold you know what im saying

[warrior-u-preservation]

Interview with The Path Podcast (Full written responses)

(Note: The interview itself will be different, since mod myne represented both mods on the podcast. However, this includes our full feelings on the questions that were provided to us.)

Who are you and how did you end up walking the path of a "warrior u" writer/comic creator?

Myne: I go by worldismyne for fandom related pursuits.

I'd like to clarify that Aisha Thani is the creator of Warrior U. Just like multiple people have written for Stan Lee's creations, I'm just a writer who's received permission from the creator to distribute and monetize works within her universe.

I've been in the WU fandom since 2014; at that time Aisha made the comic, ran an in character ask blog, a concept art blog and the main blog. I can only imagine how much work that was. A hard drive crash killed about 6 or so pages of Ambrosia, the last story arch she was working on; three weeks worth of updates up and gone. I watched writer’s block take hold and kill my favorite series in real time. Having to go back and redo work she’d already done had given her time to look at it and go ‘I can’t post this, this is awful’, but by then all of us were waiting for the next update for over a month, she couldn’t go back and rewrite the entire arch. It didn’t help that this was the origin story for a fan favorite character, so there was all this pressure to make it perfect. Instead, after about six artists made fan comics to feed the hungry fandom… she announced the end. The website, the blogs, one by one they all ran into issues and got shut down. Hundreds of pieces of art and story concepts just… lost. Once the comics were rereleased on gumroad, that was it, the fandom slowly died. Before this project, the last time the creator posted new content was in 2017. Then in the middle of the pandemic, out of nowhere I get 70+ notifications from Coffee reblogging the pieces of art I had saved from the old blog, including drafts from the unfinished issues. 

Coffee: well, i go by coffee online, im 20 years old and when im not working on my various personal projects i work part-time. i was introduced to warrior u WAYY back in the day (i think i was like 9-ish?) by my brother who found out about it through some unknown and mysterious ways. back then i had very limited internet access (meaning i could only visit sites that could be loaded by the internet app on my nintendo dsi), so i pieced together a bit of a plot from what i could find on google images. i wasnt able to fully read the comic until i was 13 (i had to BEG my mom to pay for the pdfs lol), but it had kinda always existed in the back of my mind ever since i was introduced to it. i decided a little over a year ago to start out the tumblr blog because i had recently read through the comic again and was really sad about just how hard it is (or i guess WAS now) to find a lot of things related to the comic. as the name of the blog suggests, its original purpose was to preserve/archive warrior u stuff so it could be more accessable to your average internet user who might not wanna go digging through internet archives. it was originally for official content EXCLUSIVELY, but myne talked me into also including fan-made content (and im glad he did, its WAY harder to find some fan content than i remember it being just a few years ago). its kinda hard to tell how good of a job it does at BEING that archive, but i like to think it could be useful to someone out there.

i had toyed with the idea of finishing the last official story arc- ambrosia- near the beginning of the blogs lifespan, but i knew that it was too big of a project for me to do myself. i didnt wanna dissapoint people by leaving the ALREADY unfinished arc STILL unfinished. i had written in the "about" section of the blog that the dream was a full fandom revival, but i didnt actually expect that to happen. when myne joined the blog we eventually started playing with the idea of finishing ambro. i forget how exactly we officially decided we would do it, but we did! at some point near the beginning of ambro, we had also decided we were gonna write our own fan-arcs and post those too, and the rest is history!

What was it about warrior u that made you say "this is it. i need to make more content of this."

Coffee: honestly? i think it was just how much i enjoy introducing people to the comic. i already make tons of fan content on my own time, so that wasnt really the crazy part. i had shown a couple of my mutuals the comic after i re-read it, and the feeling of seeing other people actually talk about and even make ART of warrior u was absolutely surreal. i guess thats what happens when you just silently admire a dead fandom for years LMAO! another big part of it was HOW the comic ended. after taking a hiatus, the creator ended the comic mid-arc because creating it just wasnt enjoyable anymore, and thats obviously completely fair. however, the arc it ENDED on was elaborating on the backstory of one of (if not THE) most popular characters at the time (and my personal favorite), so i had always wished that the issue could have been finished. its kinda hard to put into words, but finishing ambrosia was like a love letter to the comic and its creator to me. as flawed as the plot of that arc may be (and as unsatisfied with it as the creator was, at least back then) i still felt like it deserved to be finished. it was like fixing an old toy from your childhood, i felt like we were taking care of the comic in a way, giving it the love it deserves. maybe thats just my tendency to personify objects and get overly attached to them coming through, but hey thats how it is sometimes LMAO

Myne: When the comic was still on hiatus after the harddrive crash, some people had asked Aisha if she wanted to hand the series over to other artists to help her. She said she wouldn’t even know where to begin that process or if she’d wanted to do it. I would have offered then, but my skills as an artist and a writer weren’t nearly as strong. I held onto the drafts thinking, one day I’d do it. 

Myne: After Coffee and I started talking I realized, I can do it now. I know what kind of style of pens were used, and I whipped up a page, just the line art and sent to Coffee as a thank you. I thought, it isn’t much, and it’ll take me forever to color everything, but if there’s one person willing to read it, I’ll try. When I explained how difficult it’d be for me to color, he offered to do it for me. Suddenly a page that would take a month for just me to do on my own took 3 days.

Myne: Something, that seemed like a monumental task became a realistic goal. We were able to find, restore, and edit 45 pages within a few months. I’m still amazed we were able to do weekly updates without missing a day. Coffee asked if I’d ever be willing to write fan issues while we were working, not realizing I was the author of the longest fics in the series. Of course I said yes. Seeing Warrior U get finished, even through fan creation, was something I’d wanted to see for years.

You're from Az right, how is the webcomic weeb culture over there as opposed to california?

Myne: Idk about much about Cali, I've noticed the cons are more... professional? Where as Arizona cons have more of a fanclub vibe. Most panels are hosted by your fellow nerds rather than sony or production companies. I will say, that it's become more common and widespread in the last ten years, with multiple anime specific events year round. Back when I was a kid, I'd get made fun of for drawing 'japanese' people all the time.... it was pokemon fanart... Where as nowadays, I feel the average kid recognizes most big name titles thanks to hulu and such. 

What are your favorite anime/manga/webcomics and do any inspire your work?

Coffee: not really an anime, manga, or webcomic, but ive always been super inspired by the "scott pilgrim" series. when i was in middle school i was SUPER into it, reading all the behind the scenes stuff i could find. it even made me look into "comic illustrator" as a career option, but i also did the same thing with "game designer" and "animator" so yknow. as for webcomics, the only one i ever really got into was homestuck. side note- the overlap of oldschool homestuck fans and warrior u fans is FASCINATING to me. my current theory is that all these tumblr kids were looking for other webcomics to read while homestuck was on one of its MANY hiatuses(?) and so a bunch of them flocked to warrior u! theres tons of homestuck crossover content and references in fan art on our blog (some of the art styles also look homestuck-ajacent) so its at least clear that a lot of fans back then were also really into homestuck. ANYWAYS other than that i havent really read many other webcomics tbh? weird considering i MAKE one now but what can i say, im more of a Gamer than anything lol. as for anime, my favorite is easily keroro gunso (or sgt. frog if youre using the dub name)! its another thing i discovered when i was young (this time i was like 8) and have just never gotten over. theres a lot of Questionable stuff in it (prime example is an adult alien being madly in love with a 14 year old girl) but if i dont look at canon its not real so i love it anyways <3.i honestly dont know how many people really know about it since the western fanbase is so small, but its like HUGE in japan (or at least it was at one point, the titular keroro has a cameo in lucky star as a keychian) and the manga is still running to this day iirc. it was created by mine yoshizaki and the basic premise is that a platoon of frog-like aliens come to earth to take it over but they really suck at it. they begin living with humans and from there its kind of a mix between a slice-of-life and monster-of-the-week anime. i cant really say anything in depth about the manga because ive only read the first 5 issues of it, which are basically the same as the anime (fake fan smh), but ive heard that it gets more mature and serious than the anime does (which i guess is bound to happen when it goes on for so long). also the manga has some ecchi moments and blood used for slapstick purposes so if anyone wants to check it out just keep that in mind lol.

Myne: Obviously Warrior U. I'm a bit of a visual novel fiend, so Danganronpa is a series I've found a lot of inspiration from over the years. More recently  Though for the comic, I draw mostly from late 80s / early 90s high fantasy. Things like Labyrinth and Robinhood: Men in Tights. Honestly anytime I get stuck trying to come up with a gag, I look to Mel Brooks. 

So in continuing someone else's work, do you feel a sense of pressure to be just as good as the original?

Coffee: i definitely felt that way when it came to ambrosia, but i feel a lot less pressure when it comes to our upcoming issues. i wrote and made thumbnails for a few small scenes in ambro and i was SO SCARED of those scenes being noticably worse than the rest of the issue. i know the original creator has seen our version of ambro and those scenes by extention, but i dont know her exact thoughts on them. im satisfied with them but theres probably always gonna be that kinda star-struck stage feeling at the thought of the creator reading the scenes i wrote. its like getting stage fright. for our upcoming issues i dont feel as much pressure because theyre fully fan-written. our comics arent official in any sense of the word and theyre basically just fanfiction with extra steps, so its not nearly as stressful as trying to tie together an "official" story. there definitely WOULD be that pressure if we were ever given the rights to warrior u or something (which i dont want to happen) because then it WOULD be official yknow? also if the creator decides to keep up with what we post ill feel a bit more pressure, but i get the feeling that she wants to distance herself from warrior u a bit so im not sure how likely that would be.

Myne:  I do. Partially because, the fan content we’re making is completely free while the original series is purchasable on gumroad. So there’s a chance that some people may start with what we’re working on, then go backwards to the original.  I'm hyper aware of the tonal shift that's about to happen, no matter how much I try, I can't perfectly emulate someone else's writing style. The best I can do is capture the spirit of it. I just keep repeating "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be". It's a little harder taking that advice now that it's my scripts we're turning into issues. There is some freedom in knowing the series was never meant to be perfect though.

What drove you to writing the longest fanfiction for the series and how did it feel to be recognized and promoted by the original creator?

Myne: When I was younger, I would write fanfic instead of paying attention in class, and I really wanted a full story about the leads getting together. Knowing that the creator was reading every fanfic at the time added more fuel to the fire. I had a guaranteed audience, the audience. I was so grateful that she recommended it to other fans. That fic was 25k, I've written about 100 K in the last year to help maintain interest in addition to new pages to the comic. To that I blame hyperfixation and hiatus brain. You have to be the biggest fan of the thing you're making.

So i see the that most of your work including the webcomic Warrior U is on tumblr why did u choose to promote om tumblr as opposed to other webcomic outlets like webtoons, mangadex etc?

Coffee: the answer to this one is actually pretty simple; i already had a warrior u blog and tumblr is the social media/blogging site that im most familiar with! we have recently started using comicfury and tapas, but that was entirely mynes idea. im personally pretty content with just hanging out in my little corner of the internet so any attempts to expand or get the word out is mostly (if not entirely) mynes doing LOL!

Myne: It's interesting you bring up those two actually. Webtoons recently come under fire for being pretty crummy to it's indie comics, particularly if you write in any genre other than romance. Mangadex is a pirating website, so most of the comics there are fan translations rather than uploads from the creators : they had a pretty bad data breach a few years back too. At first we only had permission from the creator to upload on tumblr. Once we got permission to move forward with the fanmade run, we branched out to tapas and comicfury. They seemed like the best options for the genre and style we write in. Even still, we see about double the growth in readership on tumblr as opposed to the other outlets, and I think that's mostly because the blog updates daily, even though we only publish one page a week.

