#i also specify english because if i included any other language voices

[sonknuxadow]

i know this debate has been going on forever but.

[togetherasone]

COWBOYS FROM HELL . SECONDO

Pairing: Outlaw!Secondo x Fem!Reader (crossover between Ghost and Red Dead Redemption and Copia is part of the bloodline because I can).

Summary: Tales of the Emeritus Brothers have traveled every corner of the Wild West since dawn of time. You had heard about them for the first time when you were a child. Your grandfather would sit outside and paint a world of chaos and destruction to you. For most of your life, that was what they were. Tales. Until their rage fell upon you and the tales turned to reality. Or the one where our beloved Papas are the leaders of a gang in the 1899 Wild West.

Word count: 4.3k

Warnings: Graphic depctions of violence, minor character death, implied/referenced talk about rape, objectification, mentions of blood, mentions of a large abdominal wound, dubious morality.

Parts: One (Cowboys from Hell) | Two (Wounds, stews and silver masks)

Notes: Will I ever continue this? Will this turn into an enemies to lovers thing? Will our boys have a redemption arc? Will they all die at the end? I have no idea. What I know is that I had so much fun writing about evil brothers being the bringers of chaos in the 1899 Wild West. This writing was 100% inspired by this amazing art. I swear I stared at it for, like, two hours. Also, although I mentioned places, weapons and outfits from the game (because I just had to… Sorry, my mind likes a lot to specify things), they definitely shouldn't stop you from reading this if you haven't played the game! Keep in mind that English isn't my first language. Sorry in advance for any mistakes. Enjoy!

If you prefer to read on AO3, here it is!

If you want to take a look at my other writings, here they are!

If you want to discover the Red Dead Redemption World, here is an interactive map (it's mainly for Red Dead Online, but choose the "Hide All" option and you should be able to properly study the map — this chapter is set in Ambarino, more specifically, in Grizzlies West) and here is the page where it all begins (feel free to explore the infinite pages they have about the game, including a page about weapons and other about clothes).

The logs crackled and popped in the fireplace. Umidity had permanently settled itself inside the hut, a timeless, silent, mysterious resident, which lurked in the shadows and corroded bones. The fire flickered under its influence, fighting to stay alight. You were just another visitor. Suceeded countless other visitors. Pioneers, scouts, lawmen, outlaws, gangs and gunslingers, gamblers, naturalists, bounty hunters, traders, collectors. People who had ventured north only to meet Winter. And, along with it, death. Cold had clawed at skin and bone. Only ghost stories remained, and, whenever the wind blew, they resonated inside the hut, a million voices crying for help.

And there you were.

The hut was small. Its walls were made of wood. When the wind blew harder, it whistled through the cracks between the logs. There was one bed, one table, one chair, one shelf. The bed was placed on the same wall as the fireplace. The table and the shelf were placed on the opposite wall. The former, under a window covered with a ragged blue curtain. A small kitchen had been built in the farthest corner of the hut. The counter bore a sink. It was rounded and shallow. So shallow that it was impossible to fit both hands under the tap when washing them. A cauldron had been abaondoned beside the counter. Food had rotted inside the counter and stained the wood. Other than the stains, the counter was empty.

Marion coughed. Weakly and lowly. You averted your eyes to her emaciated body, a small lump underneath a ragged blanket. She shivered, pulling the blanket closer in a useless attempt to warm herself. Her fingers tightly wrapped around the blanket. They were slender and firm, capable of shooting a rifle with incredible precision, but, in the matter of a week, they became bony and weak, uncapable of holding a spoon with minimum steadiness.

"I-In the bleak m-midwinter... In the... In the bleak midwinter... In t-the bleak midwinter..."

A dagger sliced your heart. Her voice was low and quavering; her breath, shallow and accelerated. Your fingers tightened around the cup between your hands. It was old, rusty and faded. Spirals of steam rose from it and perfumated the air with the scent of coffee. "Frosty wind made moan," you continued.

"F-Frosty wind m-made..."

She coughed again. Silence fell in the hut, except for the logs crackling and popping in the fireplace.

"Earth stood hard as iron," you insisted.

"Earth..." Marion begun, but her low voice faded into a ragged breath.

"Stood hard as iron."

Tears blurred your vision as you supressed a sob. Desperation filled your bloodstream. You had tried to avoid the truth. But, now, it was impossible to ignore it. Marion was dying. And there was nothing you could do to save her, except watch life drip from her eyes at each passing day. The deep wound on her right thigh had turned into a black mass of rotten tissue that had started to spread in all directions no matter what you did. You had three and a half bottles of Medicine, five doses of Chewing Tobacco and four bottles of potent tonics. But they were all over, and, apparently, useless despite their promising results on the first days. You had even tried Moonshine and Cocaine Gum, but they were equally useless.

It had been a day since you had arrived at that forgotten-by-God hut in that forgotten-by-God land. Not that you had a choice. The Emeritus Boys had massacrated your gang. They were popularly known as the Cowboys from Hell. Legend said they sold their souls to the Devil and ravaged the Wild West in His name, bearing skull face-paints and riding horses in flames that destroyed everything on their way. They were followed by countless masked people. It was believed they had been, once, victims of the Emeritus Brothers, and were possessed by the Devil. Their masks had the shape of the Devil, with horns and two holes for the eyes that, rumor had it, were useless, because only their sockets had remained.

When you were little, your grandfather used to tell stories of their heartless undertakings, and you hung on every single word that fell from his lips. Usually, he sat on a rocking chair at the front porch, peacefully smoking a cigarette, and you would seat in front of him, insistently begging for stories. You had promised you would protect him, and the rest of the family, if they ever set foot in your ranch as you aimed an unloaded carbine at the horizon.

The stories faded. So did the promise. Your grandfather passed away, and the Emeritus Brothers never set foot in your ranch. But tuberculosis did, and your unloaded carbine was useless to protect your family. First, it was your brother. Then, months later, your mother. Your father sold the ranch, believing a curse had befallen it, and you moved from sunny Henningan's Stead to cloudy Big Valley. A new life. That, nonetheless, never worked for your father. He ended up dying years later, drunk and lost inside his mind. You had to figure out a life for yourself.

Ended up becoming a bounty hunter, and, then, joining a gang.

A week prior, when the Emeritus Brothers appeared in the dead of the night, the stories, although faded, had turned to reality; and the promise, although faded, story. Again, you had failed to protect what you now called family. And miserably. There were no horses in flames, but four men in skull face-paints and men in masks with horns and two holes for the eyes destroyed Rowe manor.

Chester "Bad" Rowe, the gang leader, had played with fire, and, thus, suffered the consequences. So did the gang.

Suddenly, the door opened. Russell, Tim and Fannie entered the hut. And, along with them, cold, uninvited. The wind blew behind them, pushing snow inside, and the fire violently danced on the fireplace.

You abruptly stood from the chair, which loudly screeched against the floor. "The fire, damn it!"

Russell huffed and rushed to close the door. Tim glared at you as he yanked the leather gloves from his hands. A rabbit rested over his shoulder. And that was that.

"One rabbit? Really?"

"Feel free to hunt yourself," Tim irritatedly mumbled.

You glared at him, "Tomorrow."

Sustaining your glare, Tim abandoned the rabbit on the wooden table. It collapsed with a thud against it, making the rest of the coffee wave inside your cup, and you averted your gaze to the dead animal. It was a scrawny rabbit, with grey fur and long ears.

"Clean it," he spat.

You pushed him against the nearest wall, forearm pressing against his chest and hand fisting a bunch of fabric of the jacket he wore. "Don't fucking tell me what to do."

You pulled your dagger from your belt, pressing the cold blade against his throat. A single tear had streamed down your face and the path created by it shone under the fire. It stood out amongst the dirt and soot on your face.

"Hey..." Russell touched your shoulder. Fannie stood behind him in a stony silence. You exchanged a glance with her. "C'mon, stop it."

"The new leader of the gang, or, well, what rested of it," Tim ironically grinned at you, ignoring Russell and Fannie beside him.

"I needn't be a leader to cut your damn throat, bastard" you mumbled trough gritted teeth. The blade cut his skin and blood trickled out of the superficial cut, staining his clothes.

"Earth s-stood hard as iron," Marion softly mumbled from the bed. "Earth... In the bleak..."

Russell was filled with consternation for his wife. There she rested, with no prospects of getting better, and you fought because of a rabbit.

"Dear God, let the rabbit with me!" he spat at you and Tim, burrying the axe in his hand in the table and opening a crack in its wooden surface. "Stop this nonsense!"

You released Tim, and he spat on the ground. "Was it you that told the Emeritus Brothers where to find Chet? Brought those skulls and demons to do the dirty job for you so you could steal his position?"

"Tell me, what has that done for me? Starving in the middle of nowhere. No food, no medicine, nothing!" you answered. "You should work for the Pinkertons with those clever assumptions, Tim. You'd go far," you joked, an amused smile playing on your lips.

In the blink of an eye, you had been pinned to the ground. You winced when the back of your head hit the hard surface. The air was knocked out of your lungs by the weight of Tim on you. The chair fell beside you with a loud thud, and your dagger clanked away from your hand. Russell protested against the fight again. Fannie stood beside him in a stony silence.

"Whore," Tim shouted above you. It seemed his face was going to explode. Red and swollen. Veins pulsated on his forehead, and beads of saliva rested on his chin. "I could spill your guts right here on this filthy floor."

"Do it," you challenged him. Your heart rumbled inside your chest. Adrenaline and fear filled your bloodstream. "Do it."

He fumed at you, but did nothing.

"In the bleak midwinter... In the..."

You pushed him from the top of you and sat up, your hand reaching for your dagger. "Coward."

Tim pushed himself up with a struggle, but once he stood up, he spat on you. His saliva landed on your clothed thigh, and you frowned at it. You had had much worse before.

Once you slotted the dagger in your belt and stood up, Russell had pulled the rabbit skin from its muscles, and Fannie had pulled vegetables from her satchel, one carrot and one potato.

"I'll get water for the stew," you announced to no one in particular, your fingers snatching the cauldron from its corner. You definitely could fill the utensil with water from the tap if water actually came out of it, but only droplets of water mixed with rust did.

"Be careful," Fannie matter-of-factly stated.

You yanked the door open and stepped outside. You never left the hut alone, but given the tension brewing inside it, time alone would be a gift. You felt sorry for Marion.

It was dark and windy. Cold gnawed on your bones as you attached the cauldron to and hung a lamp on your saddle, in front of the chest of the animal, and mounted your horse. It neighed, maybe in protest against the journey, but obeyed you nonetheless and walked to the riverbank. The Glacier flowed east, to the Spider Gorge, approximately three miles north of the hut. You walked between the dense forest. The light emanating from the lamp fluttered before you, the paws of your horse sank in the snow, a path forming behind it.

The wind blew silently, digging its way through leaves, branches and trunks. A crack of sky was visible between the thin leaves; it was the navy-blue of the ocean, and everything was quiet except for an owl peeping lowly in the distance. You pricked up your ears to carefully listen to any small sound. It was well-known wolves wandered around the mountains, but none interrupted the journey to the riverbank.

You submerged the cauldron and shivered at the contact of your skin with the water, an icy handshake embrancing your fingers, then your hands. The metallic utensil quickly filled with water. You carried it to your horse when a wolf howled in the distance. You instantly stopped moving, body freezing in place, as still as the trees that surrounded you. Your horse whined in fear, and you glared at it. Your breath condensated in the air as soon as you exhaled.

You cursed the water for hampering your attempt to listen to the forest. The howl was followed by barks and growls. There was more than one wolf. Seconds passed before you decided to move. It would be better if you had a gun in your hand. You attached the cauldron back to your saddle.

"Quiet," you shushed your horse. Not that it would actually keep it quiet, but fear clawed at your bones. Facing a lonely wolf was entirely different from facing a wolf pack all by yourself.

A gunshot echoed in the distance, followed by more barks.

You were accompanied. And by the loudness of it, they were close.

Your horse protested, its front paws kicking the air. You hoped the water would muffle the sounds coming from the animal. Knew it was a matter of time before the wolves heard it or, well, sniffed it. You pulled your Springfield Rifle from your saddle. Another gunshot echoed in the distance. The wolves barked and growled. You stepped around a large tree, studying your surroudings.

You walked towards the sounds, slow and silent. You took advantage of the low trunks and the darkness to hide yourself from sight. The Glacier flowed behind you as you headed southeast.

"Stay," you mumbled to your horse. It exhaled in response and agitated its head, the reins clicking around its neck.

Every cell of your body begged you to be sensible and run from trouble, but you would return with a wolf in the back of your horse. Would rub salt in the wound. Tim "Dickhead" Swanson deserved it. And, well, moreover, you were starving. The rabbit would do for a thin stew. And Marion, obviously, would get the largest portion. And you, Russell, Fannie and Tim would share its remainings just to calm your nervous stomachs, but not to fill them. The prospect of a decent meal enticed your senses.

You reached a clearing. On the opposite edge, two wolves circled a lump in the snow. A low growl rumbled from their throat. They were big wolves, with grey fur and long tails. Your stomach churned with hunger. One wolf lay dead on your right, and a trail of blood traveled to where the other wolves stood. You should be fast. Other wolves might sniff the blood and you would be dead if a whole wolf pack surrounded you. You aimed at the neck of one of the wolves and pulled the trigger. It yowled and staggered before falling over the lump in the snow. When the other wolf turned to you, you noticed a foot behind it. The animal angrily advanced towards you, and you blindly shot it, your feet tumbling backwards. It seemed your heart would explode inside your chest. The wolf whined and fell on the snow. The forest fell silent.

You pushed your body up from the snow as you whistled for your horse. Once you crossed the clearing, you noticed that the foot you had seen belonged to Tim. What was the bastard doing there? What had happened after you left to fill the cauldron?

Tim rested under the first wolf you had shot, and was alive. It was possible to hear a shallow breath escaping from his lips. The fear poisoning your bloodstream was instantly replaced by rage.

The wolf that had fallen over his body hid the wound the animals had caused, but it must be large since blood abundantly stained the snow around him.

You pulled your Schofield Revolver from your belt and pointed at him. Your finger rested on the trigger. Tim had no force to open his eyes, to speak, to breathe. To react at the gun pointed at him. Judging by the gravity of the wound, Tim would certainly die no matter what you did. And you already had to take care of Marion. And you had no medicine. Nothing.

If you shot him, it would be an act of mercy.

So you did.

The bullet carved its way through his chest, and you would never admit that peace filled your heart at the sight of his dead body. You loudly exhaled. Tears blurred your vision as you suppressed a laugh. You would have to lie to Fannie. Would have to hide the fact that you had shot her husband. Would say the wolves did it. Which, actually, wasn't a lie. You had just finished their job. Right?

You slotted the revolver in your belt and hang the rifle across your chest. Then, you kneeled in front of the first wolf you shot. It was a perfect shot, and the meat of the animal would be intact. Once you pulled the wolf from over the body, blood gurgled from the wound. As you suspected, it was large. His skin had been tore apart and his guts had been exposed, intestines destroyed.

"The tables have turned, fucker. I spilled your guts," you spat at the corpse in front you.

You had definitey gone mad.

You panted as you lifted the wolf to place it on the back of your horse. Your fingers knotted ropes around it when you heard steps behind the trees. They belonged to no animal, too loud for a predator that wished to hide from its prey.

You immediatelly snatched the rifle from your back. You waited. Were in disadvantage, exposed in the clearing. Your horse sensed your nervousness and neighed.

"In the bleak midwinter," you mumbled to yourself, your fingers mindlessly tightening around the gun.

A shadow stepped from the forest. Your eyes widened in shock at the sight in front of you, but you swept the emotion from your face before he could notice it and replaced it with rage. Deep and intense rage.

The man held a personalized Litchfield Repeater, wore a black Walden Coat, black leather gloves, black Buckley hat. And, around his neck, a cross. An upside down cross with a circle around it. And, on his face, a skull paint.

His lips were tinted black and crossed by thin lines imitating the exposed teeth of a skull. His cheeks showed black patches that stretched towards his ears and, from there, towards his neck. His eyes were surrounded by black circles and, to your bewilderment, had different colors. From where you stood, it was impossible to make out the color of his right eye — in fact, it seemed there was no eye there, the black paint and the shadows strangely camuflated it —, but his left eye... Was white. And it eerily shone in the darkness. A shiver shot through your spine.

"This is indeed a forgotten-by-God land."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed.

"But I dare say... Too cold for the Devil."

He remained silent, a mischievous smile contorting his lips.

"What're you doing here?"

"The Devil," he licked his lips as he stepped towards you. "Has unfinished business in this land."

"And where're your brothers to help you? I expected the whole entourage, the Four Horseman of Apocalypse an' shit," you defiantly said. Had just killed two wolves and a man, and the adrenaline of doing so crawled under your skin and, apparently, prevented your mind from thinking straight. Perhaps not only adrenaline. But rage either. And... You had to admit fear had its share of your skin, but you refused to show it. At least, tried not to show it. He certainly noticed the tight grip of your fingers around your gun, or the slight frown on your face, or the nervous gulp of your throat.

His mismatched eyes sparkled at the insolence on your voice.

You had lost everything because of them and were thirsty for vengeance. Had sworn to hunt the Emeritus Brothers down and kill one by one. Had no clue the prey would willingly walk towards you. People said revenge was a dish best served cold, but you would say it was a dish best eaten.

"Well, you must agree with me that it would be a waste for the four of us to come for a lonely deer."

"And you volunteered to be the hunter?"

"In fact, yes... I like hunting. Especially preys such as you,” he menacingly circled you. “That think of themselves as wolves, but, in fact, are just deers. Scared and fragile deers. 'S pitiful, but endearing."

You glared at him, your eyes following his steps and mind searching for alternatives to escape from him alive, but nothing came to it. There was only one way out. Your hands slid over the gun, placing themselves on the appropriate spots for a shot.

"No talking anymore?" he nonchalantly asked from behind your horse, clearly more interested in it than in you. It was your chance to shoot your way out of that. You just had to circle your horse and shoot him. Wherever. Just to wound him and gain a few seconds to, then, aim properly at him, preferably at his head, and shoot him again. You could do it. You had just killed two wolves. "This is a fine animal."

He touched the neck of the horse, a black Turkoman horse. Fantastic health, good stamina and fast speed. The animal impatiently neighed, and responded to the touch with a shake of the head. "Ah," he delighfully exclaimed, "A rebel horse. The best ones, right?"

"Under unknown touch," you irritatedly stated, your body turning towards him. Only the left portion of his head and neck were visible behind the horse. You refused to hurt it. The only alternative was indeed to circle it. The emotions inside your body collided and churned. There were too many, and you were growing tired of them. Of the suspense. Of standing in the edge of the precipice, uncertain about who would fall. "Tame it and its yours."

"How about you?"

Your heart missed a beat. No. No, no, no. No. You nearly puked at the words, at the wicked smile. God forgave you for murder. You would commit another one.

"How about you?" he impatiently repeated.

You loudly whistled, and your horse quickly disappeared inside the forest surrouding you, the wolf swaying on his back. The confusion created by the sudden movement allowed you to attack him before he attacked you. Your hands trembled so much that your finger pulled the trigger before you could aim at any portion of his body, and the shot missed him. He angrily growled at you, his fingers swiftly traveling to the trigger of his gun.

Instead of trying to shoot him again, you took advantage of his occupied arms and hit his neck with the body of your gun to gain space. It would be easier to shoot him if the distance between you was larger. He huffed and stumbled backwards. Was bigger and stronger, so you had to move fast before he recovered balance, but he ended up falling on the snow with a thud as you ran to him.

Once you stepped over his body, he shot you. The bullet hit your left arm, and you desperately shouted as your body burnt in pain. It slowed your movement and stealed your strenght on the limb, but you kicked his hands and fell over him. His gun tumbled on the snow and he noticed it would be useless to reach for it, so he fought you with bare hands.

You pressed the body of your gun against his neck. The fibers of your body fought against him, desperately tried to maintain your position over him, but he fiercely writhed. Gasped and cursed you as you watched his eyes widen under the pressure on his neck. Tears blurred your vision, and blood soaked your clothes. It seemed your left arm would combust with all the strength you mustered from it to maintain the gun in place.

Then, it actually combusted. When he sank one of his fingers inside the hole the bullet had carved on your skin. You screamed as you had never done before. You were certain it echoed around Ambarino. He pushed your body from over him and stretched for his gun.

Then, a hand fisted your hair from behind and pulled your head back. You winced at the new pain. "Well, well, well, fratellino... What a treat."

On your knees, you desperately observed your surroundings. An upside down cross dangled from the neck of the man who held you in place. You needn't look at his face to know he wore a skull paint either. You silently cried. It had all been in vain. The first brother had been playing you all along. Had let you start the fight. Had let you exhaust your strength. So that he could laugh at you in the end.

