I Overthink Things

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
starfleetrambo

d100 Table of Mediocre Treasure (value: $0-10)

randomitemdrop

  1. Roll of antacids
  2. Asparagus tongs
  3. Bagel
  4. Ball of twine
  5. Bent paperclip animal
  6. Bezeling planisher
  7. Book of matches
  8. Bottle of hand sanitizer
  9. Bottle of lemon juice
  10. Bottle of Sovereign Glue with the lid stuck on
  11. Bottle of vinegar
  12. Box of toothpicks (x30)
  13. Breath-freshener strips
  14. Bust of local ruler (pocket-size)
  15. Can (roll d6: Beans, Corn, Chicken Soup, Tomato Paste, Dog Food, Treasure)
  16. Celery-vase
  17. Chapstick
  18. Chalk
  19. Cherry-pitter/olive-stoner
  20. Chopsticks (one pair, reusable)
  21. Chicken bones (2d4)
  22. Clipboard
  23. Coffee mug (boring)
  24. Coffee mug (humorous/novelty)
  25. Coin: brass farthing
  26. Coin: double-headed quarter
  27. Coin: lucky dime
  28. Coin: rare nickel
  29. Collectible figurine (roll d10: 1-7 common, 8-10 slightly rare)
  30. Condom (still in wrapper)
  31. Cool feather (not magic)
  32. Cool rock (not magic)
  33. Coupon for half-price at local tradesperson (see Table of Tradespeople, https://randomencounters.tumblr.com/post/631120108774948864/)
  34. Date stamp
  35. Decent pen
  36. Decorative gourd (inedible)
  37. Doorknob of unknown origin
  38. Ear candle
  39. Ear plugs
  40. Edible mushroom (non-psychedelic)
  41. Egg slicer
  42. Empty vintage soda can that collectors insist is valuable
  43. Fake gem
  44. Fake mustache
  45. Five dollar bill
  46. Fly whisk
  47. Garden-haxby
  48. Guitar string
  49. Hair pick
  50. Handful of paper napkins
  51. Handful of sauce packets (roll d6: ketchup, mustard, mayo, BBQ, zesty ranch, Goodberry)
  52. Hard-boiled egg
  53. Horseshoe
  54. Humorous novelty headband (roll d4: cat ears, unicorn horn, demon horns, Beholder eyestalks)
  55. Incense (see Table of Scents & Flavors, https://randomitemdrop.tumblr.com/post/631160696571314176/)
  56. IOU from local Orc
  57. Jar (roll d8: spaghetti sauce, salsa, sofrito, dry pasta, marmalade, cocktail onions, glitter, empty but it’s still a pretty nice jar)
  58. Library card
  59. Lint roller
  60. Lunchable
  61. Makeup mirror
  62. Makeup brushes
  63. Nail clippers and file
  64. Novelty rubber dog doo
  65. Opera glasses
  66. Orange Circus Peanuts (3d6)
  67. Packet of gum
  68. Packet of instant oatmeal
  69. Packet of spices
  70. Pad of sticky notes
  71. Pair of socks (roll d10: 1-3 plain white tube socks, 4-6 black dress socks, 7-9 poorly-knitted homemade socks, 10 amusing novelty print socks)
  72. Peanut butter wrench
  73. Political button for locally popular candidate
  74. Political button for locally unpopular candidate
  75. Pop Tart
  76. Protractor
  77. Reading glasses
  78. Replacement shirt button
  79. Runcible spoon
  80. Safety razor
  81. Scrunchie
  82. Selfie stick
  83. Silly-Straw
  84. Slap bracelet
  85. Small wooden crab-mallet
  86. Smelling-salts
  87. Snoring strips
  88. Souvenir hat (roll d12: local harvest festival, local fertility festival, famous traveling musician, famous traveling morality-play, obscure cult-classic traveling morality-play, faraway city, enemy empire, tourist attraction two towns over, local funfair, local baseball team, local rival baseball team, Outer Planes)
  89. Squeaky rubber hot dog
  90. Squeegee
  91. Step-stool
  92. Tape gun
  93. Teabag
  94. Tooth of unknown origin
  95. Tube of acne ointment (roll d4: 1-3 anti-acne, 4 pro-acne)
  96. Turnip-twaddler
  97. Universal ten-silvers-off coupon
  98. Wax flower
  99. Wig (roll d4: Fashionable, Unfashionable, Clown, Rave)
  100. Yo-yo
starfleetrambo
natalieironside