Do you have any plans on creating your own webcomic/manga?

Coffee: yes and no. i sometimes draw small fan comics and id like to make more polished and "finished" ones in the future, but nothing with any kind of overarching plot, at least not in the near future. i have a very hard time making original content for whatever reason. i DO have one (1) personal project that is completely original, but i plan on making a game with that. then again i have NO idea what im doing with that project anymore so who knows, maybe one day i WILL decide to turn it into a comic! only time will tell…

Myne: I have a visual novel I'm working on. It's about teen super villains that have to go to reform school. Think teen titans meets gifted kid burnout. The game's been in development hell since our first alpha build and writing about apocalyptic civil unrest wasn't as fun as it was pre 2020. We're about 200k into the draft for the full game and we're having to switch engines, which means cutting a bunch of features, but we're slowly getting there. If that fails, I'll try adapting the story into a comic.

To those people who will see this and decide to strut down the path of comic creation what is some advice you can give them?

Coffee: i think the most HELPFUL advice i could give would be this: you dont have to do everything by yourself. i personally have taken tons of inspiration from indie artists/game designers/etc. some prime examples of this are daisuke amaya aka pixel (who created cave story) and toby fox (who created undertale and deltarune), who both made incredible pieces of art that were defining to me as a person when i discovered them either entirely alone or almost entirely alone. you hear stories all the time of these great pieces of art being made by one or two people, and ive always wanted to be like that. as a result ive alwasy had a hard time reaching out for help when it comes to my art, feeling like if i cant do it all alone that itll never be as good as it could be. as a result though, all this mindset does is keep things from actually getting done and needlessly stress you out. NONE of the warrior u comics would exist if i had never gotten help from myne, and the blog would have probably gone inactive a LONG time ago too. i think thats the biggest lesson ive learned from this whole thing personally. theres absolutely no shame in working with a team of people if thats what needs to happen to see a project be realized.

Myne:  One, try not to put more than 8 panels on a page, that's helped me a bunch with page layout. And two, find someone you can show your work to. That can be a friend, a mutual online, a family member; as long as you have that one person asking "what happens next" you can keep writing. The stories/comics I have that are the longest are because of that. 

What inspires your art and what would u say you consider your style to be?

Myne: Invader Zim, Danganronpa, and Pacthesis have heavily influenced my art style. (pacthesis made a series of free dating sims on deviant art). I've always considered my art style to be pretty shoujo manga, but lately some of my pieces have been labeled too western for weeb spaces.

What advise can you give the next person who wants to draw art and share it with the world?

Coffee: i give the same advice to everyone i meet that says theyre thinking of making art in any form, and i mean it from the bottom of my heart: DO IT! im so in love with art of all kinds and the process of creating it, and i think that getting into any creative hobby is nothing but a good thing and i deeply believe that everyone should do it. whether you wanna draw, write, make music, develop games, sculpt, knit, etc, do it! quality doesnt matter at all, you can make the most technically awful thing in the world but as long as you enjoyed the process of creating it then it still has value. dont be nervous about your art being good enough. if you dont want to share it then you arent obligated to! i dont share like 90% of the stuff that i make but i still create art almost every single day! recently my qpp (queerplatonic partner) has gotten into drawing and im SO happy for them. they primarily use mspaint and a mouse to draw and their art is SO adorable and i love it so much, and im not just saying that because i love them. it doesnt matter what skill level you start at or what tools you have, you can always start making art. and dont compare the art that you make to others art, which i know from experience is a VERY easy trap to fall into. i dont have as much to say about that point because im not as passionate about it but uhhh yeah :3

Myne: Social media algorithms are not going to make you happy; no matter how well you play the game and low engagement does not mean you're a bad artist. If you keep posting and talking to other artists, you'll find your audience.

So at wonder con where we met ylu were cosplaying power from chainsaw man with a group of girls who were cosplaying other chainsaw characters. Do you girls normally group up and cosplay and if so how did you get into it?

Myne:  I was born into cosplay. My parents were gamers and cosplayers, and I started picking my own characters to cosplay when I was 14. I started getting more into it in college when I could find other people to cosplay with, it wasn't until this year I started aiming for photoshoots. I tend to be in at least one large group cosplay a con, and bring a different costume every day.

What was your favorite cosplay you've done?

Myne: It's a toss up between Persona 5 Joker and Alluring Secret Rin. Those were the ones I put the most work in that still hold up. Though I'm currently working on Eris from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that may overtake them.

Have you ever thought to cosplay someone from Warrior U?

Myne:  I do actually! I've cosplayed as the main character Finn a few times. I really like taking simplified designs from comics/cartoons and turning them into heavily detailed looks. '

Where do you see warrior u being in 5 years from now?

Coffee: man, honestly if were STILL working on this project 5 years from now that would be CRAZY. this is already the longest ive worked on a single project before, along with being the most ive ever gotten DONE for a project, so thinking about what it could be like in 5 years is like. WOW. by that point we would have archived most (if not ALL) of the older stuff we could find, so our blog would probably just be new pages and fan interaction if were still going! the dream is still for a full fandom revival, and weve already got a small active fanbase (of like 5 people but still) so who knows, maybe that dream will be a reality?

Myne: We have at least 3 years worth of story drafted and lined up, and even more outlined. So ideally still updating. By then, we'll have some physical releases of the finished arcs that we've written available for purchase online and at select events. The creator has said she has no interest in making physical releases of the original run. I'd love for that to change, but I respect her decision and I won't press the matter. I'm just grateful we have permission to sell anything we make using her characters. 

If you could go back in time 5 years, what advice would you give yourself?

Coffee: 15 and 16 were ROUGH ages for me tbh. i wont get into it because its super personal, but i was struggling with a lot and just generally not having a very good time. i think the best advice i could give to myself would just be that like. things will eventually get better. no matter how dark or hopeless things may be, theres always a silver lining and a light at the end of the tunnel. now if 15 year old me would have taken that to heart is a whole DIFFERENT question, but thats what i would say. 16 was like right before i (finally) started getting treatment for my mental health, so i think considering everything thats what i would say.

Myne: So many bad things happened during those five years, but… I wish I knew what burnout felt like, so I could recognize it. I have this tendency to put my self worth into “how much have you done today”, so once I started working full time and my father passed,  I couldn’t recognize that I was physically and emotionally exhausted some days and needed rest, so I’d just punish myself mentally for not being more motivated. You shouldn’t need permission to rest, and I felt like I had to. It’s healthy to ‘nothing’ sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with things you have no control over.

Coffee: thank you for interviewing myne and i for your podcast :D!! its absolutely wild to think that ive done anything interview-worthy and yet here we are! for anyone thats interested in the comic because of this, i also emplore you to go check out the creators current comic "si3lah" (pronounced like si-ayn-lah i think? the 3 is a stand-in for an arabic letter) on gumroad! it deserves way more attention than it currently has and you should 100% go support the original creator if you like the stuff we do (wink wink).

[tortademaracuya]

:(

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Shinkai Kaze no Shou Drama Translation - Shogunate Dogs and Puppies

last post of the month!  so as always, i’ll end by asking if you can please support through ko-fi, through paypal or patreon, the latter will give you early access to my stuff and blog translations (changed the tiers)…. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list  since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that i can share... 

Anyway! im finally done with this! AND I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE HOW LUCKY I AM THAT THE AUDIO WAS POSTED FOR THIS RECENTLY!

also the 3rd and 5th sanan tsukikage chapters were re-posted so I saved them as pdfs this time (also kazama’s 7th chapter was taken down but i thankfully already had that saved as a pdf). if im lucky, that translator will repost the other chapters they took down... tho i’m likely not going to translate any of that since i still have a shit ton of stuff on my to-do list plus... ginsei no shou is what im interested in... and i really wanna find some saito stuff to translate lol. especially given the cgs. they’re sooooooooooooooooooo pretty!

lol. as always, final edits will be done on the video (will be delayed due to me being busy)... and since I translated this before I actually heard this cd, I just went with what the Mandarin pingyin reads as for several things in this drama translation. also, there’s a lot of barking not directly mentioned in my tl that i didn’t see in the original TL i used for this.

Aside from the Shinsengumi Oni-tan drama, this is the 2nd drama I’ve always wanted to translate... with the 3rd being ???? xD. only translated track 6 of that one for some reason, and it’s a +30 min drama so i have no idea when it’ll get posted (the 4th would be the Thumb-sized samurai one cuz i’m still annoyed at how i only got tl for 4/7 tracks while the 5th would be the vita zuisouroku one”手紙” for the same reason since im missing tl for tracks 1-6 for that. T_T did find tl for the 妖刀始末记 drama cd i was missing translations for though i don’t have the audio for that). 

image from suruga-ya.

enjoy~!  do not repost this elsewhere!

Hakuoki Shinkai Kaze no Shou Drama CD “Shogunate Dogs and Puppies”

Translation by KumoriYami

Hijikata: ha.. really. I didn't expect to work so late. the sun's already gone down/set.

Yamazaki: Although we planned on getting back before dinner... it is unlikely that we'll make it.

Hijikata: Yeah.... now that dinner is over, i hope that those idiots haven't eaten everything.

Yamzaki: vice-commander, if you wish to hurry, we can take shortcuts/a shortcut.

Hijiakta: shortcuts? is there a shortcut nearby?

Yamazaki: Yes, it's not a well-known [??] shortcut, (and) could affect the vice-commander's safety, so I don't really recommend it....

Hijikata: No, it doesn't matter. Lead the way. If the Shinsengumi's vice-commander doesnt dare to go, it would be a problem.

Yamazaki: I understand. Then please, go this way.

Hijikata: So/Originally, as long as you passed this road we'd be near headquarters. But/However this shortcut feels a little creepy.

Yamazaki: There were reports of wild dog attacks here. I'll go first, also vice-commander please make yourself quieter----What was that noise/sound?!

[I assume that Yamazaki means for Hijikata to make quieter movements though I can't say that for certain. "也請副長多加小" literally word for word: also please vice-commander much/many add/plus small]

Hijikata: Yamazaki! Get ready! (sword gets drawn) It's in the grass over there!

Yamazaki: Wa! Wh-what... is that a wild dog?

hijikata: no, it's just a puppy. did it get separated from its parents?

puppy: wuwu.....

Yamazaki: Do-don't come (over)/cause trouble....go!

Hijikata: hey, when you meant wild dogs, did you mean this guy? Although it's a bit surprising, however isn't this cute? I thought it was a bandit/robber——

Kazama: hm, I was wondering what was making so much noise over here, it turns out it was the Shogunate's hunting dog/lackey playing around with a stray dog? What a funny display/an interesting sight to behold.

Yamazaki: You are Kazama Chikage....?!

Hijikata: Che! In a sense, this guy is [even] worse than a bandit/robber...... Why have you come here?!

Kazama: That's my line/what I should bee saying. Avoiding the main road, taking this shortcut to imitate a dog and steal a chicken [idiom], all I can see in my eyes/before me are people with no sense of shame.

Hijikata: Hey! Look at yourself before speaking of others! If you show up here, it also means that you're very suspicious.

Kazama: Hm, applying [accusing] what you saying to others/applying what you are doing to others is proof of how despicable you are. [As expected of the] Shogunate's hunting dog, truly how shameless. I originally had no business with you today, but I am not so forgiving as to ignore a bunch of bastard dogs who are always trying to pick a fight.