He pointed his gun at you, his lips pursing in a wicked grin. "Indeed, a rebel horse. Tame it and its yours."

Steps thuded around the edge of the clearing. Two more figures joined the ones who were already there. One of them pulled your horse and another one. The other one pulled three more horses.

"Ah! The whole entourage, the Four Horseman of Apocalypse an' shit," Secondo spat. "Well, let me introduce myself and my brothers to you. I'm Secondo. The man behind you, the oldest brother, is Primo. The man by your horse, Terzo. And the man by the other horses, the youngest brother, Copia."

It was impossible to look at all of them when the man introduced as Primo had such fierce grip on your hair. Your horse entered your field of vision, so did the third brother.

"What a beauty," he tutted, his fingers holding your chin. "No need to cry, mia cara," he gently wiped your tears. You hated the touch of his gloved hand on your skin and closed your eyes. "Me and my brothers will take good care of you, si?"

You wanted to puke.

Then, he turned to Secondo. "Will you share her, fratello?"

"If you tame her, fratellino..." Secondo joked. The men laughed in unisson. It disgusted you to your core the way they talked about you as though you were a piece of meat. You would kill them, one by one. "She 'as fire in her eyes, oh, she does. Killed two wolves and that ol' bastard there before I showed up."

"In the bleak midwinter..." you trembly whispered. More tears rolled down your cheeks.

Another hand grabbed your chin, rougher this time. You opened your eyes. Secondo stood right before you. "You come with us. We still need to find your friends. You didn't fill this cauldron or kill this wolf for them to starve, yeah?"

PLEASE, CONSIDER REBLOGGING THIS AND/OR GIVING ME FEEDBACK, I WOULD APPRECIATE IT A LOT!

[renheng-zine]

⚔ IN/FINITE: Q&A THREAD MASTERPOST 🍁

With how unpredictable they are, one can only wonder what Blade and Dan Heng are up to. Shall we review the archives for some of your questions?

❓ ASK US QUESTIONS: https://curiouscat.live/renhengzine

⚔ hi! super excited for this zine :) just wondering if applications featuring nsfw pieces will be allowed (as long as they are properly tagged)?

🍁 Hi! We’re happy to hear that! We strongly encourage you to submit SFW samples, but if necessary we ask that you submit no more than one explicit NSFW sample (properly tagged, of course). Mildly suggestive 16+ content is allowed regardless as this falls within the zine’s rating.

⚔ what is a switch shipper?

🍁 A switch shipper is someone who ships both top/bottom dynamics of a pair, in this case, both RenHeng and DanRen. Because this is a SFW zine, the Renheng dynamic will not be portrayed through explicit works. 

⚔ Are works in Spanish allowed?  Would you be interested in including this language?

🍁 Unfortunately none of our mods are Spanish speakers, so we are unable to moderate and/or beta content produced in Spanish. This zine will only be available in English and Chinese. 

⚔ is there any specific format for samples of writer apps? it's the first time i apply to a zine so i know very little, sorry!

🍁 No worries! As specified in the zine document, all writing applicants should omit identifying information (e.g. usernames) from the sample. As such, we cannot accept direct links to Ao3 fics, Twitter threadfics, Tumblr fics, etc; please copy the text into a document before submitting. We also require each sample to be 1k-2.5k words long. Other than that, there's no specific formatting requirements; just make sure the document is readable!

⚔ "Any remaining profit will then be split between all moderators and participants involved in the project." will the profit be split evenly among participants/mods?

🍁 As we are still in the early stages of this project, matters such as compensation structure have not yet been finalized. We might consider other compensation models apart from even split depending on the Interest Check results. We will, however, have this confirmed before contributors apply so that applicants are aware of what they're signing up for!

⚔ Will you be judging applicants based on content they create outside of the pieces submitted in their application and/or by their social media presence?

🍁 Mods will only be looking at the content provided in an applicant’s samples/portfolio. We will do our utmost best to ensure that no one faces unequal or prejudiced treatment during the creation of this zine. Furthermore, your social media presence, such as how many followers you have, will not affect your application! 

⚔ hello! im a bit confused over the difference of sample and portfolio for the writer's applications? may i ask at minimum how many do we need to submit? thank you so much :)

🍁 Hello! Those applying to be writers should submit a minimum of five (5) works in their portfolio. Three (3) of these works can be your samples--aka, works you especially want the mods to look at and that you are highlighting in your application! You can also submit three samples that are entirely different from the 5-7 works in your portfolio (for a total of 8-10 works total, if you have a large volume of works you think the mod team should take a look at).

⚔ Hello, sorry for the questions!! "Three individual samples in a similar quality and style that you would produce for the fanzine" do you mean that it have to be works with the theme of the zine? 

🍁 Not at all! By this we mean your “writer’s voice”; if you hope to produce a lighthearted piece for the zine, your samples should reflect similarly lighthearted work, etc. Also, is your work dialogue-heavy or prose-heavy, does it incorporate elements of social media, etc.? We are not encouraging or discouraging any style in particular; we’d like to welcome writers of varied styles to the zine! The same applies to artists of varying art styles as well.

⚔ "A portfolio containing between five to seven pieces in a similar quality and style that you would produce for the fanzine" can it be works of any other type? sorry to bother and thanks in advance

🍁 We recommend against providing pieces dissimilar from the style you’d like to write for the zine as your portfolio will help us know what to expect from you should you be accepted! However, if you are unsure what you would like to write for the zine and want to showcase the flexibility of your style, you are welcome to do so.

⚔ Is there any visual examples for the writing/artist portfolio? Asking because I don't wanna mess up on it 😭😭

🍁 We have added sample writer/artist portfolios to the Info Doc! You can view those as an example of how to format yours, though they do not have to match exactly.

⚔ what is "xingyue"? Is it another name for renheng ship?

🍁 “Xingyue” refers to the ship of Yingxing and Yinyue-jun, Blade and Dan Heng’s respective names and titles when their previous incarnations met as part of the High Cloud Quintet. Hope this helps!

⚔ Was wondering how much detail are you looking for in backgrounds? I mostly like to draw characters as the main focus taking up most of the space and backgrounds are kind of simple for that reason. Just wanted to know in case I would need to add something that's more background focused to the portfolio. Thank you!

🍁 We'd love to include pieces with both detailed and simple/character-focused background. However, we would still like to see background work from artists beyond a simple flat color or gradient background. Show off your skills!

⚔ Hello! Where will the zines be shipped from?

🍁 The EN version of the zine will be shipped from the USA! We will also utilize an agent to distribute the CN version of the zine to patrons in mainland China.

⚔ Hello. Would it be okay if I participate in the zine though I haven't posted anything on twitter?

🍁 Yes! All we require is that you fill out the appropriate contributor application and provide samples of your work, but a social media presence is not required to participate in the zine.

⚔ will there no longer be poets in the zine?

🍁 After holding the Interest Check, we have seen that the majority of respondents are more interested in forms of writing other than poetry. Therefore, the mod team has decided not to include poetry in the zine and we will not be holding poet applications. We will, however, still be holding prose writer applications!

⚔ If you’re a writer for the portfolio could you post a series (like multiple chapters from a fanfiction) or do the writings have to be different?

🍁 We would prefer to see samples that originate from different bodies of work so that we may better gauge your abilities! 

⚔ must the submitted piece (art and writing) be related to renheng?

🍁 Samples related to Renheng are encouraged but not required. You will need to submit at least one sample related to Honkai: Star Rail, though. 

⚔ Can a writer use an already complete work in their portfolio for the final submission if accepted?

🍁 We would like contributors to produce new and original work for the zine, therefore any work included in an applicant’s portfolio is ineligible for publication in the zine.

⚔ Does an Ao3 account count as a "social media account where we can find your work and/or previous experience"? Or should we avoid linking Ao3 accounts at all?

🍁 You may link your Ao3 account in the given space! Writing applicants' identifying information will be hidden during the voting process; it is only the samples and portfolio that need to be blinded.

⚔ are contributors required to have a twitter account? or is discord the only social media needed?

🍁 Contributors are only required to have a Discord account to facilitate communication with the mod team. If you do not have any social media accounts, you may enter “N/A” in the appropriate field.

⚔ Hello does ao3 count as the portfolio?

🍁 AO3 does NOT count as the portfolio. Please avoid submitting AO3 links for samples or the portfolio. You may link your AO3 profile as your social media or proof of work uploaded before 2022, as these fields will not be visible to the mod team during the process of judging samples.

⚔ Is there a preferred format our writing samples should be sent as? PDF, Doc, etc?

🍁 Any format is fine, so long as there is no identifying information included in the samples.

⚔ hi! could you explain why the portfolio has to be a dedicated folder labeled specifically? does an existing portfolio site not suffice?

🍁 Hi! The naming convention was included on the assumption that applicants would be submitting a portfolio through a folder, as is common in zine spaces, but an existing portfolio site can be used as well! Please note, a writer’s portfolio should not include identifying information!

⚔ why are writer apps blind but not artist apps?

🍁 Writer apps are blind as per the preferences of our Writing Mod, in the interest of removing bias as much as possible. Our team is not as strict on this principle for Artist apps because many of us are deeply involved in the fandom and are therefore familiar with many people’s art styles; thus, an artist’s identifying information does not hold as much sway. Regardless, we are only considering the samples themselves in the judging process, not who created them!

⚔ When I paste the Google Drive link, the name of the email appears, is there a problem with this?

🍁 This is fine, when the team opens the link we only see the name of the file and its contents!

⚔ Is there a problem if people applying speak another language? (but they send the work in English)

🍁 Hi! As long as you are able to communicate with the mod team in English and your piece for the zine is written in English, there is no problem!

⚔ Hi, I'd like to apply as a writer for the zine, and as I'm filling up the forms, I'm realizing that they're asking for 'images' on the writing app. Should I submit my samples as images in a folder instead?

🍁 Hi! We apologize for the confusion; that was a lingering typo! You do not have to submit your writing as images, PDF or word-processor documents are fine!

⚔ Just to confirm, if one were to have no social media, the social media question on the first page of the Google Form should be answered with NA?

🍁 Yup! Social media is not a requirement to participate, please delineate the field as NA if you do not have any applicable accounts.

⚔ are you looking for chinese writers? if so, can chinese works be submitted in the same portfolio as english works?

🍁 Hello! Our Chinese writers will be selected from recommendations provided by the CN fandom during the Interest Check. We apologize for the disappointment this may cause, but we encourage you to apply to the EN zine!

⚔ Hi is double application allowed?

🍁 Hey! If you are asking if you’re allowed to apply to multiple positions (page artist, merch artist, and/or writer), then yes, this is allowed, but you can only be selected for one position.

⚔ Hello, it must have a HSR/renheng piece on the samples?

🍁 Hi, a Renheng sample is encouraged but not required; at least one HSR sample does need to be submitted! HSR samples can feature any of the characters in the cast, not just Renheng.

⚔ hi! i'm very new to this, what goes in pitches in writers apps?

🍁 Hello! The (optional) pitch is where you can share any ideas you want to draw or write for the zine! These do not need to be very detailed; a pitch like “Future Renheng sharing tea on the Astral Express as they make amends” would give us a good idea of what you are looking to create.

⚔ knowing the zine is 16+, may applicants (writers especially) submit NSFW works as sample and/or portfolio?

🍁 As the zine won’t be featuring NSFW works, we strongly encourage applicants to submit pieces rated 16+ or lighter; if necessary we ask that you submit no more than ONE (1) NSFW piece with appropriate content warnings.

⚔ Will earlier submissions be judged first? As such will earlier submissions stand a better chance of being accepted?

🍁 In the interest of returning results to applicants in a timely manner, the mod team will vote on submissions throughout the open period for Contributor Applications. We will not, however, make any final decisions on applications until after the application period is over, and thus earlier submissions will not have a different chance of being accepted compared to later submissions.  

⚔ Can the samples to be submitted be uploaded to ao3/twitter?

🍁 Samples can be independently uploaded to whichever platform(s) you like, but we ask you refrain from providing links to any works in which your identifying information is present. Ex; you can copy the text from your fic on AO3 into a Google Doc but don’t mention your credit name within the sample!

⚔ is it ok if only xingyue writing samples are given? or is a renheng sample needed too? thanks in advance!

🍁 xingyue writing samples alone are fine! There is no requirement to submit renheng or xingyue samples, although we do appreciate them!

⚔ given the contributor breakdown, doesn't the compensation model mean that the mods (even after splitting amongst the team) end up making more % profit than any individual contributor would?

🍁 Hi! We don’t mean to discredit the efforts of our contributors in any way by the slight difference in % compensation. Our model recognizes the large amount of work and time commitment the mod team has taken on in order to bring this project to life, and we feel that we’ve established a fair and reasonable split in potential profits accordingly. 

⚔ Will you send rejection e-mail for the people that were not chosen?

🍁 Yes, we’ll send all applicants an email regarding their application status on October 21st.

⚔ hi! is there a specific time (and time zone) that contributor apps will be closing on oct 15? i only ask because i don't want to accidentally get time zones mixed up

🍁 Contributor apps will be closing approximately 11:59PM EST on October 15th!

⚔ Hi, does your application form send an email when it’s submitted?

🍁 Hello! Yes, our forms are set to send a confirmation email when submitted. It may have ended up in your spam folder; if you still don’t see it, feel free to reach out via email or dm and we can check to see if we received your application!

⚔ Since there are already at least 2 guest writers, does the total of 5 writers for the zine remain unchanged?

🍁 Hi! We have only brought on 1 guest writer. Four more writers will be brought on through the contributor application process!

Last edited: October 7, 2023. This post will be updated as we answer more questions, so stay tuned!

[gendercensus]

hi! i was wondering if you, as the one running this, would consider your data to be exclusively pertaining to english speakers, or if in the future you would like to have more opportunity for non-english speakers to participate? would you consider the lack of non-english/culture specific terms to be missing data, or is that not the sort of data you're looking for? would it make things too complicated to moderate/measure? (i got to analyze the data in stats class + it really piqued my curiosity!)

This is a great ask, because it’s brought up in the feedback box of the survey quite often and I have a lot of thoughts about it but I have just never gotten around to responding to it properly!

i was wondering if you [...] would consider your data to be exclusively pertaining to english speakers, or if in the future you would like to have more opportunity for non-english speakers to participate?

I am not 100% sure that I know what you mean by non-English speakers, so I will answer both versions of the question to cover all the bases!

I am very happy for people who speak languages other than English to participate, and I specify in the survey: “It's okay to enter non-English words that you would use to describe yourself while speaking English.” That’s how languages grow, right? Words get transplanted between languages all the time, and everyone knows that English is about 17 languages in a trenchcoat. For example, people often choose or type in words like “neutrois” and “maverique”, which may or may not originate from the French language itself. Ay’lonit (Hebrew) and Takatāpui (Māori) have been quite common in recent years, off the top of my head.

I can’t run a survey for people who don’t speak English.

Ethnologue tells me there are over 7,000 living languages, although 23 languages account for over half of the world’s population. I speak 1.02 languages. (English, and a little French.)

Here’s a selection of issues that I would run into for those 7,000+ other languages if I were to run the survey in more languages:

As a person who only fluently speaks English, do I have the expertise to run this survey in any language I do not speak at all?

Do I translate the survey into other languages? If so, which ones, and how? If not, I am limiting responses to people who speak another language and English - is that ethically okay? Would it produce biased data?

In some languages sex and gender are indistinguishable. How would I change the identity question to ask about [sex/gender] sensitively [in a language I have never spoken], as someone who has never encountered this mindset personally and has no knowledge of how trans people growing up with this language feel about this issue?

For the title question, if I ask native speakers for a selection of titles (standard and gender-neutral) in their language, how will I know who’s trolling if I don’t speak the language? What about the languages where titles are just not used?

For the pronoun question, English pronoun sets have five forms: subject, object, dependent possessive (determiner), independent possessive, reflexive. Other languages have more than five, and others have fewer than five. How are those neopronoun sets formatted in writing when communicating your pronouns to others? What about languages where, unlike in English, pronouns are an open class - would I need to change that question in some way?

For any language that is not English, how would I spot and remove trolls, abusive TERFs, etc? Bigotry can have nuance, where something can seem superficially inoffensive while actually being transphobic/bigotry/trolling (e.g. concern-trolling), and realistically only a native-speaker or someone who is very familiar with nonbinary-specific trans issues in that language/culture would be able to recognise it.

A lot of these questions are themselves shaped by my limited worldview as a person who only fluently speaks English, and that’s before we get to my being white and from a country whose empire covered a quarter of the globe. The actions of my ancestors decimated whole peoples, many of whom had genders that were not what I would consider binary. The fundamental concept of the gender binary is rooted in historical white Western acts of oppression and worse.

No doubt there are questions that should be in the list above that I wouldn’t even be able to conceptualise. As people often point out in the feedback box, the survey is super white - it is very obviously designed by and mostly filled in by white people, the whole concept of the gender binary and genders outside of the binary being deviant is extremely white-Western, and I don’t even know enough to know how to start overcoming that. All I really know to do right now is read and listen to all the feedback box entries as best I can, keep researching interesting genders from across the globe and throughout history, and take extra care to combine and count all the various spellings of non-white, non-English gender identities so that they can be added to the checkbox list if they go over the 1% threshold. (Part of this process has led me to learn that in a lot of cultures “trans” and “LGB” are not necessarily separate parts of someone’s identity/character the way they are in most white Western cultures that I’ve encountered, and that’s a big part of why I’ve enthusiastically added lesbian and gay as identity words in relation to gender in this year’s survey.)

But if we sidestep all of that (nope), the answer to a lot of these questions is: recruit people who speak those other languages natively. At that point I become a manager! Instead of being a 2-3 month per year task, the Gender Census would become a year-long management job without pay, and I wouldn’t be able to run the English version of the Gender Census. Even if I had the skills and executive function for that (and I don’t), I’m not here to be a manager, I’m here to read and process 40,000+ gender identities and play with spreadsheets, you know?

So I’ve concluded that it’s inappropriate for me to run the survey in other languages, I would also be incapable, and even if neither of those things were true it just wouldn’t make me happy. It seems more fitting for me to support, endorse and amplify the voices of people running similar surveys in other languages, which I do try to do.

would you consider the lack of non-english/culture specific terms to be missing data, or is that not the sort of data you're looking for?

I do like to learn about non-English specific terms, and that data is not missing. The questions specify “while speaking English”, and people enter non-English identity words, titles and pronouns all the time. They don’t ever go over 1%, but they are typed in and they are counted. I love to learn about them, and anyone downloading the data will be able to learn about them too.

I can’t hope to include the “while speaking a language other than English” data in the survey as things currently stand, so that’s not the sort of data I’m looking for.

[jemmahazelnut]

More than friends (or two idiots)

Summary: Laxus and Freed act like two boyfriends, but they're the only ones who don't notice. [Freed/Laxus]

Links: AO3 - Fanfiction

I hope it is at least readable, sorry for all the mistakes, English is not my first language.

More than friends (or two idiots)

It’s time to find a girl

Makarov snorted loudly and the boys around him turned to understand what was wrong.

"Something wrong?" Mirajane asked politely.

"That idiot of my grandson" snapped Makarov. Mirajane raised an eyebrow as Bickslow and Evergreen leaned curiously towards him: when it came to Laxus they were always interested. "He's twenty-six now, it's about time he found a girl to marry" he muttered.

"He’s still young" Mirajane told him, and Lisanna leaned on the counter curiously.

"I've never seen him with a girl" she said, wondering what his tastes were.

"Of course not! Nobody could stand him" snapped Makarov and Evergreen and Bickslow giggled "He needs a wife, that's no doubt, a girl to look after him and stop him from bullshitting" he continued undaunted, at which Bickslow laughed louder.

"Master, don't worry, he already has a wife, or rather… a husband" Bickslow said amused and the old man turned to him, arching an eyebrow. Mirajane and Lisanna turned to them in amazement and Bickslow giggled even more. "I mean, Freed has been looking after him for years and stops him from doing shit every time" he said. Makarov's eyes widened.

"They are engaged?" he asked.

"No!" Evergreen immediately exclaimed "But it's only a matter of time, sooner or later they will get together" she added. Makarov frowned and thought about the two boys, in fact he had never thought that there could be more than friendship between them. But the more he thought about Freed and Laxus, the clearer many things became in his mind, and the more a smile spread across his face. Yes, Freed would have been the ideal person for Laxus. He worried about him, scolded him for bullshit, and he was actually the only person who could stand it without freaking out. And besides, the two boys were already spending a lot of time together, maybe even they were already in a relationship.

“Are you sure they're not having a secret relationship? I wouldn't be surprised by those two” he said. Evergreen and Bickslow, however, nodded with conviction.

"We too had doubts" he admitted. "So, we sent Peppe to follow them, but there is nothing between them... unfortunately. They are just two idiots”.

