pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
But has your father learned his lesson XD
My Life Can't Be This Gacha
- Thread starter pantherasapiens
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
-
- Tags
- shitposting
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
n e v e r
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
BUt yeah like, the voting format still confuses me and makes me feel blur a little, but the Aunty Network is a double edged sword. On one hand, we are now on their Radar. That means shipping. Asking wether got married yet. And nudgenudge winkwink "eh this year last year leh 
" as you collect ang pow.
On the other hand the resources aunties can wield can be very surprising. There's one aunty in my church who just looks like an ordinary aunty, who, upon arriving in church for the first time, the first thing she did was steal the broom from my mom and start sweeping.
She's also a retired police Deputy Superintendant, former prosecutor (in the days when the police provided the prosecutors, which was only a few years ago) and is silent partner-owner in a fairly sucessful law firm.
h i d d e n p o w e r
" as you collect ang pow.On the other hand the resources aunties can wield can be very surprising. There's one aunty in my church who just looks like an ordinary aunty, who, upon arriving in church for the first time, the first thing she did was steal the broom from my mom and start sweeping.
She's also a retired police Deputy Superintendant, former prosecutor (in the days when the police provided the prosecutors, which was only a few years ago) and is silent partner-owner in a fairly sucessful law firm.
h i d d e n p o w e r
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
Yeah maybe four things to vote for is a bit much. I'll try and pare things down a bit in the future! But currently Amanda just has a few things to decide on at once:
1. Ben saw the Raincoat and is super impressed and wants to at least let all your other friends know.
2. Aunty Network response.
3. Attempt to do safe (ish?) research.
4. A 10-Roll (plus Amanda's response to Suddenly ISA paranoia).
- Location
- St. Petersburg
It might be a bit late to ask that, seeing how we are on 16th update, but...
Do people really talk like that? Why?
[x] Swear him to secrecy. Only you get to tell them. (And you don't tell them.)
[x] Only do it until the rain stops.
[x]
- [x] Call a lawyer, pretending to have a pink-haired child, and see what they say.
[x] Amanda would like something that hides her.
...can't hurt either.
[x] Start wearing Amanda Wong™autographed running shoes
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pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
Yes they do! Welcome to Malaysian English, where sentences are pared down and grammar doesn't matter (much).
As for why, it just boils down to local English getting mixed up with Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin, possibly a smatter of Tamil, various Chinese dialects...
...there is no excuse for "stylo Milo" and I do not know where it originated, only that it exists.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
...I just mentally machine-translate everything to Russian where the sentences start making perfect sense. It's a weird feeling, like watching your neighbour explain directions to a foreigner when the last time they touched anything English was in school. You can understand everything they are trying to say, but not in the language they say it in. >_<
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pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
Now, this... this really gets my interest. You mean that this dialogue:
makes more sense in machine-translated Russian than in English?
- Location
- St. Petersburg
It has fluent grammar which allows for much less strict word positioning; is highly contextual, allowing you to drop entire sentence parts (so is Japanese and, I would assume, Chinese); and mostly tolerant to colloquial distortions. Essentially, constructions akin to "like that what" make sense because similar ones exist ("vot eto vot", probably gesticulating for emphasis), and I'd be struggling to translate it to King's English as anything except "this" without it sounding clumsy, while a direct translation allows me to bypass that part.
Doesn't help that (entirely by coincidence, I am sure) "stylo Milo" is close to "charmingly/lovely stylish" in Slavic languages while making absolutely no sense in English.*
* Google-fu says it's not entirely a coincidence since apparently "stylo Milo" got its name from a popular beverage that, in turn, got its name from Milo of Croton, a Greek, and Slavs borrowed a lot of Greek names and words.
Machine translation is probably not the right definition for a word-for-word translation, since modern machines can learn language rules and would probably be confused by familiar words in unfamiliar combinations.