Hijikata: Interesting. Want to fight?

Kazama: Hmph, just watch how I cut you, and your sword covered in dog filth.

Hijikatta: That's what I was thinking/just what I want, I'll be able to rid myself of you!

Kazama: hmph, "the weaker dog will always bark/the weaker the dog is, the more it will bark" and that barking has been happening from the start.......This is only the start.... and I'm bored to death! What's wrong, I've been shouting since just now!

Yamazaki: C-calm down, dog! come on! come, sit down!

Hijikata: I think I've suddenly lost my will to fight.... Oi, Kazama! Is this dog yours? If it is, hurry up and take it with you [away]!

Kazama: How stupid! How could I have taken in such a filthy dog. Since you're all dogs, it should be a companion of you guys!

Hijikata: Who knows, we don't have a clue. But, what's to be done about this guy?

Yamazaki: The way it''s been barking, has ruined the atmosphere for a fight.

Kazama: Really...... it's no fun if you're saying that you were disturbed by a puppy barking as an excuse for losing. (sheathes blade). Hey, I'll wait. You guys get that dog to shut up now.

hijiktat: don't talk to yourself!

Kazama: Hurry up! Talking is a waste of time.

Hijikata: Che[? the definition of the TL here is 'to yawn' so i'm guessing that this might be more of a 'tsk' or 'che']! hey yamazaki, you think of a way to get the dog to shut up.

Yamazaki: M-me? If that's an order, I will comply...... but just now it didn't quiet down at all.

Kazama: Haha...... the Shogunate's hunting dog has been fooled by a wild dog? You indeed all resemble each other. 

Hijikata: You don't have the qualification to talk to us! Hey, have you gotten it to shut up yet?

Yamazaki: It apparently seems to be warning us, as long as we aren't hostile, it should be quiet.

Kazama: Oh.....then you've truly given up. It was probably barking because of how dreadful/awful/fearful/hideous your faces look. Do you want to cover up your faces?

Hijikata: What are you saying about our faces being dreadful? Your face looks more awful than ours, so it was probably barking at that? What do you think? Yamazaki.

Yamazaki:......Uh, ah! yes! I believe Kazama's face is extremely dreadful.

Hijikata: hey, wait...... why was that silence just now?

Yamazaki: It, it's nothing! It absolutely didn’t mean anything!

Kazama: Quit it with the senseless questions and answers. Quickly get that dog to be quiet!

Hijikata: damn it! When this is over, remember this (for me [will probably omit that])! Yamazaki, let's go! Hey, isn't it time [for you] to shut up now? If you don't calm down, don't you know what the consequences will be?........Damn, the barking is really difficult to deal with. Be good, don't worry, so stop barking.

Kazama: hey, just now were you guys trying to please [coax?] it?

Hijikata: ah? Don't bother me!!

Puppy: wanwanwanwan, wanwanwan!!!

Yamazaki: Vice-commander, this is counter-productive. it's rare for that guy to be a bit honest......

Kazama: One or two stray/wild dogs cannot be ordered into doing something, it seems that the dignity of the Shogunate's hunting dog is of no use.

Hijikata: You mouth speaks very well...... however in the end, this guy only started barking after you showed up.

Yamazaki: Indeed. That is to say, the reason for this barking isn't us, rather it is you!

Kazama: What? Being unable to get this dog to shut up, you decide to blame someone else? How unsightly.

Yamazaki: If you were unrelated as you say, why does this dog keep barking at you?!

Kazama: Apparently this lowly dog is unable to understand its position. Then I shall personally get it to shut its mouth.

Hijikata: What do you want to do?  Could it be you want to...!

Kazama: It'll only takes a moment to shut it up!

Hijikata: Hey! Stop.... Nn? What's that?

Kazama: ah, since it seems like you want to eat this dango [i’m assuming ‘dango’ is said here since the tl is ‘dumpling.’ usually whenever i see ‘dumpling the audio puts it as dango], I'll give it to you to eat. Dislikeable/ Disagreeable/ Annoying dog [kinda like 'what a disagreeable fellow' i guess? can't really say for certain since no audio].

Hijikata: I thought you were going to kill it!

Kazama: To always cut down those who hinder you........ is it because you normally do such a thing, that you can only think in this way?

Hijikata: There's no such thing! To use food instead of words/To actually say such a thing using food, you're so/truly despicable/mean!

Kazama: That is completely baseless, I only made the use of everything to stop this. Anyway, this guy is only a domestic animal, it's impossible to for it to not have an appetite. What's the matter? Now that it's satisfied, it's quiet so come——

puppy: wan! wanwan......!

Hijikata: What's wrong? It didn't quiet down/calm down at all.

Yamazaki: That seemed to have the opposite effect. It seems to be asking for more/for you to feed it again

Kazama: che, don't you know how to be grateful? what are you dissatisfied with?

HIjikata: Seeing you speak like that, it seems that you also aren't able to accomplish/do it?

Kazama: Let me first say, that it is barking for different reasons. It's barking at you guys because it think your faces are terrible while its barking at me is to ask me to give it more [feed it again... i think makes more sense].

Hijikata: Whatever you say, regardless/in the end, this problem still hasn't been resolved.

Yamazaki: It's as he says/He's right. What are you going to do this time/So what are you going to do with it......

Kazama: Leave it to me, I'll show you what I can do.

Yamazaki: Kazama! You're still trying to kill this dog---

Kazama: Insignificant and lowly dog that is barking! Shut up!!

puppy: wuwu......

Kazama: hmph, see? My majesty/prestige/dignity/authority [??? i guess something like 'behold my authority'?]

Yamazaki: You're just threatening it to keep/stay quiet....? Eh? (It's) Not barking?

Kazama: Okay, now that the annoying guy has shut up, we can continue.

Hijikata: So the outcome/result was like this..........Good grief. Are you ready?

Kazama: I'm up [assuming im ready/prepared].

puppy: wanwanwan! wanwan.......!

Kazama: You guys....! I ordered you to shut up, why are you yelling/barking again?!

Hijikata: What's wrong? You'll have to calm it down and show us.

Yamazaki: Kazama Chikage, what do you intend to do? You took charge of this dog/The dog is in your charge.  

Kazama: Hah....! (sheathes sword) Hmph, dogs and dogs really fit together, I truly am stupid for playing around with you guys. I'm going.

Puppy: wan! wanwan!

Yamazaki: Exactly what does this puppy want?

Hijikata: Is it trying to get between/obstruct/hinder us.... Maybe it's trying to stop us from fighting.

Yamazaki: This... how is that possible/how can this be?

Hijikata: Okay, we've wasted enough time, it's time to go.

Yamzaki: Yes. However/But, how should the dog be handled?

Hijkata: It's impossible to bring it back to headquarters, though it might be heartless... but/however, I believe dogs have their own world. Even if we don't worry about it, it'll survive.

Yamazaki: I understand.

Kazama Chikage, Tsuda Kenjirō Hijikata Toshizou, Miki Shinichiro Yamazaki Susumu, Suzuki Takayuki

--End--

....i wanna complain that ive had no motivation to do anything music related since the pandemic started... tho i’m guessing part of it’s owed to listening to increase of songs from TSFH and metal gear, the majority of which don’t really work on piano... maybe that’ll change if i start a certain switch game lol....

next month, i have various translated things from various mediums scheduled.

[ambistep]

Rangers & Regenes, pt. 2

(this is stupid long and mega indulgent, everybody is out of character im certain, engage at your own peril. highly non-canon. Part 1)

“Barolthien unveils the dazzlingly radiant cthon-crystal, the prize you claimed from the storm-dragon’s hoard - and turns it over to the Elf Prince. The Elf Prince smiles and takes it gratefully.”

“‘Thank you, heroes, I’ve everything I need to complete the ritual.’”

Daniel cuts in, “Wait, I thought we were trying to stop the ritual.”

“I knew it,” Julia clicks her tongue.

“You did not!” You huff.

“I so did, this always happens.” 

She isn’t wrong. So what? “Anyway. The Elf Prince clasps the cthon-crystal in his hand and the illusion magic falls away - the green and flowering courtyard of the palace is replaced by a smoldering and burnt ruin. The Elf Prince’s form gives way to gleaming obsidian armour and with gold filigree, and the familiar visor of the Ebon Champion of Vak’Tsaroth.”

“Ricardo is not impressed, he’s got his axe ready,” Julia leans forward, nudging Daniel. 

Argent reclines on the couch, mostly watching the television, but occasionally calling over, as now, “Did we get betrayed by the elf guy?”

Daniel puts his hands on his head, “He was an illusion.”

“‘He crushes the cthon-crystal and completes the ritual with the power released, growing in size and obvious power until he towers over even the mighty Ricardo. ‘I owe a great debt to you so-called heroes! I could not have come this far without your unwitting aid but I’ve not the patience for you any longer.  Before the lunar eclipse and my impending apotheosis, I intend to rectify the insult you paid me in Wickhamshire. I will bathe this courtyard with your blood, a sacrifice to my godhead. When my wrath is sated, and I’ve seized my place in the Heavens, I will remake this world, and set right it’s many inequities - maybe I shall spare one of you as witness, so that when all is done, you may finally realize how wrong you were to oppose me.’” 

Ortega raises her hands in surrender, “Ay, alright - enough with the monologue! I get enough of that on the job - that’s not even the corniest one I’ve heard this week.”

You take the jab as a compliment, “Well, I have been practicing a lot lately.”

At that, Argent, sitting over on the couch, almost chokes on her donut, snickering. Ortega looks over toward her, then back at you, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing, Ortega, Jesus.” Angela waves it off, “Whatever, I’m doing a power attack.”

You sigh, “We’re not in combat yet.” Grabbing the handful of player dice, you tumble them over, check the numbers, “Rolling initiative and… okay, fine, Aurum, you’re up.”

She’s back watching her movie, “I’m doing a power attack!”

“Alright, hold on. ‘Aurum is faster than the Ebon Champion, and her ki strikes land true, but the sacred armor of his fel god holds fast, bristling with new magics and protections.’ You hit, but he’s only taking four damage.” You’re rewarded with a sarcastic, silvery middle finger. 

“And the Champion takes his turn, attacking Aurum - she’s in range and just power attacked so…” A tumble of the dice, “He hits, ‘The Champion’s greatsword is swifter than ever, and bites hard on the monk’s exposed flank, tearing open a ragged gash,’ and Aurum is down to 3 HP.”

She puts down her donut, “What? That’s bullshit! I took that Iron Skin thing.”

You get to be a little smug - it’s more fun when she gets irritated, “That’s like one damage resistance.”

“That’s stupid. Shouldn’t call it *Iron* Skin then.”

Maybe she has a point. At any rate, have to keep the combat moving, “Ricardo, you’re up.”

Julia looks up from chatting with Herald, then stands up, “Alright, I’m gonna wrestle him.”

“You mean grapple?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna grapple the Ebon Champion.”

You remind her, “He’s like twice as tall as you, and super strong right now. He’s all hopped up on crystal magic.” Daniel starts to look a little concerned.

“I don’t care, Mina, Ricardo’s no fucking coward, we’re wrestling.”

“Fine, fine,” you know there’s no stopping her, so you roll the dice, “A failure, ‘Ricardo the Barbarian is easily overpowered by the towering black knight, his armor crackling with sorcery that augments his strength.’”