Laundry

"What are you doing here?". Laxus knew that Freed would occasionally walk into his house without warning, checking that the refrigerator was full and shopping for him when he forgot, which didn't happen as often as the rune mage insisted. But it never happened that he walked into his room without his permission and... that was embarrassing, because Freed was holding his dirty clothes. Laxus wouldn't be interested if it weren't for his underwear, including a pair of leopard-print briefs, on top of the shirts his friend kept.

"The laundry, how many days have you not done it?" Freed asked.

"Mind your own fucking business!" Laxus growled, blushing slightly and trying to get his clothes back, but Freed backed away.

"If you had asked me, I would have done it for you" he told.

"You don't have to do this to me" Laxus snapped. Freed smiled.

"You know it's not a problem for me". The blonde grunted, it was a problem for him. He crossed his arms in annoyance, while Freed quietly walked to the bathroom throwing the clothes into the washing machine. When he touched his briefs, he blushed slightly and a smirk appeared on his face, at which Laxus ordered him to move and Freed threw them in, then set the program and start the machine. He stood up, turning to the blonde.

"I've never seen you in briefs" he said and Laxus gave him an embarrassed look, he shouldn't have known. Freed smiled a little amused. "You don't have to hide it from me, you know I'm wearing them" Laxus looked at him for a moment stunned while his face was colored with a pink shade. He had no ideawhat Freed was wearing under his clothes. And was Freed telling him so quietly? His expression must have been eloquent enough, because Freed arched an eyebrow. "You've seen me in swimsuit several times" he specified and Laxus turned his gaze away.

"Anyway, I'll do the laundry myself" he said brusquely.

"Absolutely not. I saw how you reduced your clothes, a white shirt turned pink and the sweater Evergreen gave you shrunk. I'll do it for you from now on" he decided and his tone did not allow for replies. Laxus was about to argue, but he froze when he realized something.

"Did you rummage in my closet?"

"Of course, I also fixed it for you, it was a disaster" Freed replied and then gave an amused smile. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your questionable patterned briefs set" Laxus blushed even more. Damned Freed and damned the day he gave him the house keys.

"Now go out, I have to clean up" Freed said opening a bathroom cabinet and Laxus raised an eyebrow, that was his bathroom, he wouldn't get out of there. "You heard me? Look what a mess, I said go out” he repeated pushing Laxus into the corridor. The blonde growled nervously but let him, vowing to take back the keys he had left him.

A quiet evening

It was three in the morning and Freed had not yet fallen asleep. The reason was simple, he couldn't tear himself away from that book and he didn't feel tired in the slightest. That's why he was the only one still awake in the library, sitting on the floor in a corner while he leafed through the pages of that tome. He was so engrossed in reading that he didn't notice someone had entered until he heard a voice and jumped.

"Still awake?" Freed looked up to see Laxus approaching him. Freed blushed slightly, knowing full well that the next day the two would train alone and had decided to start at six in the morning. Or rather, Laxus had made up his mind, because he wanted to do a tough workout and didn't like wasting time.

"I was just about to go to sleep" he lied while a slight blush filled his cheeks, he hoped that thanks to the darkness his friend would not notice it, but in vain because the blond arched an eyebrow.

"Really?" he asked blatantly ironic with a grin and Freed snorted looking down at the book. He was close to it, just a chapter and he would finish it.

"Well..." he began, but did not finish the sentence because Laxus sat next to him leaning his head against the wall. Freed looked at him a little surprised, he had thought that he would scold him and that he would remind him of the next day's training.

"What book is it?" he asked instead.

"One on dark magic" Freed said.

“Mm… then I'll wait for you. Tell me when you finish it” Laxus said, putting the headphones to his ears. Freed gave him a curious look and smiled to see him close his eyes and move his fingers slightly to the rhythm of the music. They were sitting so close that their arms touched each other and Freed began to read the book again. He could slightly hear the music coming from the headphones but he didn't bother him, not with Laxus standing next to him. When he was missing a few pages, he suddenly felt a weight on his shoulder. He turned in surprise and saw that Laxus had fallen asleep on him. He felt the warmth flooding his face and a smile widening, while he observed the calm expression of the boy who had begun to snore slightly. He slept soundly and still had headphones on. Freed gently took them off and turned off the music without waking him. He stood watching him for a while and wondered if he should wake him up. In the end he decided that he would do it later, he could not allow the boy to sleep uncomfortably. Meanwhile, however, he could enjoy that closeness.

Intentional forgetfulness

"Have you forgotten it again?" Freed snapped and Laxus rolled his eyes, ignoring the looks of Bickslow and Evergreen, who were arranging their sleeping bags in the wood.

"I was thinking of something else" he grunted nervously.

"This is the third time this month you have forgotten him, can I know what’s wrong with you?" Freed said annoyed. Laxus crossed his arms.

"Last time you said you would take care of it. Besides, you are the captain "he blurted out. Freed took a deep breath.

"Well, take mine then".

"Oh my God, don't start again, we all know how it's going to end" Bickslow said and the two boys turned to their friends. Laxus tried to hide his embarrassment and glanced at Freed, who had a sharp expression on his face but you could also see a slight blush. "Freed will offer his sleeping bag, then Laxus will say he won't let him sleep in the cold, you will ask us to share our sleeping bags and we will say no, and in the end, you will fall asleep together like two lovebirds in love" he snapped the tongue. Evergreen continued:

"And now they'll say it's not true, it's just because you can't sleep in the cold this season, but as it happens neither of them remembered Laxus' sleeping bag". Laxus looked at them in annoyance. Well, maybe he did it on purpose not to carry the sleeping bag, but damn it, if Freed had bothered sleeping with him so much, he would have remembered it instead of him, right?

"It's not my job to remind me of all your stuff, it's hard enough to keep up with the two of you" Freed immediately defended. "And in any case, you can feel the cold for yourself, but if you prefer sleep without a sleeping bag and leave it to Laxus, I really want to see how you freeze" he said. "And just to clarify, it's not that if two people sleep together, they are two lovebirds in love, if you don't understand the value of friendship and don't intend to share your sleeping bag with Laxus, then you'd better review your principles".

"Whatever" Bickslow muttered exasperatedly and Freed slipped into the sleeping bag. Laxus mentally thanked him for answering for both of them and lay down beside him. Since the sleeping bag was for one person, the two boys were inevitably stuck together, and that did nothing but please Laxus, even if he would never admit it. He observed Freed who in turn was looking at him red in the face.

"Laxus..." the rune wizard whispered after a while "Why do you always forget your sleeping bag?". The blonde felt a vague sensation of unease and snorted.

“You know I forget everything. Night” he snapped. Freed didn't insist closing his eyes.

"Goodnight" he murmured and Laxus watched his face relax as he felt a sensation of warmth spread from his stomach. He smiled and after a while closed his eyes.

Gift

Freed hated when it didn't add up. He usually had enough jewels with him, because he always carried something extra with him just in case. However, that last mission had caused a lot of trouble and Freed had had to buy drugs that cost exaggeratedly. So, he found himself with the jewels flush and he was quite nervous. Sure, it was still a good sum, but Freed had come to that city to stock up on books and now he found himself having to choose which book to leave behind. A difficult choice, considering that they were all unique and extremely valuable copies. So, he had been in that library for hours, sitting at a table surrounded by about twenty books while he tried to rationally evaluate which one to leave there.

"You're still here?" a voice broke out above him and the rune mage looked up: Laxus was back from the music store.

"I'm almost done" Freed assured him.

"You've been in here for hours, even Evergreen finished shopping before you" said the blonde and Freed snorted. It wasn't an easy choice! Was he leaving behind the book on ancient curses or the one on white magic? Or maybe it was better to forget the one about runic writing, after all he already had some at home, but that one had so much more information... There was no right choice. But Laxus was right and he certainly didn't want to make his comrades waste any more time. With a bitter look he began to take the books and put them in the trolley from the most important to the least, but when he got to the last three books he stopped dubiously. He still hadn't chosen which one to leave there. Laxus frowned at him.

"What's the problem?" he blurted out.

"None, I just have to choose which book to get" Freed muttered and eventually took two, reluctantly leaving the one on runic writing there. His heart was crying to abandon him. "Enough, I have chosen" he said more to himself than to Laxus, and with the trolley he walked towards the cashier to pay. The woman seemed happy enough to sell all those books and Freed left the bookstore embittered.

"Finally!" Evergreen exclaimed. Freed gave her a dirty look, usually it was she who kept him waiting for hours, she couldn't really tell him anything.

“Why that snout? You bought yourself a lot of books” Bickslow observed. Freed snorted.

"Nothing, let's go" he cut him short.

"Now we have to wait for Laxus" Evergreen observed. Freed threw a surprised look inside the library, Laxus was actually buying a book. The blond came out shortly after with the tome on runic writing and stuffed it into Freed's bag, who immediately felt warmth in his face taken aback.

"L ... Laxus, you didn’t have to do it" he stammered.

"Now keep it, and next time tell me instead of wasting our time" grunted the blonde. Freed smiled running his fingers over the cover.

"Thanks" he said genuinely pleased.

"Tsk. Better for you that you take that muzzle off your face, come on, let's go” Laxus ordered and walked away, Freed happily joined him ignoring the giggles of his teammates.

Birthday cake

Laxus knew how to cook, he simply let Freed do it most of the time because his friend liked to do it. So, the teasing of Bickslow and Evergreen had no basis. So, after being teased by the two friends, more as a personal challenge than anything else, Laxus had made up his mind to cook the cake for Freed's birthday. The problem? The cake Bickslow told him to make was made from three layers of custard, with cream puffs and cream on top. That bastard had chosen something complex on purpose just to get him damned.

So now Laxus found himself with the cream puffs in the small oven, the cake in the large oven and the custard that he was preparing in a saucepan over the fire. He was nervous, there were too many things around and too many things to watch out for. Making that cake was turning out to be a nightmare. Laxus smelled the smell of burning, he didn’t initially understand what it was among all those things, so first he turned off the saucepan in which he was mixing the cream, then he took out the cream puffs and finally realized that it was the base of the cake that was burning.

"Shit". It was really burned on the bottom and sides. "Maybe I can cut off the burned part" he thought and took a knife and began to pull away, but the more he pulled away the more the cake took on a horrible shape, and finally Laxus threw it in the garbage can. "Fuck!" he blurted out irritably.

"Everything good?" Laxus turned suddenly realizing that this was Freed and had just entered the house. Shit. He had nothing to give him and the cake was gone.

"Laxus was trying to bake your birthday cake" Bickslow grinned from the living room. Laxus would have thrown the knife at him if he had been nearby, and he noticed how Freed's face turned red as he walked into the kitchen.

“Oh… you didn’t have to do it”.

"In any case, I burned it, so you won't have a shit" Laxus snapped irritably. Damn Bickslow, if he hadn’t chosen the cake to prepare by then it would have been ready. Freed smiled as he approached the stove.

"Can I taste?" he asked him pointing to the custard and Laxus motioned him to do what he wanted. Freed took a teaspoon and tasted. “It's good, and the cream puffs seem ready to be filled”.

"Then you'll have the cream puffs" Laxus grunted and Freed took the sack to start filling them. Laxus stopped him immediately. "It's your birthday. I'll do it” he said sharply, but Freed lifted his face and smiled softly at him, so much so that Laxus felt his stomach flutter.

"I like to cook, let's do it together?" he asked timidly. Laxus was unable to say no, and ended up holding the cream puffs while Freed filled them with cream, even though by now the blond could not help but look at the beaming smile on his friend's face. If it took so little to make him happy, perhaps he should have cooked more often for him.

A rose

Mirajane and Juvia had made up their minds to decorate the whole guild hall for Valentine's Day, Freed had been pulled in the middle -he didn't know how yet- and now he had the task of buying flowers. So that morning he found himself with two bunches of roses in his hand as he walked towards the guild. He passed Laxus's house and wondered if it would be a good idea to declare himself that day. In reality it seemed to him that he was already quite obvious, but perhaps with Laxus he had to be more explicit. The thought, however, agitated him, because even if he seemed to have a certain intimacy with Laxus, he was not sure that he had interpreted his behavior well. He didn't want to pressure him, or ruin what was going on between them, whatever he was.

He didn't realize he had stopped in front of his house until the door opened and Laxus walked out. Freed beamed at him but noticed that the boy's face was becoming perplexed and… was he blushing?

"Morning" Laxus said brusquely as he approached.

"Morning, I was going to the guild" Freed greeted him. He started to walk away but noticed that the blonde was looking at him as if he was expecting something. Freed frowned and following his gaze he noticed that he was staring at the roses he was holding.

"Flowers for Mirajane" Freed explained right away.

"Mirajane?" Laxus asked frowning and Freed realized how bad he had sounded.

"No! I mean, she has to decorate the hall and she sent me to buy them” he explained.

"Oh. Okay” Laxus said in surprise, putting his hands in his pockets. The two boys advanced in silence, while Freed occasionally cast a few curious glances at Laxus. He had seemed almost disappointed before, as if he had thought the roses were for him. Perhaps he would like to receive them. Freed blushed at the thought of giving him a rose and shook his head. Of course not, Laxus was not the type for flowers, nor for such romantic fuss.

But when he arrived in the guild Freed noticed how the boy watched the other couples exchange gifts. At that point he made up his mind. Even if Laxus didn't seem like the romantic type, he could always be wrong. Moreover, by giving him flowers he would finally express his feelings towards him.

So that evening Freed took courage and, with a single red rose in his hand, showed up at Laxus's house.

"Happy Valentine's Day" he said awkwardly, holding out the rose in front of him as Laxus opened it, feeling his cheeks ablaze for what he was daring to do.

"Tsk. Do I look like the type to give a rose to?" Laxus snapped and Freed blushed even more wanting to bury himself in embarrassment. He was about to put the flower aside, but Laxus took it between his fingers. "Come in, there's a good movie on the Lacrima" he told and Freed obeyed a little uncertainly. But when he saw how Laxus turned the rose in his fingers with a tiny smile on his face, he immediately relaxed. Laxus really liked the gift.

Two idiots

Freed and Laxus were sitting quietly at the guild when Makarov called out to them. The two approached immediately thinking that the Master had a mission to give them. Makarov actually had a huge smile on his face.

"Guys, I've booked a table for you at the restaurant on the corner, go there, it's my reward for all the missions you've done lately" he told them. Laxus raised a doubtful eyebrow, wondering when the old man was so kind, while Freed offered him a thousand thanks. In the end, however, they accepted, Laxus still a little doubtful about the old man's intentions, while Freed still deeply grateful to the Master.

"Well, go out on a date" Bickslow grinned next to him and the two looked at him stunned.

"It's just a thank you from the Master" Freed replied while blushing visibly. Bickslow didn't insist and finally Laxus and Freed headed for the restaurant.

"You say it's a date?" he dared to ask Freed all of a sudden, that he'd been thinking about it all afternoon.

"No" Laxus snapped immediately. "Bickslow imagines things, that's all" he said dryly. Freed didn't argue. After all, date or not, he was going to spend an evening with Laxus, and that was all he wanted.

"DEGENERATED GRANDCHILD!" they heard Makarov's scream and the two turned to see the old man waving his stick above him with Bickslow and Evergreen at his side.

"I told you Master, they're two idiots" Bickslow chuckled.

[mx08z7kz6gqrs]

好想爱这个世界啊 - Translation Notes

For my translation of this song, see this post. Listen to the live version of the song here. Below are some translation notes on the song.

This was one of my earlier translations, and one that I’ve felt like I should revisit but never had time to. It’s a particularly beautiful song, and the lyrics aren’t complicated, but they are written in a deliberately vague way that isn’t easily conveyed in English. It also has a lot of short phrases that work as individual sentences in Chinese, but that I’ve chosen to link together so that it flows better in English.

As usual, these notes are formatted with the original lyrics, followed by the most literal possible translation, and then an explanation for how I decided to translated it in the final version, including my interpretations and any nuances that I maybe have decided to drop.

Note that anything in brackets [like so] means that this word did not exist in the line, but I had to insert it for grammatical reasons. Usually it’s a subject pronoun that wasn’t specified.

---

Line by Line Translation Notes

抱着沙发 睡眼昏花 凌乱头发 // Hugging the sofa, sleepy eyes blurry, messy hair 却渴望像电影主角一样潇洒 // Yet long to be confident and free like the lead role in a movie

These two lines were fairly literal, and I’ve kept them as is while appending the first person pronoun so that it was grammatically consistent in English.

The most interesting notes here are “渴望”, “to long for.” In Chinese, this phrase is actually a combination of the character “渴” for thirst, and “望” for hope [for the future]. There is a desperation to this particular word choice that is somewhat capture in the English “longing.”

I’ve also chosen to translate “主角”, literally “main role” (ie, protagonist/leading role) to “hero” just for it to flow a little more naturally.

屋檐角下 排着乌鸦 密密麻麻 // Under the corners of the roof, crows line up, packed close together 被压抑的情绪不知如何表达 // The repressed feelings, [I] don’t know how to express

I took a lot of liberty in my translation of these lines, because they evoke a very specific sense of confusion and entrapment that I don’t think the literal translation captures well.

Crows in modern Chinese culture, like the west, can be seen as bad omens (ex when someone says something unlucky they are called “乌鸦嘴”, literally a crow’s beak). “密密麻麻” is an expression referring to things being very densely packed together- “密” refers to being “close together” while “麻” is the character for a hemp/sesame. The image it evokes is numerous things being packed so close together that they are like tiny dots against one another.

In this way, you can interpret the crows as a reflection for those feelings that the singer cannot express, trapping them without any gaps for escape.

无论我 在这里 在那里 // No matter if I’m here or there 仿佛失魂的虫鸣 // As if [I’m] a panicking bug cries 却明白此刻应该做些努力 // But understanding that right now, should make some effort to try harder

Not too many notes for this section. One thing that I’ve seen a lot of different translations around is the second line though, “失魂的虫鸣.” The word “失魂” literally translates to “lost soul.” But generally speaking, this term isn’t referring to the desolate feeling that the literal English translation evokes. Rather, it’s more like “lost wits” or “at wit’s end”, referring to a sort of indecisive and panicked state of mind.

In this case, it’s describing “虫鸣”, literally “cries of bugs.” The sound in my head is something like cicada chirps, or the eclectic noises of bugs in the evening on a hot day. In English, we’d more commonly describing the noises that bugs make as “buzzing”, and for the sort of restless feeling, a specific reference to “flies” made more sense and felt more natural that the more vague “bugs/insects” in the original lyric.

There’s a sense of aimlessness, confusion, and helplessness to this line that I wanted to capture.

无论我 在这里 在那里 // No matter if I’m here or there 不能弥补的过去 // The past that can’t be mended 每当想起 // Every time [I] think of it...

Simple lines- the one word of note here is “弥补”, a term that can mean to mend or to make up for any deficiencies. It’s formed with the character “弥”, “to fill in” or “complete” and the character “补” for “fix/mend.” In my translation, I’ve chosen to use “irreparable”, but what it really conveys is the speaker’s understanding and sense of regret that they cannot make up for the past, whether it’s the things they’ve done or the things they’ve missed.

想过离开 // Thought of leaving 以这种方式存在 // Existing in this way 是因为 那些旁白 // It was because of those narratives/asides 那些姿态 那些伤害 // Those attitudes/postures, those hurts

The chorus is definitely where I took the biggest liberty in my translation. The most important point here is that I have removed the likely intentional ambiguity in the subject. Before I dive into that though, I’ll cover the two terms here that have no clear English equivalent.

“旁白” is a word that roughly refers to “an aside”- it combines the character “旁“ for “to the side” and “白”, in this context referring to a use of language, or expression. It is the term used to describe things like a voice-over narration in movies, dramas, etc (for example, think of times when the character is thinking something and we, the audience, hears it as a voice on top of a montage on-screen).

“姿态” can be most literally translated as “attitude” or “posture”, and it refers to a combination of physical appearance and expression. It’s close to the English use of “air” and it’s what you are changing when you are “posturing” to someone.

Note that “those narratives”/”those attitudes”/”those hurts” do not actually have a subject associated with who is the one “dealing” them. It can be interpreted as the singer’s own thoughts and self-loathing, others judgement of them, or both. I think this ambiguity is intentional- the themes of the song revolve around the struggles of depression, and often these mix together.

In this way, “那些旁白” can refer to a narrative that the singer is telling themselves, or a narrative that is forced upon them from the words that others have spoken about them. “那些姿态” can refer to the type of posture or stance that the singer feels forced into, or the attitudes of the people around them. “那些伤害” can refer to pain that is inflicted upon the singer either by themselves or by the others.

For readability sake, I chose to go with the interpretation that slightly more folks on the Chinese net seemed to favor. Hua Chenyu, the original artist, has also emphasized the fear that those with depression face when they meet other people who may not understand them, so it seemed like a good compromise.