Doesn't help that (entirely by coincidence, I am sure) "stylo Milo" is close to "charmingly/lovely stylish" in Slavic languages while making absolutely no sense in English.*
* Google-fu says it's not entirely a coincidence since apparently "stylo Milo" got its name from a popular beverage that, in turn, got its name from Milo of Croton, a Greek, and Slavs borrowed a lot of Greek names and words.
Machine translation is probably not the right definition for a word-for-word translation, since modern machines can learn language rules and would probably be confused by familiar words in unfamiliar combinations.
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It rhymes and neither component words are rare
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
Inserted tally
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
Need a tie-breaker between Plan 10 Roll of Fun vs Plan Involuntary Hand Me Downs.
Also @Whiskey Golf you'd better vote if you don't want Amanda to blab to her friends XD
Also @Whiskey Golf you'd better vote if you don't want Amanda to blab to her friends XD
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
They do actually talk like that. Nobody knows why. It just is. I'm Malaysian and I don't understand why Peninsular Malaysia people talk this way smh
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
[X] Swear him to secrecy. Only you get to tell them. (Then go ahead and tell them.)
[X] Keep doing it, even after the rain stops.
[X] Go to a government hospital and tell them about your pink hair. In this weather??? Hahaha no.
-[X] Call a lawyer, pretending to have a pink-haired child, and see what they say.
[X] Amanda would like something that makes her hard to disappear.
[X] Keep doing it, even after the rain stops.
[X] Go to a government hospital and tell them about your pink hair. In this weather??? Hahaha no.
-[X] Call a lawyer, pretending to have a pink-haired child, and see what they say.
[X] Amanda would like something that makes her hard to disappear.
The grammar rules seem to be spliced from whichever language seems convenient.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
22 December 2019 1/x
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
★★ Rubik's Cube + ★★ Beyblade + ★★ Watercolors + ★ Ancient snack bar + ★★ Ruler + ★ Eraser + ★★ Magnifying glass + ★ Costume jewelry bracelet + ★★ Shirt + ★★ Scarf + 10 ROLL!1d100→34 = ★★★★ Brooch
★★★★ Brooch said:
All those old toys you had and then threw away when they got boring? Finally useful for something. You dump the Rubik's Cube, still only half-solved after n years of on-and-off attempts; the Beyblade that somebody gave you for a birthday present and was never touched other than to remove it from its packaging; and a plastic costume jewelry bracelet that you wore, like, once. For some performance when you were in kindergarten. Good God, why did Ma still keep it in the sewing kit biscuit tin?
But the bright circle spins up and takes away all the ridiculous stuff from your childhood and leaves behind…
…yeah. You bet it'll be real difficult to disappear you when everybody within 1km or so can see and hear through your eyes and ears. Unless you get knocked out, or put in a bag, or something. Still. It's something, as long as you remember to put it on whenever you go out. You think. You stick it in your purse. That's probably close enough to unforgettable.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
"Amandaaaa!!" calls Ben. He's earlier than he was yesterday. You roll over on the bed and groan. Why is he here so early? Ben shouts again: "AMANDAAAAAA!!" You pull yourself up with a grunt. Even though you've just been lying on the bed browsing Instagram for an hour instead of doing anything productive, you still feel like you barely rested at all.
"COMING!" you shout, but the next moment your phone lights up and starts playing the ring tone. Ugh. Ben. "COMING!!" you shout into the phone and immediately hang up. Then you let him in.
"Morning Manda!" he says, entirely too cheerfully for any time before lunch. He looks around. "Eh yesterday the raincoat where ah?"
Oh. So that's what it is. Damn it. You'd hoped he'd forgotten. Fine time for his one brain cell to wake up. "Dunno." You stare at him.
"Oh there!" he says, and swoops on it, hanging on the back of a chair. "Anybody can wear?" he asks, spreading it out. "So cool~!"