Julia scratches the back of her neck and shrugs a little, seemingly satisfied. 

“Alright, Blackhawk’s next and since he’s not here-”

“Hold up, Mina,” Ortega reaches over the conference table, pushing a button on the intercom.

A voice over the speaker, “Steel here - go ahead, HQ.” 

“Chen!”

“Ortega, this -” He pauses and you can hear his suit adjusting as he moves about, “This better be important, I told you I’m helping the Guardians with Alvarez’s security detail.” 

Julia leans back in her chair, hands folded behind her head, “It’s absolutely important, it’s your turn, we’re in combat - so what’s Blackhawk doing?” Poking at Chen like this, Ortega lives for it, You can’t help but enjoy it too.

“Ortega, this is an emergency public safety channel. I told you I was going to be busy - Clarity could show up any moment.” 

Argent locks eyes with you, flashing a wry, toothy grin. You shrink in your seat and make yourself small. You’re a little proud though - Chen maybe sounded worried. A little bit.

“I’m sure you’ve got it under control, Marshall,” Ortega circles around the conversation, “Back to the matter at hand.”

Steel is quiet for a moment - you can tell he’s relocating again. Finding somewhere more isolated to talk? “Fine. What’s the situation?”

“We’re fighting the Ebon Champion.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“No, no, he got the crystal and he’s big now.”

“You let him have the crystal?” The channel goes quiet, and when Steel keys back up, he’s whispering, “I have to go talk to Alvarez. Just, I don’t know, cast Blessing or something.”

Ortega cuts the intercom and sits back in her chair, gesturing to you. You shrug, settling back in, “Alright, Blackhawk invokes Blessing of the Grove, you all get +1 to checks, saves and threats. Barolthien’s up.”

Daniel has his folder open and is looking over his character sheet, and checking the tables he’s printed. “A-alright. I’m advancing to melee range, and I’m… I’m going to swiftcast Acid Touch.”

“Barolthien’s getting up close with him?” You look for confirmation.

He looks to Ortega for reassurance. She shoots him finger guns and feigns innocence when you start eyeing her suspiciously. Daniel nods.

“Alright, that’s a touch attack,” a quick roll, “And that’s a 14, a miss.”

There’s a cough, Ortega interjecting. “No, it’s not.” 

“What? Why not? That’s only a 14.”

Julia leans forward over the conference table, grinning like the cat who ate the canary, “Yeah, but your guy is flat-footed.”

Here it comes. You grimace, “Why would he be flat-footed?”

“He was grappling.”

“You failed to grapple him, remember?”

“Doesn’t matter, he was still grappling.”

Your eyes flit to the left, then the right, trying to remember, “That can’t be right.”

Daniel watches the two of you with anticipation, following the back and forth. Argent yawns, flopping to her side on the sofa, even as Ortega pulls up a PDF on the conference table projector, “It’s in the book. See.”

It is. Heck. You slump in your seat. “I can’t believe someone else actually read the book. You’re right, it hits - the armor is magic and gets a save and...” Daniel watches you expectantly, waiting for the resolution, “...fails. ‘Barolthien’s caustic magics -somehow- eat the Ebon Champion’s blessed armor, corroding and consuming, leaving a hissing green haze. He howls in rage.’”

Daniel breathes a sigh of relief, jostled by Ortega’s slap on the back. “Aurum’s tur-”

She doesn’t even look up this time, talking around a chocolate-covered pretzel, “I’m doing a power attack.”

“Should have guessed.” You roll the dice for her and… of course, “he’s flat-footed until his next turn, and he has no armor, so that’s a hit and… And because of the Blessing of the Grove - nice work, Chen - that’s a crit.”

Ortega, smug as ever, points out, “Don’t forget, she’s got Savage Critical too.”

You grimace, “So Aurum does triple damage on the armorless, flat-footed Ebon Champion and… he’s down.” Stupid Rangers. Stupid Ortega. “‘Aurum’s blows strike true, with improbable force and - you get the idea, he’s down.”

Argent passes by you on her way to get more snacks, mumbling, “I want his sword.”

“He’s not dead yet, he’s just down.” You clear your throat, “The Ebon Champion sputters and coughs in repose, ‘This is not the end, you think you’ve won this day - but the ritual is complete, and the eclipse still nigh. Know then tha-’”

“In repose? He’s laying down?” Argent cuts you off, standing over your shoulder with a bowl of more chocolate pretzels and M&Ms. She holds it out for you - and the sustenance is appreciated. Maybe the chocolate will stave off this migraine.

“Yeah, I… I guess.” 

“I coup de grace him.”

“What? Now?”

“Yeah, I coup de grace him, fuck him.”

You put your face in your hands, “How do you even know that’s a thing?”

Argent shrugs, “Ortega told me.” Of course she did. Julia laughs into her hand, relishing in your torment.

“‘Aurum executes the Ebon Champion with her bare hands, I guess-’”

“I take his sword.”

“You’re a monk.”

“I take his sword.”

“‘She takes his sword. A blood red moon passes in front of the sun, casting the palace grounds into darkness. You get the feeling that the Ebon Champion was probably going to say something important, and that this isn’t over, but maybe it is. Who can say for sure? Not me, I’m done.’”

You take the opportunity to stuff a few pretzels in your mouth and fold up your screen, stretching. Julia stands up at her seat, putting a hand over her heart, narrating, “Ricardo strokes his mustache thoughtfully, proud of his companions and the teamwork they displayed. He totally hopes they learned some important lesson about working together tactically, so that Blackhawk doesn’t think this was a total waste of time.”

Herald throws his hands up in celebration. Argent mumbles, “Whatever.”

There’s a migraine coming on, and sure, the Rangers got their man, but… well, maybe it was a little fun. “Next week?”

Ortega shakes her head, “Mission next week.” Good to know - thank you, Ortega. “Two weeks.” Two weeks it is then.

[lovemesomesurveys]

Why did you last feel like crying? This past weekend I was just extra moody and on the verge of tears.

How long ago and why did you last feel infuriated? I get easily irritated and frustrated, but it’s been awhile since I’ve felt infuriated.

Do emotions control you or do you control your emotions? My emotions got control over me a few years ago and I haven’t been able to gain it back. :/

Do you keep your friends secrets/private information to yourself? Yes.

What negative quality do your friends bring up the most? I wouldn’t want friends who did that. I do that enough myself as it is, I don’t need anyone else pointing out all my negative qualities all the time.

What quality do you think you have that others don’t think you do? I don’t know. I feel like people in my life overestimate my abilities rather than the other way around. I feel a lot of pressure to maintain that illusion. <<< Same in regards to feeling like people overestimate my abilities. Although, in terms of the long list of negative qualities I believe I have, my loved ones would disagree on a lot of them.

Do you often “jump” to conclusions? Yeppp. Always the worst ones, too.

Do you find being alone with strangers scary, interesting or indifferent? It could be scary depending on the situation, but I’d definitely feel anxious and uncomfortable.

Do you think you know a lot about the world? There’s a lot more I don’t know.

Do you know first aid?   No. 

Does the sight of blood make you feel sick? Y Yes. It makes me feel weak. I can’t even look when having blood drawn and getting it done makes me sweaty and weak.

Does your first name have an L in it? Nope.

Middle name have a C in it? Nope.

Last name have a R in it? Yes.

Do your initials spell a legitimate word? If so, what?  Nope. The word above, does it have any connection to you at all? 

Do you prefer classic rock or nope alternative? Nope alternative?

Do you like Kings of Leon? Yeah. I loved when Sex on Fire first came out.

How about The Script? Yes.

Does crying make you feel better? Sometimes.

Do you know a girl called Becca? Nope.

How about a guy called Gregory? No.

Does someones background effect whether you’ll be friends with them or not Uh, well yeah. Like if they have a sketchy background or have done things I’m not comfortable with.

How about their religious background? I’d have a problem with a satanist or if they were involved in a cult.

If someone admitted cheating in a past relationship of theirs, would you trust them? That would likely make things complicated, but I guess it would depend on the situation. Although, you’re likely just getting their side of it and it may not be accurate or they’re leaving things out that paint them in a better light than their ex. It would just really, really depend on the situation and it’d take a lot of communication.

Do you drink tea and/or coffee every day? Coffee, yes.

Did you ever want to be a cook as a kid? No.

How about a fashion designer? No.

Do you wish that magic was real? I mean sure it’d be dope to make something you want appear or happen whenever you want. It could also be tricky, though, and used for the wrong reasons.

What food would you love to wipe off the face of the earth? I’m picky, so there’s a lot of foods I don’t like, but plenty of other people enjoy them so I’m not going to wipe it off the earth just cause I don’t like it.

Can you use a bottle opener? Yeah...

Do you own a cheese grater? Nope.

What time will it be in 38 minutes time? 4:26AM.

What day/date will it be in 11 days time? May 25th. Damn.

Have you ever owned a pet fish? Y Yep. I had a fish tank full of fish as a kid.

Do you prefer fire or ice? Fire in terms of bonfires and in a fireplace for the comfy, coziness of it and I love the smell of it during the fall. I don’t use ice in my drinks, so, not a big fan.

Do you rap along with rap songs? Ha, well my attempt to rap along.

When happy, do you become more talkative? Yeah.

Bowling or sailing? Why? Bowling I guess if I had to pick out of the two. Have no interest in either one, though.

What colour is your kettle? I don’t have one.

How about your microwave? Black.

Do you prefer sitting in the front or back of a car? Front.

How about in a train? On the bus? I’ve always had to sit in the middle on buses cause that’s where the wheelchair spots are.

Do you care about politics? I admit that I really haven’t been following closely these past few years. I used to pay more attention, but I just... can’t. It’s too much.

Obama or Bush?

Blair or Brown?

When did you last cook something from scratch? I don’t cook from scratch. The only cooking I do is packaged ramen.

What things make you jealous? Im rarely jealous. <<< Same. I feel envy more than jealousy.

Do you think the censors/fcc go a bit too far or are just right?  I am confused as to why it’s okay certain curse words but not others. And I really don’t get why in “asshole” just the “hole” part is bleeped out lol. Do you feel hungry, thirsty, sleepy or none of the above?  Right now I’m just sleepy.

What’s your Mum��s Mum called? How about your Dad’s Dad? Lupe/Charles. 

Do you prefer crepes, pancakes or waffles? Waffles and crepes.

Do you have ice-cream in your fridge right now? I think we have some.

How about chicken nuggets? Not chicken nuggets, but my brother has a bag of chicken wings.

Do you eat fish often? Never. I hate seafood. <<<< Saaaame.

Have you ever taken a martial art? Which one{s}? Nope.

Do you know anyone who is scared of you? I can’t imagine anyone being afraid of me, a stick thin, super shy, and awkward af girl. haha.

What person who has died would you bring back and why? I wouldn’t mess around with bring people back from the dead. I believe I’ll see them again one day.

Do you like watermelon? Yeah. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had any, though.

Can you remember the month of your first kiss? October. I remember that because it happened at my high school drama department’s haunted house. 

Do you make friends easily? No. I also don’t try to to be honest.

What makes you different from everyone else? DNA <<< Hahaha welp that most certainly does.

I give you a piece of paper. What do you draw/write on it? I’d do random doodles and write random words in cursive cause that’s what I do when I doodle.

What pictures or photos are up in your lounge? Is that like the living room? If so, we have a few framed photos on the shelves we have.

Do you like purple and white patterned things? Sure.

Do you know anyone called Pipa? No.