不想离开 // Don’t want to leave 当你说还有你在 // When you said you were still here 忽然我开始莫名 期待 // Suddenly I began inexplicably hope

This half of the chorus translates much more straightforwardly. The only real word of note here is the final one, “期待.” It can be translated as “hope”, but it’s really a type of hope that leans towards anticipation, or “to look forward to/expect something.”

Unfortunately, both of those translations require some type of object (unlike the Chinese term), and while I could insert one (”the future”, “life”, etc) that would be pure conjecture on my part and I’d prefer to keep it as ambiguous as possible while still making sense.

夕阳西下 翻着电话 无人拨打 // The sun sets to the west, flipping the phone, no one calls 是习惯孤独的我该得到的吧 // This is what I, who am used to being alone, deserve to get right?

These lines were neat to translate. One subtlety that’s lost in English is the first phrase, “夕阳西下”, an idiom literally meaning “evening sun sets west” and usually used to describe a scene of sunset. However, it can also be used more figuratively to describe things going downhill as years go by and they age, so there’s a little bit of melancholy inherent in the idiom.

独木桥呀 把谁推下 才算赢家 // A single log bridge, pushing someone over, counts as a winner 我无声的反抗何时能战胜它 // When will my soundless rebellion prevail over it

This part of the song actually confused me a little when I first heard it. The “独木桥”, literally “single log/plank bridge” is a phrase that figuratively describes a very difficult path (ie, like trying to cross a single log bridge).

Overall, there’s a resentment of the perceived competition in life- often, it feels that for one person to succeed, they have to take down someone else. The singer thus is trying to stage their own resistance against this.

无论我 在这里 在那里 // No matter if I’m here or there 仿佛失魂的虫鸣 // As if [I’m] a panicking bug cries 却明白此刻应该做些努力 // But understanding that right now, should make some effort to try harder

无论我 在这里 在那里 // No matter if I’m here or there 不能弥补的过去 // The past that can’t be mended 每当想起 // Every time [I] think of it...

This section is an exact repeat from the end of the first verse.

想过离开 // Thought of leaving 以这种方式存在 // Existing in this way 是因为 那些旁白 // It was because of those narratives/asides 那些姿态 那些伤害 // Those attitudes/postures, those hurts

This is a repeat of the first section in the first chorus.

不想离开 // Don’t want to leave 也许尝试过被爱 // Maybe after [I’ve] tried [the feeling of] being loved 会开始仰望未来 // [I’ll] start to look up hopefully towards the future

The subtlety of this part is in the second line. “尝试” literally means “to try” or “to attempt”, and it is modifying “被爱”, “to be loved.” The correct way to understand this line in English is “After I’ve tasted the feeling of being loved by another.” Overall that sounds awkward though, which is why I didn’t use that particular phrasing in my translation.

The third line here uses a particularly yearning word to express hope- “仰望” or “to look up hopefully” combines the character “仰” for “looking up towards” or “admiring” and “望” for hope. Compare this to “期待” from the end of the last chorus, which was more of a tentative feeling of anticipation.

伤疤 就丢给回忆吧 // Scars, just throw them to the memories 放下 才得到更好啊 // Let go, to get something better

别怕 别怕 // Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid

These lines forming the bridge are fairly straightforward. For my translation, I just linked the ideas to make it flow better in English (ie, “getting something better” reads quite awkwardly even though in Chinese it’s a perfectly natural way to express the idea).

想过离开 // Thought of leaving 当阳光败给阴霾 // When the sunlight is defeated by dark haze 没想到你会拼命为我拨开 // Didn’t think you would be trying your hardest to clear it for me

In the second line here, I dropped the “defeat” from my translation in favor of “faded” to make it flow better/sound a little more poetic. However, it's worth noting that in the original, the verb “败” is to be defeated/lose, with the implication of some type of struggle.

In the third line, “拼命” can be literally understood as “using one’s life” and translates to doing something “at all costs” or “as if your life depends on it.” It’s a very desperate term.

Overall the feeling here is one where the singer has already given up, the “sunlight defeated”, but unexpectedly, someone else continues to fight on for them, desperately so.

曾想过离开 // Once thought of leaving 却又坚持到现在 // But held on until now 熬过了 那些旁白 // Endured past those narratives/asides 那些姿态 那些伤害 // Those attitudes/postures, those hurts

This part of the last chorus echoes the previous ones, with some significant changes. The addition of “曾” for “once”, places the first line explicitly in the past tense. “熬过了” in the third line is also an explicit reference to the past, conveying that the singer has “already endured past” the things mentioned in previous choruses.

不想离开 // Don’t want to leave 当你的笑容绽开 // When your smile breaks outs 这世界突然填满 色彩 喔~ // The world is suddenly filled to the brim with color, woah~

In the second line here, the verb describing the smile is “绽开”, or to “burst forth”, basically suddenly appearing and with a very large presence. My choice of words here was “bloom” in English since that is a way we describe smiles.

In the third line, “填满” literally means “to fill/cram in” and is formed with the characters “填”, for “to fill [in a missing/empty space]” and “满” for “full.” In this case, there’s also a sense of something that was previously missing being returned in full.

抱着沙发 睡眼昏花 凌乱头发 // Hugging the sofa, sleepy eyes blurry, messy hair 夕阳西下 接通电话 是你呀 // The sun sets to the west, connected through the phone, it’s you

These last lines echo the first line from each verse. In the second one, “接通” means “to connect” but specifically in the context of a call connected, or a call picked up.

---

And that concludes my notes for this song. It’s a really beautiful song, and I saw more folks reading this translation than I first expected so I wanted to break it down and clarify all the liberties that I took while translating it. The language here is simple, but contains a lot of subtlety and intentional ambiguity.

[heraldofzaun]

Hi. We’re doing this again. I’ve already spoken a little bit (well, a great bit) about how old lore Viktor wasn’t a stereotypical evil villain, but I keep seeing this interesting trend crop up - especially in the comments of analyses on Viktor’s character - and so I’m going to write about it. That trend is the fact that people seem completely and utterly convinced that only old Viktor “augmented without consent” or “didn’t respect free will” or similar mad-scientist-adjacent claims. This isn't true. The inverse is true, actually.

What follows is the entirety of Viktor’s old lore (I’m using the first - the second variant is the one that snips out his going to the Institute of War, I’m not trying to pull a trick on you or anything), his lines upon release (which are still technically canonical, even if many people believe them to be outdated - whether that is due to Riot still believing that they’re accurate to his character or, more likely, Riot not caring to replace them, I don’t know), and the accompanying blurb to his release comic. I am also including Jayce’s second lore, the one which Riot wrote after Viktor fans pointed out that Jayce’s original lore was contradictory to Viktor’s character. (Which is mentioned in the post I linked above. TL;DR: Viktor fans made such a fuss that Jayce’s lore got changed to paint Viktor as less of a villain, which again points to the fact that old Viktor wasn’t necessarily perceived as villainous by his fans. Of course, fan perceptions can be wrong - but canon was changed, so...)

This screenshot is missing his pick/ban quotes (“Join the Glorious Evolution.”/”Inferior constructs.” - ban quotes were added after his release, so they recycled one of his attack lines) and the quotes for Chaos Storm (“Obliterate!”/”Consume!”/”True power!”/”Behold!”). This is because it didn’t fit on my computer screen nicely.

This was written alongside Viktor’s teaser comic. (I personally really like the teaser comic, even though I’m concerned about Viktor cutting a hole in his laboratory wall.) It is, technically, non-canon material as it was posted on the now-defunct forums rather than anywhere on the client, but as we’ve seen a recent trend of Rioters Word-of-God’ing facts about canon, I may as well include it. There may be more Word-of-God confirmations on those forums as well, but the backup site that they’re currently hosted on doesn’t allow for searches as the original site didn’t either. You can find this on the “Development” tab of Viktor’s wiki page, if you’re curious.

Is there anything in here, besides “Submit to my designs.” and a few other of his voice lines, which should be taken with the context that they were a) written in 2011 and are thus not the highest examples of character-focused writing and b) written under the context of these being things he is saying to opponents on a battlefield, that says “Viktor augments people who are unwilling”? I don’t see it. He isn’t an angel, sure, because he wrecks Jayce’s lab after the man doesn’t want to work with him, but… He’s mostly alright, at least when it comes to the claims I’m investigating. (Also, note that his acolytes are not specified as being under his control or anything like that - they very well may just be people he’s helped, who don’t want a strange man smashing up the lab they were helped in.)

An interesting side-note: Jayce’s first lore does seem to imply that Viktor murdered people, as he “staged a deadly raid on Jayce’s laboratory”. This is concerning. There’s still somewhat of that implication in the second lore, considering the whole “incinerating the lab’s meager security force” line, but I’ve never seen anyone in fandom over the years use that as evidence for Viktor being a murderer, which is interesting. There’s actual textual evidence you can point to to say that Viktor’s a morally awful dude, and yet no one pointed to it when it was canon...I’ve never seen it cited in any character analyses for Viktor, nor have I ever seen anyone make the point that it’s people that Viktor’s incinerating. Food for thought, I guess. Anyways, my personal take is this: it’s security systems, not people. It doesn’t quite make sense, in-universe, for Viktor to murder a bunch of redshirt security guards but only blast Jayce aside - and leave him with no lasting injuries, obviously. Out-of-universe, you can say that it’s because Jayce is a champion, but still… It really doesn’t fit. Of course, I’m an old lore Viktor fan and this is entirely me trying to justify that he’s not a bad guy, so you can definitely take my words as biased. As we’ll see later, even if you take this as proof that old Viktor’s a killer, it doesn’t mean new Viktor is morally spotless.

Also, if you speak a language other than English and want to kill time, feel free to write in with what Jayce’s old lore says he did if you can find a translation of it. (If you go to the League wiki you can find other language versions of it, and from there you can poke around on Jayce’s page to see if it even has his older lore at all.) The Polish version apparently doesn’t imply people, but the Russian version uses “guards”... or so I think, my knowledge of Russian is pretty small so it was me and Wiktionary against the world. I think that League lore translations, especially from 2011, aren’t exactly the best material for textual evidence, but it’s an interesting curiosity. (I’m genuinely fascinated on how this was never a point of argument, and also to the fact that it was made much more ambiguous in Jayce’s post-outcry lore… but not removed.)

Anyways. Of course, you can take his lines and general character to a logical endpoint and say that it is implied that he doesn’t care much about whether or not people consent to the Glorious Evolution, but at that point you’re arguing interpretation and need to say as such. The cases I’ve seen in which people say that old lore Viktor was lopping people’s limbs off without consent or what-have-you just say that, without citing any textual evidence or saying that it is possibly implied by his character and lines. It’s pretty hard to take those claims seriously when there’s much more textual evidence that current-canon Viktor doesn’t seem too keen on respecting autonomy. Let’s begin with his own lore, which is written to favor his perspective.

Please keep in mind that this Viktor got his start selling automative technology to businesses in Zaun. The Zaun that is full of corrupt chem-barons. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he only sold to good businesses. (Also, fascinating that a common complaint about old Viktor is that his status as a pioneer of his field is that he’s “unrealistically accomplished”, and that other people would have figured out the same technology - just as it seems to be the case in current lore, with the Church of the Glorious Evolved existing pre-Viktor (except that it probably didn’t at the time of this lore’s release, as there’s a paragraph later on in his lore that talks about a “quasi-religious cult” that is unnamed but… Who else would it be?) and augmentations being common on the NPCs on the Universe page. Yet someone who’s 19 having their inventions be commonly used in Zaun long enough for the term eventually to be used in reference to the next stage of their life is perfectly acceptable. Anyways…)

What we see from this is clear: even if there is a “good” reason to control the divers, there is no mention of them consenting to the procedure. Considering the previous quotation, Viktor seems to deal more with the bosses than the workers and doesn’t seem to consider the potential job-removing impacts of his work (how many people lost jobs due to being rendered obsolete?), which doesn’t bode well for him caring much about what the workers think. But of course, this aside about dealing with bosses is all interpretation, so you can ignore it if you’d like. There still is, however, actual, textual evidence that new Viktor does not care about consent if he believes his idea is what’s best for you.

Ignoring the writer misusing the term “psychotics” - par for the course in fiction unfortunately - here’s Viktor kidnapping people “for their own good”. Nothing is said in his lore if he’s contracted to do this, or if he’s just Zaun’s version of a Good Samaritan out and about chloroforming people. While I’m not saying that the moral choice is to not intervene, he is drugging people here and performing brain surgery on them. Please note the “in a manner of speaking”. What does that mean? Is it in reference to them having permanent brain damage? Or is it in reference to him being all well-and-ready to transfer their bodies into robots that presumably weren’t designed for them? (Speaking of, if Viktor can transfer the consciousnesses - or at least brains - of people… why is he still in a fleshy mortal body? Yes, it would require a VU to update him to be fully robotic, but none of his written media seems to imply that he’s on his way. His color story has him integrating technology directly into his arm, for example. Why aren’t you getting into the robot, Viktor?)

Anyways, two options here: either the automatons had enough of their former programming to react to Viktor giving a kill command, or the consciousnesses of the people Viktor is “saving” are in these robots and are under his sway enough to commit murder. Either is bad (and negates any moral superiority over old Viktor’s maybe-implied-canonical-murder), but the second is horrifying. And, obviously, non-consensual. (Because the damage is reversing, I don’t believe there’s room for a justification of the second option in which these people are still violent and dangerous.)

Anyways, last bit. It’s pretty bad when your ethics are panned in Zaun, the nation host to rampart corruption and also people like Singed. Let’s now move on to his color story, which is what a lot of fans point to as evidence for new Viktor having a heart or a moral compass.

Yay! Moral win: your cyborg isn’t cutting off the head of a child without his consent. (Also, again, is this proof that Viktor can put brains or consciousnesses in robot bodies? Admittedly, he might be joking since this Viktor is a little softer than he is in his biography.)

Moral… win… your cyborg is augmenting a child… Anyways, joking aside, this is unethical. How’s Naph supposed to consent to something like this? I know that we can’t expect fictional characters in a fantasy setting to abide by modern ethical standards, but I think we can critique them from an out-of-universe context. This is bad. Viktor gives very little context, could very well be lying (he isn’t, hopefully), and sends the kid off with his version of a pat on the back and tells him to come back if he wants more. (The “Oh yes” is also… creepy.) A kid’s decision-making abilities aren’t developed to the extent that they can be reasonably expected to understand or consent to a procedure that removes a pretty crucial emotion. If Naph comes back and wants his fear gone permanently, will Viktor oblige?

Also, fear is something that is very important to survival and judgment calls. Without fear, a kid in Zaun might take dangerous risks that could end up with them dead. I can’t really see how people interpret this as a morally sound decision - Viktor’s pretty much giving mood-altering drugs to a child and telling him to come back if he wants another hit. Just because he got Naph’s okay doesn’t mean that he got informed consent.

Let’s now turn to the black sheep of Viktor content: his Legends of Runeterra lines. There’s two of interest.

Armed Gearhead’s card art is of a man whose only augmentation is his arm, which he says he broke in another line. (I suppose he didn’t want to wait for it to heal?)

Viktor is talking about messing with his head, here, because Armed Gearhead is… too emotive, I’d guess. He is “not yet complete”. A statement which Armed Gearhead seems rather apprehensive about, if you listen to his response.

I know that LoR Viktor is one of the more “comically villainous” depictions of Viktor we’ve seen, so if new Viktor fans would like to ignore his lines I have no issue with that. But these lines certainly seem to imply that what Viktor sees as Armed Gearhead’s end state isn’t necessarily what he sees as his, and should be considered if people want to take them as canonical.

Not necessarily needed, but here’s Jayce’s present lore. One of them is definitely lying - Jayce’s lore says that he doesn’t strike until after Viktor gives the kill order, and Viktor’s says that he gave the kill order in response to Jayce smashing up the lab. Either way, Viktor is ordering automatons (that, in this version, are outright stated to be housing the brains of the people Viktor is trying to keep alive) to kill Jayce. Not a good look.

Viktor’s new lore gives significant textual evidence that he doesn’t care for whether others willingly consent to his ideas, so long as he believes that his ideas are for the greater good. This is in contrast to the vagueness of his original lore, meaning that any individual who speaks about how current Viktor is someone who cares for consent in contrast to the “unethical mad scientist”ness of old Viktor is unfortunately mistaken. I have to imagine that general fandom interpretation, combined with the fact that his bio and color story are very tonally different, have made it so people believe that this version of Viktor is much more ethical than he canonically is.

Interpreting Viktor as sympathetic and actually morally grey is fine, of course! Riot wrote his narrative very poorly when he was updated, which is why I’m still finding bones to pick with it in comparison to his original and more open-to-interpretation lore. The issue is stating that this is canonically the case, which it isn’t, and/or stating that the current iteration of Viktor has the moral high ground over his previous incarnation, which he doesn’t. I think that much more interesting character conversations can happen if people acknowledge that Viktor as he’s currently written is roundly unethical - how can that be improved upon for a more complex character, does that mean that Jayce’s behavior was right, etc. For all my dislike of new Viktor, I’d be genuinely curious to read a take that actively acknowledges his pre-college work in automation and how that affects his standing in Piltover and Zaun. (Is he well-known in industry? What do workers think about him? And so on…) And, well, on a personal note: I think that acknowledging current Viktor’s moral failings would be nice, because it would mean that people would stop using old Viktor as a strawman.

Anyways, I suppose that’s the post. Thank you for reading!

[the-bloody-masquerade]

Bloodlines 2 - They/Them Pronouns and Trans and Asexual Representation

There has been some discussion recently regarding information that was presented in a recent podcast interview given by Bloodlines 2 writers Brian Mitsoda and Cara Ellison. I think it is important to know what was and what was not said and understand it in context so I would like to provide a transcript to the passages in question for us to reference as we continue to have discourse around the issue.

I also want to try to give a little more insight as to why they/them pronouns were not able to be added to the game as there are some substantial programming concerns when it comes to adding conditional content that cannot be accessed in versions of the game where the language used only has two pronouns instead of three.

This comes from episode 22 of The RE:BIND Podcast. Published on June 22nd, 2020. The interviewer is Emily Rose, the interviewees are Cara Ellison and Brian Mitsoda, lead co-writers of Bloodlines 2 (Mitsoda having been the original Writer on Bloodlines 1)

Character Creation and Pronouns (passage starts at 1:14:45)

Note: [...] denotes a false start or when they start their sentence over a couple times.  

Emily: In Bloodlines 2, how is character creation being handled in terms of gender?  

Cara: Oh, character creation. So, one of the major problems we have is, and actually this is not unique to us, but the entire industry, is that localization severely limits the way you can write characters and we’re actually coming up against this problem now even though we have made a bunch of decisions on like how you refer to the player character and the characters in our game. But like, a major problem that we always have in video games is that English has a way to refer to people who don’t want to have a gender. And a lot of languages around the world, don’t have that.   

Brian: Currently, there’s like, movements in some languages to get that.  

Cara: Right like, so if your Quebecois, there’s a term that’s like generally recognized as being ‘they’ that you can use, but a lot of languages might have people who for example are agender, but the terms that they use to refer to themselves are not thoroughly recognized throughout their language and country. And that provides us with a humungous problem because we are making a game about Seattle, and there are a large number of people who live in Seattle who don’t want to have a gender or don’t want to be referred to as a particular gender or they frankly don’t identify as a particular thing, so we represent those characters like we normally would, but we run into a bunch of problems when we try to localize. So like, in the character creation section what we decided was the best option for us is to essentially let you create the way your character looks in like, entirely separate of gender, so you can make your character look any way you like as masculine or as feminine or whatever you like. […] You basically can then say ‘I want to be referred to as ‘he’ or I want to be referred to as ‘she,’ and that’s the option that we give you. The reason we don’t give you the they/them option is because […] I think there are four or five languages that can do this, but a lot of European languages can’t refer to the player character as ‘they’ or ‘them’ because they have to choose one or the other, so, we ended up not being able to do the they/them option for the character creation. So we basically tried to give you a way of expressing yourself and how you look, whatever, but we do end up actually asking you to specify ‘he’ or ‘she’ because it actually is just the way we had to do it for localization. […] For example, when I worked at MiniMolecule they had the exact same problem and it’s a problem of scale as well, because if the scale was just like we only release in English, we could have done the third option, we just couldn’t do it. And also because, we actually systemically throughout the game, its structured to be able to like have lots of interactions based on your identity so we had to sort of choose that early on, so it kind of got structured that way as well. But we do have main characters in the game who do not have a defined gender, and at least if you play the game in English they will be referred to as ‘they.’ We did have the option for NPCs at least in English, to have that referent, but unfortunately, we were very limited by localization on that point. And we’re not the only game that’s limited by that, but as this is kind of more, this kind of specific thing in language rolls out across lots more languages I think actually it will become easier to do this over a time, I think, as well. I’m hoping, at least.  

