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myevilmouse · 4 years ago

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2020 Fic Year In Review

This disaster year was my second of writing fanfic for the Star Wars fandom, focused as always on my handsome Jedi and charismatic Grand Admiral. Here’s the same thing I did last year: basically share the idea of the fic I wanted to write and the result of what came out of that idea.

Because I don’t outline or plan, it is often as much a surprise to me as to my readers as to where the story winds up. But I enjoy the magic that is surrendering to the muse / autonomous typing hands, so I doubt that will change anytime soon.

Context: 2020 began with the fic whining circle’s discussion of the sad dearth of blowjobs for Luke Skywalker in fandom. We resolved to remedy this with the creation of the Luke Deserves All The Blowjobs Challenge, our 12-month mission to provide our man with 12 blowjobs, detailed lovingly for your (and his) pleasure. We all agreed to contribute and so my first offering was:

1. Anomaly

Idea: In 2019, I participated in the Star Wars Rare Pairs Fic Exchange. Shanlyrical had requested the pairing of Guri/Luke, which I’d never considered. I didn’t get assigned that one (I got assigned Thrawn/Original Art Forger), but the idea stayed with me. The blowjob challenge was the perfect opportunity.

Result: A one-shot I am quite proud of, written from droid POV attempting to seduce our Jedi (who is quite difficult to seduce damn his perfect ass), full of technical and cyborgian terminology. Since shanlyrical had put the ship in my brain, it was gifted to her.

2. Comfortable

Idea: Write an “old married Skywalkers” smutfic for a Valentine’s Day gift to my Luke/Mara cohorts.

Result: A rather florid one-shot that is overstuffed with choice adjectives and bursting at the seams with love for my Jedi’s happy ever after.

3. The Problem With Prophecy

Idea: Write a Thrawn/Pryce fic for the Thryce Discord’s Valentine’s Day. The prompts shifted, from “blind date” to “soulmates” or maybe vice versa as a theme. I had already started it when the prompt changed so made them both work.

Result: Another “how they got together fic” (of which I seem to write many for Thryce) that was a lot of fun to write, with a little contemplation about free will vs destiny in there.

4. Proxy

Idea: The Luke Deserves All The Blowjobs Challenge needed more fic, and no one wrote that Asajj Ventress/Luke pairing I had requested for SW rarepairs 2019… *cracks knuckles* If you want something done, gotta do it yourself!

Result: This was an interesting challenge. Whilst I typically attempt to create scenarios for Luke to bang all the ladies that are SOMEWHAT realistic, I decided the only way to make this happen was to assume whatever plot was required to set this up had already occurred, so it starts *cough* right before the action, so to speak. I also sort of low-key ship Ventress/Kenobi (what is that called? Ventrobi?) so operated throughout with the idea that since she couldn’t have Obi-Wan, she was settling for another Jedi as a plaything. Since I used only pronouns for Ventress in the fic, I suppose the reader could imagine any wicked woman or Nightsister or whomever on the other end of Luke’s cock, but in my brain it’s Asajj and she is a lucky woman (and Luke is a lucky man). Anyway, it was probably one of my least popular fics this year but I still like it!

5. Thranto 400 Works Celebration Ficlet (Ch 3: Everything To Lose)

Idea: @jessko-fic asked me to contribute to this collection to commemorate the Thrawn/Vanto ship hitting 400 works on AO3. Me: Slash?!?!

Result: I don’t write slash in general because I just…don’t really enjoy it, doesn’t float my boat or melt my butter, although so often I wish that weren’t the case. I have read a lot of Thranto thanks to Jess’s evil influence though, and thought I could tackle this ship. I wanted to write something exactly 400 words for the 400 works thing, and the result was a little “missing scene” that I hope was true to the spirit of the collection while also slotting into Thrawn and Eli’s storyline.

6. Creativity

Idea: For The May The Fourth fic exchange, try to hit my giftee’s likes and stuff as many MacGyver-inspired easter eggs as possible into the story.

Result: 14 “original series” MacGyver-isms crammed into this thing, including winks and nods to names and dates, and plenty of Luke and Mara banter to accompany the mission. One of my most researched fics this year and one of the most fun to write! And my giftee loved it, which is the best result possible.

7. Physical Graffiti

Idea: Agreed to a one-on-one fic exchange with @jessko-fic, since we never get matched in “regular” exchanges. She requested Luke x Sabine, which tied in perfectly to my never-ending goal of Luke x All The Ladies.

