Zakamutt

Why hello there. I'm Zakamutt, writer for the Fuwazette, part of the team running the fuwatwitter, forum poster. I have no idea how I got so many posts either.

Don't read any of kivandoplus' reviews he google translates reviews from Japanese people and pretends this actually lets him know anything like holy shit

*Ahem*

What follows is probably a bit tl;dr. You might want to skip the third heading. But hey, it does say "About Me".

Bio

Twenty-something, NEET, introvert, flunky as hell in real life.

I'm... what the hell am I like? I don't feel I can give a coherent summation of my personality, as it's subject to serious mood changes and things. Let's go for random statements!

I have a decent ability to be analytical. I can be extremely stubborn and emotional one day and realize how silly it all was the next. I tend to be somewhat anti-authoritarian. I really hate being wrong or proven wrong in general, though I have resolved to endure the butthurt personally and actually try to learn from mistakes. I get annoyed at illogical arguments, though that's mostly me and my dad.

I joke around a decent lot, and I'm prone to somewhat gentle casual mockery. The correct response is to mock me back, but some people really can't go along with this kind of thing. Fallen out with people over that (and I tend to peg them as humorless, stuck-up bores, so yeah.) I tend to be blunt, and diplomacy and politeness when facing things I disagree with and whatnot makes me itch a bit.

As I get older, the rough corners of my personality feel like they're getting smoothed out... but will my free spirit ever be gone? Doubtful.

Fuwanovel ""employment""

I was added to Fuwanovel's blog as a writer a decent while ago. Then I did a few posts and slacked.

I don't really know what happened, but somewhere down the line I started to try harder when it came to the blog. Part of it was just starting the VNTS copy stuff I guess, because it made me have to do one per week, and then it feels bad to just have the VNTS that week, and then...

...Nowadays? Writing kind of just feels... apart from a "duty", you could call it a habit. I might whine while working at times, but there's a certain charm to the whole thing.

When it comes to Fuwanovel's new Twitter (@fuwan0vel, we regret the zero), I was actually checking a list of translation news (and a decent bit of chatter from the users at times. It's Twitter.) for a while before the whole twitter thing came up. I RTd the stuff I found interesting there - so really, not much has changed. If you want fast news, following our Twitter in some way is highly advised.

I admit to sometimes having to sleep, so things might be twelve or so hours late at times. Or maybe I can't be arsed that day. Then you start getting 3 day late stuff, weee. Sometimes I use checking lists as procrastination instead or writing blog posts, these days.

I want to promote the full spectrum of VN content worthy of your attention - from good OELVNs, to fan translations, to commercial work. If you want fast news, following our Twitter in some way is highly advised. If you're nerdy enough follow the lists instead though (I curate those on my personal account @zakamutt).

Personal history, current problems IRL

I have a problem with procrastinating, then paradoxically feeling so bad for procrastinating a task that I put it off, because it starts to feel bad to even think about or something.

Dropped out of a CS bachelors' program in the third term or so, but my results before that were not impressive either (though I did score fairly well in the one programming course I did fully seriously.) I did not attend lectures all that well after a certain period, and this led me to a downward spiral where I feel guilty about not going to lectures, which paradoxically... yeah. Also bad sleeping habits and general laziness!

I have been unemployed for like three years, with somewhat of a stint in a gubment program (which was very much real work, though). I flunked that for like two months or more after some time, had problems keeping times in general. The guy supervising me from the social worker side getting sick for said months didn't help. Theeeeeen my six-month period was over (ironically I learned of this ten days after my time was up, and at that time I had started up getting to work more regularly again and everything).

I currently have no source of income, and no money in the bank. Thankfully my parents have yet to evict me.

I have a real hard time starting things up; decent few ADD traits (investigation whether I actually fit this pending... and will take years to get on with due to a waiting list.) Makes life hard, man.

Some time after uni I got a legit social phobia diagnosis. Couldn't make myself do the homework for a CBT thingy for that, so more or less unresolved. This is also part of the problem with the negative spiral - I feel like a failure for having gone to previous lectures, causing me to feel unworthy of attending more... et cetera. This kind of thing is not logical. Silly human Zaka.

I certainly do worry somewhat about over-diagnosis, but this is a legitimate problem for me.

I visit a mental health clinic for young adults to check on my meds sometimes, after having received a diagnosis of bipolar (II) disorder when I was like, seventeen? I'm not actually certain whether hypomania really happens for me much any more, and it's debateable whether said disorder is truly there any more, or was there in the first place. I was fairly convinced back during the time when things /were/ happening, though.

I did not seek the diagnosis for any purpose of glorification or whatever; all I really wanted was a way to actually control my life.

Views

As for my personal convictions? I joined back when Aaeru's vision was mostly predominant on Fuwanovel, and a lot of her views on copyright and pirating resonate with me (I read Fuwanovel's About section pretty early, for anyone from the future wondering where I saw this (it's getting updated eventually, which really is for the better)).

I do not consider pirating to be morally wrong in any way, and I disagree with the notion that pirating harms the VN industry. These are points I am unlikely to concede; the latter point needs actual statistical support, and though the markets are certainly different, other markets have shown that pirating legitimately increases sales.

Even if pirating would harm the industry to some degree, my objective never was to line companies' pockets. The real victory lies in expanding the amount of VN readers around - to share this delicious medium with others who might like it.

If that sounds confrontational, don't worry too much about it. Making compromises has to be a thing, even on fairly fundamental levels at times.

With that said, localization companies are, more than ever, getting good stuff translated (well, perhaps the best company in the area as of 10-3-2015 is MG, lol.) They are worthy of our money, and I certainly think that paying them is a good idea -- if you have the money and genuinely like the product. I've personally spent ~85 dollars on VNs, and my financial situation when I did that wasn't really that good, lol.

But, to repeat this, pirating is not morally wrong. Copies are copies.

Last updated ~17-3-2015 (sloppily).