TLDR; You will create your characters appearance separate from physical sex or gender and then you will pick he/him or she/her pronouns. The reason why they/them is not being included is because most of the languages that the game is being localized in do not have a 3rd/gender neutral set of pronouns and [presumably] would require all version of the game that only include 2 pronouns (because of language) to have their dialogue systems reworked/separately programmed. 

This is a bit different than “they should just put they/them in the English localization then.” If pronouns will be a character creation option that probably means they will be set up as a content trigger, which is what determines which voice and text lines you get (to correspond to your gender). For languages that only have two pronouns, what would you do with that third content trigger representing the they/them pronouns? They also talked content “structured to to be able to have interactions based on your identity.” If there were interactions that were only triggered by the they/them choice in character select, this content would effectively be lost in localizations that only had two pronouns in character select, (barring a comprehensive structural overhaul for regions with only two pronouns) 

The quicker way to do this would just be to have most NPCs use as little gendered language as possible to make most lines an content universal/not have to trigger alternate text/content based on the pronoun choice, but then this may defeat the purpose of being able to customize your PC’s gender and pronouns to begin with.  I do not mean to be an apologist. Gender neutral pronouns in RPGs are frankly overdue as an industry standard it is disheartening to hear that they/them will not be a choice in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2. I just wanted to try and elaborate on why the inclusion/exclusion of gender neutral pronouns in a game slated for world release is from a programming standpoint more involved that one may at first think.

Trans Representation in Bloodlines 2 (1:19:37)

Emily: So obviously we have some kind of gender-nonconforming representation. What is there in terms of maybe more specific representation, like say, are there any transmen are there any transwomen? Anything like that. Is that brought up at any point during the game?

Cara: […] I think what we want to do in the future is, actually have some main characters be transmen or transwomen, but I don’t—unless the junior writers have actually—actually no the junior writers have written some characters new that we have specified to be trans. But I would have to check, unfortunately, I don’t think we have actually put anyone who’s trans into the game currently unless I’m forgetting about someone. But yeah, I think our plans are to do that, but we didn’t want to do it like we’re just oh, we’re gonna just put it in…

Brian: Yeah there’s definitely […] when you’re doing the [game] design stuff, you’re looking for a character that might fit for the scene or the quest or the story beat that you’re doing and so one thing I never want to do just try to shoehorn in everything that we want to do.

Cara: By the time I had joined the main cast had been very clearly defined, so we didn’t have the option to add a trans main character which is what we have wanted to do.

Brian: Yeah, I would also like it, if we do add a trans character, we can find a voice actor who’s also…

Cara: …trans as well.

Quests with Trans Themes and DLC  (1:21:24)

(immediately follows last section)

Emily: That was gonna to be my next question, so that’s really good to hear actually. So I totally understand how it goes just in terms of like, the preplanning and establishing the world and things like that, and the main reason I bring it up in the first place is just because so much of Vampire does tend to gravitate around people’s identities their expressiveness with both their sexuality and who they are and so it’s just something that’s like kind of been kind of been some sort of undertone in the series for a long time so I was just curious how it was being handled in Bloodlines 2. Those are pretty sufficient answers.

[…a brief interlude where they talked about a random quest from Bloodlines 1]

(1:23:00)

Cara: We actually have a quest based on the idea of dysmorphia, like feeling like you’re trapped in your body and it doesn’t match the way you perceive yourself. A lot of our writing is based on what it actually feels like to be in this state of stasis when you weren’t expecting to feel that because it has happened suddenly to you. And so there are loads of issues that would be really valuable to explore in that way, and you know we have staff who are super interested in giving their input on that, so I think we should definitely approach it, we just haven’t actually put it in the game in terms of main characters. We wanna make a trans main character, I think that’s important to us. We’ve got some DLC coming up that we’re gonna like make a greater effort on that front, like its Seattle, it would be so weird if we didn’t have trans characters. [Note: Cara lives in Seattle currently. 

Brian: Mmhmm

Cara: So, yeah. [to Brian] Ask Margaret as well, our voiceover director, if there are any trans actors that she would recommend we could cast for the role and maybe write it for them. So yeah.

Emily: So that’s the thing and even I struggle really to think of many games that have a trans character in a main role, let alone--I can’t actually think off the top of my head unless they’re very like micro indie stuff any games that feature like a trans woman protagonist. I think the last time I saw a transwoman in a game was I think I wanna say like Dishonoured 2, one of the semi-core side characters you encountered for one of the quests is a documented as trans.

Cara: And I think the Dishonoured 2 team really really really made a huge effort on that front to be able to represent a huge variety of different backgrounds of people. They were very interested in [doing that] from the start, so yeah I think there are like some games where it does matter too, and it really feels like the world is bigger when you actually provide those characters.

In-game Asexual Characters and Their Ideal Approach to Portraying LGBT+ characters.  (1:25:29)

Cara: But yeah, like we have tried to represent asexuality as well in the game.

Emily: Good good.

Cara: We have characters who are asexual. Who are canon asexual. And yeah, […] We try as well, not to write it sort of clumsily, we don’t write characters that like, out themselves, because that’s not—

Brian: No, because generally someone does come up and say that immediately.

Cara: when you’re from a background that has been marginalized, you’re very aware of your own safety. Especially if a stranger who looks shady approaches you, like our characters, you’re not gonna like immediately say it. But we make it explicit that this is who they are, but not in a way like ‘Hi, I’m Cara! I’m transgender!’ You know?

Brian: Yeah, yeah.

Cara: I think some of the ways in which people have done it in the past have been a little clumsy so I’m very aware of that as well.

Brian: Yeah, I would never want to handle it in a way that’s like ‘The main thing about that character is that they are trans’ like that’s not right at all

Cara: I want the main thing about that person to be something that they’re interested in, like, actually like exploring with the player character and I think like, most people are coming from somewhere when they approach you and its not going to be about I want to talk about my…[they both trail off laughing,]

Brian: They probably want to talk about a way in which they’re going to fuck you over. Or get something from you, or get you to do something for them.

Cara: Yeah and I would love to write a trans character who is like really really interesting and really really involved in something and I don’t want it [their transness] to be their defining [feature].

~~

Thank you for reading.

[arrghigiveup]

Disney characters singing in their native (or close to native) language.

Putting the extensive notes from the vid editor under the cut:

Background information about the characters:

DISCLAIMER Since many of these heroes belong to movies which involve characters included in the official Disney Princesses franchise, they all have an official time and location provided by Disney itself. So, most of the information gathered regarding these characters comes from this official source, find here a video showing the pages of a book from the franchise, where time and location are displayed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVhXIAhol_w&feature=youtu.be However, in a couple of instances (namely Aladdin and Maui), I didn’t follow the official statement, because directors had given different or more specific indications, and since directors are the ones who shape the environment of a movie, I decided to give priority to their word instead. And yes, animals DO speak languages, because we are all Disney nerds and we all love a talking animal.

Simba voiced by Ayanda Nhlangothi When “The Lion King” was released in 1994, a special Zulu dubbing was made on that occasion: it is the first and only Zulu dubbing made by Disney, as well as the only dubbing in any language spoken in Africa (other than Arabic), not to mention, the language sung by Lebo M. during the song “Circle of Life”. For this reason, Zulu is the only language that can be chosen for Simba. Given the impossibility to determine when the story takes place, I decided to put Simba first in this video. Full song: https://youtu.be/6PQJcvMRYQo

Hercules voiced by Διονύσης Σχοινάς | Dionísis Shinás While the movie gives us a clear location (Thebes), establishing the exact point in time is a bit complicated. The story takes place during the so-called Greek Heroic Age, which spans roughly from 15th to 9th century BCE. It’s Herodotus to place the myth of Hercules in 1300 BCE. Full song: https://youtu.be/4zk_dcwdoSE?t=7

Maui voiced by Piripi Taylor (Māori) & Elijah Kaʻikena Scanlan (Hawaiian) Official franchise places the story between 100 BCE and 100 CE. However, according to directors Clements and Musker, the movie gives a fantastic explanation to the causes and conclusion of the hiatus Polynesian people took from voyaging for still foggy reasons, which occurred about 3500 years ago and ended a thousand years later. We can therefore assume that the story takes place more or less 2500 years ago. The languages used in the video are two, but they actually represent one sole language: Proto-Polynesian, the common ancestor to all Polynesian languages, which subsequently spread and diversified across the Polynesian triangle. The story takes place somewhere in it, maybe even across the whole area. A Tahitian version of the movie also exists and was supposed to be featured in the video, but to this day, no high-quality audio in said language is available anywhere. Find here a LQ audio of the Tahitian version: https://youtu.be/hJRu1cfQLlc?t=31 Full Māori song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyiTbbDGKLA Full Hawaiian song: https://youtu.be/wJ02M64p67Y

Shang voiced by 成龙 | Jackie Chan Official sources place the story between 206 BCE (beginning of Han dynasty) to 900 CE (end of Tang dynasty). I chose to reduce the interval to Han dynasty alone, as Xiongnu invasions (here identified as Huns, although a connection between these two populations is still debated) happened mostly during this dynasty. Several anachronisms can be easily spotted along the movie: the capital city is clearly the Forbidden City, which was built only in the 15th century, while fireworks were invented c. 8/9th century. Full song: https://youtu.be/w2Fox6v-L8k

Arthur voiced by Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman, or Robert Reitherman The hypothetic historical figure of Wart King Arthur is believed to have lived between the 5th and 6th century. Since he is a child in the movie, 5th for the win.

Aladdin voiced by هشام نور | Hisham Nour I kept the time-lapse given by official franchise, but I decided not to go with the official given setting (Iran) for two reasons: 1. The movie opens with a song titled “Arabian Nights”, quoting the most notorious English title given to the collection “One Thousand and One Nights”, while Iran is not part of the Arab world (official language: Persian). 2. According to its filmmakers, the story was heavily influenced by the 1940 movie “The Thief of Bagdad”, and it was originally meant to take place in the same city, when the Gulf War burst out and directors were forced to change the setting: https://www.eonline.com/news/706200/disney-myths-debunked-by-ron-clements-and-john-musker-directors-of-the-little-mermaid-aladdin-and-hercules The name “Agrabah” itself was made up by Musker, playing with the name “Baghdad”. Note: the dubbing used is in Egyptian Arabic because it's the only official Disney dubbing in Arabic (like the vast majority of Disney movies). Full song: https://youtu.be/tu3Uw1jYURQ

Phillip voiced by Olivier Constantin (1981 redub) The movie gives us a clear century: 14th. As for the location, the official franchise provides a generic “Western Europe”, though the location seems to fall somewhere in France or Belgium, probably in the region of Wallonia, so the French-speaking part. Full song: https://youtu.be/grJMal8W6z8

Quasimodo voiced by Francis Lalanne Place and date are clearly specified: the story starts in Paris on the day of “la fête des fous” (January 6th) and ends two days later. The year is specified in Victor Hugo’s book. Full song: https://youtu.be/qkkprH_AO7w

Florian (Snow White’s prince) voiced by Rolf Dieter Heinrich (1994 redub) Both date and setting are provided by the official franchise. Full song: https://youtu.be/aJ5JxmMymY4

John Smith voiced by Mel Gibson “In 1607, we sail the open sea For glory, God, and gold And The Virginia Company” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne2tzfxQ6T4

Eugene voiced by Manuel Straube Both period and location are provided by the official franchise. But while the given time is pretty clear (1650-1815), figuring out the where is a bit more problematic. The location might be somewhere between Austria, Czech Republic or Slovakia. I went with German both considering the original fairytale and because, looking closely at the map, Austria looks to me like the most likely option out of the three. Full song: https://youtu.be/sxceCV0AFEs

The Beast voiced by Emmanuel Jacomy The location is pretty clear, and it was confirmed that the story takes place in 18th century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I6zBWitMh4 Full song: https://youtu.be/B-GHq2xrLTE

Mowgli voice-actor unknown The period given is Kipling’s time, while for the language, even though several languages are spoken in India, I picked the one from which many of the characters’ names come: Hindi. e.g. भालू (“bhālū”) meaning “bear”, शेर (“śer”) meaning “tiger”, अकेला (“akelā”) meaning “alone”. Full song: https://youtu.be/k90yDFh7Ihs

Henri (Cinderella’s prince) voiced by Michel Chevalier (1991 redub) All names of the girls announced at the ball are French and they’re addressed as “mademoiselle”, which confirms the location provided by the official franchise, which is also the source of the time. Full song: https://youtu.be/U1ExXZ4-R5g

Kristoff voiced by Vegard Bjørsmo If we want to trust the map popping up at the end of Frozen Fever, Anna’s next birthday after the events of the first movie was in June 1840 (directors confirmed that Elsa and Anna were born on winter and summer solstice respectively). Since Oaken informs us that Frozen takes place in July, 1840 must be the year after those events, while Frozen 2 takes place three years later, in 1842. Like the Northuldra people in the sequel, Kristoff is a Sami, although he comes from a different tribe. While he can probably speak fluent Norwegian, his native language is doubtlessly Sámi. Full song: https://youtu.be/ugRKi0uGp-Y

Pinocchio voiced by Corrado Pani? Once again, time and place of the original story are the best source we were given. Full song: https://youtu.be/Y6cS3jMjSMY

Naveen voiced by Bruno Campos A newspaper during “Down in New Orleans” reads: “New Orleans, Louisiana, Friday, April, 25, 1926” (though April 25 was actually on a Sunday in 1926).

Dimitri voiced by Сергей Вещёв | Sergey Veshchov Tsar Nicholas II Romanov and his family were arrested on March 22, 1917, following the events of the first Russian Revolution occurred during that year (February Revolution). They will be executed on July 18, 1918. However, the movie uses even a song to let us know that prior events take place in December, month on which, in 1916, Grigori Rasputin was assassinated. As the movie takes place ten years after those events, we can probably count them starting from December 1916, instead of 1917, hence: December 1926. Dimitri is included in this video because 20th Century Fox was purchased by Disney on March 2019, and now on Disney+ the movie is included in the “Princesses” category. On a side note: Saint Petersburg was called Leningrad from 1924 to 1991. Full song: https://youtu.be/3EUdXMi1rkA

Miguel voiced by Luis Ángel Gómez Jaramillo The story takes place in present days (2017 was its release date) in an imaginary town in Mexico. Full song: https://youtu.be/oLrg2zA3poA

Dubbers credits: https://disneyinternationaldubbings.weebly.com/heroes.html

[raeynbowboi]

Dating Disney: The Sword in the Stone

As per a request, I’ll be examining Disney’s 1963 film The Sword in the Stone, based on T.H. White’s tetralogy The Once And Future King. In particular, the first book titled The Sword in the Stone, written in 1938. In the novel, Merlyn ages backwards through time and teaches Wart by transforming him into various animals to prepare him for this future as king.

The Mytho-History of Arthurian England

(image courtesy of Legends Summarized: King Arthur)

So, to keep the history lesson as short and non-boring as possible, let me try to give you the diet bullet points version of early English history. So, England used to be called Albion, and Rome ruled it for a time, even building Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Picts in Scotland out of their territory. Eventually, the Romans pulled out of Albion, and England was ruled by quasi-Roman Britons. Then, with the Fall of Rome on September 4th, 476 AD the Medieval period officially began (yep, the Middle Ages is a Virgo) and England was later sacked and partially conquered by the Angles and Saxons sailing in from the Jutlands in Germania. The Britons were predominantly Celtic, while the Angles and Saxons were Germanic. The Angles and Saxons eventually overtook England, resulting in Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English) to become the official language of England. Don’t worry though, they got what was coming to them in 1066 when William the Conqueror came from Normandy, France, and kicked the Anglo-Saxons out of power and French-speaking rulers had power over England for the rest of the Medieval period. This is also why French names for things are the fancier or more classy words for something. Simple words came from Anglo-Saxon while “fancy” words used by the ruling class come from French. Which is why it’s more “fancy” to call yourself intelligent instead of smart.

So, how does this all pertain to Arthurian Myth? Well, the roots of Arthurian Legend supposedly come from Welsh folklore. One need only look at some key players’ names, such as Guinevere’s original name Gwenhwyfar. Arthur is also frequently referred to as King of the Britons, which is important to remember that the Britons did not refer to the land, but rather to the Celtic peoples living in England before the Anglo-Saxon incursion. So, as a mythos, Arthur has his roots in Welsh-speaking Celtic origins as a Pseudo-mythic king. This is actually not uncommon in Celtic culture, as Ireland has a long and proud history of High Kings of Ireland that very likely never existed, claiming to be ruled from 1514 BCE - 841 AD by legendary mythic kings of Ireland, with the first actual historical High King of Ireland not appearing until 846 AD with Máel Sechnaill I. Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, is supposedly descended from an important Roman family, and thus her marriage to Arthur could also be interpreted as the bond between the Britons and their status as quasi-Roman citizens.

The idea of Arthur as an actual living breathing person first appears in the Annales Cambriae, which states that in the year 72 (c. 516 AD) Arthur won the battle of Baddon, and in the year 93 (c. 537 AD) Arthur and Mordred fell in the Battle of Camlann and there was death in Britain and Ireland. The Annales Cambriae were written around the middle of the 900s AD, so they’re already about 400 years late to the party for being trustworthy eyewitnesses to any shenanigans involving Artie. Arthur’s mythos began to be fleshed out more by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae in the early 1100s, which lays a lot of the groundwork for Arthurian myth, introducing Guinevere, Merlin, and Caliburn, that would later be Frenchified into Excalibur. This is, however, not a book of Arthurian Legend so much as a largely fictitious account of all of the kings of England from Brutus, who settled England, up to Cadwaladr who ruled until 682 AD. This source is a large part of why people suspect Arthur might have been a real person, as he was essentially included in a textbook of England’s kings. There were later stories and updates to the tradition, but the last version came from Thomas Malory’s addition to the Arthurian Mythos in Le Morte d’Arthur at the end of the Medieval Period in 1485. Which also means that yes, Arthurian Legend actually spans the entire breadth of the Medieval Period. From the Fall of Rome in 476 to the end of the War of the Roses in 1485. Le Morte d’Arthur is the most famous version of Arthurian legend, and served as the major inspiration for T.H. White’s Once and Future King. The key feature we’re focused on is that like Le Morte d’Arthur, Arthur was taken from Uther and Igerna and raised by Sir Ector in the country-side until such a time that he pulled the Sword in the Stone, and was deemed the one true King of England.

So, if Arthur was based on a real person, he was probably a quasi-Roman Briton living in the 6th century, and fighting against the Scandinavian invaders. However, there’s also a reason for Arthur to not have existed. The Anglo-Normans who ruled England from 1066 onward had a very low opinion of England. It was rainy, dreary, and full of sheep. It’s speculated that Arthur was hoisted up as a real life legend of British history to effectively give England a more interesting and glorious history and make itself look and/or feel more important, and possibly even to promote nationalist pride. Whether he was a real man turned into a legend, or completely made up, he still is important to English history even to this day. However, as the Arthurian myth grew up, Arthur became more and more distant from his Celtic roots, and it’s not hard to say that the Arthur in the Disney Film is probably an Anglo-Norman, rather than a Celtic Briton. The technology and fashions are simply far too advanced for the 6th century.

Merlin

During his squirrel lesson, Merlin teaches Wart about the principles of gravity, referencing Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, first published in 1687. Upon meeting Wart, he also displays a Da Vinci flying contraption, and a wooden toy train engine. One might assume this is an anachronism, as Merlin also states while lecturing to Wart about his future “in these dark, uncertain medieval times”, and very firmly setting the film between 476 - 1485 AD. However, in the source material, Merlin ages backwards through time. And in other accounts of the Arthurian mythos, Merlin is gifted with a perfect knowledge of the past and future, making him essentially omniscient. The movie takes this a step further, as he not only sees into the future, but can travel through time as well. So, it’s perfectly valid for him to spout off knowledge and lessons that mankind would not discover for centuries afterward. We also see in Merlin’s possession a great number of books. This is important because in the medieval period, books were incredibly valuable, as they had to be written and copied by hand, and were so valuable that libraries chained them to the wall to keep them from being stolen. However, the sheer volume of his collection suggests that the printing press may have been invented, and thus, the film taking place after 1439. However, Merlin’s ability to travel through time makes his ownership of books hard to discern, as he could have easily brought those books back from later time periods.  

Fashion

We see Sir Ector wearing faulds under his cuirass. Faulds are strips of plate armor tied at the hip to protect the hip from harm, looking something akin to skirting. Faulds first appeared in 1370. Sir Kay is wearing a Great Helm, noted for its very bucket-like shape, worn from the late 12 to 14th centuries.

However, during the fish lesson, Merlin takes cover inside of what appears to be an Armet helmet, developed in the 15th century. Which means that either Merlin found a helmet from the future, or Kay is training in a century old helmet. Which is why you can’t just throw medieval stuff willy-nilly onto the screen. the Medieval Period covers 1,009 years.

Toward the end of the film, we see Sir Ector wearing a Bycocket, a unisex hunting hat preferred by the nobility of the 13th and 14th centuries.