You squint at him. "Whatever." You pad into the kitchen to make yourself something hot to drink. Behind you in the living room Ben pulls the ★★★★★ Raincoat on, snaps a selfie, and - wait a minute that's not a selfie he's -
"BEN." you say, in your frostiest Aunty Voice, just as he's marching out the door into the rain with his screen recording himself. "WHAT YOU DOING AH."
He freezes mid-step, one foot still in the air, and hops around to face you with a guilty look. "…TikTok?" he says. And quickly rushes to fill in the void of conversation. "Look, setting only friends, see? And it'll be cool, like super special effects! And and -"
"No!" you say, because letting it get out via TikTok would be the death of any kind of sensible self-esteem you have, and also because you don't want to tell Ben that you're kind of maybe getting ready to get ISA'd at some random point in time. "Just… don't tell! Can?"
Ben squints at you, then droops in defeat before your Auntie energies. "But it's so cool," he says. "If no record can still play?"
"Only if you don't tell anybody," you say. "I'll tell them myself."
"Okay!!" calls Ben, already excitedly dashing out into the rain.
Then your brain catches up to your mouth. You'll tell them? You'll tell who what? Oh god. How do you - Instagram? There's already a post there of you in the raincoat. Is it too late to pop a comment on it that says "btw this raincoat is magic"? Because it is. You don't know what Ben is thinking about it. You finish your cup of cham, extra sugar, no milk, and go out to the living room to see Ben trying to trap water by jumping on puddles. …okay, maybe you do know what Ben thinks about it.
You blow on the hot cham and sip. Yeah. You'll tell them yourself. First, though, it's getting near lunch time even if you're only just getting breakfast, and the Aunties will be waiting.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
You let Ben wear the ★★★★★ Raincoat today as a
"Amanda! So nice to see you again," gushes the Head Aunty. "And your friend!" Wink, wink. She thinks she's being subtle. "Did you enjoy the food?"
(You only mentally call her the Head Aunty because she's the one who started the Friendly Food Pandas and it's her house being used as the food distribution hub.)
"Yes, aunty, thanks," you say, returned the cleaned Tupperwares to her. Ben has the grace to look embarrassed and mumble that he'd forgotten to bring the Tupperwares back. Of course he did. He'd go and forget the Tupperwares and remember your ★★★★★ Raincoat.
"Oh don't worry! We've all got so many Tupperwares anyway, my husband always complains no more space in the store room but you know he also don't use that room anyway!" The Head Aunty waves Ben's apologies aside and finds three more Tupperwares, already loaded with food and addresses. "The rain's going to stop soon but we're doing such good work for the community, you know! I really want to keep on doing this!" She beams.
"Oh," you say, loading the Tupperwares onto Ben. "That's really nice."
"It's the kampung spirit," she says with great satisfaction. "And I'm thinking about doing dinner, too!"
It sounds like she's planning to start an entire catering business, you think as you and Ben get away to start your rounds.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
The lunch menu for the day seems to be economic rice. There's brown rice with chopped beetroot in it, stir-fried brinjals in oyster sauce and fried shallots, eggs and baked beans, and beef stir-fry with spring onions. There's bubur chacha for dessert that the Head Aunty made herself. The secret is in marinating the sago with the santan and draining the sago out just before heating, she says.
You think the sago is a bit chewier than usual, but hot dessert is abnormally comforting when the skies are grey and the wind is whipping your pink hair into your face.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
"Harlo? Sim and Sim Solicitors, good morning."
"Hello, uh, I'm looking for Mr Sim senior?" You spent fifteen minutes before the phone call trying to go over your mental script. It's going to pieces in the imaginary face of the Sim & Sim Solicitors receptionist. "There's something I need to ask him about."
"Need to book appointment," she says. "Consultation fee RM 200 per hour."
You had not expected this. You rack your brains. You'd chosen a lawyer firm in KL specifically because it was so far from Ipoh. "It's very urgent," you try. "Can put me through to him?"
