#im so deep in the trenches

[mortal-decay]

check it

[morastfrck]

Some stuff that i currently have preorders open for in my telegram channel (Штуки на которые сейчас открыты предзаказы в моем тг, на него ссылка в закрепе, руфд вперед вперед)

[luminousbeings-crudematter]

I have not finished a fic in so many moons, I think I've forgotten how lmfao no but seriously someone help

[deerspherestudios]

YESSSS, EVERY TIME I VISIT YOU PAGE THE ASK BOX IS CLOSEDDDD HIIII, you don't know me because I always miss the ask box but i'm actually an old fan! I LOVE LOVE LOVEEE MO and Mycheal he's just sooo CUTE! Thank you for blessing us with your beautiful boy OMG ilysm/p!!!!!!!! Anyways onto the ask I read through the Faq and found the question abt Mycheals fears and that got me wondering. What if, during the MCs stay with Mycheal, There was a bad thunderstorm? Would Mycheal seek out MC for comfort or would he try to hide his fear? And what if MC noticed that he was acting weird and offered him comfort, would he take it? And what would he prefer the MC do to comfort him? Mycheal gives me cuteness aggression and I want to hug him and never let go please-

Waaaa thank you for going through the masterlist!!

I rarely get to talk about his fears (of which he has a few phobias) but if it's a thunderstorm he'd definitely feel more tense than usual. He'd try and distract himself to avoid worrying MC, but when asked if something's wrong he'd probably open up a bit depending on how close you are to him.

When it comes to being comforted, he usually just needs your presence close! But a special case like this he might be more clingy than usual.

[aibafiles]

Esperanto in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Not long ago I saw this this tweet pointing out that the in-game language in Metaphor is Esperanto (written in another script) and I decided to investigate for myself! The vocal tracks are in Esperanto as well, but I want to focus on the text here since I don't have a great ear for it. (The quoted tweet also points out that you can rearrange the title to get an Esperanto phrase - I think it would be more accurately spelled "Metafore Fantazio," or "metaphorically fantasy"!)

For the unfamiliar, Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed language, developed in the late 19th century with the aim of being an easy to learn secondary language that could act as a bridge between speakers of other languages. While its vocabulary and grammar are largely derived from various European language families, it has speakers worldwide, including a sizeable number in Japan. Given the relationship between Metaphor's world and our own, I think it's a cool choice to take a constructed secondary language and make it the in-universe primary language—not to mention the game's themes of uniting different people with a language intended to do just that.

I studied Esperanto myself for some time 9 years ago, though I've forgotten most of it, so I'm very rusty. That said, I was able to sit down and parse one particular block of text that the game provides a translation for, and use that to read the rest! I'm slowly combing through the demo and translating any legible text, and I wanted to share some of the interesting details I found. If any Esperantists see this and want to weigh in, please do! There's plenty I may not remember or be aware of.

Continued under the cut, including content from the demo:

Let's start with the text the game translates for us! Here's what the VO/subtitles say:

O Great Seeker, bearer of fantasy empowered... Hear my wish, and come forth from thy epoch of glory to grant me thy guidance.

Here's the "deciphered" Esperanto:

Ho, granda serĉanto, kiu vivas en epoko de gloro, kiu enkarnigas la povon de fantazio. Bonvolu disdoni al li vian gvidadon.

And here's a more "direct" translation:

O Great Seeker, who lives in an epoch of glory, who embodies the power of fantasy. Please grant him thy guidance.

Not too much different of note here other than the pronoun usage—in Esperanto, the speaker explicitly uses "he," likely referring to the protagonist. I suspect that the English is actually translated from the Japanese line, which is ambiguous, so they made an educated guess here. But, since this is the same speaker who narrates awakening cutscenes and new bonds, it makes sense that they're calling to the Seeker on his behalf!

This is a point I'm unsure about, but from my understanding, "granda" (here translated as "great") typically refers to size, so it seems like an odd word choice to me—but it's possible there are connotations I'm not aware of.

After some poking around I stumbled across some text on the background of the name entry screen that reads "signaro" (character set), followed by the whole Latin alphabet on the next line.

"But Batts!" you may say. "Esperanto doesn't use QWXY! What about the diacritics!"

Well. There aren't any! There are 6 characters with diacritic marks used in Esperanto (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ), and since our character set doesn't use any of them, we have to make some educated guesses about which one it is at any given time. This is mostly a non-issue since they're real, existing words, but it does make it a bit trickier at points, and relates to another problem I'll get to in a bit. (There are a select few instances where I've seen diacritic marks on handwritten text or shop names, but there are still far fewer than there should be.)

That said, there is also some plain English text using this script as well, so the game does make use of those extra letters, such as the Memorandum UI - scrolling books have titles like "Marine," "Royal Capital," "100 Mystery of Ningen (humans)," and "Melancholia Gen" (?), plus cute notes in the background like "I want to read slowly" and "already read very good."