Culture

We can see in Arthur’s throne room the Fleur-de-Lis, a symbol of French royalty. The symbol emerged as a symbol of French royalty in the late 13th century. In England, the Fleur-de-lis was used in the royal standard for the Plantagennet family, which ruled England from the Norman Invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066 until Henry Tudor won the War of the Roses in 1485. The Fleur-de-lis was used in the Plantagenet standard beginning in the 13th century.  Merlin also specifies teaching Wart English, Latin, and French. As the Plantagenet family were Anglo-Normans, they all spoke French, and all of the nobility also spoke French. Having Wart learn French would allow him to converse with his royal court, English with his subjects, and Latin with his faith. These three languages would be the most vital tools of an English king in this period to rule justly and to hear the voices of all of his subjects. Too bad the Plantagenets were notorious for not speaking a lick of English. Most of the nobility didn’t. The Peasants and the Aristocracy didn’t even speak the same language, making the gap between the classes wider. However, during the 13th century, the French language finally began to take a backseat to English among the royal court, and the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453) bolstered nationalist pride for the English language among the ruling elite. By the end of the 15th century, English had finally become the mother tongue of the English nobility. So, young Wart living in the 13th or 14th century would certainly have a reason to learn English as an English King.

Conclusion

For the most part, like other Medieval-based movies from older Disney, they didn’t do enough research to really pin-point a clear time period. The movie sort of wants to be in this nebulous timeless part of England’s mytho-history, so I’m really left with guessing a time period based on the general clothing, look, and feel of the setting, which feels like it could be set at the same time or even slightly earlier than Sleeping Beauty. The most things seem to line up with a late 13th, early 14th century setting. So, I’ll conclude that we’re slightly ahead of the Italian Renaissance, as Arthur Plantagenet takes up the English Throne. In fact, this also aligns with the real life history of England. In 1377, Edward III died after his eldest son, causing a succession crisis that sparked the War of the Roses. Likewise, the Sword in the Stone was used in the film to prevent a war for succession after the King of England died without a known heir. The parallels line up nicely enough that since Disney tends to run on its own logic that the succession of King Arthur would likely be their alternate history solution to the War of the Roses. More still, after Edward III died, 12-year-old Boy King Richard II was chosen to succeed Edward III, and his uncles who had been passed over for the crown opposed his rule. Likewise, Wart is 12 in the film, becomes king, and Arthur did canonically have to fight dissenters who opposed his claim to the crown. So, Wart is, according to this movie, a very nice stand-in for Richard II of England. Both Arthur and Richard II were also eventually foisted from his throne by power-hungry relatives. In Arthur’s case, his nephew or illegitimate son Mordred tries to usurp his throne and both kill each other in the process. In Richard’s case, he was deposed by his cousin Henry IV in 1399. They even ruled for about the same amount of time, as Arthur became king canonically in 512 at the age of 15, and died in 537 at the age of 40. Arthur ruled for 25 years, and Richard ruled for 22. So that’s an admittedly uncanny series of parallels. So, Wart is the Disney Alternate History version of Richard II the Boy King of England. (reign 1377-1399) And to think, the same king helped inspire the sadistic boy king Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones.

Setting: England Kingdom: The Kingdom of England (927 - 1707 AD) House: House Pendragon/House Plantagenet (1066-1485) Era: the War of the Roses Period: The Late Middle Ages (1250 - 1500 AD) Year: 1377 AD Historic Counterpart: Richard II of England (1377-1399) Language: Middle English (1150-1500 AD)                        Anglo-Norman French (1066-1500 AD)                        Medieval Latin (927 - 15th century)

[belphegor1982]

AND ALSO THAT TIME YOU KILLED PHIL

I’m never gonna live that one down, am I :D Okay, let’s go.

He always says it, and Lawrence always shrugs. It’s almost becomean in-joke now.

The prompt was “You don’t have to stay”, and I have no idea why my mind conjured the image of Spy (at the end of a long, eventful life) in a hospital bed saying this to Sniper. But once it took hold it wouldn’t let go. And, y’know, for all that I love writing humour, banter, and/or fluff, sometimes I just have to let rip with the brutal down-to-earth feels. Like when I wrote If.

Of the two of them, it’s hard to say who hates hospitals the most,so Philippe is always grateful when Lawrence comes to visit. Usuallyhe comes alone, but sometimes one of his grandnephews or nieces comeswith him, Lizzie’s and Christian’s kids and grandkids, of course! and the conversation is livelier and dwells less on thepast, which is just as well. Their past is splattered with litres andlitres of blood, half of it their own.

Spy is French and, I suspect, remains French in certain aspects of his life. Hence the using “litres” instead of “galleons”. Also, while the premise of TF2 is “a bunch of cheerful dumb psychos who can’t die killing each other for a paycheck” - classic video game fare, and goofy as hell - the implications are interesting. By “implications” I mean “possible PTSD” and by “interesting” I mean “fun to explore through writing/torturing characters”, naturally.

Does killing people for a living make you a murderer when said deadpeople keep coming back for more the very next day? Philippe haspondered this more often than not, these past few years. Sometimes,instead of asking himself, he asks Lawrence, because he’s the onlyone left he can ask, but Lawrence has no answer of his own.

See what I mean about the premise? Hence my taking crack seriously. It’s a reasonably good question, too - it makes you an assassin, but does it make you a murderer if you know the people you keep killing keep coming back?

(They’re not the last ones left, but it certainly feels like it.Scout’s in Boston and Miss Pauling lives in Louisiana and theyhardly see each other any more. Sometimes they Skype. Ever sincePhilippe checked into the hospital he’s refused to do anything morethan chat, though.)

TF2 is set in the 1960s/early 1970s. That means this snippet is set in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Notice how Scout and Pauling are the youngest? This is why they’re the only ones left. And the reason why Spy doesn’t want to Skype since he’s checked into the hospital is because he’s wasting away, knows he’s not coming out alive, and refuses to appear as weak/leave a bad impression of him in their memories. Or, how vanity can make you sad instead of making you want to roll your eyes. (but you do anyway.)

* * *

“You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“That’s all right, I don’t have anywhere else I need to be tillsixteen hundred.”

Sniper spends a lot of time in that hospital.

They still use military time. It reminds them of the bad old days andthe way Soldier – ironically enough – never got the hang of it.

Don’t tell me Jane Doe would understand military time :D was he even in the military in the first place? Also, this is just funny to me, because in France we use a version of that to tell the time. 1PM is “13 heures”, 8PM is “20 heures” (but midnight is “minuit”).

Philippe still uses the metric system in his head, come to think ofit.

As I said, for some things he remains 100% French.

When it comes to plunging your knife into someone’s back with theintention of causing as much damage as possible, a centimetre willalways be more precise than an inch.

…and that’s also a factor.

* * *

Philippe stays at the hospital. Lawrence stays at his side.

He brings him news of his nephews and nieces (Lizzie’s andChristian’s kids) and their children, and it’s a treat, watchinghim awkwardly sliding the photos on his phones with his huge, bonyfingers. He loves technology – has a ridiculous amount of apps onhis phone – but the emphasis on touch screens lately annoys him.

I didn’t want to go the obvious route and make old!Lawrence a grumpy curmudgeon with no technological skills. But I liked the idea of him being grumpy because his fingers are getting a little stiff with age and he prefers buttons to touch screens. My dad is the same, btw.

Philippe hasn’t touched his own phone in a couple of days. Justpicking it up seemed like too much of an effort.

* * *

“You don’t have to stay.”

Hey, notice how the last time this sentence pops up it’s just a little different? :3

“Keep that up, spook, and I’ll end up believin’ I’minterrupting something each time I come in. Is it that red-hairednurse, ya know, the one with the freckles?”

I purposely didn’t specify the gender of the nurse. That’s because 1) I like the idea of Phil being bi and 2) at the time I wasn’t 100% sure - and didn’t want to decide for the readers, Chaos in particular - whether he and Law were a couple or really close friends. That’s for you to decide. They 100% are each other’s family, though.

Lawrence’s voice is low on purpose, even as he’s gently ribbinghim. Philippe murmurs because his chest feels like a slab ofconcrete.

Or a slab of stone. Like the kind they put on people’s graves.

What can I say? I love wordplay. In this instance it’s effective.

“No.”

“Ah well. Thought he liked ya. I was all ready to get jealous andeverythin’, too.”

He’s ribbing him, of course, as Phil is a little too far gone for Lawrence to get jealous - but again, I deliberately kept the nature of their relationship vague.

Lawrence’s slight smile – the sort that says ‘Come on, playalong’ – is warm and gentle, and it makes Philippe almost not saywhat he means to say.

Almost.

Okay, truth: this was the point I knew death was imminent. 

“Lawrence…”

Even whispering is an effort. Putain de cigarettes.

“Fucking cigarettes”. I usually put translations when I write in other languages but I thought this one was obvious enough.

“Yeah?”

“Could you… look away, please? For a… moment.”

There’s a French series called Lazy Company, about a handful of idiots through the Battle of Normandy; it’s three seasons of 10 episodes and while hilarious is a big case of Cerebus Syndrome and mood whiplash. In one of the last episodes, one of the main characters is shot and another character is there for them, but the dying character asks them to look away as he dies. It’s not for the same reasons at all, but it was such a powerful moment that it stayed with me a long time, and was still on my mind when I wrote this.

Lawrence says nothing, but his eyes narrow.

“It’s just… I need… intimacy.” Suddenly he’s not sureit’s the right word. He’s been speaking almost exclusivelyEnglish for over fifty or sixty years; words usually flow withoutthinking. But right now he has thrown his whole body into the laststruggle, and it’s an effort that dwarfs all others, including thesearch for vocabulary.

Do you know the worst part of being bilingual? You end up searching for words in both languages, especially when you’re tired. Incidentally, I love writing characters who speak more than one language, especially if they live in an environment where they have to speak a second language.

Lawrence still squints at him silently, as though he’s waiting foran explanation. Philippe isn’t sure he’ll hear the end.

“T—thank you. For staying. Thank you. But…”

They’ve dealt death so many times, the two of them; they’ve diedso many times, too, whether in the heat and chaos of battle or curledup on themselves, bleeding to death in a corner. They’ve never diedalone. There’s always been someone – the enemy standing overthem, allies running towards them in a last ditch attempt at rescue,their comrades’ and the Administrator’s voice in their earpieces…

Again, crack taken seriously. Usually in fiction, dying alone is about the worst fate a dying character can meet: there’s just something about facing that pain and that terrifying unknown without the comfort of a fellow human being that’s heartbreaking. But when your life used to be death, repeatedly, with someone ALWAYS watching you or listening to you… Well, I thought Phil might see dying without someone else’s eyes on him for once as going out with dignity.

And then there is the other sort of death that Philippe saw wellbefore that, the slow death of the human mind as he strugglednot to turn into a living shadow because it was just one step awayfrom the corpses the SS guards cleared off the ground as though theywere refuse.

Look, Em, I don’t know when you got the idea that Spy was a death camp survivor, but you pulled it off magnificently and when I think of TF2 it’s your version that comes to my mind first. So - Phil has seen that kind of impersonal, industrial death (mental and physical) before the violent, repeated kind of his chosen profession. I used the reminder to segue into the next idea:

Philippe has never seen death as being dignified and intimate. He’sseen way too much of it for that. But if this is to be the end, he’llbe damned if he doesn’t do this on his own terms.

And that’s what this is about. Dying with dignity, side by side with a friend who doesn’t think any less of you for not fighting one more minute and allows you the respect of not prying while staying and holding your hand.

Lawrence stares at him, waiting for the rest of the sentence. ButPhilippe is struggling for breath now, not vocabulary. So Lawrencenods slowly, takes his limp, emaciated hand in his own, big andgangly and calloused, and resolutely turns his head right, towardsthe window.

It’s not a bad sight.

I’m usually pretty uptight about third-person limited PoVs, and only switch PoVs after a dash or something else that makes it clear you’re seeing the action through the eyes of a different character. In this instance, though, I didn’t, and made the switch from Phil’s to Law’s mind just as Phil passes away.

Philippe’s hand twitches at some point. Lawrence waits a littlebefore looking down again.

Then he reaches out and slowly, gently, closes the half-open eyes.

The reason I didn’t write tears was because I thought I didn’t need to. Which also means you’re free to imagine whatever you want. Is Lawrence crying? Will he cry later, when it sinks in? Yes.

Whew, this was A Lot to revisit :D

[lovenikkimadegeeky]

WHY [DEICIDE KALPA] COMING BACK AS A RECHARGE FOR THE 3RD TIME IS BAD FOR THE PLAYERS OF LOVE NIKKI

[Kalpa] is the first suit to come back as a recharge for a 3rd time. On all other servers, every recharge comes back to the {Store} and/or for crafting after 6 months.

But wait, [X] came out 6+ months ago for us and it’s not available to buy/craft? That’s because back in March LN started selling recharge suits twice. We are the only server that does this which means that we are the only server that doesn’t get the suits for buying/crafting after 6 months. [Kalpa], if we were on any other server, would have been available for buying/crafting since AUGUST.

SO WHY DOES IT MATTER THAT IT’S RETURNING FOR A THIRD TIME? If all suits can return for a third time what’s to stop it from returning for a fourth or fifth time? What’s to stop them from just never releasing it for buying/crafting? Since March we’ve only had one recharge suit come back for buying/crafting. We should have so many more recharge suits to buy/craft and instead we get [Kalpa] back as a recharge for a third time.

This is incredibly unfair for so many reasons. Why is our server, and again it’s only our server, losing the option to get these suits for free? Why aren’t we being treated as well as the other servers? Free-to-play players should be able to get these suits. (For the record, I am not f2p.) Players who can’t afford to buy every recharge should be able to get these suits. Every player on the other servers, no matter their VIP level, can get these suits eventually except us. And that’s bullshit. We deserve better.

I can’t tell you what to do but I can tell you that if [Kalpa] sells well this time and if we don’t make our voices heard about how we’re not going to stand for this, then suits will continue to come back for recharge over and over again. And they may never come back for buying/crafting. It seems like such a little thing but this could completely change the way the game works.

We can change their minds. We can make them listen to us. We’ve done it before. Check out below the read more for ideas on how to do so (apologies to app users for whom “read more” doesn’t work):

Comment on every post on LN’s fb and write a public post on their page listing why this is shitty. Comment on every instagram post. Leave a negative review on fb, google play, and/or the apple app store. Email them at cs1nikkigame@gmail.com. Bury them in a fucking deluge of messages about how we refuse to be treated so unfairly.

Put your money where your mouth is and let them know to what degree them bringing back recharges a 3rd time and not bringing them back to buy/craft will impact your spending. Please only tell them something that you’ll stick by because they need to take us seriously. Tell them that you’ll never purchase a recharge brought back for a third time. Tell them that you won’t purchase anything when a recharge is for sale a third time. Tell them that you’ll stop spending money at all if they don’t stop bringing back recharges for a third time. Choose whichever of these you’ll follow through on. Money is the #1 thing that they’ll pay attention to so make them pay attention by making it a financially bad choice for them to ignore you.

If you send them a message, some key things to keep in mind when writing it: If you do have a VIP level, make sure to mention it, so they know you've spent money on the game in the past. Specify the consequences if they don't listen to us. Let them know why you feel strongly about this; if free-to-play players are a big part of that, make sure to mention them. Remember that they’re not native English speakers and they've shown that their grasp of English isn't great. This isn't a judgement on them, rather I'm bringing this up so you'll keep that in mind; try to use simpler words and language, so that there’s less of a chance of them coming across a word or phrase that might cause confusion.

If you’re lazy or low on spoons or hate writing an emails, below I’ve pasted the email that I sent them. Make sure to change it to fit your personal play style and/or your personal opinions. Making it not look like a copy/paste would be great but I understand if that’s too much and I think a copy/paste would be better than no email at all. 

........

I am VIP 6 and I will not be buying anything while Deicide Kalpa is up for recharge a third time. Any time any suit comes up for recharge a third time, I will not spend any money the entire time it is up. If you continue to bring suits back for recharge for a third time, I will stop spending money entirely.

Free to play players deserve to also get these suits and it's unfair to them to not bring recharge suits back for free the way all the other servers do. One of the reasons that I love this game as much as I do, and one of the reasons I was willing to start spending money on it, was because you gave free to play players the ability to also get recharge suits. If you're going to be unfair to free to play players, which was one of the main reasons I started spending money, I'll just stop giving you money.

All players deserve to be treated with the respect that other servers get and a recharge suit coming back a third time shows that you're not giving us that same respect, especially not your free to play players.

....... 

And, no, this is not happening because we boycotted ranking events. The Chinese server boycotted ranking events in 2015 and their recharges do not come back as a recharge for a second time and they still come to the store/crafting after 6 months. (See the comments for sources.) Let me reiterate, we are the only server that they are doing this to, including another server which also boycotted ranking events. We are being treated poorly for no reason other than they’ve decided our server, for whatever reason, doesn’t deserve the same respect other servers get. And it’s bullshit.

[sope-and-shine]

Don’t Save Me, I’m Fine: Prologue

->  Pairings: Yoongi x OC // Hoseok x OC // OT7 X OC’s -> Save Me! AU // Fluff // Angst  -> Word Count: 2.4k -> Summary: After finally bringing all of them together and settling the loop once and for all, the boys find themselves creating a new chapter in their lives. They rekindle friendships, form new bonds, and try to start over again with the 7 of them all together again. Everything is fine until one day of fun turns into a day that just won’t seem to end. Friends need help, but what if they don’t want it? -> Warning(s): Angst // Future mentions of death // Future mentions of suicide // Future mentions of blood, violence, and toxic relationships // Mild and vulgar language in future chapters // This story does continue where the Save Me webtoon left off, so there will be spoilers and our own interpretation of how things may have happened where the story doesn’t specify or how things may have progressed afterwords with our own characters. I do not recommend this story if any of these mentions could be harmful for you. I’d hate for someone to get into the story and then not finish if it becomes too much.

A/N: Admin Belle and I have been working on this for almost a year now, and we’re both very excited to share it with everyone. This story has gone through several plot changes, theories, and depictions of how exactly this loop will work for us. I really hope everyone likes what we’ve done! ~ Fae  

-----------

The seven boys watch the sun as it descends into the ocean, taking the weight on their shoulders with it. They spent the previous night in Jin’s empty apartment counting down the seconds, cheering in victory when April 11th turned into the 12th. Tears were shed in happiness that the timeline was back on track, and sadness for everything that they had put each other through. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no shattering, no screams, and no one trying to pull them back. No more days spent racing the clock. No more days hoping and praying everything would be okay. The countless hours spent writing and rewriting their fates was finally done for. 

They were free…

Shoulder to shoulder, sitting on the edge of a stone wall that overlooks the sea, Jimin is the first to break their comfortable silence, “What do we do now?” 

“What do you mean?” Hoseok asks, lifting his head from Yoongi’s shoulder.

“Now that everything is okay, where do we go from here?” Jimin asks, playing with the ends of his sweater. It all felt too good to be true. One wrong move and the day they’d been reliving over and over again would just become another day to relive again.

“We live our lives the way we want to.” Taehyung says. His boxy smile is bright, and it’s the first one in a while that isn’t forced or fake. No more tiptoeing around his father, no more worrying for his sister’s safety, no more late nights just hoping his dad would be asleep when he arrived. The past few years have been rough for everyone, especially Jin in the last ‘few days’. Just being together like this again was like a new beginning for everyone. However, it would seem Taehyung wasn’t the only member of the group excited about the news. 

“Guk, are you crying?!” Taehyung laughs. Sure enough, Jeongguk - who sits next to him - has a silly smile on his face and red rimming his eyes from where the tears had been falling silently.

“No!” The youngest protests, his voice cracking and tattling on him. He looks down to his lap and moves a hand to shield his face from the view of his elder, “I just have something in my eye…”

“Leave the kid alone.” Yoongi grumbles, his hood resting on top of his head. He would never admit it, but the hood was really just a cover for his own tears. It covers most of his face, but Taehyung still manages to catch a glisten on his cheek.

The hyper boy slaps a hand on the recluse to his right, “You’re crying too!”

“Taehyung!” Yoongi is quick to turn to his friend in anger to shove him off, but Taehyung is even quicker. The younger boy is up and running away before the angry grandpa-man in his 20s can even land a hit on him, and Yoongi is quick to shuffling out of Hoseok’s side hug to chase after him.

Namjoon leans back on his hands and sighs with everything he has, “You’re all too much…”

Even with the sounds of Taehyung’s screams and pleas to the older man to spare him, the sounds of the boys laughing at them, and the sounds of the waves crashing below them; this time together was still one of the most peaceful moments of Namjoon’s life. All of his friends together again, spending time together, just enjoying life together how life should be enjoyed.

After the boys have all settled back into their places and the sun has finally gone down past the horizon, Jin stands from his spot on the wall to head back into the city. “Let’s just go and watch the clock change, then we can get some sleep.” 