Result: A (hopefully) sexy multi-chapter that required a lot of research on timelines to get them together for this “missing scene” and Mandalorian stuff. My septuagenarian mom has proclaimed it’s her favorite of any of my stories, so I call it a success. O_O Yes, she reads my fic.

8. Strangers When We Meet

Idea: Write a reader-insert fic for @enmudecer. I love setting challenges for myself, and writing a smutty reader insert was something entirely new to tackle.

Result: I think reader inserts sometimes get a bad name but they can be a lot of fun. I avoided the (y/n) convention because I find it pulls me out of the story, tried hard to keep it gender neutral, and hopefully everyone who reads it can feel like they just banged Luke Skywalker 😉 Also I have a long-standing goal of writing songfic, and while I didn’t do it here, at least the title is from a Bowie song that seemed appropriate. So not just my first reader-insert, my first song-titled-fic!

9. Infectious

Idea: The Thryce Discord, and in particular @handsofthrawn, had been asking/lobbying me for ages about writing a quarantine fic since the world was in lockdown.

Result: Well, this is what I achieved this year, when I look back at what I accomplished. My longest fic ever, and a particularly ambitious premise of getting from an awkward, miserable (and hopefully realistic) fuck-or-die scenario to a happy ever after for my evil OTP. I unashamedly love this story and I’m so happy and grateful to the readers who loved it with me—their comments and kudos gave me life when the stress of reality made me want to curl into a defensive little ball and hide for the rest of the year.

10. Evilmousetober 2020

Idea: I couldn’t choose what X-tober prompts to use for my October drabbles this year, so I used whatever felt right that day.

Result: A compilation of my tumblr drabbles from various October prompts.

11. Dis Manibus

Idea: I am not going to write this fic. I am not going to write this fic. Crack and ridonc and no way is there any conceivable way it would work. And then I wrote it. The basic concept as my muse nagged me was to write the “nightmare comfort” trope with Luke and Pryce. WHY?! I HAVE NO IDEA I DON’T CONTROL THIS BITCH. Anyway, the idea wouldn’t go away.

Result: This fic is the perfect exhibit of how I never know what the heck is going to happen when I start writing. Everything was a surprise to me, including the Thryce element to what was SUPPOSED to be a Luke/Pryce fic. Also I didn’t get the smut I wanted. *curses* But I like it anyway and it worked, timing-wise, for Halloween-y themes.

12. Alone Time

Idea: After swearing not to write fic for the rest of the year, @contentment-of-cats put out her Merry Chissmas bingo card and my ambitious ass decided to try to knock every single prompt out with a one-shot.

Result: Thrawn jerking off in the shower and thinking verrrrrry naughty things. I apologize for nothing.

So in 2019 I wrote 26 fics and this year only got to about 12…but fanfic is for fun, and we all needed fun this year. I enjoyed writing for you and I hope you enjoyed reading my output. I look forward to providing more smexy silly and strange fic for you in 2021. <3

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vargatheapprentice · 5 years ago

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It’s time someone came forward and spoke publicly about an abuser and transphobic person in the Arcana fandom.

I have been asked by other people who have had bad experiences with the same person to step up and say something. Unfortunately this person is popular, and takes advantage of MANY people- myself having been included in this list. I’m well aware I will probably face backlash for this- but honestly everyone needs to know in order to stay safe.

@queenofthearcana and I used to talk a lot. Over several months she spent time learning what made me anxious and used them to her advantage. It seemed like making me have anxiety attacks was a sport to her- she knew my anxiety was centered around the loss of children (having had four miscarriages, and have PTSD all of which she knew about ) and would text me things like “my son won’t wake up and I’m scared” and wait for me to panic before following up with “he’s been napping for so long I know he won’t sleep tonight.” This wasn’t the only time it would happen, nor am I the only person.

She also spent a lot of time convincing me that the only reason I had friends in the Arcana fandom was because I was friends with her and she was so popular- and if I wasn’t friends with her, those people would abandon me. These friends are my family, so I let her stick around and keep doing stuff to me because I was afraid of the backlash if I ditched her.