I say purple, you think… It’s my mom’s favorite color.

What do you think is the most interesting thing about you? Nothing.

Do you like being complimented or does it make you uncomfortable? They’re nice, I’m just super awkward.

Does the description of your starsign correspond with your personality? Nope. I’m so opposite of how a Leo is described.

Do you have a photo album? Yeah, several old photo albums (physical ones) and several on Facebook and my phone.

What artists paintings do you find the most beautiful? I don’t necessarily go for beauty in art. My favourite painters are Dali, Kandinsky, and Klimt. Weird over beauty for me. <<< That’s how I am. One of my favorites is The Scream by Edvard Munch. I like the melting clocks one by Dali, too.

What about the most disturbing? Hmm. There’s definitely paintings I’ve seen that I thought were disturbing, but of course I can’t think of a specific one at the moment.

Have you ever gone to a camp or summer school? I’ve been to two camps: science camp and Girl Scout camp. I also had to do summer school once in the 6th grade cause I missed a lot of school due to spending months in the hospital and at home after having surgery. I voluntarily took a few summer classes in college.

What was your favourite cartoon as a child? A lot of the stuff that was on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, WB Kids, and Saturday morning cartoons on ABC.

What was your biggest fear as a child? Bugs.

Would you rather be able to fly or breathe underwater? Fly.

What about invisibility or mindreading? Invisibility.

Do you like what you see in the mirror? Nopeee.

Can you remember all your past teachers names? Not all of them, but a lot of them.

Do you like talent shows? Which ones? I enjoyed when we had talent show assemblies in elementary school. Those were fun.

Have you ever failed an important exam? In what? Yes, in math.

Do you find people taller than you intimidating? Just about everyone is taller than me.

Do you think you are better than people of a different country/background? Wow, absolutely not. I don’t think I’m better than anyone.

What’s your favourite thing about your country? We have our issues and I know other countries make fun of us, but we have a lot of good qualities and I like where I’m from.

Who is your favourite bzoinker? I don’t go on there.

What websites do you have bookmarked? The ones on the toolbar are Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, and a couple PDFs from Bible studies.

Do you use bows and ribbons to decorate your gifts? Yeah. I love wrapping presents and making them look all nice and pretty.

Do you listen to the same type of music as your parents? What type is that? We like a lot of the same, yeah. Especially my mom and I.

What TV show scared you as a kid? Are You Afraid of the Dark haha but I also loved to watch it. That intro is what really got me. Oh, and Unsolved Mysteries. That was a show about real life mysteries and murders and such. 

Family Guy, The Simpsons or South Park? Why? Out of the three I’d pick Family Guy, but I’m not into any of them. My family loves Family Guy so I see parts of episodes here and there all the time and I’m familiar with it. Sometimes it’ll give me a little chuckle.

[ickypea]

Regarding The Moomin Renaissance - an essay

Hi guys, general disclaimer: I’m not trying to attack people or denounce anyone for what they’re doing. This is only my opinion and my feelings and I'm just putting it out here, so please be respectful of my beliefs. Im always open to conversation so you’re welcome to tell me what you’re thinking. But if you wanna be mean, try and keep it to yourself.

As someone who has had the moomin books read to me since I was very small, passed down from my dad who also read them as a child, the books and their characters are extremely important to me and very close to my heart. Im ecstatic about the resurgence and new popularity of Moomintroll, it makes me very happy that people appreciate the things I love very much. Even though I’m happy, I feel that most of the general hype (moominxsnufkin) is a disservice to the books, the characters, and the author.

To clarify, I don't *hate* the ship, but it definitely irks me when the only thing on the instagram #moomin tag is moominxsnufkin art. I know that it's a popular thing to make queer ships (like klance and catradora) but the difference between those shows and Moomintroll is that Moomintroll was created by a single person, not a company or group like the other shows. Those remakes were only ‘based’ on the original story and the creators weren’t required to make the reboot 100% accurate to the original, change is actually encouraged. This feeds into the people that watch it as well. The reinvention of the story opens a door for individuals to create their own versions and headcanons. But unfortunately Tove Jansson, the creator of moomin, died and we only have the books she wrote. I guess the reason Im upset is because instead of people shipping moomin and snufkin in a post apocalyptic future biking gang remake show, its from the original books and stories. These stories are my childhood and the fact that people are changing the characters and interpreting them in ways they aren’t originally meant to be interpreted in feels so wrong and gives me a sick gut feeling. You’re absolutely welcome to create stories about the original characters or make your own moomin oc, it's not up to me to decide what others do. But if you change the fundamental emotions of the characters, how they act or feel or who they are deep inside, I can only see it as irreverent and disrespectful to the original stories and Tove herself. To me, its similar to the situation with J.K. Rowling, of her inserting new things into the canon of the HP books. Lots of people hate it or got angry because it seems like she's changing the characters to force more inclusivity into the story. It's not the same situation, but for me it's the same feeling.

I know lots of people are just now discovering the moomins because of the new show and might not really empathize with where I’m coming from. People see the cute ship and don’t know any better than to hop onboard, I know first hand. But the one thing that upsets me is that the internet is doing the moomins dirty by only focusing on two characters and one fabricated relationship. I want to clarify something, and I hate to be this person, but moomin and snufkin are in no way romantically involved. Moomin is not a coded gay character, and in no way is it implied in the original books. Sure, maybe people interpret the tv show as implying a relationship, but it's not the original story. It frustrates me greatly when people try very hard to pull some small, out-of-context symbolism from scenes and then apply it to their ship, because it creates a broken, skewed representation of the characters. Sure! you can still ship moomin and snufkin, BUT IT IS NOT CANON. And it hurts me that the only thing people see when looking in at moomin is this ship, and not the story or the other characters. The posts that are like ‘i don't know what moomin is all i know is the white hippo and the small witch guy are in love’ really frustrate me because it clearly shows what we’re reflecting out onto the world from inside our fandom, and it's the moominxsnufkin ship and hardly anything else. If the ship is the first thing you see, and you get into moomin BECAUSE of the ship, that's all you expect from the stories. You interpret everything from the viewpoint of ‘this ship is what I want to see’ and in turn, that all you see. It strips away the adventures and the lessons and every other great thing about the story and when you’re done you go back to posting a screencap from the show captioned “the way snufkin looks at moomintroll just screams ‘i love you’ uwu”.

When people hop on the bandwagon without knowing much about the show, it's important to introduce them to the best of the fandom. There are so many other wonderful, funny, and weird characters hardly anyone is talking about. There are so many stories and adventures of moomin and friends that hardly anyone is talking about. Read the original books! Watch the old tv show! Educate yourself so you can show people what’s wonderful about moomin other than a ship.

We all know the internet is very capable of ruining good things, it happens all the time. This is just one thing I really don’t want it to kill.

If you read all of this, thank you. I have a discord server with links to PDFs of a few of the moomin books, anyone is welcome to join.

https://discord.gg/HMm6FJU

[thedappleddragon]

hehehe today I did something exiting >:) BUT IF UR MY IRL FRIEND STOP READING BECAUSE ITS A SURPRISE. 

but first we’re going chronologically. my cat woke me up by clawing at my sheets for the first time in a while. every morning she used to paw at my sheets, snag one claw in them, and detach it with her mouth until I got up to feed her or whatever. so it felt weird and reminded me of when I was waking up at noon everyday for a while. I said goodbye to my mom because she’s taking a trip to see her best friend/boyfriend to help with her mental health. I talked with her a bit and waved her goodbye and went back inside. I had breakfast and lily wanted to keep going outside, but I didnt want to go out because it was cold. I went out the first couple times she asked, but for the rest of the day I just opened the door to let her in and out, keeping an eye on her. I filled out 2 sketchbook pages because my brain was busy with other things. I played a little harvest moon and got to summer and finally looked up some of the mechanics like fertilizer and stuff. but mostly I was thinking about my friend’s birthday party and the formal dress code for the first half, how I dont have many dresses, and how cool it would be to make one myself. so I scoured Etsy and joann’s for dress patterns until I found one with a circle skirt and a sweetheart neckline that I thought looked really cute. ive never make clothes before, so I hope I do a good job. I wanted to go to Joanns but I had to wait for my sister to get home from track practice, so I just kinda sat at home alone. I'm usually more or less alone all day anyway, so I dont know why this felt so different. when she finally did come home dad handed us $40 for Taco Bell and to put gas in his car and we were off. my sister and I talked about what she did at track and my job interview yesterday while I did a mediocre job driving. when we got there I wasn't really sure what I was looking for, so I just kept going around in the clearence section touching everything that I thought could be a cute color/pattern for this dress. there were a lot of interesting fabrics and a lot of ugly ones I could only imagine on a toddlers and tiaras beautypagent dress. we settled on this light blue fabric with a white flower/leaf design and a soft plain blue fabric for the front panel and lining. it was about $33 worth of fabric, which I thought was a little expensive until I realized we would have paid more than double if it was full price. the patterned fabric is thin and flows nicely but isn't see-through which I really like, and the solid blue is very soft and stretchy. I'll probably use scraps from both after I'm done for other stuff. I wasn't sure what measurements I needed so I handed the lady at the fabric cutting booth my phone with a picture of the fabric requirements. she was very sleepy and had to convert between centimeters and yards, and I just watched as she unrolled the fabric and made very small snips. aaaah I love the fabric section of Joanns, even tho im horribly indecisive and I spent way too long just wandering and mulling it over. but im happy with my choice! I didnt want to pick a fabric I wasn't in love with, since it would suck ass if I put hundreds of hours of work into this dress and hated the outcome. OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERD THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. THIS DRESS WILL HAVE POCKETS!! :D I can make the pockets as big as I please >:) I'm fitting a small child in these pockets if it kills me. lmao I'll probably just follow the pattern and do the size it tells me. speaking of sizing after we got home with Taco Bell and joking about among us tiktoks in the car, I read through the pdfs and locked myself in the bathroom to take measurements, going through the list 3 times just to make sure I got an average. I kept landing between a 44 and a 46, but I must have taken my front and back waist measurements wrong?? they were way too short and not even on the sizing chart, so I guess I was thinking my waist was higher than it actually is. I decided for simplicity to use the 46 pattern all around. I only landed in 44 with the neck and bust numbers, but I can alwasy pull it in at the seams I need be. ohhhh I hope it turns out good.... I haven't even begin cutting or patterning yet, I still need to cut out the paper pattern I printed off. but first I wanted to use a big paper cutter to cut a centimeter off each page to make lining up and taping things easier. my little paper cutter only fits the short side of printer paper :( so I'll either use and exacto knife and a ruler on all 25 sheets or see if dad's work or the library will let me use a big one. tbh I'll probably do the first thing. I also learned how to do a bunch of seams today, some of which  I might practice and use for my dress. and I called my dad’s boss about job openings, but he didnt answer so I left a message. I ALSO said for gas in cash for the first time today, which was a little weird. it was simple enough but I probably looked like a fool to the booth lady. I would get stared on at least prepping the paper patterns tonight, but its almost 2 am and my cat is asleep on my feet so I guess im trapped here. 