“Thank you.” Yoongi huffs. He’s still covered in sweat, not used to running for an entire 30 seconds like he had. 20 minutes had not being enough of a recovery time for his poor, grandpa-like persona. He and the rest follow Jin back to the truck to pile in for the ride home.

“Can we get some food first?” Taehyung asks, climbing into the truck bed with Jeongguk.

“Hey, who wants to be my cuddle buddy?” Jimin pouts playfully, a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth while scanning his eyes over all of his friends in hopes that one will agree to his request. None really want to answer him nor do they want to partake in the action, but Yoongi is the only one willing to speak up, “I will actually castrate you if you even try to touch me.”

Jimin puffs out his lips and makes grabby hands, “But Yoongi~”

The two have a stare down, Yoongi glaring while Jimin tries not to smile. The others around them ignore the exchange in favour of climbing into the car, the battle finally being settled when Yoongi turns away from the boy in front of him. “Get in the back with, Kookie.”

“Fine.” Jimin uses the tire as a step, pulls himself up, and hops over the side into the bed with the other two, “Make room for me!”

As the days kept coming, they all needed to work their way back into the world. Jeongguk had gone back to school with the encouragement of Jin and Namjoon. He was back in every class, including new weekend tutoring sessions to improve his math and English. He even went home just to test the waters a bit. It wasn’t completely new, and he was still anxious to be in the environment, but he was happy to be there anyways. Taehyung moved into a new apartment with his sister after finally leaving that godforsaken apartment. He got a small job working at a pet store a couple blocks away so he could still be close enough to his sister in the event that she would ever need him. Jimin and Hoseok had eventually found jobs despite the problems they carried with them; just the two of them working at a small dance studio looking for help. They worked with children since nobody else really wanted to, but neither of them really minded it all that much. Namjoon had dragged Yoongi to work at the gas station with him so neither of them would be alone anymore, and at least they’d be there to care for each other. Jin continued his job, working well with his coworkers now that he wasn’t stuck in time trying to save his friends. Now he could live his life as normally as possible. He could see his family again, take the time off to see them after so much time was spent away. There were so many people that he had yet to see because of the loop, and it felt like he had neglected those that he loved. But Jin would let the feeling pass, because he knew the truth…

…they all did.

As the days continue on, the boys began to pick up old conversations as they came into the picture. Guk found himself seeing his tutor two times a week rather than once on the weekend due to how much he genuinely enjoyed being there! Granted, it was only enjoyable because he already knew her before everything had happened, actually being a friend to him before she had graduated and moved to study abroad. She was nice, and didn’t reprimand him as most teachers usually did, she made him feel like he was in a familial environment and that made him happy.

Then there was Jimin and Hoseok. They figured they would get attached to some of the children at the studio, but they never expected some of the kids to be this cute! It was easy to love them, especially when they were all so good at dancing. A pair of twins - one boy and one girl - had definitely caught their attention with how cute they were together. Always insisting to work with each other and helping the other out. They even tried to sneak snacks to each other during practice(But that ended in a long talk about how you could hurt yourself eating while practicing). They both had brown hair - the sister having longer hair than her brother, big hazel eyes, and cute dimples that would appear from time to time. All in all, they were cute; however, the surprise got even better when they saw who was picking them up.

In a turn of events, Jin’s sister was actually the one who was picking up the kids, and they hadn’t noticed until Jin came by one day to bring them lunch. It was an emotional reunion for both siblings, especially with Jin thinking the kids were hers at first. Thinking for even a moment that he had a niece or a nephew was a big deal - let alone to have two! - but she was quick to stop him before he got overwhelmed. After explaining that she was just picking up her godchildren to babysit for the afternoon like she did most days, the two finally got to spend a day together as siblings - with the children present of course - and it was nice for the both of them to be together again.

Yoongi and Namjoon also hadn’t expected to see old faces. One of the cars that had pulled up one day was an old buddy of Namjoon’s from high school, someone that would hang around with both of them on the occasion. It was that typical, ‘I haven’t seen you since high school!’, ‘How have you been?’, ‘We should totally catch up!’ kind of thing. Despite mistakes and differences there may have been in the past, it was nice to see that he had grown since those times. And it was easy to accept the offer for free booze, so why not give him a chance?

Everything in the world was right now. 

Everything was working well for them. 

It was Saturday, and it was the only day of the week all of the boys could be together all day. They had agreed that one day a week was necessary for keeping their friendship - and the universe - at bay. Saturday’s were always fun for that reason, and the boys couldn’t be happier. It was later in the day, and they were all settling in for the night on the floor of Jin’s living room. Everyone was winding down despite the slightly early hour of 7:45, and the takeout in front of them smelled so good. The laughing and the movie playing in the background really drowned out everything, and Jin was sure his neighbor’s would complain sooner or later for the noise. 

The serial killer on the screen slashes into the teenage victim, mutilating her as his 2nd victim within 5 minutes. A few boys are slightly bothered - but the sight isn’t terrible enough that they can’t bear to watch at all - there are the few that are completely unbothered by the scenes in front of them, and then there’s Hoseok who is hidden behind his pillow trying to block out the grotesque scene before him, “How come we always watch horror movies?” 

“Because your reactions are the best!” Taehyung says, munching on his popcorn. Hoseok glares at him and sends a pillow his way, knocking the popcorn bowl right out of his lap and sending its contents all over the floor. Taehyung, not amused by his hyungs antics retaliates with another pillow right back at him. The two continue their petty fighting until receiving a pillow upside the head from the youngest of the group, “Stop it! This is the best part!”

Yoongi - who’d been suffering in silence this whole time from his blanket shield - finally speaks up, “How is this the best part?!”

The door to the room on the screen bursts open, banging against a wall and scaring everyone. The police officer heroine is hidden amongst the shelves with her gun in one hand and her other covering her mouth. Her partner is somewhere up top amongst the shadows as her back up, but the killer could still end them both. In the end, the heroine was able to end the night in peace with her partner at her side knowing the killer was locked up, but the ending scene left them knowing a sequel would be coming soon. 

“Well, that’s another movie that I’ll never watch again added to the last.” Hoseok sighs, laying his head against Jimin’s thigh on the couch. The small boy lets out a soft chuckle and pats his brother’s head, “It really wasn’t all that bad, hyung.”

“I think Yoongi disagrees,” Jin stares at his friend from his seat, watching the small rise and fall of the blanket. He shakes his head with amusement, “Nevermind. I think he’s sleeping.”

The boys start cleaning up around the living room, all avoiding the sleeping man lying on the floor. Even through the loud, piercing sound of the vacuum and the hearty laughs from his friends, the man was not stirred from his slumber. All of them were both equally disturbed and surprised that he managed to remain peaceful through it all. 

“How long do you think he’ll stay like that?” Namjoon asks from his spot at the kitchen sink, staring into the open space of the living room of the studio apartment. In the midst of all the now clean space, Yoongi laid wrapped in his blanket without a care in the world.

Jeongguk - from the hall closet alongside the kitchen - shrugs as he puts the vacuum away. “Who knows.”

The others take their seats once again to continue their conversations, discussing what they should do for the rest of the night. In the distance, the sound of a siren is blaring. It’s whining getting closer and closer, more prominent to their ears as it reaches them. Taehyung becomes curious, “Do you guys hear that?”

Yoongi lifts his head in curiosity, “It sounds like an ambulance or something.” He showed no sign of fatigue at all, only the bed head from having his head submerged under the fabric of the blanket.

“Were you awake this whole time?! You bastard!” Jin yells, throwing his pillow in his direction.

“He’s right though… There are first responders here.” Jimin had moved from his seat to take a look outside. Down below at the bottom of the building were two police vehicles, a firetruck, and an ambulance with lights flashing. A crowd of people were formed around them and it looked pretty serious as another police cruiser shows up to the scene, “Someone must be hurt.”

Jin slumps in thought, “I hope it wasn’t the old lady on the first floor. She shares her cookies with me sometimes.” 

“I’m sure she’s fine Jin, maybe it’s something minor.” Namjoon says, trying to reassure his friend. It would’ve been reassuring, had it not been for the cold chill that swept through the room like a ghost. Chills down everyone’s spine as the room continued to grow colder and colder by the second. “Why did it get so cold?”

Jin had frozen in his spot, this feeling all too familiar to him. The feeling of an old friend he wished to never meet again, yet here it was with arms wide open for him. He knew… something wasn’t right. Lifting his head up, he tried to warn them of the danger ahead of them, but he - as well as the others - were already disappearing right in front of him. 

Slipping through the cracks of reality.

[tuyetanliu]

here are some tips & tricks to elevate your prose! some tips are told over & over again but i post, with hope, that some tips you haven’t heard before. i won’t call them laws but i want all writers to create a list of prose rules for themselves because rules constrict the way your write & forces prose into a corner where it’s stronger & exceptional.

if you’re writing anything above 50k+, read flash fiction. of course, read everything, but i recommend & specify flash fiction for the economy of prose. shorter fiction is constrained to a certain amount of words & they’re economical. the prose of short fiction works harder to convey a story, to impact you. there isn’t room for mistake & useless content.

avoid filter words/weasel words. everyone says this; avoid. those. filter. words. with the words, your prose is less punchy & impactful & as the name implies, your reader experience a filtered version of the story. here’s a list. kill those words. 

avoid words ending in -ing if possible. sometimes, words with -ing are unavoidable but if you can burn them, you should. my creative writing course in university & my current beta/editor banned any use of words with -ing. it’s abrasive to prose & several in a row sound similar to a hive of cicadas. light those words on fire. they’re not pleasant to the ear.

burn passive voice out of your prose. the “by zombies” rules is great but slap it into a passive word editor since it takes less time. now, why burn passive voice out of prose? passive voice, and filter words, creates a distance between the reader & the work. no one wants that unless it’s to create atmosphere but even then, passive voice can equate to bad writing.

watch your writing for glue content. (my greatest weakness) now, you wonder, what in the fresh hell is glue content? my personal editor explains it as the two-hundred most common words in the english language & those needless words occupy space. high glue content means your writing is tired, dull, and full of useless content. they might tell your story well enough, but we don’t tread in mediocrity, & a high glue content creates subpar & grey prose. here’s a list! reword your sentences to avoid a glue content higher than 40%. 

adverbs (-ly words) as perfume. i don’t mind adverbs but without them, your prose is crisper & stronger. i’m not my editor as she believes all adverbs should die a fiery death in a volcano but you need to set a limit on how many adverbs you use per (insert number, i use five thousand) words. also, check if your adverb accompanies a word & reduces it to a redundant phrase. (example: she yelled loudly.)

why use bland verbs? be dramatic, be unapologetic & punch with your prose. your character wasn’t “cut”; they were slashed, they were portioned, any other word besides cut. an economical mindset with prose demands the rise of effectiveness & elevation of a writer’s abilities. bland verbs obliges writers to include adverbs & the use dramatic verbs renders adverbs worthless.

cut your adjectives. i caution you before you try this; write without adjectives. if it feels sparse or abandoned of stylistic flare, add them in, but one-by-one. with adjectives, your prose is overwrought. cut your adjectives until it tightens prose to an unmatched tautness & impenetrability.

cut your similes. my editor tried me for the crime of the use of “like” as if it earned me a dollar per use. treat “like” as an adverb. limit your use & omit it from sentences whenever possible. they’re not needed. example: (his magic brushed against mine like a summer breeze at the beach.) becomes (his magic brushed against mine, a summer breeze at the beach.)

don’t tag all your dialogue. if the speaker is easy to identify, no need to use a dialogue tag, & if there is an action beat, there isn’t a need for a tag. keep prose economical!

vary your sentence structure. long fiction full of only short or long sentences drives readers away. you need a rhythm. vary sentences from their structures, lengths, & content as it creates smooth prose & keeps the reader’s attention. lack of variety creates stale prose.

don’t overuse punctuation. correct punctuation is great but some writers treat punctuation as a style supplement. my editor bans this practice. you can write as you wish but many readers/editors agree that an overuse of punctuation becomes too noticeable & drags your prose down into the dumpster. the use of em dashes & parentheses is the most common offender. commas & semicolons flow easier through prose, but caution with your punctuation.

kill all cliches. cliches mean you lack imagination with your prose & imagery. cliches mean you use stale references that kill any impact or uniqueness you wish to have. my editor murders any cliche i write with a ruthlessness akin to a hurricane & i’m thankful, most of the time, for it. kill your cliches & replace them with a unique image/phrase.

concrete imagery > vague abstracts unless your work-in-progress relies on vague abstracts to convey an atmosphere/theme, replace them with concrete imagery. don’t say your character craves happiness; describe their image of happiness & what it means. what do they picture when they imagine (insert blank emotions or vague abstract)? use that instead of “they craved happiness.”

you’re not a writer from 1800s. keep it simple & don’t overwrite. look at your genres & at the typical word counts of books. now, look at them again. keep to the standard. you might think: but tuyet an! there’s so many writers with word counts higher than the standard! my response: they’re them & you’re you. they’re established authors with a foundation to rely on. agents recoil at debut projects over the standard. keep your word count within range.

[i-growl-growl-growl]

Hii, I wanted to ask you something, I read that you study in Japan and my friend asked me a while ago to go with her to Japan to study there because I wanted to study abroad cuz Europe is boring lol and so she asked me and I really don't know about it, could you maybe list some bad and goid things from your experience there ? That'd be helpful I think thanks for your time bubs❤

You should definitely take the chance to study abroad here, or where ever you have the ability to go, if you ever get the chance.

I would just like to start off by saying that many people come here excited to explore Japan but often leave disappointed because they had expectations that were far too high to ever be met. If you’re going to come to Japan be open minded about how it’s not going to fit every stereotype and every rumor that you’ve been led to believe about it. A lot of people come here believing that all of Japan is this futurist wonderland, like in all of those sci-fi movies, and although it does have its advanced technological aspects it isn’t the entirety of Japan that is like that, in fact it’s mostly just the major touristic spots that are typically that way. A lot of people also come here thinking the exact opposite, that it’ll be like stepping into a land that has been preserved by history: they’ll see samurai, sumo wrestlers, and geishas walking around in their kimonos everywhere, that is also not the case.

Now, I can tell you that this is going to be pretty lengthy so strap yourselves in and prepare for “a long ass ride.”

From my experiences ((and overall just random information that I think would be benefitial for you to know)), lets start with the BAD/shocking ones:

  1.       I don’t know what the bicycling situation is like in Europe but, here in Japan, bicyclists will use the sidewalks alongside normal pedestrians. The sidewalks are already pretty small, and considering how crowded it can get, things can get a bit scary when you find yourself having to play chicken with a bicyclist on the sidewalk. Always have one ear clear of any headphones or earphones so that you can hear the bicyclists approaching you from a distance so that you can prepare yourself to move out of the way. Japanese bicyclists will tend to not move out of the way for you so, if you find yourself in the position of playing chicken with them and you think you’ll have the chance at winning…. you won’t! They will ram your ass into the concrete OR stop dead in the tracks right in front of you and wait for you to step to the side for them. (I have a personal story that goes with this situation that explains why I have such an undying H.A.T.R.E.D for bicyclists here in Japan but it’d take centuries for me to write so I’ll leave it out.)

2.           Bring a small bar or bottle of soap that only you will use and carry it with you in your personal purse or bag because many of the public Japanese bathroom DO NOT have soap, if they do then it’s usually a single bar of soap that everyone who has been in the restroom has used.

3. & 4.     This isn’t an experience that I had because I did research before coming here but make sure that you bring a laptop that will work in Japan and make sure that you have a phone that is unlocked . There are many laptops that WILL NOT work once you try to convert them to work with the Japanese…… (I forgot what it’s called)….. computer systems……..     Luckily my laptop is an ASUS which works wonderfully in Japan. Unfortunately, I don’t know what other laptops work in Japan after being brought from other countries so I can’t help you much in that aspect. If your laptop isn’t compatible to work in Japan then you’ll have to buy one in Japan (which could be a hassle because you’ll have to convert it to function in a language that you do understand etc. etc.) As for the phone, unless you have worldwide coverage, you’ll need to order a SIM to put in your phone so that it’ll work while you’re here. Many international students weren’t aware of both of these things and found out that their phone was locked so they couldn’t remove the original sim and put the Japanese one in so they had to buy new phones in Japan (which is a pain in the ass) or they had to buy a new laptop. When ordering a SIM, if that’s the route you’re going to take, you have the choice of Data only or Voice and Data. Prices will vary depending on the provider you’re going through, how long you intend to use their SIM, and how much data + voice calling you want to have each month. I’d personally recommend that you go through SakuraMobile (the provider I’m using).

5.       It is rude to eat or drink while you are walking around or sitting in public. On a hot summer or fall day, this will REALLY SUCK because you’ll want nothing more than to take a few swigs of your water, or whatever beverage you have, to cool you down. There will also be days where you want to rip open one of your snacks and eat it at the park or as you’re walking or waiting for the train or bus but you can’t, because it’s rude.

6.      Blowing your nose in public is EXTREMELY rude. DO NOT  blow your nose in public, EVER! If you find yourself to be in a pickle because you have allergies or have a runny nose you better run to a convenience store and buy yourself a good pack of surgical masks to put on over your face. It is considered a kind and considerate thing to do, especially if you are sick because no one wants to catch or spread germs.

7.      make sure you know where you can use you credit card to pull out cash because Japan is a cash based country. It is RARE  to find a place that will take credit cards, especially foreign credit cards. AGAIN, this could be where convenience stores are of convenience to you: convenience stores will often have an atm within them that accepts credit cards from various countries and you can use these to get cash so long as you pay an exchange fee for the transaction. Be aware that, if these atms do accept your card, you know how much you can withdraw within a 24 or 48 hour period because it’d suck for you to spend all the money you have while thinking you can just withdraw more once you run out only to find out that you’ve maxed out how much money you can take out within the specified 24-48 hour period.

8.        CROWDS!!!!!!!!!! If you hate crowds you’ll hate Japan. Even if you don’t hate crowds you’ll simultaneously learn to hate crowds but learn to live with them at the same time during your stay in Japan. If you think Japan is crowded based off of what you’ve seen in animes, movies or tv shows or based off of horror rumors that you’ve heard from friends, family, or online and you wonder if it can really be that crowded… yes it is. IT’S WORSE ACTUALLY!!!! The rumors about being crammed against each other, packed in the trains or buses like a can of sardines is NO FUCKING JOKE!!!! If you’re a person who needs their personal space… good luck finding it in Japan, most specifically when on public transit. Tokyo, by far, is the ABSOLUTE WORST when it comes to crowds.        ((just some personal advise, try and avoid Tokyo unless you’re going there just for a few days or a week. the crowds suck, it smells bad, the people aren’t as friendly as those in Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nara, everything is expensive, and the public transportation is an absolute bitch to get around!))

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Now, on to the GOOD experiences:

1. & 2.        food is CHEAP and food is FRESH!!!! You will find that the convenience stores have pre-made foods that cost anywhere from $1 USD to $6. These include pasta dishes, salads, soups, miscellaneous snacks, sweets, drinks… you name it!!  If you look at the packages you’ll often find that NONE of the dishes are older than the exact day that you’re at the store OR, a good way to tell if they are older than 24 hours is you’ll see a red stamp on them that says 20% or 20cents… which means that you get 20cents to 20% off of that dish due to how “old” the dish is. In the entire 8 months that I’ve been here, I have never seen a pre-made convenience store dish that was still on the rack that’s 2+ days old.

3.           Convenience stores ARE ACTUALLY CONVENIENT! Not only do they have a variety of fresh food and the usual chips and other junk food to choose from but they also have microwaves that you can use for a small added charge to your total if you wish to have a dish heated up for you on the spot! They will also provide you with a choice of chopsticks, a fork, or a spoon as well as a damp hand towel to clean your hands off with once you’ve finished your meal.

4.        people are polite. When you enter a store or restaurant you will hear the word “irasshaimase“ (E-la-shy-mas-Ay) which means “welcome” and they will also bow to you. people will also apologize when approaching you or after bumping into you by saying either “sumimasen” (sue-me-mas-en) “excuseme/I’m sorry” or  “gomennasai“ (go-men-na-sa-E) “I’m sorry” depending on the nature and severity of the situation. Japanese people will also greet you with “ohayou gozaimasu“, or sometimes just “ohayou” (Ohio/ go-za-E-mas)) “good morning”, “konnichiwa“ (ko-n- knee-chee-wa) “good afternoon”, or “konbanwa"- “good afternoon.” They are also extremely helpful and will do their best to help you if you approach them and ask them a question, do keep in mind that many Japanese don’t speak must English or any other language so they may have trouble explaining it so they’ll try and settle for repeating it in Japanese over and over again until they think that you understand.

