rhymes with chameleon

Thoughts on Persona 5 (Massive Spoilers)

2018-04-28T17:32:16Z

I gradually played Persona 5 over the course of a month or two and finished it about a week ago. I liveblogged/ranted about it on Twitter as I went, but figured I'd collect my big picture thoughts in one place.

( Spoilers below )

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All About Lily Chou-Chou

2017-12-31T20:44:13Z

I downloaded All About Lily Chou-Chou several years ago because I'd heard it was about a bullied kid who found solace in fandom friendships. Seems topical.

I didn't get around to watching it until recently for some reason or another. In the time since, I'd spoiled myself on the wikipedia page, which sounded awful lot like an extreme load of sexual violence combined with the oldest catfishing story ever told about internet friendships.

But after watching it, I've realized that there's a very big difference between All About Lily Chou-Chou and tales like the documentary Catfish.

See, the usual catfishing narrative relies on the lurid shock value that The Kind Of People You Find On The Internet holds for normal people who do not live on the internet. We, the people who actually do live on the internet, understand that the majority of people we encounter are mentally ill deviants who are probably not terribly good-looking and probably suffer from one or two off-putting habits in the flesh. Knowing this, I think most of us have good intentions to be as honest with each other as our neuroses allow, and only a minority of us engage in true catfishing--and we condemn this behavior amongst ourselves too.

Nonetheless there is one profound difference between a good-faith internet friendship and one formed in the context of a geographic community--and that is that the pretense of your friendship likely lies in the deeper, kinder abstractions of the human experience. You share your pain. You share your happiness. And, since your internet friend only ever knows about your life through the purity of your own perspective, it is rarely complicated by the other person thinking, "Bitch, I can't believe you're complaining about the group leaving you behind on that swimming trip. The whole reason that happened was because you wouldn't stop splashing everyone."

All About Lily Chou-Chou's identity reveal twist isn't about being Fooled By Crazies On The Internet. It is about the pain of discovering that your closest friend, who thinks and hurts so much like yourself, is an enemy in your daily life.

That's something real about the lonely internet nerd experience.

And because of that, I can forgive its flaws in depicting the general human experience. All About Lily Chou-Chou's world is suffused with a bleakness that's too much even for me, and I don't think it quite understands how that bleakness got there.

For instance, near the end, the clueless teacher talks to the protagonist about the plummet in his grades and can only speculate that perhaps it's because he's had difficulty studying. This might be a real moment demonstrating how adults are blind to the cruelty children inflict on each other in their presence, if not for the fact that several of her students have died. Under these circumstances, you can't convince me she wouldn't have a few better guesses as to why some students in her class are failing.

I don't know if you should watch All About Lily Chou-Chou. If you're bad with sexual violence, don't watch All About Lily Chou-Chou. If you dislike extreme bleakness, don't watch All About Lily Chou-Chou. If you're bad with shakycam films, it would probably take you 5 separate sittings like I needed to even get through the film.

But it is one of the only narratives I've ever seen that really captures the feeling of being a loser who lives on the internet.

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Abandoned Draft: Persona 4 - some ambitious souyo thing

2017-12-15T02:06:55Z

This was last touched November 28, 2014. I really don't remember much about what it was supposed to be. I think it was supposed to be about Yosuke trying too hard to fit in with some guys who are actually jerks while the people he loved in his high school years drift away from him, and feeling lost in his own identity because of it.

I wrote 1700 words of it and ultimately gave up because it was too hard for me to write party-loving frat bros. Looking back on it, I agree with that judgment. But it's also interesting to me, because it was my one attempt at writing a kind of person that I understand the least.

( fic )

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Abandoned Draft: Fire Emblem Fates - The View from Below

2017-12-15T01:49:23Z

The View from Below (Fire Emblem Fates)
Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 780
I guess technically this is M for Niles's dripping cock.

Summary: After an accord granting free passage between their realms, the denizens of the underworld and spirit world gradually acclimate to the new immigrants around them.

Or: The tale of some lesbian girlfriends, some art student boyfriends, and a med student who just wants a bite to eat.