[shytiff]

Feb 2021 Wins

1 - osce study with clara almira, tryout 9 fkui, tryout review with clar, study sesh with clara that finished at about 10 pm. watched some youtube vids together til 11:15 pm. no longer sleepy, so i made my cv and finished it at about 3 in the morning lmao, bcs i saw this interning opportunity and i was like “damn i should make my cv”

2 - woke up at 7 am, didnt shower lmao, off to kiara for vaccination. Waited for a bit and i finally got it. ate mamdaging pesto rice with beef at kamkan w/ ren ness ara akisyah. talked at studied osce a bit. waited for mom to pick me up. until when do i need someone else to pick me up. i feel helpless and i hate that i cant just ride my motorbike because its too tiring. went back and dad got mad at me bcs i didnt greet him when leaving and entering the house. I truly didnt see him when i entered even though i heard sumn lmao. He said sumn along the lines of "you can always leave if u dont like me" (which is lowkey appealing). I cried bcs i felt sad and annoyed with our terrible emotional parent-daughter relationship. Hold the tears for a bit to study with clara. Darkened the room and slept still in my going-out clothes. I did not shower today lmao,,,,

3 - woke up at 10 am. Tryout and review w clara. Psych coaching. Psych practice with irun. Called lau and dajen bcs hes leving to medan. Randomly checked my email and my intern submission, which i emailed yesterday, that turns out the doctor replied at 8pm yesterday asking for interview today 11 am. And i saw it @ 6 pm. Aka super late. The stupidest thing ive ever done in FKUI. No cap. :( i panicked and it gave me a reason to talk with dad (asking how to reply) so i guess its a form of effort to banish the awkwardness between us. Studied w clara. I hope the doctor can forgive me. Its one loose end after the other lately.

4 - went to starbucks with atikah. got treated matcha latte yayy. cicil osce. called clara to learn imunisasi. went to kaleyo w atikah clara, ate bebek muda cabe ijo yumm. talked abt a lot of things in a span of 1-2 hours. we’re all pragmatist lmaoo. 

5 - osce briefing, DV osce practice w irun, watched run bts again lmaoo since knowing my osce schedule is thursday. read buku osce biru. 

6 - slept and lazed around til 1 pm. went to flavola since the construction was so noisy. osce simulation with UKMPPD Wibu. turns out flavola’s siomay is very fulfilling.

7 - todays construction noise escape is jco. Bought jcool double with almonds and chocolate crunchy. A bit of psych practice w aisyah. After maghrib practiced neuro w irun

8 - had no mood to study in the morning. Went to flavola, kopsusss coklat as usual. Reviewed osce materials (theres some tea about what might come out). Reviewed again at home (even tho i procrastinated from 6-9pm). Asked my bro for some ovo bcs i bought a mini keyboard in tokped lmaoooooo so random

9 - went to merra (ara and nessa’s place) but mom drove dad to the airport first. stome osce study, group consolidation for osce, tried mad bagel (the garlic cream cheese and tuna salad). the bagel was quite dense and fulfilling. the garlic cream cheese is quite heavy. arrived at home by 9 pm, went straight to sleep

10 - omg dr eva contacted me again :”) and i got the chance to be ecmocard research assistant. osce study. line call with ara. matcha latte. studied in juan’s room bcs it was so noisy. the keyboard i ordered arrived lolll cant wait to try. i dont know if its the anxiety or fear but i cant sleep and forced myself to sleep 11pm-ish

11 - osce. Went early to learn sumn more w ara tri. Osce (i forgot opv for the 5 mo old baby in peds station 😭 there was dr yogi omg) prayed zuhur and ashar in merra while waiting for pick up (i rly wish i could just bring my own vehicle but motorbike is rly tiring). Finally tried the mini keyboard, with earphones on. Practiced the song aku bukan untukmu by rossa lmao bu sihar taught us that in 33. I felt rly excited and not sleepy afterwards (that "normal" feeling with nothing looming). Its been a while since i tried something new, voluntarily. I guess its kind of what i felt when i tried the korean duolingo. That lasted for a couple months. Lets see how this keyboard thingy goes

12 - finally finished reviewing to oneshot (took ages lmao). Lazed around

13 - inten ukmppd w ness ren ara @ merraaa always. Went through 5 pdfs. Tried fastfit chicken burger and sweet potato fries. Quite fulfilling. Went back home and straight to bed (didnt eat anymore)

14 - started my day late as usual on weekdays lmaoo. flavola kopsus coklat as usual at my usual seat facing the window. did padi final tryout, score: 69. booty call with fianti, did mindset tryout, got 76,5.

15 - lazed tilll i start my day as usual @ 11-ish. Reviewed to padi final answers. Wow it sure took some damn time. My attention span is rly horrible when im alone in my room

16 - second dose of vaccine today. the rain was POURING. mom and emir waited in mcd. read half of aipki citation. 

17 - finished aipki citation, read CBT 2020 batch I and 2019 batch III questions. read a fantastic slow burn dramione fic. reviewed the last to solid.

18 - accompanied clara for swab antigen near airport train station (we came with motorbike since clara’s car was used). got called over by the police bcs we were in the car-only road lmaooo. went over optima tryout 2021. 

19 - cicil ukmppd at flavola with the usual menu, read some more afterwards

20 - ended up going to tamel bcs the flood in tb simatupang toll. Stayed w nessa and henny. Ate garlic carbonara spaghetti by bittersweet najla. Quite good for the price. Went over mediko questions with nessa and first session citation. Atikah sent some krispy kreme donuts 🥺🥺

21 - woke up at 4 bcs henny and nessa already did. Ate cold kanayam for bfast. Did ukmppd. I flagged quite a lot of questions huaa. I hope i can pass, aamiin. Went to tamel to get stuff (nebeng oca uye), climbed jembor to get to akis et al. Went to aeon (super crowded tffff), followed by ikea (parked at decathlon). Ate at both places (shared portion w kris lmaoo we get full quick). Aeon sushi and ikea meatball. So fulll. Went out of ikea to be briefed by dr Debby (ecmocard) and put my stuff to mom's car. Went in ikea again. And finally we went back. such a good sleep yall

22 - relaxed and i mean RELAXXXED. woke up and slept again. showered to prepare to go to harkit for intern briefing. i was late (thanks daan mogot road) and had to grabbike from untar. put on some sheet mask (natrep rose) bcs im realizing i need to fix my face and look decent for this new environment lmaoo.

23 - left home at 7 am, went through highway (i aint repeating daan mogot tragedy again). walked a bit backwards bcs the hightway exit was infront of dharmais. super slow progress on entering medical datas. took half a day to get one. and another half for the other. ate marugame udon, somay, chicken katsu and otak otak. we finished after maghrib and im writing this while waiting for mom

24 -  tried salted egg dori rice from salt inc. its quite salty and eneg inducing (a bit more than eatlah), but for the price (19k after cashback) i wont complain. Went back home before maghrib but there was still some medical record stuff i did in my room.

25 - magang as usual. Tried chicken egg salad from salad hut. Bought ice french hazelnut coffee from lawson coz i just cant take it anymore (the slump and sleepyness). I feel like the moment that sugary beverage enters my system i rise like a freshly watered plant. First meeting with dr eva and the others

26 - felt so tired even in the morning. Its 9 am and im already ordering janjiw coffee (with hazelnut and milo, quite sweet. Like a mix of kopiko and milo). Slow progress today i dunno why. Lunch is nayam rica2 and egg for 21k. Went back home by tj and mom picked me at gajah 2

27 - i hate to say this but bcs for 5 days now ive been fighting sleeping instincts, i snap out of sleepiness easier in the morning. Nasi uduk for brekkie. Moved some stuff up bcs the noise, played keyboard. Learned the (difficult) chords to tyler's see you again and im feeling satisfied. Went to racheel's place. Got fed chicken noodle. And then off to silvi's with devi also. Got fed chicken rice and dimsum. Thanks to friends im eating superwell today🥺

28 - relaxed at home. Skipped breakfast bcs i fell asleep and ate heartily in the afternoon. Evening run w racheel at citra 6

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

I finished!!! game time was like something like 138 hours but I spent a good dozen or so hours pausing the game to check my phone or wandering off to make dinner. 

I this said last night in a sleepy 4am haze, but I really enjoyed the ending. It was fun to play. The only time I died was when I accidentally fell into a chasm bc I didn’t realize a goddamn fiend was gonna come barreling out of the hall and ruin my “melee everything” scheme and I scooted myself right off a dang platform and respawned directly in its mouth. Whoops. When the Archon called up the Architect I was very Oh god not another one but then I didn’t have to actually try to kill it ever just avoid it, so that was fine. I LOVED how everyone came out to help at the end. It always seems unbelievable to me that your pals are content to hang back for the boss fight (ME2 I thought did well with having everyone else away on different tasks, and the ME3 citadel mission where everyone goes together is one of my favorite parts of the trilogy). And getting to run around with Kandros (who i love but duty calls and we can never be together) and Reyes (im still Very Sad i had to break up with him) and the Salarians!! and then your team coming in at the end :333 ah. It was a very feel-good, exciting culmination, and I think it fit the tone of the rest of the story well. Part of me was half-expecting disaster like you have to sacrifice Scott or a bunch of citizens or something, and while I eat that sort of tragedy up, I’m glad there wasn’t any for this game. 

Incidentally, all of my screenshots of Scott somehow turned out like this, and so I’ve decided this is a chronic problem his whole life and he has 0 good photos ever even when the rest of the fam comes out lookin great:

ah, Scott. someday i’ll play as him with this Ryder as his sister and it’s gonna have to be a wild ride.

Romance: I romanced Vetra!! I love her a lot as a character but I just kept wishing for more content. And I know I always crave more romancey content but I did feel like her romance arc had a lot less than what I knew people were getting from Jaal’s, especially because it takes you over halfway into the game before you get anything from it. Four flirt opportunities where she doesn’t really flirt back, my Ryder was dying and convinced her crush would never be reciprocated (hence the brief fling with Reyes). But I did LOVE the scenes you do finally get with her, the climbing date was soooo sweet, and I could not stop laughing when she tries to make you dinner. I’m never telling my beautiful girlfriend she doesn’t know how to cook steak. NEVER. she did it perfectly, i love cow. But I just wish there was a scene where YOU could do something for HER. Lexi even tells you that you should show her she’s appreciated and doesn’t have to take care of everyone all the time to be worthy of being liked but then you... never get a chance in game to really do that. Sigh. I definitely have a lot of inner-headcanoning going on for thier relationship. Though Vetra wants to eventually settle down and have a home and i’m... not so sure that’s in the cards for this Ryder. I may tweak the characterization of my Vetra-romance-ryder in some ways and redo this Ryder with Reyes for real next time. I think next up is gonna be a Jaal playthough though.

But, OVERWHELMINGLY, the relationship I was absolutely most fascinated by the whole game and spent way more time thinking about than romance, was the relationship between Ryder and SAM. I went into endgame thinking that the game really hadn’t gotten into that aspect nearly as much as I wanted, AND THEN!!! SAM GETS DISCONNECTED! And it’s revealed they took over WAY more control of the Pathfinder’s physiology than anyone had even guessed!! it’s not just “SAM can take access of enough systems to stop and then restart your heart” it was “SAM is so intertwined with you that they are integrated into these systems already and their absence makes it almost impossible for the Pathfinder to cope without.” I LOVED IT. I was so ready to address that, like, did Ryder know? Did SAM do it by choice or was it just an effect of Alec’s modifications? 