Shout out to trans women who aren’t computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

snkrfnd

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the “gay Taco Bell”, but since I was coming from the “gay Howard Johnson’s” I wasn’t shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they’d worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the “gay Taco Bell” on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven’t changed much in 20 years. I’m still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city’s version of the “gay Taco Bell” is key to survival.

natalieironside

Thank u for sharing this with us

warpcorps
centrally-unplanned

We (somewhat rightly) mock the 2000's era fansub translation notes for their otaku fixations and privileging of trivia over the media, but they should be understood as serving their purpose for a bit of a different era in the anime fandom. Take this classic:

image

Like, its so obvious, right? Just say "pervert", you don't need the note! Which is true, for like a 'normie' audience member who just wants to watch A TV Show - but no one watching, uh *quick google* "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" in 1999 is that person. The audience is weebs, and for them the fact that show is Japanese is a huge selling point. They want it to feel as 'anime' as possible; and in the west language was one of the core signifiers of anime-ness. 2004 con-goers calling their friends "-kun" and throwing in "nani?" into conversations was the way this was done, and alongside that a lexicon of western anime fandom terminology was born. Seeing "ecchi" on the screen is, to this person, a better viewing experience - it enhances their connection to otaku identity the show is providing, and reinforces their shared cultural lexicon (Ecchi is now a term one 'expects' anime fans to know - a truth that translator notes like this simultaneously created and reflected).

But of course your audiences have different levels of otaku-dom, and so you can't just say 'ecchi' and call it a day - so for those who are only Level 2 on their anime journey, you give them a translation note. Most of the translation notes of the era are like this - terms the fansubber thought the audience might know well enough that they would understand it and want that pure Japanese cultural experience, but that not all of them would know, so you have to hedge. The Lucky Star one I posted is a great example of that:

image

Its Lucky Star, the otaku-crown of anime! You desperately want the core text to preserve as much anime vocab as possible, to give off that feeling, but you can't assume everyone knows what a GALGE is - doing both is the only way to solve that dilemma.

This is often a good guideline when looking at old memetically bad fansubs by the way:

image

This isn't real, no fansub had this - it was a meme that was posted on a wiki forum in 2007. Which makes sense, right? "Plan" isn't a Japanese cultural or otaku term, so there is no reason not to translate it, it doesn't deepen the ~otaku connection~.

Which, I know, I'm explaining the joke right now, but over time I think many have grown to believe that this (and others like it) is a real fansub, and that these sort of arbitrary untranslations just peppered fansub works of the time? It happened, sure, but they would be equally mocked back then as missteps - or were jokes themselves. Some groups even had a reputation for inserting jokes into their works, imo Commie Subs was most notable for this; part of the competitive & casual environment of the time. But they weren't serious, they are not examples of "bad fansubs" in the same way.

This all faded for a bunch of reasons - primarily that the market for anime expanded dramatically. First, that lead to professionally released translations by centralized agencies that had universal standards for their subs and accountability to the original creators of the show. Second, the far larger audience is far less invested in anime-as-identity; they like it, but its not special the way its special when you are a bullied internet recluse in 2004. They just want to watch the show, and would find "caring" about translation nuances to be cringe. And since these centralized agencies release their product infinitely faster and more accessibly than fansubs ever did, their copies now dominate the space (including being the versions ripped to all illegal streaming sites), so fansubs died.

Though not totally - a lot of those fansub groups are still around! Commie Subs is still kicking for example. They either do the weird nuance stuff, or fansub unreleased-in-the-west old or niche anime, or even have pivoted to non-anime Japanese content that never gets international release. But they used to be the taste-makers of the community; now they are the fringe devotees in a culture that has moved beyond them. So fansubs remain something of a joke of the 90's and 2000's in the eyes of the anime culture of today, in a way that maybe they don't deserve.

starfleetrambo
bestof-tiktok

soulsearcher33

Out of all the times i’ve seen this I never paid this any attention until now. WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THE THE GUY WITH TWO DIFFERENT SOCKS ON GO?? HE JUMPED IN THE AIR AND DISSAPEARED????????

image
roomba-with-knives-taped-to-it

The guy in the black socks knees bend right as the guy with two different socks jumps and disappears... I think he picked him up and ran out of the room 😭

blue-eyed-thing

Just like in scooby doo