cartoon guy

and uses its creative freedom given to it by funding backing an existing IP (silly video game) in order to explore these themes in a very not-ironic plot and writing style about little space blobs and also STILL has some of the best animated expression work i’ve ever seen.

spelljammers in the skies over the Sundog Ecumen

📚✨️The demo for my newest visual novel Truth Scrapper is out!✨️📚

You are an amnesiac green girl 📚. Will you decide to remember buff red girl ❤️ or princely blue girl 🧵?!?!? YOU DECIDE

play the demo play the demo play the demo

I colored my redesigns (isolated under cut)

I believe so!

What's in a Name: Agna Qel'a

Agna is a root morpheme for "adult female" in many dialects of Inupiat (the Inuit language spoken in Northern Alaska). This is just a fancy way of saying that many Inupiat words related to women have the sound "agna" in them. For example:

Agnak - Woman

Agnaga - Wife

Agnakatiga - Cousin born to your mother's sister

Agnasalluk - Female animal

Also, for anyone wondering, the morpheme for "adult woman" in other Inuit & Yupik languages is "arna".

Qela is a Proto-Eskimo* root morpheme that is now pronounced as Kila/Qila in modern Inuit and Yupik languages. I've seen all three renderings used in relation to the same concept: Conjuring spirits. The morpheme qela/kila/qila appears in words related to summoning the supernatural, such as a shaman's drum (qilaut/kilaun) or their word for the Christian heaven (qilak/kilak). In Yupik, the qela morpheme does remain in certain words, such as their word for the Holy Spirit (Eprilnguq Qela) or the power to conjure spirits for divination (qelatu).

In other words, Agna Qel'a could roughly mean something like "Woman Who Summons Spirits" or even "Female Conjured Spirit".

From a meta perspective, this is obviously a reference to Yue's ultimate fate. However, this has apparently been the capital's name since at least Kyoshi's era. The "Qel'a" part of the name further emphasizes the ancient nature of the capital. This makes me wonder...

Could it be a long-standing tradition for Tui and La to give away portions of their life essence to babies in the Northern Water Tribe?

Obviously, the Moon Spirit and Ocean Spirit are aware of how fragile their koi bodies are, hence why they're kept hidden in the Spirit Oasis. Maybe another of their precautions is to create "backups" through lending their life essence to sickly babies? In a world before modern medicine, there's certainly no shortage of infants facing mortality. Perhaps Yue's situation wasn't so unique.

And, if that is the case, maybe Tui and La prefer to give their life essence to baby girls, since women don't participate in battles in the Northern Water Tribe. And perhaps that's why the male-dominated NWT calls its capital Agna Qel'a ("Woman Who Summons Spirits") rather than Angu Qel'a ("Man Who Summons Spirits") or Inuk Qel'a ("Human Who Summons Spirits").

*While the word eskimo is a derogatory term in Canada, it is still used in Alaska and linguistics as an umbrella term for "Indigenous Tundra peoples of North America".

Sources:

Project MUSE - Deciphering the Underlying Meanings of Inuit Words (2022)

Iñupiat Eskimo Dictionary (1970)

North Slope Iñupiaq Online Dictionary (2012)

Greenlandic-English Dictionary (2018)

Yup'ik Dictionary Vol. 2 (2012)

Krafton CEO looks at the hype surrounding Subnautica 2, goes over the contract between Krafton and Unknown Worlds, realizes he'll have to pay out bonuses and freaks out because shelling out those bonuses will make him look like a pushover.

CEO goes to his legal department, asks them to come up with a plan to weasel out of paying bonuses. Legal tells him the contract is iron-clad and to accept the loss.

CEO refuses to take the loss, asks ChatGPT for a plan. ChatGPT says the exact same thing the legal department did.

CEO demands a plan from ChatGPT, which dutifully spits out a plan at this point because clearly the CEO is a goddamn idiot.

CEO deletes the chat logs, failing to understand that 'delete' doesn't permanently remove things.

CEO follows plan, and is surprised when Unknown Worlds sues for breach of contract despite being told by both humans and an LLM that is exactly what would happen.

Court does not go well for Krafton's legal department. It comes out that after ignoring the sound legal advice of human beings, the CEO went to ChatGPT and asked for a plan. When asked for the logs by the court, Krafton's legal team states they were deleted, thus that it's simply herersay. Judge goes "Oh, that's okay, we'll have our IT folks recover them." Krafton's legal team is astounded that's even possible.

The chat logs are recovered. It comes out that even ChatGPT was in agreement with Krafton's legal department, and only spat out a plan after being asked a second time.

The judge, now thoroughly done with the stupidity of Krafton's CEO at this point, rules in favor of Unknown Worlds. Her ruling doesn't simply undo the scheme, but effectively leaves all control over Subnautica 2's development in the hands of Unknown Worlds, including the early access release date, reducing Krafton to just publishing out of contractual obligation. Krafton must also return all social media platforms for Unknown Worlds and Subnautica 2 to Unknown Worlds' control. Financial damages will be determined at a later date.

Krafton proceeds to violate the court order in less than 72 hours by trying to set an early access release date before returning Unknown Worlds' social media platforms.

Part of the contract was he would have to pay big bonus' if subnautica 2 hit a certain amount of sales by a certain date. So he pushed the early release back. The judge ordered that the time wasted on all this was void and the countdown for the earning for the bonus would resume after the decision (so if they had 6 months and the lawsuit took 4, the final date would be 10 months from the start instead of 6)

There's a great video breakdown on the entire shit show here