Anyway, this diacritic ambiguity bugged me for a bit when I started translating some text with "Euchronia" in it, like the above "Regno de Eŭcronio - Dezerto de Tradia." The Esperanto "C" and "Ĉ" are always pronounced "ts" and "ch" respectively, so the pronunciation here is a bit awkward either way, as both characters are meant to precede a vowel. A more natural pronunciation in line with both the Japanese and English would be "Eŭkronio," a spelling I found once in the body of the contract our protagonist signs to join the army, and never again. Alas.

I noticed a few interesting details while translating place names - the "Trad" in "Grand Trad" (Granda Tradicio) means "tradition" - and many locations are labeled on the map that I don't think are mentioned in the demo's runtime - Oceana to the west is named, but also of note are Kalendulo ("marigold," maybe "Calendula" in English) to the east, the Hulkenmont mountains surrounding that region, and the "Malnova Insularo" (old archipelago) to the south.

(Screenshot grabbed from justonegamr on Youtube.)

Lots of fun stuff going on with these posters - the big propaganda poster says "Mi volas vin por homoj" - "I want you for humans!" The poster immediately to its right and the one with the light-haired paripus are both wanted posters with rewards of 50,000 and 7,000 respectively, and the former has a somewhat legible name - Mikelan something (?). There's also quite a bit of illegible text that I'll need to boot up the game to stare at, textures willing.

Here is where I noticed an occasional problem with the text in this game: some of these posters include words that should have diacritic marks, but instead the characters are gone entirely or replaced with a space. For instance, the poster with the face that appears twice on the bottom row reads "Ser a peto - i tiu viro" where it should say "Serĉa peto - ĉi tiu viro" (Search request - this man). I spent so long wondering what "Dan ero" meant on the poster with the red "no" sign before I realized it was meant to be "Danĝero" (Danger).

This extends to some other parts of the game, such as the world map title ("Unuiĝinta Reĝlando de Eŭcronio" written as "unui inta re lando de e cronio," which is how I knew it was a plain C oops), and the giant statue in More's study covered in archetype names, some of which are missing characters.

I suspect that at some point in the process, these characters couldn't be properly encoded and got lost before making it into the game. Most of the UI text seems to be intact, and this only affects graphic text as far as I've seen. Luckily, we can usually use context to guess at what they should be.

There's a ton more that I'm still hunting down and translating, so if you'd like to see it, you can check out my spreadsheet here! I'm hoping to keep updating it as I play through the full game, and I may make some more posts if I encounter any particularly interesting details. A few more tidbits before I go:

This appears to be an annual calendar - number 1 is at the top and it circles around to 12, and then the inner circle runs from 1-30, likely representing the weeks.

Various graffiti found around Sunshade Row that reads:

Ĉi tio estis infero (this was hell)

Malbela elda (nasty/ugly elda)

Merdo (shit)

And in the words of our favorite tooth...

Elbe venontfoje! (Maybe next time!)

[keggsdov]

bugs when you lift up a rock

[mipmoth]

Squidifies the subway brothers

[flea-palace]

let's get manic depressive and hallucinate with mama

[theythemmer]

me and the bad bitch i pulled by eating chalk

[cryiling]

my 2024 ao3 wrapped is heree! 😽🙌

top works:

jump then fall by @aravenlikeawritingdesk

A Nerd's Guide to Flirting by @saysiwrites

Leftovers by @brichibi

part-time soulmate, full-time problem by @aravenlikeawritingdesk

The Art of Saying You're Sorry by low_commotion

top authors:

nikkiRA (@aravenlikeawritingdesk)

shinealightonme (@toast-the-unknowing)

SaysiWrites (@saysiwrites)

sisi_rambles

Fangirl_on_fire (@fangirl-on-fire3)

thank you to all the amazing fanfic authors who made my year all the more better 🫶

[wykart]

The elder men spoke low. They took a vote and said no. They turned around real slow. Where did they go? Where did they go? And the question oh, the question: can the kid keep his eyes, if the fire doesn't die? They said no.

They Took a Vote and Said No - Sunset Rubdown

[saturnniidae]

Whenever I see those 'miraculous out of context' compilations it's so funny bc it's really just like. Clips of the characters being really blunt and socially unaware, like interrupting or not realizing what they're saying is random and unrelated. Like god they're all just fucking autistic.

They seriously might as well change the name to 'miraculous autism moment compilation' or something like wtf

[deerspherestudios]

Hi! Question, so at the end of day 2 mycheal says he can’t let mc leave because he hasn’t tried to find their cat but he knows that the cat is dead I hope this isn’t to spoiler-y but does he have a plan what to do or was it just an impulse thing to keep them longer with him?

Impulse, for sure 💔 He probably already regrets his decision on the way back to his home but what's done was done. Now all he can do is wait for you to wake up and see where it goes from there.

[willyhoos]

chara deserves to break out of the game window and stretch their legs a little.

HD still beneath cut!

[viaphni]

A collab I did with my best friend about the recent events of Ore Quest: Prime.

I'm on the left, she's on the right!