5.        Public transportation is convenient and cheap. Despite the crowds, public transportation is EXTREMELY convenient in Japan. There are different buses, trains and taxis that can get you ANYWHERE in Japan. It may be difficult to learn to navigate from the different railways when using trains but once you have it under control, it’s easy to get wherever you want to go. At the train stations there is a system where you go to buy the train tickets but, you have the option of buying a special card for $20 that you can recharge,I highly recommend that you get the card because it will become your best friend! All you’ll have to do it hold it up to a scanner each time you enter or leave a station and it will automatically deduct the cost for the ride rather than having to constantly pull out cash, insert it into the systems and tell them where your going, then insert the tickets into the gates each time you go somewhere. In Osaka the card is called “Icoca.”

6.     The food is DELICIOUS!! (and have I mentioned it’s cheap?) Please please please be open minded about trying new foods. No matter where you’re traveling, be open to trying some of the native dishes, especially in Japan. I know it can seem a bit terrifying but believe me, if you just tell yourself “fuck it” and grab those weird, unknown dishes/snacks or order something random from the menu- you WILL NOT regret it 99.9% of the time ((this is actually how I’ve come to find out what my favorite Japanese dishes are))

7.      You will have many chances to travel around the country. Take those chances and enjoy yourself! Japan is such a beautiful place with its historical and futuristic clashing culture and locations. The less chances you take, the more opportunities that you’ll find out that you’ve lost for making great memories, making more friends, seeing beautiful places, etc. Travel travel travel! Each city, each prefecture is drastically different from the last, so explore as much as you can as often as you can and don’t be afraid to try new things, don’t be afraid to push yourself out of your comfort zone.   

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More general information:

1.     cars won’t come to a complete stop for you as you are crossing the street, they will keep inching forward until you have passed them so that they won’t miss their light. It’s frightening to experience because there are times when you think that they’re going to run you over if you don’t cross the street fast enough but, believe me, they won’t run you over… they may intimidate you but they won’t harm you ever.

2.        It may be a bit hard to make Japanese friends. You may be thinking that you’ll come to Japan, make lots of friends, and speak Japanese a lot but it’s more than likely the opposite. You may make Japanese friends but they’ll want to practice their English with you so don’t get uptight about not having the chance to speak Japanese to them often. One great way to make it easier for you to make friends with Japanese people is to apply for speaking-partner programs through your school and/or apply to live in the dorms with local Japanese students ((this is how I’ve made 99% of my Japanese friends)). Once you’ve managed to make some Japanese friends, make them a deal that you’ll help them speak English (or your native language, or both) in return for getting to practice Japanese with them.

3.      You will become the minority here, no matter what part of Japan you end up going to. As a foreigner you will be stared at often and some people, especially the elders, will try to avoid you. Don’t be surprised if you find people staring at you and do not find it surprising if no one wants to sit next to you on the bus or trains, no matter how crowded it may get, because they may be intimidated by you as the “Gaijin” (guy-jin) “foreigner” that you are.

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There are many more experiences and much more general info I could give you but I feel like this post is too long as it is so I’ll leave it to you to look up.

I’d recommend that you learn some Japanese before you come to Japan. It may not be necessary but it would certainly be beneficial to you and your friend. There is a wonderful youtube channel and website that you can learn some Japanese from: JapanesePod101

There are many youtube channels that you can look up that can give you insight on what to expect and prepare. Rachel & Jun’s Adventures + Rachel and Jun (they have two channels), Sharmander, Ask Japanese, Abroad in Japan,  & Asian Boss to name a few.

[ssnakey-b]

FF8 English-French Translarison, part 21: Mother Trabia

Wooo! Vacation! Well, I actually already have a lot planned, but at least I have a little bit of time to write now. So, as promised last time, today, we are moving on to Trabia for fun times with Selphie’s destroyed school and dead friends.

To open things up, we have a small difference in tone as when asked where Selphoe is, French Squall says she went ahead, whereas English Squall says “I let her go ahead” which I like a little better as it makes it sound like he willingly let her go because he knew she needed to know how her friends were doing.

Next, we have one of my favourite bits here, Selphie’s friend, as it gives us a little insight in Selphie’s past life. We also have an example of misunderstanding in the French version, as Selphie’s friend asks if Squall is looking FOR Selphie. I found this very strange as a kid as Selphie is right there and Squall’s positive respond doesn’t match it, until I realized that in English, she asks if Squall has been looking AFTER Selphie and there clearly was some confusion on the translator’s part.

Mistake aside, it’s a bit weird as it seems to imply this is based on the English text, when most of the differences suggest the French localisation is based on the original Japanese. Maybe there’s a similar issue in Japanese where the two terms are easy to confuse.

And speaking of confusion, the English version has some too! You see, in the version of the game I’m playing for this, the Steam port, much like in all French versions, Squall can answer either “No” or “Play along”. But in the English-language PlayStation version, including the PSN port, which is how I first played the English version, both answers are replaced with... *sigh*... “whatever”. And I don’t even remember if the girls replied anything.

This is one of the main moments that really turned me against the English translation overall, as this to me really exemplified its poor choices, as a genuinely sweet and fun character moment, regardless of answer, is removed entirely and replaced with another case of “lol running gags!”.

Now to be fair, like I said, they changed it for the Steam version, so it seems it was a genuine mistake, but the fact that it was ever there still leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But let’s move on. Here’s another strange difference as if you talk to this sleepy NPC, in the English version, he talks about Tonberry King in his sleep, which seems to be a hint about him (although it doesn’t really say much on how to get him). But in French, he instead mentions a Yodux. And no, that’s not what Tonberry King, or anything else in the game for that matter, is called in French. The guy does still mention it being a GF.

I really like little mentions like that, where it brings up stuff we don’t actually get to see as it helps making the game’s world feel more alive by showing that there is other stuff going on outside of the story we follow... but it did frustrate me a bit as a kid, because it made me wonder if it implied that there WAS a GF named Yodux I could get that I missed.

This one is more of a personal thing, but I wanted to mention it. In the French version, the kids don’t specify that Selphie gave them a teddy bear, so for a little while, I thought she gave them an actual bear, or at least a cub, and the poor thing either died (since they mention they couldn’t “save” it) or disappeared during the missile attack. It eventually dawned on me that they were probably talking about a stuffed toy, but I think it speaks volume about Selphie that the thought of her capturing a live bear and giving it to children as a pet seemed like something she’d do.

Moving on to the stage, in the English version, after the girl says she was hoping for more support form the=faculty, she wonders out loud how they expect students to deal with this situation. In French, however, she says “then again, maybe the teachers also expected more from the students committee. Dude, harsh. Your school was bombed, I think it’s kind of everybody’s concern.

In the same screen, a grown-up student discusses the basketball tournament that got cancelled on account of the school getting blown up and while most of the names are the same in both versions, for some reason, the “MogMog Moogles” became the “Kikkou Maniacs” in French. Also, the grown-up doesn’t mispronounce “Mach Chocobos” as “Chocabos”, making the kid’s remark about him having a weird accent seem rather odd.

At last, we get to the basketball court. Following the trend of Squall coming across a little bit nicer in the French version, instead of wonder “What are you getting at? If someone could come up something, it’d be great...” when Linoa asks if they really have to fight, he thinks “You’re right... war is the worst of solutions”. The rest of his quote goes similarly to the English one, although interestingly, instead of using a general “they” when saying “They criticize others, but in the end, they can’t do anything, either”, French Squall gets a bit political, saying “Each government criticizes the others but, in the end, it doesn’t do any better”.

The next line goes very differently too. In English, he asks himself “Rinoa, why all this, all of a sudden? What do you expect from me? I grew up in Garden. I’m a SeeD. Do you understand?”. In French, he thinks “You’re probably asking for the impossible, Linoa... I'd like to help you, but...”

Generally speaking, this dialogue is full of small, but tonally meaningful differences. Behold:

English

Rinoa: Squall? You have to voice your feelings, or else I won’t understand.

Squall: You were... part of a resistance movement in Timber, right? Unlike others who were all talk, you took to your weapons and fought... And now you’re saying all this? What happened to you?

French

Linoa: Squall? Talk to me, express your feelings, or we will never understand each-other.

Squall: You were part of a resistance movement in Timber... Instead of quibbling like everyone else, you took arms... But now, you refuse to fight?

I love this scene in both versions, as not only is it probably the most open he’s been so far (and note that he’s doing it while talking with Linoa, showing he’s more comfortable with it when she’s around), but it also gets Linoa to admit and face her own fears, showing she feels more confident around Squall, and also that he can motivate her.

Once again, I do prefer the French take on this dialogue, though. The reason for that being that with the way it’s worded, I think it feels more personal between them, with Linoa saying they won’t understand each-other, instead of just that she won’t understand him, and Squall’s reply being not just more brief, but also more direct. It gives me the feeling he really wants it to go straight to her heart and make her understand that this is what she’s been working towards, and that he’s willing to help her with that. In that regard, I especially love that last line “But now, you refuse to fight?”. It’s very striking and I imagine it would be very effective on Linoa.

In both versions, I also love how Squall is once again emphasizing his respect for people with a strong drive, who are willing to take charge and get shit done, which is obviously why he liked Linoa from the beginning (well, the first reason was the short dress, but you know... once he found out she was a resistant) and why he eventually falls in love with her. As I’ve said before, stuff like this is why I do think it’s in character for Squall to accept Selphie’s invitation to join the Festival Committee.

Another thing I really like is how it also emphasizes how disappointing he finds it when he sees people he admires lose their drive and become less secure about their goals, which I think is the main thing that pissed him off when Quistis tried to get him to comfort her in the secret area. He always viewed her as a strong-willed person whose sheer determination got her to blow past everyone else and achieve incredible things years before most students even get to take the field exam. And here she was, suddenly showing what, at the time, Squall considered to be weakness (thinking about it, you could make an interesting treatise on that and how it mirrors how some writers can’t accept a “strong, independent female character” ever showing flaws or insecurities).

Interesting deviation when it comes to Linoa’s response. In the English version, she mentions how during combat, everyone else starts to pick up and she gets left behind, and once she catches up, she wonders if everyone’s OK and if they’ll still welcome her.

In the French version, she says that during combat, “everyone goes back to their own world” and she clams up; that she feels like she’s no longer part of the group. She also mentions how once they all “reunite”, she gets terrified at the thought of losing any of them and that everything may have gone well so far (though I think Squall’s impaled shoulder and his newfound fear of electricity may beg to differ), one day, someone might get wounded or killed.

Again, I really love that speech in both versions. What’s especially interesting is that they each seem to focus on a different aspect of Linoa’s thoughts here. In English, it really drives home the point that, being the only civilian in a group of trained soldiers, everyone else is way ahead of her in terms of fighting ability, making her fear they might start viewing her as a burden.

Meanwhile, the French version highlights how in these situations, she loses all confidence and even tends to freeze, which has been shown when she was unable to fend off the Iguions while she was all alone, whereas she never had any such issue when fighting alongside the group (and again, seems to show that Squall gives her a boost of confidence).

Either way, I really like how it showcases an aspect of Linoa’s state of mind, how battles make her insecurities rise to the surface.

Alright, time to get to the big twist! And we start with a surprising similarity: in both versions , Selphie calls Irvine “Irvy”. Nicknames like that are usually different or missing entirely in French, so it’s surprising it’s the exact same here.

Here’s an odd one that I had completely forgotten. In French, Quistis bizarrely refers to the orphanage as a castle, which is the only time it’s referred to as. Seeing as in English, she calls it “an old stone house”, perhaps it’s another confusion from the Japanese text as form what I understand, a lot of Japanese words are made by combining various concepts, so i can imagine how old + stone + house could become “castle”. Plus I guess it could have been a castle near a lighthouse.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel the need to bring it up again, but in French, the characters, including Squall, do not refer to Ellone as “Sis”, making the implied twist less obvious. Instead, Child!Squall has a hard time pronouncing her name and calls her “Lellone”. The kid versions of the characters also don’t speak in toddler talk like they do in English, so no extra “aaawwww”‘s for you, although their lines are written to sound a bit more naive. For example, instead of saying “Matwyn! Sis isn’t there! Where’s sis”, Child!Squall says “Miss Matron*, Lellone isn’t here! Where is Lellone?”.

*he actually uses the word “Gouvernante”, which would translate more literally to “housekeeper” but doesn’t really have a direct translation. It basically refers to a female domestic worker who handles all sorts of menial tasks; cleaning, cooking, taking care of the children, etc... it’s basically a cross between a maid and a nanny. Although in this context, it clearly refers to her being the head of the orphanage and taking care of all the children.

The twist is also preserved more with the next line, as in English, Squall says ”Sis... Where’d’yoo go? Yoo don’t like me anymore?”. But in French, he says “Where did you go, Lellone? You don’t want to be my friend any more?”. So not only does he not call her “Sis”, he also refers to her specifically as a friend, making it seem like there’s no family bond between them. Also...

On a more serious note, there is also a very interesting difference in Adult!Squall’s reaction to his child self here. You see, in English, he thinks “What a shameful sight” but in French, he instead thinks “That wasn’t nice of me...”

That’s one where I really love the French version’s interpretation of it, and one more thing that makes Squall come off a bit softer in French, as it shows that he does have some regrets on how he’s treated other people before, and also might hint at him starting to realize that he isn’t the only one to suffer from loss, and that maybe he shouldn’t drive people away when they want nothing more than to help him.

Next, we have a smaller one. In English, Quistis mentions how the group got into big trouble because of Zell telling on them for setting off fireworks. In French, she instead says that “We were really terrible...”

And here is the official establishment of Child!Squall misnaming Ellone in the French version, as he says “Lellone is Ellone. Of course! I couldn’t pronounce her name right.”

Granted, it seems a bit silly that Adult Squall wouldn’t have realized that earlier, but again, it makes the implied twist a lot more subtle than in English, where he says “Elle... Ellone. So, Ellone was ‘Sis’.” Jee, I wonder why he would have ever picked that nickname!

Although to be fair, even in French, he then says “she was a bit like my big sister...” although again, it’s much easier to buy it just being a mark of affection here then when he’s basically saying “Sister Ellone who is my sister is like a sister to me, which is why I call her sis” constantly. In fact, in the English version, it kind of comes off as an awkward cover-up when he claims they all called her Sis because she was older than the rest of them (especially when at the beginning of the flashback, we actually see a couple older kids run by).

Putting an English-language screenshot here because that line is completely absent from the French version, which is a bit of a shame as it says a lot about how Squall thinks of himself. Man, how sad is it to believe that an adorable kid couldn’t find an adoptive family because of the way they were?

There’s another difference during Quistis’ speech about her having to separate Squall and Seifer. In the end, in the English version, she says that Squall would justify taking Seifer’s challenges by saying “I gotta do my best by myself. Or else I won’t be able to see Sis’.”

In French, she is more vague, saying “I think Squall was doing all that to impress Ellone...”.

I find it rather weird either way, because the way she puts it, it makes it sound like that happened in Balamb Garden after she joined, which implies they remembered their orphanage past at this point, but other elements of the story they tell suggest they didn’t, and it would make a lot more sense if they forgot everything the moment they left the orphanage (especially since it seems pretty obvious to me Cid had the GFs intentionally wipe their memories so they would have no hang-ups about fighting Edea).

Also, if they did remember during their early days at Balamb Garden and mentioned their orphanage days, you’d think other students would have brought it up later, too.

Here’s another very interesting one. In both versions, Quistis says she thinks she wanted to take Ellone’s place after she left, but in the French version, Quistis straight-up says she thinks she was a bit jealous of Ellone. She even theorizes that perhaps her situation with Ellone was similar to Seifer and Squall’s rivalry. Pretty sure it wasn’t that bad, I don’t think they tried to murder each-other, but hey.

One thing I’m not fond of in the French version as well, is that instead of saying that even after becoming an instructor, she couldn’t stop thinking about Squall, here she says that her trying to impress Squall is probably why she became an instructor. It really seems to weaken her character to say that; of course, it could be an awkward way of saying her trying to be a big sis role-model to him is what pushed her to work hard and achieve a lot, which in turn lead to her becoming an instructor.

A much better French line with her is when she wonders if she is “unable to love” instead of wondering “A misunderstood love”.

Moving forward a bit, there’s a small one when Irvine mentions he hasn’t junctioned GFs until recently. In French, he instead says he hasn’t junctioned any “in a long time”, implying he did do it a while ago.

Big difference here, when Squall says they can’t stop Guardian Forces. Again, it’s mostly in tone, as English Squall, as ever, sounds more virulent about it:

English

Quistis: It must be the GF’s fault. ... What should we do?

Squall: What should we do? ...Nothing.

Zell: What do you mean nothing!?

Squall: So what do you want to do? You wanna stop using GF now? As long as we continue fighting, we’re indebted to the powers of the GF. If there’s a price I have to pay for that, I’ll gladly pay it.

French

Quistis: That’s the issue with G-Forces, we lose our memories by using them.

Squall: It’s unavoidable.

Zell: Can’t we do anything about it?

Squall: Sure: stop using G-Forces, but I doubt we can do without them... I have quite a few bad memories... If I lose them by using my G-Force, well, good.

Here’s a funny one, especially since it shows French Squall being meaner than his English counterpart for once. After they figure out Edea is their matron, English Squall thinks “You’re probably right” but in French, he thinks “For once, you’re right”. Ouch, Squall! What did Irvine ever do to you?

Then, we have another big difference in Irvine’s speech after he says he gets what Linoa means but he’ll keep fighting, which barely has anything to do with the English version:

English

I want to stay true to everything I’ve stood for. That’s why I thought it’s be best if everyone knew we would have to face Matron. You’ve all heard this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don’t believe that one bit. There weren’t many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices I made have brought me this far.

That’s why I value the path I chose... I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken. I know our opponent is Matron, whom we all love very much. We might lose something very important on account of the GF. But I don’t mind.

It’s not like I drifted here on the tides of fate. I’m here because I chose to be here. And more importantly... We all grew up together. But due to various circumstances, we were all separated. As a kid, you couldn’t really go out on your own... There were no other paths to take... All I did was just cry. But...

French

I’ll follow my principles. That’s how everybody here thinks, right? We must face Edea. Matron taught us how to live. By letting Edea act the way she does, we’re going to destroy all of our principles. In memory of our matron, we must eliminate what she became. It would be easier had our G-Forces wiped our memory entirely.

Our memories mustn’t prevent us from doing what’s right. We have to be brave... Think of the horrible threat that Edea represents... It would be selfish to condemn thousands of people, in the name of a few good memories. That’s what it means to be a SeeD, right?

It’s gonna sound corny, but... I believe in destiny. We were separated, and... Circumstances made it so we’d be back together. This is surely not a random coincidence... Er, I don’t know if I’m being clear...

Weird that it’d be so different and I have to say, in this case I think I like the English version a little better. I especially like his point that you have to choose between a set number of paths, and only sometimes do you get to do that. I’m not sure I 100% agree with that, but it is a very interesting point of view, as while it means things aren’t written in advance and you aren’t just going where fate guides you, you are sometimes faced with important choices to make, and you have to commit to those choices and deal with the consequences, but it’s also why those choices are so important. There may be a destiny, but it’s up to you to heed its call or not

And I can’t deny that very rarely in life do you get to carve out your own path, and it’s never easy. But either way, the worst decision to make is to not choose and stay stagnant. And of course, this speech is perfect for their situation as it explains why they need to make that choice. They’ve committed to it, they’ve worked towards it, they’re about to reach their goal, they can’t abandon it now and expect some random person to show up and save them from the responsibility of seeing it through.

That said, I also really like how the French version emphasizes the importance of staying true to one’s principles (which does fit the notion of committing to your choices), even if it means fighting people you once admired. Far too often do people stay blindly loyal to one person, betraying their own ideals in the process and destroying what they’ve been working towards. And yeah, considering I love stories about people having to make the very hard decision to turn on their former allies in order to do what they consider right, to fight the person they’ve become in remembrance of the person they once were, because right and wrong isn’t a matter of side, but a matter of personal values, which is a very important theme in this game, it’s no wonder FF8 remains my favourite to this day.

And that does it for today. I did go back in after the big scene to talk to the NPCs, but couldn’t find any significant difference. Feel free to drop me an ask or comment if you’re curious about specific NPCs or something, or anything else about the differences between the two localisations, really.

I’ve already said a lot about this scene, and there’s a lot more I could say, but we’d stray way off-topic for the Translarison and I’ve already gone on enough tangents today. Maybe I’ll do a specific post about it. I just want to say that while I agree with critics saying the twist comes out a bit suddenly and the GF stuff should have been foreshadowed a bit more (although then it would have been hard to avoid telegraphing it), I really don’t think that makes it a bad reveal, especially since the idea of trading your own identity for power is a very powerful one, and done way more meaningfully than in most works that attempt it, in my opinion.

Next time, we’ll wrap up the sidequests that are available for now. We’ll visit the Centra ruins, and since as far as I recall, there isn’t much dialogue there, we’ll probably stop by modern-day Winhill as well. See y’all there! Have a nice day!