Notes: On twitter I spun the idea of some crazy fic that hit the biases of everyone I talked to about Fates at the time, resulting in this mad ambitious fantasy thing that never got past the first scene with Shura and Niles. Last edited June 20, 2016.

I'm posting it because I figured Boots might want the Shura content.

( Length )

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Measuring Time in Tellius: The Other Mysterious "Mark"

2017-12-13T19:43:03Z

Perhaps you are familiar with the series's odd way of measuring time within a day.　It does not come up often, and although I thought I saw it in other games, I was only able to search up examples in Radiant Dawn. This is the "mark."

( Length )
By the way, if you know other places in the Fire Emblem script that refer to a "mark" as a measurement of time, I'd be interested to have those examples.

ETA:
12/14/17 - With thanks to Glueblade: The German version rephrases two of these examples ("It won't be long until we get to Kisca" / "We'll rendezvous at Kunu swamp when the sun is above the horizon") and changes "You have half a mark!" to "You have an hour!"

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Sain/Fiora Supports

2017-10-27T03:12:18Z

Another commission from harblkun.

I did these translations blind to form my own opinion of the text, and then added in the localization for comparison later. As such, some of the differences you see may just be stylistic differences between myself and Treehouse, so don't take the difference between "Huh...?" and "What...?" too seriously.

By the way, the stage directions for the sprites get kind of complicated here. Half of these are taken from PegasusKnight, and the other half were taken from MiruPage. Neither had all of the sprite movements down.

( C Support )

( B Support )

( A Support )

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Kent/Sain Supports

2017-10-26T18:59:10Z

Commissioned by harblkun, whose love for FE7 is undying. She wanted to see me (re-)translate some of the FE7 supports, with copious notes for all the things that might've fallen through the cracks.

To that end, I did these translations blind to form my own opinion of the text, and then added in the localization for comparison later. As such, some of the differences you see may just be stylistic differences between myself and Treehouse, so don't take the difference between "Ah, Kent!" and "Ho, if it isn't Kent!" too seriously.

( C Support )

( B Support )

( A Support )

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Radiant Dawn's Extended Script - An Overview

2017-10-10T20:35:03Z

( Cut for length )

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Hitori Omou (Lost In Thoughts All Alone) - Translation & Analysis

2017-03-12T16:30:45Z

While helping a friend with a French translation, I noticed that the existing literal translations of FE14's signature song were somewhat haphazard. I think many of those translations were done before we all had a great understanding of the game, and since grammar in poetry can be somewhat loose and open to interpretation, many of those translations involved a copious amount of guesses (unfortunately wrong ones).

In fact, the original song was an incredibly accurate reflection of the events of Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation. I think a literal translation of the song is worthwhile just to appreciate that fact. I wrote this up for said French translation friend and figured it would be worth sharing with the wider community.

The Japanese lyrics are copy pasted from this site, and revised to reflect the official lyrics.

( Length )

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Nohrian Festival of Bonds - Leon/Zero

2016-03-23T22:55:25Z

This isn't out in the NoA version yet so the table format is a little bit redundant, but I love this conversation a lot and it isn't too hard to stick it in a table anyway, so why not.

( Conversation 1 )

( Conversation 2 )

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Leo/Azura S Side-by-Side Comparison

2016-02-20T18:47:15Z

For the record, I totally understand why they changed this one, since Leo is being pretty shitty here.

Translated slightly less literally than usual, because the tone is the most important part.

Portraits in parentheses. Azura apparently has two smiling portraits, which is why some are (smiling) and others are (smiling 2).

If you want to just read my translation by itself, it's available here (with Japanese names). If you need context, I've dumped NoA's C-A here (which are on the whole accurate except for a few tweaks to the international tension).

( S Support )

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Leo/Camilla Support Comparisons

2016-02-20T16:04:16Z

General notes:

I produced the translation I used in this comparison with the intent of conveying the tone of the original support. As such, it is less literal than my usual work and I have not taken the same care to match up every last line break. However, despite being less literal, I feel that this is some of my most faithful work.