And then... nothing. You’re linked back up with SAM. No one questions it. You don’t get to talk to Scott about how SAM is different for you than him now. Or at least, not that I’ve found??? to be fair I can’t seem to find Scott post-endgame yet (where is he hiding???? i’ve been all over Meridian after leaving/going back), and I still need to go check out the colonies and see what people there have to say. But it really seems like everyone sort of was like “whew, glad that’s sorted out, SAM’s back and htis could never possibly be an issue again so we will all forget about it and never bring it up again.” There was one colonist before (Fawkes) who was one of the only non-main characters to ask a really detailed question about SAM/what the future of AI is gonna look like in Heleus and I was so psyched for that convo. There’s a couple dialogue responses you can take, I went with:

becuase I really like the idea that Ryder starts to think of themselves as not just Ryder, but a Ryder-And-SAM partnership. There’s a lot of sacrifice in that. You’re admitting that your body is not just You anymore, but a team where both sides are valued.

I’ve spent a lot of the game thinking about Ryder’s internal dialogues with SAM, and the dynamic it would add to their relationship. You don’t have a voice that lives inside your head (and gives you its 100% undivided attention while you’re in the field) and not end up talking to it all the time. SAM asks you questions back on the Tempest when you talk to them and I bet they would when out and about as well, just privately. There’s a line in one of the Vaults where Ryder starts talking to herself and then catches it--

--because she gets more and more accustomed to not being the only one in her head. SAM is always there. More than that, they always have your back, and are ready to feed you whatever you need to get the mission done. They’re not just a voice, they’re a tool; and they’re not just a tool, they’re a support system. Maybe Ryder knows just how intertwined SAM is becoming with theer body, and isn’t just aware, but welcomes it. The Ryders are a fucked up family who aren’t good at talking to each other, but SAM means you never have to be alone again. Someone is always there for you, protecting and watching out for you. 

So in the final mission, when SAM is ripped away from Ryder--it’s not just a physical effect. It’s like losing a part of your soul and a best friend and a, in some ways, a parent--because SAM learned through Alec Ryder before anyone else--and in other ways, a child--because Ryder is responsible for teaching SAM what it means to be a person and how to navigate the world. And I wish you could convey that emotional distress (even if less complex) in the game, and that Ryder was as worried for SAM’s well being as they are for Scott’s when they race to stop the Archon. Becuase in a lot of ways, I think my Ryder would have grown closer to same than she ever did with her brother.

Anyway, I wish the game hadaddressed these things more, but I also accept that like--this is a trope that I just am REALLY into and have been for ages. It’s not gonna be what everyone wants as the main focus, and it just wasn’t the big story they were trying to tell. At the beginning of the game the descriptions of SAM hyped me up so hard because they reminded me very strongly of my favorite short story, Silently And Very Fast by Catherynne Valente (which, if you haven’t read it, it’s really amazing and you can read the first part here (the other 3 parts are linked at the bottom of each chapter), or I can send a pdf of it if you want, it’s really good people read it please and then tell me about your Emotions). The story veered off not long into the plot of the game (I, along with many others, suspected for a while that SAM would turn out to be like the mother’s consciousness integrated into the AI or something) but I stayed pretty invested in it as a major part of my Ryder’s experience in Heleus. 

And like, I guess this would be something I’ll probably end up doing fic about now since the game didn’t give me as much as I wanted (and I only meant to write a short paragraph about it here and now i have like 9 whoops), so I’ll probably keep thinking about it with the rest of my Ryders. There’s so much potential there. Jade Ryder really grew attached to SAM, but there’s also potential for resentment there--SAM is always watching, Ryder essentially gives up any aspect of privacy in their life, even if SAM is polite enough not to comment on it.

wow this got away from me. anyway. that’s the game!!!!! i’m running around making sure i’ve talked to everyone still. I need to go check up on the colonies and stuff, but I did pretty much everything else before the last mission, so there’s not much to play. Just some assignments that don’t have navpoints. and then start thinking about my next Ryder!!! I played Jade Ryder as pretty logical and professional, with a tendency to open up more with people as she grew to know them better, though she struggled to be open/heartfelt when talking to Angara when her natural conversation style with them flopped hard at first. I think my next Ryder who I still need to name is gonna be way more casual/joke-y (tho i think Ryder is HILARIOUS no matter what, it’s so fun to have such a lighthearted protag) and probably more reckless and prone to following their whims. Gonna have to re-battle the CC though which I’m not so much looking forward to. 

oh also re: the second picture: i FUCKING LOVE that you beat the architect on Elaaden so hard it shoots itself into orbit and slowly decays and you can just sit there and watch it slowly fizzle in the cold vacuum of space

[ddrkirbyisq]

It's been about a week, huh?  I'm not sure if the fact that I've been skimping on blog posts is indicative of anything, like maybe I'm happier?  Regardless, let's get into it. Life is in fact going a little bit better.  Things have gotten easier, though of course there are always little hiccups here and there.  On the plus side, I seem to be at a place where for once I don't actually have a ton of different things that I'm trying to work towards, which has been providing me with a rare (and I mean RARE) period of respite -- rare in large part because any other time I'm faced with something like this I immediately start worrying about what I should be doing.  Productivity is like a drug to me, really... Ludum Dare starts in just 5 days!  I've made the initial "we're in" post at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/$184184/team-cocoa-moss-is-in-for-ld46.  I've been thinking about what kind of games might be nice for Cocoa Moss to try to build next and while thinking about it I felt that it might possibly be a good idea to play something a little different (read: not a game from the 90s), so there's a chance I might try to play through Firewatch or something this week (??).  On the other hand, I've also been thinking about visual design a bunch, and though I usually don't take on much visual design at all in our Cocoa Moss games, it's still something that appeals to and interests me.  I know Minish Cap has some lovely palettes and designs (I guess Mother 3 as well), so those are also some options for me in the future, if only as required reading. Old games really feel like old books to me, sometimes you just get the urge to replay some games from way back when.  Speaking of which, even though I don't have my physical copies of the rest of the Animorphs series on hand, I've nabbed the PDF/e-reader versions, so I'll be able to start going through those again. Anyways, back on the subject of old games -- keeping in line with the usual trend of me playing games from ~30 years ago, I've started a playthrough of the Quintet trilogy -- starting first with Soul Blazer, and then hopefully going through Illusion of Gaia and then the ever-lauded Terranigma.  I've seen a little bit of Soul Blazer and have played through Illusion of Gaia a couple of times, but never actually played Soul Blazer myself.  I'm pretty far through it already (just started the castle area).  It's not a game without faults I wouldn't say, but there's also a lot of charm in it, and something about the way that the level layouts are designed as well as the unique dungeon/town progression system really interests me as a designer.  Games are fascinating things, really.  Thinking about all of them really gets me excited for Ludum Dare -- and saying that I'm sure we'll probably fall flat on our faces when trying to design anything good, haha...that's just how it goes sometimes... Made a pretty nicely successful shui zhu dish!  No fish, just lamb and pork slices, but it came out with a very pleasant fragrance and blend of spiciness and slight numbing flavor.  Definitely on the mild side, but hit all of the right notes and was pretty satisfying.  Tonight I'll be trying my hand at pork belly cooked in the mei cai kou rou style, which should be pretty exciting. OHC600 happened, which was pretty epic.  I ended up doing a remix of a my ubiquitous Ecstasy of Life theme, which was really fun to do and turned out great.  Several other really great tunes came out of OHC600 as well, and the listening party (hosted by Starla on twitch!) was really fun to go through.  What a great event and community.  Here's to another 100 OHCs, and another 100 after that... Went outside and did a bunch of freehand glowsticking last night, which is probably the most exercise I've gotten since quarantine started.  I've gone out and spun poi a bunch before but this is the first time in quite a while that I've done a sticking session by myself outdoors, no filming, no audience, just dancing freely and trying out new things without any restrictions.  It felt great, this is something I could definitely use more of.  There's always this weird dichotomy when it comes to dancing where on the one hand you really need time to focus on technique, form, and cleaning up all of your motions (something I'm terrible at) but on the other hand you also need time to dance freely in a way that engages your spontaneity and practices your "flow", for lack of a better term.  There's no doubt that the former is important, but I often find that, at least for my style of dancing, the latter ends up being the thing that really ends up driving improvement, interestingly enough.  But perhaps they are just two sides of a coin, really... I reconnected with a friend after some 10 years of not really talking with them, so...yeah.  These are rare moments in life, but I know better than anyone that if you try hard enough, sometimes your efforts do bear fruit.  Sometimes it is a matter of simply trying harder, other times it is simply a matter of finding the right tree to look at.  Either way, we keep trying, and trying, and trying...

[jennifersnyderca90]

Booter Boss Interviewed in 2014 Pleads Guilty

A 20-year-old Illinois man has pleaded guilty to running multiple DDoS-for-hire services that launched millions of attacks over several years. The plea deal comes almost exactly five years after KrebsOnSecurity interviewed both the admitted felon and his father and urged the latter to take a more active interest in his son’s online activities.

Sergiy P. Usatyuk of Orland Park, Ill. pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to cause damage to Internet-connected computers and for his role in owning, administering and supporting illegal “booter” or “stresser” services designed to knock Web sites offline, including exostress[.]in, quezstresser[.]com, betabooter[.]com, databooter[.]com, instabooter[.]com, polystress[.]com and zstress[.]net.

Some of Rasbora’s posts on hackforums[.]net prior to our phone call in 2014. Most of these have since been deleted.

A U.S. Justice Department press release on the guilty plea says Usatyuk — operating under the hacker aliases “Andrew Quez” and “Brian Martinez” — admitted developing, controlling and operating the aforementioned booter services from around August 2015 through November 2017. But Usatyuk’s involvement in the DDoS-for-hire space very much predates that period.

In February 2014, KrebsOnSecurity reached out to Usatyuk’s father Peter Usatyuk, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I did so because a brief amount of sleuthing on Hackforums[.]net revealed that his then 15-year-old son Sergiy — who at the time went by the nicknames “Rasbora” and “Mr. Booter Master”  — was heavily involved in helping to launch crippling DDoS attacks.

I phoned Usatyuk the elder because Sergiy’s alter egos had been posting evidence on Hackforums and elsewhere that he’d just hit KrebsOnSecurity.com with a 200 Gbps DDoS attack, which was then considered a fairly impressive DDoS assault.

“I am writing you after our phone conversation just to confirm that you may call evening time/weekend to talk to my son Sergio regarding to your reasons,” Peter Usatyuk wrote in an email to this author on Feb. 13, 2014. “I also have [a] major concern what my 15 yo son [is] doing. If you think that is any kind of illegal work, please, let me know.”

That 2014 story declined to quote Rasbora by name because he was a minor, but his father seemed alarmed enough about my inquiry that he insisted his son speak with me about the matter.

Here’s what I wrote about Sergiy at the time:

Rasbora’s most recent project just happens to be gathering, maintaining huge “top quality” lists of servers that can be used to launch amplification attacks online. Despite his insistence that he’s never launched DDoS attacks, Rasbora did eventually allow that someone reading his posts on Hackforums might conclude that he was actively involved in DDoS attacks for hire.

“I don’t see what a wall of text can really tell you about what someone does in real life though,” said Rasbora, whose real-life identity is being withheld because he’s a minor. This reply came in response to my reading him several posts that he’d made on Hackforums not 24 hours earlier that strongly suggested he was still in the business of knocking Web sites offline: In a Feb. 12 post on a thread called “Hiring a hit on a Web site” that Rasbora has since deleted, he tells a fellow Hackforums user, “If all else fails and you just want it offline, PM me.”

Rasbora has tried to clean up some of his more self-incriminating posts on Hackforums, but he remains defiantly steadfast in his claim that he doesn’t DDoS people. Who knows, maybe his dad will ground him and take away his Internet privileges.

