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[pillowspace]

(This comic is directly related to this post, by the way!)

[suntails]

WIPs

[aibafiles]

Esperanto in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Not long ago I saw this this tweet pointing out that the in-game language in Metaphor is Esperanto (written in another script) and I decided to investigate for myself! The vocal tracks are in Esperanto as well, but I want to focus on the text here since I don't have a great ear for it. (The quoted tweet also points out that you can rearrange the title to get an Esperanto phrase - I think it would be more accurately spelled "Metafore Fantazio," or "metaphorically fantasy"!)

For the unfamiliar, Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed language, developed in the late 19th century with the aim of being an easy to learn secondary language that could act as a bridge between speakers of other languages. While its vocabulary and grammar are largely derived from various European language families, it has speakers worldwide, including a sizeable number in Japan. Given the relationship between Metaphor's world and our own, I think it's a cool choice to take a constructed secondary language and make it the in-universe primary language—not to mention the game's themes of uniting different people with a language intended to do just that.

I studied Esperanto myself for some time 9 years ago, though I've forgotten most of it, so I'm very rusty. That said, I was able to sit down and parse one particular block of text that the game provides a translation for, and use that to read the rest! I'm slowly combing through the demo and translating any legible text, and I wanted to share some of the interesting details I found. If any Esperantists see this and want to weigh in, please do! There's plenty I may not remember or be aware of.

Continued under the cut, including content from the demo:

Let's start with the text the game translates for us! Here's what the VO/subtitles say:

O Great Seeker, bearer of fantasy empowered... Hear my wish, and come forth from thy epoch of glory to grant me thy guidance.

Here's the "deciphered" Esperanto:

Ho, granda serĉanto, kiu vivas en epoko de gloro, kiu enkarnigas la povon de fantazio. Bonvolu disdoni al li vian gvidadon.

And here's a more "direct" translation:

O Great Seeker, who lives in an epoch of glory, who embodies the power of fantasy. Please grant him thy guidance.

Not too much different of note here other than the pronoun usage—in Esperanto, the speaker explicitly uses "he," likely referring to the protagonist. I suspect that the English is actually translated from the Japanese line, which is ambiguous, so they made an educated guess here. But, since this is the same speaker who narrates awakening cutscenes and new bonds, it makes sense that they're calling to the Seeker on his behalf!

This is a point I'm unsure about, but from my understanding, "granda" (here translated as "great") typically refers to size, so it seems like an odd word choice to me—but it's possible there are connotations I'm not aware of.

After some poking around I stumbled across some text on the background of the name entry screen that reads "signaro" (character set), followed by the whole Latin alphabet on the next line.

"But Batts!" you may say. "Esperanto doesn't use QWXY! What about the diacritics!"

Well. There aren't any! There are 6 characters with diacritic marks used in Esperanto (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ), and since our character set doesn't use any of them, we have to make some educated guesses about which one it is at any given time. This is mostly a non-issue since they're real, existing words, but it does make it a bit trickier at points, and relates to another problem I'll get to in a bit. (There are a select few instances where I've seen diacritic marks on handwritten text or shop names, but there are still far fewer than there should be.)

That said, there is also some plain English text using this script as well, so the game does make use of those extra letters, such as the Memorandum UI - scrolling books have titles like "Marine," "Royal Capital," "100 Mystery of Ningen (humans)," and "Melancholia Gen" (?), plus cute notes in the background like "I want to read slowly" and "already read very good."

Anyway, this diacritic ambiguity bugged me for a bit when I started translating some text with "Euchronia" in it, like the above "Regno de Eŭcronio - Dezerto de Tradia." The Esperanto "C" and "Ĉ" are always pronounced "ts" and "ch" respectively, so the pronunciation here is a bit awkward either way, as both characters are meant to precede a vowel. A more natural pronunciation in line with both the Japanese and English would be "Eŭkronio," a spelling I found once in the body of the contract our protagonist signs to join the army, and never again. Alas.

I noticed a few interesting details while translating place names - the "Trad" in "Grand Trad" (Granda Tradicio) means "tradition" - and many locations are labeled on the map that I don't think are mentioned in the demo's runtime - Oceana to the west is named, but also of note are Kalendulo ("marigold," maybe "Calendula" in English) to the east, the Hulkenmont mountains surrounding that region, and the "Malnova Insularo" (old archipelago) to the south.

(Screenshot grabbed from justonegamr on Youtube.)

Lots of fun stuff going on with these posters - the big propaganda poster says "Mi volas vin por homoj" - "I want you for humans!" The poster immediately to its right and the one with the light-haired paripus are both wanted posters with rewards of 50,000 and 7,000 respectively, and the former has a somewhat legible name - Mikelan something (?). There's also quite a bit of illegible text that I'll need to boot up the game to stare at, textures willing.

Here is where I noticed an occasional problem with the text in this game: some of these posters include words that should have diacritic marks, but instead the characters are gone entirely or replaced with a space. For instance, the poster with the face that appears twice on the bottom row reads "Ser a peto - i tiu viro" where it should say "Serĉa peto - ĉi tiu viro" (Search request - this man). I spent so long wondering what "Dan ero" meant on the poster with the red "no" sign before I realized it was meant to be "Danĝero" (Danger).