She sighs, the long low sigh of a woman who has to deal with a hundred people asking for special urgent treatment every day before lunch. Then she says: "Why so urgent? Criminal case we don't do. Divorce, S&P, inheritances -"
You channel the way Ma acted at parent-teacher meetings. "It's my little boy! He woke up with pink hair this morning. I thought should report."
There's a pause. There's a short playing of the Canon in D.
"Good morning, miss…?" Mr Sim senior, you assume. He sounds old, anyway.
"Mrs Pang," you say. The only Pangs you know were a pair of twins back in Form Two. "My son woke up with pink hair this morning."
"I see. Well, you know that you ought to distance yourself from him, quickly. You should contact the government at -" and he starts rattling off numbers to report to and resources you need to pick up (you notice that the list includes burner phones and caller ID blockers). You jot the numbers down. When he asks for an address you make one up and add a KL postcode to it. "…and that's it. I'll send Miss Tang to your address in case you need any help."
"Thanks so much," you say sincerely.
"You're welcome. And please hurry. I'm sorry about it. I'm a parent, too." He does sound sorry about it.
You hang up, breathless. Are you already reported? Pa and Ma certainly did the rapid distancing thing, and they've - as far as you can tell - changed their numbers. But you've certainly not seen any form of police attention in your area, much less targeted at you. So maybe they're on the run, too.
The rain's stopped and the sun is shining like it's trying to make up lost time. You put the ★★★★★ Raincoat away and get ready to go see the Friendly Food Pandas. Ben doesn't turn up that day, making an excuse when you call him.
Well, you'd kind of expected he was only there to play with the ★★★★★ Raincoat, really. At least he's returned the emptied Tupperwares. The Aunties give you sympathetic looks when you turn up without Ben and in a sombre mood, and at lunch three of them corner you to comfort you with anecdotes of the worthlessness of the men in their lives. You're treated to stories of ex-husbands, business associates, children, and others. Then they offer to matchmake you with somebody better.
The rain comes back in the evening, but only as a light drizzle. It'll probably be all gone by the next day or so, but… ergh.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
It turns out the easiest way to tell everybody is to… do what Ben was going to do anyway. Not the TikTok, you mean. The video thing. You wait for the night to come and the street lights to come on. You put the ★★★★★ Raincoat on and step outside, your phone up and filming yourself. There's you, in the living room, crossing the door out into the porch, so far, so good, and then you step out of the porch into the rain, and your background dissolves away into a blur of rushing water. You flip the camera POV from from front-facing to rear-facing, bringing it nearer the boundary. You reach out with your free hand to try to pull water in, and make sure the camera sees it as the water flees you. You pan down to show a puddle, and by the time you've walked to it it's bone-dry, only refilling itself after you've passed by it.
You escape the streets, ending the video recording as you pass back into the porch and do a last pan over yourself: nearly two full minutes of walking in the rain and there's not a drop of water on you or your clothing.
Then you do the hardest part of it and WhatsApp the video to Era. Then to Che Mat and Che Din.
Hey, so you need to know something. Please don't tell anybody else. I MEAN IT. EVEN YOUR PARENTS.
The messages start coming in fast and furious after that.
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
7 SPINS AVAILABLE!
1 ROLL AVAILABLE!
🎲🎲🎰🎲🎲
We're approaching Christmas, but Amanda doesn't have much to celebrate. At least she's started to come clean to her friends, but how much is safe to tell them? Or perhaps she should tell different people… different things.
How does Amanda answer her friends' questions?
[ ] Tell Era:
-[ ] The full truth.
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
[ ] Tell Ben:
-[ ] The full truth.
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
[ ] Tell Che Mat & Che Din:
-[ ] The full truth.
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
Phoning the lawyers produced some results.
[ ] Follow up by calling the
[ ] Leave it alone. There's not much more you can learn from this line.
What else does Amanda do, if anything?