I’m guessing young Sergiy never had his Internet privileges revoked, nor did he heed advice to use his skills for less destructive activities. His dad hung up on me when I called Wednesday evening requesting comment.

Court documents (PDF) related to his case indicate Sergiy Usatyuk and an unnamed co-conspirator earned nearly $550,000 launching some 3.8 million attacks through their various DDoS-for-hire services. The government says he ran the booter services through a Delaware corporation called “OkServers LLC,” which routinely ignored abuse complaints and as such effectively operated as a “bulletproof” hosting company — despite Sergiy’s claims to the contrary.

Here’s Sergiy’s response to multiple abuse complaints about OKServers filed in the summer of 2018 by Troy Mursch, chief research officer at Bad Packets LLC.

Sergiy’s guilty plea comes amid a major crackdown by the FBI and the Justice Department on booter services and their operators. In December 2018, the DOJ brought charges against three men as part of an unprecedented, international takedown targeting 15 different booter sites.

According to the government, the use of booter and stresser services to conduct attacks is punishable under both wire fraud laws and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030), and may result in arrest and prosecution, seizure of computers or other electronics, significant prison sentences, and a penalty or fine.

from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/02/booter-boss-interviewed-in-2014-pleads-guilty/

[nedsvallesny]

Booter Boss Interviewed in 2014 Pleads Guilty

A 20-year-old Illinois man has pleaded guilty to running multiple DDoS-for-hire services that launched millions of attacks over several years. The plea deal comes almost exactly five years after KrebsOnSecurity interviewed both the admitted felon and his father and urged the latter to take a more active interest in his son’s online activities.

Sergiy P. Usatyuk of Orland Park, Ill. pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiracy to cause damage to Internet-connected computers and for his role in owning, administering and supporting illegal “booter” or “stresser” services designed to knock Web sites offline, including exostress[.]in, quezstresser[.]com, betabooter[.]com, databooter[.]com, instabooter[.]com, polystress[.]com and zstress[.]net.

Some of Rasbora’s posts on hackforums[.]net prior to our phone call in 2014. Most of these have since been deleted.

A U.S. Justice Department press release on the guilty plea says Usatyuk — operating under the hacker aliases “Andrew Quez” and “Brian Martinez” — admitted developing, controlling and operating the aforementioned booter services from around August 2015 through November 2017. But Usatyuk’s involvement in the DDoS-for-hire space very much predates that period.

In February 2014, KrebsOnSecurity reached out to Usatyuk’s father Peter Usatyuk, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I did so because a brief amount of sleuthing on Hackforums[.]net revealed that his then 15-year-old son Sergiy — who at the time went by the nicknames “Rasbora” and “Mr. Booter Master”  — was heavily involved in helping to launch crippling DDoS attacks.

I phoned Usatyuk the elder because Sergiy’s alter egos had been posting evidence on Hackforums and elsewhere that he’d just hit KrebsOnSecurity.com with a 200 Gbps DDoS attack, which was then considered a fairly impressive DDoS assault.

“I am writing you after our phone conversation just to confirm that you may call evening time/weekend to talk to my son Sergio regarding to your reasons,” Peter Usatyuk wrote in an email to this author on Feb. 13, 2014. “I also have [a] major concern what my 15 yo son [is] doing. If you think that is any kind of illegal work, please, let me know.”

That 2014 story declined to quote Rasbora by name because he was a minor, but his father seemed alarmed enough about my inquiry that he insisted his son speak with me about the matter.

Here’s what I wrote about Sergiy at the time:

Rasbora’s most recent project just happens to be gathering, maintaining huge “top quality” lists of servers that can be used to launch amplification attacks online. Despite his insistence that he’s never launched DDoS attacks, Rasbora did eventually allow that someone reading his posts on Hackforums might conclude that he was actively involved in DDoS attacks for hire.

“I don’t see what a wall of text can really tell you about what someone does in real life though,” said Rasbora, whose real-life identity is being withheld because he’s a minor. This reply came in response to my reading him several posts that he’d made on Hackforums not 24 hours earlier that strongly suggested he was still in the business of knocking Web sites offline: In a Feb. 12 post on a thread called “Hiring a hit on a Web site” that Rasbora has since deleted, he tells a fellow Hackforums user, “If all else fails and you just want it offline, PM me.”

Rasbora has tried to clean up some of his more self-incriminating posts on Hackforums, but he remains defiantly steadfast in his claim that he doesn’t DDoS people. Who knows, maybe his dad will ground him and take away his Internet privileges.

I’m guessing young Sergiy never had his Internet privileges revoked, nor did he heed advice to use his skills for less destructive activities. His dad hung up on me when I called Wednesday evening requesting comment.

Court documents (PDF) related to his case indicate Sergiy Usatyuk and an unnamed co-conspirator earned nearly $550,000 launching some 3.8 million attacks through their various DDoS-for-hire services. The government says he ran the booter services through a Delaware corporation called “OkServers LLC,” which routinely ignored abuse complaints and as such effectively operated as a “bulletproof” hosting company — despite Sergiy’s claims to the contrary.

Here’s Sergiy’s response to multiple abuse complaints about OKServers filed in the summer of 2018 by Troy Mursch, chief research officer at Bad Packets LLC.

Sergiy’s guilty plea comes amid a major crackdown by the FBI and the Justice Department on booter services and their operators. In December 2018, the DOJ brought charges against three men as part of an unprecedented, international takedown targeting 15 different booter sites.

According to the government, the use of booter and stresser services to conduct attacks is punishable under both wire fraud laws and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030), and may result in arrest and prosecution, seizure of computers or other electronics, significant prison sentences, and a penalty or fine.

from Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/02/booter-boss-interviewed-in-2014-pleads-guilty/

[zykjhrzqkn1h4m3xyine]

6/02/2019

I still didn't talk about the Cole incident. So on Chinese New year Eve, I was drinking coke and my uncle once removed's wife said that I needed to have pretty skin and not drink coke. And I didn't touch my coke for the whole night.

I woke up at 6 today. I'm proud of that. I am making breakfast now, I don't have tomato or ham, so it's just going to be plain omelette with cheese

Gabriella texted me last night. She asked me to return her skullduggery books. I can't find her second book. I'm imagining myself shaking while I hand the first book to her, and telling her that I couldn't find the second book in a really shakey voice. I'm so manipulative.

I returned the books but I gave it to her immediately and then left. I didn't even make eye contact with her. Clarissa, Olivia and Eve were talking with them, which I don't care about honestly. I don't want to control their friendship but they told me to come join them. I didn't.

So I just went to science and English class. I managed to talk with the teachers a crap ton. Turns out the homework for Englishwas actually a research task. Ema isn't at school today either.

So what was next? I had science right? So what happened was science. So during science we had the Philo teacher again. She's nice, but strict in a way. She gives off the aura of being really kind though. She's pregnant too.

Next was English. In English, we had a teacher who I forgot her name too. I keep tripping while I'm writing this. It's embarassing, even though most people don't care and I won't see them again. But in English I managed to talk with the teacher quite a bit, she gives off a cold Aura. We went to the library, and since I finished the research assignment, I played cool math games. I also talked with Stephanie quite a bit. After playing some games, I read the PDF of perks of being a wallflower. Belinda saw me, and was happy about it.

Then we had recess. My eye hurt during recess because I had accidentally put sunscreen in it. It was quite uneventful.

I borrowed perks of being a wallflower today, this morning. I wonder how long I'm able to keep it before returning it. I'm really attached to the main character in this book now. Even though I forgot his name. I think I should write my diaries like how there are in perks of being a wallflower.

Next was maths, since I was crying on the first lesson of maths, I wasn't there. There wasn't much happening. The teacher is just okay. Didn't interact with him much.

After maths was ISTEM. ISTEM was okay, I made Elizabelle and Katie laugh a lot. But it was just an introduction to engineering. Not much was there. I don't know what we're really doing there. Building and coding?

Lunch, we had conversation. We talked about 13 reasons why. Clarissa thinks it's a good show. Me and Eve disagree, Olivia didn't even know what it was. We went to the music room, because Clarissa and Olivia needed to practice. Eve showed me everyone she hated. She says a lot of people are dicks but she might mean it jokingly.

Last period. Pdhpe. We were looking at respectful relationships. We also discussed comprise. Which I don't think happened a lot with GAE. They didn't really compromise, or maybe that's my fault because I never let them know I had a different opinion. Whenever me and ema got into fights, I was always the one who apologised. If I didn't do that, we would've just not talk for a little while, and then she would have started acting like nothing happened. Which is not what I would've wanted. I wish that they would have read about it and realised how they made me feel but that's probably not going to happen. She also talked about being either passive or aggressive or assertive, I'm definitely passive, because I don't want people to get mad at me. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Although sometimes I do, and I'm passive aggressive and manipulative. She also talked about emphathy, and she said that people who were two emphathetic and cry over everything and have a lot of feelings they can't contain. That's been me lately a lot. I read in a comic where people were bullying a girl over her looks and she cried over that and I cried a little too. When they started talking about mental illness, Eve put her hand on my arm to comfort me, because I don't even have a mental illness. I'm just sensitive.

Anyway I'm at the library now. I wonder if I should study or read perks of being a wallflower. I guess I'll use the wheel again.

I'm tripping over so much. Even though I studied so much, I still don't remember anything.

My mom is calling me selfish a lot, me and my dad. She's also telling me to study more, even though I already got to the library to study for three hours a day. She's getting mad at me, even though I didn't do anything wrong, she needs to go to a therapist more than me, they shoukd just cut my therapy and send her instead. She wants me to finish an entire booklet by 14th of February, even though one topic takes me 2-3 days to do. C'mon with that nonsense. She's also mad at me and calls me a spoilt child because I can't completely take care of myself like a full grown adult. I'm 13, I don't have enough life skills yet. C'mon. She probably had a bad day today. She was screaming at me, because the bathroom floor was dirty and that her clothes weren't folded.

I tried to change the topic about what I learned in school today but she didn't listen just started talking to my dad while I was talking which is exactly what Ameera did to me. I'm really pissed off right now.

I'm back. My mom kept telling me how useless I was, while she screamed at me for using technology. She was also mad because I didn't do anything and just played all day while I don't have a mental illness and she has to work all day while she does. She was really mean today. She said that like when she's gone I won't be able to look after myself and I'm useless. She also talked about how much she worked and I played all day. I thought that was unfair. She was like "How do I be like you, so lucky to play all day, do nothing and spend my money? Should I kill and hang myself?" And that's when I started crying. I cried silently because I didn't want her to notice. When she turned around, she pointed at me and screamed for my dad to come over and said "see you were too soft on her and this is what happened." So my dad was just apologising to me while I was crying. I sat there on the couch not doing anything with my dad next to me and my mom was screaming about how useless me and my dad were. Eventually my dad got up and got us both to clean the house, he give me a vacumn and let me clean my room by myself. That's when I started crying really hard. Like I just thought about how I will never be the perfect daughter. My mom will never be proud of me, no matter what I do. I thought about that a lot. As soon as my dad came in again. I stopped crying. And now im here.

My mom just started talking about the bathroom being dirty, it wasn't even in an angry tone, but I still started feeling a lot of fear, and started pacing around the room and breathing really hard.

I talked with Mac. He was just being Mac. Like he just came of kinda disingenuous, but that's just him not being used to it. He also told me that, he usually just recaps what people say, and that's a thing I now know more about him, but that's not what I needed to hear.