Not only did she actively mess with my mind and purposely do things to make my mental health worse, she also consistently misgendered me and ALL my friends. I’m nonbinary, and the majority of my friends are trans or nonbinary too- and every time we spoke of them, Queen used their assigned at birth pronouns. It didn’t matter who it was, she just “couldn’t see them as anything else”. She also constantly called me a girl, and would say a lot of very red flag stuff along the lines of “you’re exactly my type of girl” despite never once knowing me as anything other than nonbinary. She refused to acknowledge who I was on multiple occasions- in fact there was never a time where she used the correct pronouns- nor did she ever use any of the correct pronouns for my friends or other people we both interacted with.

I learned, after talking to a mutual friend, (who I will not name here because it isn’t my story to tell) that a lot of the stuff she fed me to make me feel bad for her was actually not her life story at all- but this person’s instead. It was word for word the exact same, even using the same phrasing.

It takes a special kind of person to use stuff someone confided in you in order to manipulate other people.

Needless to say, I blocked her ages ago. But even after I did that, she stalked me and found ways to let me know she could still contact me- finding blogs I rarely used, contacting me through every social media she could find, and even sent me money on ko-fi after I’d blocked her everywhere else, just to show me she could. (bless ko-fi for allowing me to reject her payment). This went on for months, I lived in fear of her tracking me down over and over- I couldn’t get away from her.

Why am I coming out about all this now, you ask, after staying quiet for so long? Because Queen is YET AGAIN making posts with someone else’s life story she stole in order to find new people to manipulate. She is married to a man and has a kid, but will act as if she is a single lesbian in order to prey on people. Do NOT believe her when she says she is a nonbinary lesbian- she is not, and never has been, and has admitted on multiple occasions she is not nonbinary. The “nonbinary lesbian” thing was directly stolen from another person. She is using “coming out” to gain sympathy and take advantage of the LGBT+ community within the Arcana fandom- the exact same thing she’s done to me and others.

Honestly as long as this post is, it’s barely scratched the surface. There’s a lot listed here but the stuff Queen has done runs a lot deeper.

Please, everyone- stay safe. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.

#i hate being the person to always have to speak up but i have to this time #tw abuse #the arcana game #the arcana #queenofthearcana #tw transphobic #tw child death

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kaialone · 5 years ago

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Spirit Tracks Translation Comparison: The Lokomo

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the cutscene in which Anjean tells Link and Zelda about the Lokomo people, and how they should proceed.

You can also watch this cutscene for yourself in English and Japanese. If you want, you can check out the EU English version, too.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

Characters in this part who had their names changed between versions:

Sharin = Anjean, Valve = Gage

Returning to Anjean:

Anjean:

おぉ見事石版をとってこられたようじゃの！

Oh, good job! Looks like you got the lithograph!

Ah, so you managed to obtain the rail map!

Anjean:

お主らなら本当に各地の神殿の結界をはりなおせるかもしれんの！

You two might really have what it takes to fix the barrier of all the temples! (1)

You two just might be able to restore the Spirit Tracks in every realm!

Zelda:

しかし石版には少ししか線路が描かれていませんでした

But, the lithograph seems to only have a few tracks etched into it.

But, Anjean, the rail map has only a small part of the Spirit Tracks on it.

Zelda:

神殿とはどこにあるのですか？

Where exactly are the temples?

Where are the temples you were talking about?

Anjean:

結界の役目を担う神殿は４つあるのじゃ！そしてここから一番近い神殿はここじゃが…[DS]

There are four temples in charge of the barrier! And the closest of them is right here, but... [DS]

In each of the four realms is a temple. Look, my dear. The closest one is here...[DS]

Anjean:

確かにこのままでは神殿にはたどりつけんな

You definitely can't reach that temple the way things are now.

But I don't think you can make it to the temple as things are right now.

Anjean:

この石版はフォースの力で線路を表しておるんじゃ

The lithograph shows the tracks with the power of Force. (2)

The rail map has imparted energy to a length of the Spirit Tracks here.

Anjean:

魔物の力によって石版に蓄えられたフォースまでなくなってしまったようじゃ

The power of the monsters seems to have stripped the lithograph of the Force stored inside it, too.

But because of the Demon King's power, much of the energy was lost.

Zelda:

そんな… 神殿に行くことはできないのですか？

Oh no... Does that mean we cannot go to the temples?

So...we can't go to the temples, Anjean?

Anjean:

方法はないわけではない… 石版にフォースの力を宿すには…

わしの一族のものに会いこの石版にフォースの力を増幅してもらうのじゃ

It's not like there's no way to do it... To fill up this lithograph with Force...