You can read my translation in full here. For the sake of completion, the more circulated pastebin fan translation is here.

There are several places where the localization inserted lines, sometimes breaking up one stream of text into multiple pieces of an exchange. A "--" means that that particular version had nothing corresponding to that part in the other version.

The stuff in parentheses refers to the portrait being used. If nothing is explicitly marked, it's carrying over the portrait from the previous line. I think if nothing is marked at the top of a support, it uses the neutral portrait, but don't quote me on that.

Also, my parsing script substitutes "Kamui" for the player name placeholder, which is why you see those random alphabetical characters in the Japanese script. I updated it to "Corrin" in the English script and my translation, but I left it as is in the Japanese script to emphasize that it wasn't a deterministic name.

Also, for the record, every single instance of "love" in this is 愛/ai.

( C Support )

( B Support )

( A Support )

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First attempt at Leon/Zero fic

2016-02-17T02:06:53Z

sollie expressed interest in seeing this.

This was my first attempt at writing Leon/Zero, and I think you can see the beginnings of some ideas that would become folded into "tenderness in winter"/"what you're looking for everywhere else"/"How to Break a Man". It was supposed to be my foray into exploring Leon and Zero, using the idea of Zero's fragmented recollection of his identity interwoven with his present to show how the difference in his past and present life and how Leon plays a role in that.

It really wasn't good.

( Cut for length )

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What? FE4 meta!?

2016-02-13T15:27:33Z

So I've been planning an Arvis fic for my first foray into Writing Perspectives That Are Not Somewhat Depressed Highly Empathetic Outsiders--I actually have a coherent storyline in my head and everything and it's great--and this has caused me to spontaneously Velthomer meta while waking up or something.

(It's about something unrelated to the story I'm planning, which is usually how these things work.)

So it's always puzzled me that the late Duke Velthomer's reaction to his wife's infidelity was suicide.

( Velthomer spoilers )

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Greasemonkey Script for Word Replacement

2016-02-10T03:16:58Z

For people who are grumpy about names or whatever.

( Instructions! )

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On Creation, Respect, Scholarship, and Dissent

2015-12-11T03:09:32Z

I'm nursing a headache from work and I'm not in the mood to confront the particular person who brought this idea up this time, which might be as well, because it's not really about one person. I've heard of it popping up all across fandom and I suppose this just happens to be the first time I got to see it myself.

And that idea is this: "I worked very hard on producing these translations and poured my heart and soul into it, so don't you dare use them to make an argument I disapprove of. It's disrespectful, fuck off."

I don't think this is a stance that fandom can ever afford to take. I mean, I'm not going to say that any single person ought not to feel pissed off. You're allowed to feel pissed off about anything at all. But we cannot, as a culture, sanctify translations of official sources and prohibit their reuse.

( Cut for Length )

ETA: I was informed by a mutual fandom acquaintance of more context about the original post in question and I feel reluctant to make a Big Deal out of it now, so I took down the link on tumblr to this post. But I'm keeping this here in case anyone wants it.

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Trigger Warnings for Joining of Worlds, Ch. 15

2015-11-20T21:54:39Z

( Spoilers )

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Blah blah writing process naval-gazing. Speed, consistency, experience.

2015-08-12T21:47:12Z

I have never been able to keep to a fic update schedule in my life until now.

It's exciting! But I'm also acutely aware of the fact that it's working this time because I have the experience to make it work.

Trying to keep to a regular update schedule means never getting stuck in a rut, knowing how to fix problems with a quick turn-around, and making the right decision the first time--and doing all of these things consistently, on top of that.

( tl;dr )

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Hoshido Recap

2015-07-21T22:43:32Z

( Hoshido Recap - Mild Spoilers )

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Nohr Wrapup (Part 2)

2015-07-15T00:58:19Z

( Nohr Thoughts (Aesthetics, Story, SJ stuff) )

I'm presently on Chapter 19 of Hoshido route. So far the storytelling has been significantly better, though Sukesou says it has some of FE13's failings, so I'm trying not to be too optimistic.