(Note: she's already wearing the Autographed Running Shoes out and has the ★★★★ Brooch in her purse.)
[ ] Write-in.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
On one hand telling them all is a bad idea because they cannot keep secret one and we will kena ISA and snatch up by Special Branch like they grabbed Raymond Koh.
On the other hand, this is also the most Malaysian way, memang it will happen like this. Not tell them? Please. That's un-Malaysian
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
tentatively i'm thinking towards plan friendship discrimination
[ ] Tell Era:
-[ ] The full truth.
She's our BFF, we have to tell her everything. #girlcode #sisterhood
[ ] Tell Ben:
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
This hyperactive blur cannot be trusted to use his head. The less we tell him, the better.
[ ] Tell Che Mat & Che Din:
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
These two fellers also damn blur la wei so we make sure we limit what we tell them.
exactly *what* we limit i need to think about.
[ ] Tell Era:
-[ ] The full truth.
She's our BFF, we have to tell her everything. #girlcode #sisterhood
[ ] Tell Ben:
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
This hyperactive blur cannot be trusted to use his head. The less we tell him, the better.
[ ] Tell Che Mat & Che Din:
-[ ] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
These two fellers also damn blur la wei so we make sure we limit what we tell them.
exactly *what* we limit i need to think about.
Not sure what to leave out, back to office tomorrow so no time to bang it out but since we're lacking supplies...
[X] Leave it alone. There's not much more you can learn from this line.
[X] Get your friends in the know to help you grab loot for the gacha spins. Items go in, magic item come out, no refunds. Explain if you put shit in you get shit out, if you put gold in you might get more gold, but sometimes shit also.
[X] Leave it alone. There's not much more you can learn from this line.
[X] Get your friends in the know to help you grab loot for the gacha spins. Items go in, magic item come out, no refunds. Explain if you put shit in you get shit out, if you put gold in you might get more gold, but sometimes shit also.
pantherasapiens
you were always my best friend
- Location
- somewhere over your shoulder
To be fair you're also starting to accumulate quite a few toys so maybe you won't get ISA'd as easily XDOn one hand telling them all is a bad idea because they cannot keep secret one and we will kena ISA and snatch up by Special Branch like they grabbed Raymond Koh.
On the other hand, this is also the most Malaysian way, memang it will happen like this. Not tell them? Please. That's un-Malaysian
...also votes pl0x
- Location
- St. Petersburg
[x] Tell Era:
-[x] The full truth.
[x] Tell Ben:
-[x] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
-[x] You have some cool items but no one can know or they will take them away.
-[x] Do not attract attention to your hair. Do not mention ISA.
...I don't have a good grasp on Ches to know what is and isn't safe to tell them.
They may be smarter than Ben though, so perhaps we could let it slip that this is dangerous to us personally?
[x] Leave it alone. There's not much more you can learn from this line.
[x] Get your friends in the know to help you grab loot for the gacha spins. Items go in, magic item come out, no refunds. Explain if you put shit in you get shit out, if you put gold in you might get more gold, but sometimes shit also.
-[x] The full truth.
[x] Tell Ben:
-[x] The partial truth. (What do you leave out?)
-[x] You have some cool items but no one can know or they will take them away.
-[x] Do not attract attention to your hair. Do not mention ISA.
...I don't have a good grasp on Ches to know what is and isn't safe to tell them.
They may be smarter than Ben though, so perhaps we could let it slip that this is dangerous to us personally?
[x] Leave it alone. There's not much more you can learn from this line.
[x] Get your friends in the know to help you grab loot for the gacha spins. Items go in, magic item come out, no refunds. Explain if you put shit in you get shit out, if you put gold in you might get more gold, but sometimes shit also.
InterstellarHobo
Cosmic Vagrant
- Location
- No Fixed Planetary System
Hmm, I think the opposite. Ben is a big dumb, and without a 'you will literally get me killed if you post this' he will 100% blab.