You have to meet with one of my people, and recharge the Force inside of it. (3)

Not yet. But there is a way to restore energy to the rail maps.

You can ask my people to help you.

Zelda:

シャリンさまの一族の方… そのような方がおられるのですか？

Someone of your people... You mean there are people like you, Lady Sharin?

Your people, Anjean?

Anjean:

うむわしらロコモ族は代々神のお作りになった結界と

神殿を守る命を授かった天界に近き一族なのじゃ

Indeed, we Lokomo are a people close to the heavens, given order to protect the barrier (4)

and the temples created by God, and have done so for generations.

Indeed. We are called the Lokomos. We are servants of the spirits.

They have entrusted us with protecting the temples and the Spirit Tracks.

Anjean:

わしらは聖なる楽器をあやつって石版にフォースの力を宿す力を持っておる

We have the power to fill the lithographs with Force, by playing sacred instruments.

By playing our sacred instruments...

We generate energy that powers the Spirit Tracks.

Zelda:

楽器…ですか？

Instruments...?

Sacred instruments?

Anjean:

そうお主の持っておる「大地の笛」もその１つじゃ

Yes, and the "Flute of the Land" that you possess is one of them, too.

Yes, and the Spirit Flute you hold is one of them.

Zelda:

わたしの笛が…！これはお母さまからいただいたものだったのですが..

My flute...! It was given to me by my mother, but...

This flute was a gift from my grandmother. I didn't know it had any powers.

Zelda:

ご先祖さまから伝わる大事な笛だと伺いました

I have been told that it was a special flute, handed down from my ancestor.

I'd only heard that it was something precious handed down from my ancestors.

Anjean:

わしがおぬしの先祖にあたる者に渡した物じゃ！

I’m the one who gave it to that ancestor of yours!

Yes! And it was I who gave it to your ancestors!

Anjean:

何度もくれとせがまれたのでこの国の平和を築くという条件であげたのじゃ

She kept bugging me about it, so I gave it to her, under the condition that she would keep this country peaceful.

But only under the condition that they protect the land for all time.

Anjean:

その時はこんな一大事になるとは思ってなかったが…

At the time I didn't think things would end up getting this bad, though...

Of course, back then, I didn't think things would take such a perilous turn.

Anjean:

まあ持ってたのがおぬしらでよかった…

Well, I'm glad you're the ones who have it...

I'm glad that after all these years it has found its way into your hands.

Zelda:

この笛そんな大事なものだったのですか..

I had no idea this flute was so important...

Zelda:

私が小さい時にお母さまがよく吹いてくださいました

When I was little, my mother would often play it for me.

My grandmother used to play it for me when I was a little girl.

Zelda:

この音色を聞くといやなことがあってもがんばれるような気がして…

When I listen to its sound, I feel like I can keep going, even when things are unpleasant...

If I was sad or upset, the sound of this flute would make me feel better.

Zelda:

でもお返しした方がよさそうですね

But I suppose it would be for the best if I returned it to you.

But even so, I suppose its rightful place is with you, Anjean.

Anjean:

いやそれはきっと必要になるおぬしらが持っていた方がよい！

No, you'll definitely need it, so it's better if you have it!

No, you two will have need of it. Please take it with you! For now...

Anjean:

それよりも今はわしの一族に会い石版に再びフォースの力が宿るようにするのじゃ

More importantly, right now you need to meet with my people and fill the lithographs with Force again.

You must go find the other Lokomos and restore the energy of the rail maps.

Anjean:

そうすれば線路が再び浮かび上がるはずじゃ

If you do that, the tracks should emerge once more.

Once you do, the Spirit Tracks will reappear.

Anjean:

まずは森に行き森のロコモ族バルブという男に会いなさい

First, I want you to go to the forest and meet with a man called Valve, the Lokomo of the Forest. (5)

Go to the forest first, where you must talk to the Lokomo Gage.

Anjean:

[DS] この塔より南西の方にバルブの住むホコラがある

[DS] The shrine where Valve lives lies southwest of this tower.

[DS] South of the Forest Temple is a sanctuary where you can find Gage.

Anjean:

きっとおぬしらの進むべき道を示してくれるはずじゃ

He should be able to show you where to go.

He will be able to tell you where to go next.

Zelda:

はいわかりました！

Alright, understood!

Got it!

Zelda:

リンクいきましょう！

We should get going, Link!