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Nohr Wrapup (Part 1)

2015-07-11T19:36:19Z

Finished the Nohr route of FE14. Here are my general thoughts. Beware: minor spoilers!

( Nohr Thoughts (Gameplay) )

Due to length, I'm going to stick my thoughts on aesthetics and story into another post.

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Assorted Drabbles

2015-05-14T03:11:21Z

As I'm deleting my tumblr, I decided to archive the ficbits I only posted on Tumblr over here on DW.

( Tiki/Say'ri worship )

( Magvel Idol )

( Lucina/Gerome storm )

( Leonard/Edward comfort )

( Virion+Maribelle pastries/baked goods )

( Inigo/Gerome dancer AU )

( Some Knoll Drabble )

( Yukiko/Chie, things you said while we were dying )

( Chie/Yukiko things you said after it was over )

The following are for an "AUs I won't write" meme, so they are more summary than fic. Still, I liked some of these, so here they are.

( Chie/Yukiko, Yukiko is an actual princess AU )

( Ike/Soren veterinary clinic AU )

( Henry/Olivia artist/muse AU )

( Souyo wild west AU )

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"Tomo", not as in Friend - Chapter 4 - Explicit Yu Narukami Ver.

2015-05-02T17:03:07Z

So, once upon a time I was going to write a fluffy story with makeouts and a cat, and I decided to compromise over Name Drama: AO3 and its nest of well-established P4 fandomers could get Souji as they were accustomed to, and FFN would get Yu because I like the name better.

But then things snowballed and I ended up taking the story much more seriously than I had anticipated, and before I knew it, I decided that Chapter 4 would just work a lot better with a sex scene.

Except FFN doesn't allow sex scenes.

Which meant that the actual version of this chapter that I had written, the true version of this chapter in my mind, wouldn't actually be posted anywhere.

So I'm posting this chapter here on DW, home of free speech and all that, to rectify the situation.

( Chapter 4 )

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Abandoned WIP - Fire Emblem: The Three Heroes - Resource Dump

2015-04-26T18:43:26Z

Fire Emblem: The Three Heroes was a romhack project that I was taken with in late 2011. It was supposed to be the tale of Altina and company in the first great war that would result in the Great Flood. It was ultimately abandoned because 1) it was a lot of work and I discovered that I didn't quite care that much about ancient Tellius, and 2) I think I lacked a clear unifying vision that created many problems from the tone not being what I wanted it to be, to having a lot of difficulty picking appropriate names.

Nonetheless, I have a lot of assets on my computer related to this project, so I figured I'd share for the lulz.

Unless otherwise mentioned, everything on this post was by me. Raphi did some spritework and I think I brainstormed with her and Lily. Yeah, I did the music, which is why it's not very good. I probably should've outsourced that to Natalie. :P

Here's the latest version of the patch that survived my brother's computer crash: x
(My brother did all the hacking work. This is actually what got him into FE hacking. Now apparently he's a big-shot in the hacking community.)

It's an FE7 patch. It's a UPS patch, which means you'll have to apply it to the English FE7 rom using the UPS utility here.

It's up to chapter 1, I think. Which means it has basically nothing interesting. The continent highlighting doesn't correspond with the text, and typos abound. Also apparently only Sarita's sprite is in. I legit thought there were more sprites in, but I guess not.

Also the difficulty is more in line with hard modes of the games. I was gonna work on balancing after I had more done.

( Sprites )

( Script - Prologue )

( Script - Ch 1 )

( Script - What I remember of what was supposed to happen )

( Bonus script -- FE crossover maps?? )

( Music )

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The many faces of Terrorist AU

2015-01-23T02:51:27Z

Since I went on about not outlining and not committing oneself to a certain version of events, and the time and interest necessary to actually see a project through multiple true rewrites that don't lean too heavily on the previous drafts, here are the extant drafts of what's probably the longest-lived project of mine: "Terrorist AU". For fun.

( Take 1 )

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