i do actually have a section for really short translations on my commission sheet for pocketlink but the more i think about it the more that i feel like it's not really worth it i guess? like if i'm translating that has about the complexity of a puyo quest card's flavor text and 3 lines the most i would charge for that is 5 usd but it's also so like. nothing. that i might as well not be getting paid yknow. and i feel like if people want to see something short tl'd they'd go for machine tl anyway (as long as it's for summary/personal use and not being used in place of a real translator). translating short stuff also leaves a lot of room for context to get lost especially in japanese so even getting a human OR a machine to tl something short they could easily miss something

"manipulative" is a strong word to use for drayton imo especially considering the fact that he can't be more than 17 max. i guess you could argue that he "manipulated" the player into participating in his plan but that's only because characters in pokemon games very rarely give you the chance to say "no, i don't want to do that". i would also more likely consider the possibility that drayton just gives off Bad Vibes to carmine and crispin and the other e4 members; there isn't really evidence that he had to have done something manipulative on purpose for them to have that opinion of them. i personally can be really blunt sometimes but if people go around saying i'm "harsh" that doesn't mean something significant must've happened for them to think that way of me. that's just kind of how i am. some people are naturally sarcastic and secretive and drayton is both of these things

doesn't sound confusing at all. very happy to hear that :) thank you for the support

as for "how i write them so well", if that isn't meant to be rhetorical, when it comes to gunvolt i largely treat the cast like my oc's. a lot of it draws from personal experience. to make an example out of merak, he's a character who is depressed, chronically ill, and neurodivergent, written by someone who is all of those things. i also have been into gunvolt for literal years at this point and have had plenty of time to weave a narrative in my head about certain characters. teseo is a character i have multiple complex headcanons about, but every gunvolt character i write about has been built piece by piece over the years. gibril for instance i always thought would be neat if she had a musical motif, "metal" for her septima, so in iui i had her pick up guitar. it's little things like that, and they stack up

when writing characters that aren't yours i feel a helpful thing to keep in mind is to rationalize the "why" behind their behavior. especially if it's in regards to something negative. with merak, i don't try to ignore the fact that he has low empathy and sometimes has a callous disregard for others' feelings; i instead rationalize it as it being a symptom of autism. it makes them seem a bit more human that way

i could talk for hours about this if you let me honestly