This extends to some other parts of the game, such as the world map title ("Unuiĝinta Reĝlando de Eŭcronio" written as "unui inta re lando de e cronio," which is how I knew it was a plain C oops), and the giant statue in More's study covered in archetype names, some of which are missing characters.

I suspect that at some point in the process, these characters couldn't be properly encoded and got lost before making it into the game. Most of the UI text seems to be intact, and this only affects graphic text as far as I've seen. Luckily, we can usually use context to guess at what they should be.

There's a ton more that I'm still hunting down and translating, so if you'd like to see it, you can check out my spreadsheet here! I'm hoping to keep updating it as I play through the full game, and I may make some more posts if I encounter any particularly interesting details. A few more tidbits before I go:

This appears to be an annual calendar - number 1 is at the top and it circles around to 12, and then the inner circle runs from 1-30, likely representing the weeks.

Various graffiti found around Sunshade Row that reads:

Ĉi tio estis infero (this was hell)

Malbela elda (nasty/ugly elda)

Merdo (shit)

And in the words of our favorite tooth...

Elbe venontfoje! (Maybe next time!)

[cometshift]

[ID: art of subspace from phighting as a child, walking hand in hand with a tall figure who is meant to represent blackrock's leader. they are both silhouetted in black against a white, snowy background. subspace looks happy.]

and i held your hand through all of these years, but you still have all of me

[kringle-c]

happy (late) valentines day

[cybrpnkd]

(default) male V › 5/???

[echojedis]

The real reason Echo turned off his comm

[meamiki]

[reverse entry au]

oh to ask a question and immediately get hit with email puns instead ASFASDA

[businesscatfelix]

two more dunmeshi button badges done

[ourlittleuluru]

This game and its event story that just throws in all these feels and characterization esp with the ending ❤_(:△」∠)_

These lines in the story just 🥺😭

He's always just so geniune with his words and earnest with his actions. The thing is, Xavier tries. and he really tries

And he's always there for her no matter what. All the way back in the Myth. It's so perfect how his Evol is Light. He's that shining, guiding star for MC in her dark moments (be it mentall or physically. Like even during the Warm Wishes Tender Moment)

(can I just say the way Xavier's sudden HUGE change in tone when he said "I don't know"... Well, on the CN VO that is. I wonder what was the meaning behind it, if there was. The EN VO had more or less his usual softer tone.)

AND THE WAY MC PARROTS XAVIER ToT!!! [insert some meta commentary here. Idk... my brain is not braining atm]

also also... his roar in CN... just... he sounds like a lil puppy ToT!!!! Like it almost sounds a little like "awoo" (but it's more of "aou")

And really... coming from the era of "Rawr XD"... I cannot hear him say roar in EN with that tone without thinking of that 😭 oops

[dino--draws]

This is how SCP-INTEGER went right

You can get the first panel without the text because. I don't know why it came out so good looking

I need to draw my LOGICIAN design more it's fun looking

[dragonbma]

For those of you who know what I’m planning, here’s one last sneak peek!

Romeo has to wait until after Art Fight for me to finish his. That’s what you get for killing 2/3rds of the people above-

[dailyhogz]

day 34: sick buddies

[the-irken-pony]

Would’ve put this in a prior post, but it got to be pretty long for a single bullet point in an already long post. Also this falls more into the realm of theory than factual stuff.

In Ellias Bahtchin’s mobile unit, there’s a series of three sticky notes covering a meter that measures “multiverse imbalance”.

Given that the meter is located inside Ellias’ own mobile unit, it’s highly unlikely that he wouldn’t know what was behind them, unless he happened to only have acquired his mobile unit very recently. That said, the sticky notes being placed there by another CCC member is also unlikely because the meter is specifically there to track chaos, and thus the Center of Chaos Containment would likely find little reason to hide something so huge from one of their own employees. In fact, doing so would be detrimental to their mission.

So, that leaves us with our ultimate question: who would both have access to the inside of a CCC mobile unit and want to hide signs of chaos on the level of multiverse imbalance?

Well, what if it’s the one character who can exist in any point in space whenever they want regardless of size, is directly tied to the branching timelines causing the multiverse imbalance, AND has made remarks siding against the CCC?

In addition to serving as our free-floating camera, the meta voice is responsible for triggering fails and communicates with us and Henry primarily through these fails, and is thus directly tied to the vast majority of the multiverse imbalance.

The biggest question remaining is just what would happen to them if it got resolved. Hell, the sheer number of possibilities could why they’re so desperate to keep it from getting resolved in the first place. Would they die? Would they lose the ability to communicate with anyone, including the only people it had been known to talk to before? Would it simply lose the control it had over the timeline, and by extension its ability to revive Henry on a whim?

[smolcrow465]

something something smashing two interests into an au

in which hylia hands link a baby, and baby wants blood

[lostxmelody]

quick sketch