Let's go, Link!

Zelda:

あ…でも今は機関車がありませんしどうやって森までいけば…

Oh, but... we do not have a train right now. How are we supposed to reach the forest...?

Oh...but we don't have a train. How are we going to get to the forest?

Anjean:

これに乗っておいき

Use this.

You may take this.

Anjean:

この汽車はいにしえの時代に神がお使いになった神の汽車じゃ…

おいそれと普通の人間が乗れるものじゃないんじゃが…

今はそんな事も言ってられんしそれにお主らなら神もお許しになるじゃろうて！

This train was used by God in the ancient times. The Train of God...

Ordinary humans aren't supposed to just ride it around like that, but...

We don't have much of a choice right now. And I'm sure God will make an exception in your case!

This train is a symbol of the spirits. People don't ordinarily ride around in it.

But these are no ordinary circumstances.

I'm sure the spirits wouldn't mind lending it to you.

Zelda:

ありがとうシャリンさま！！

Thank you, Lady Sharin!!

Thank you, Anjean!

Translation Notes:

I realize it’s worded a bit awkwardly when translated as literally as I did, but by ”the barrier of all the temples”, Anjean basically means “the barrier that’s being created by all the temples”.

“Force” is a concept that occasionally comes up in Zelda games. Not to be confused with the Triforce, “Force” is an energy that dwells within all living beings and the world. In the English localizations, it’s usually adapted as Force Gems when it’s shown in crystalized form, or even just energy or life force when it’s not physically shown.

What I translated as “people” here is 一族/ichizoku in Japanese, which could also be translated as “clan” or even “family”, but I think “my people” worked best in this context.

The Lokomo are literally called ロコモ族/Rokomo-zoku in Japanese, named after “locomotive”, so one could romanize them as “Locomo”, too.

What I translated as “the Lokomo of the Forest“ could also be translated as “a Lokomo of the forest”, but he does seem to be specifically assigned to the forest, so the former made sense to me.

Comparisons & Thoughts:

This is only a short scene, but it features some important exposition, and some particularly curious changes in the English version.

I will start with what I consider the biggest change in this scene.

In the Japanese version, Zelda states that her flute was given to her by her mother, while the English version has her state that it was her grandmother.

This seems like a strange and unnecessary change, but I have a theory about why they did it.

I think whoever decided on this change might have wanted to imply that Zelda’s grandmother was actually Tetra, and thus that Zelda knew Tetra personally, and got the flute from her.

This might also explain why the English version didn’t mention that Zelda is specifically the great-great-grandchild of Tetra in an earlier scene.

As for why they would do this, I’d assume it would be because Tetra is a popular character, and they thought it would be better to have a closer connection with her?

But even if we assume that wasn’t their intention at all, and they just changed it to her grandmother for a completely different reason, this change certainly made many English-speaking fans believe that Tetra was Zelda’s grandmother.

So it definitely caused a misconception in the fandom.

But regardless of that, in the Japanese version of the story, it’s made clear that Zelda did not know Tetra personally, which is why part of her relationship with Anjean involves Zelda indirectly learning things about Tetra through her.

Now, one may prefer the idea of Zelda having known Tetra personally, and that’s understandable. But it would still be a change from how it was in the original Japanese version.

Related to the above, as Anjean and Zelda actually talk about Tetra here, she is simply referred to as Zelda’s ancestor.

As I mentioned previously, this is pretty much always what Tetra is referred to as throughout the story, being a recurring plot point.

In earlier scenes where she was mentioned, the English version correctly adapted this as “ancestor”, but in this cutscene here they instead go for the more generalized “ancestors”, which muddles the fact that this was specifically meant to be Tetra.

If they really did intent to change it so Tetra was Zelda’s grandmother instead, they might have done this to support that rewrite. But this would also make it inconsistent with the prior scenes.

Whatever the case may be, the English version will continue to use “ancestors” in future scenes as well, thus removing the recurring references to Tetra that are a part of the story in the Japanese version.

Still on that same topic, an especially notable difference in Anjean’s dialogue here is this:

She kept bugging me about it, so I gave it to her, under the condition that she would keep this country peaceful.

But only under the condition that they protect the land for all time.

In the Japanese version, where Anjean is more explicitly talking about Tetra, she also goes into more detail about why and how she ended up giving her the flute.

This is another one of the kinds of details I miss, since it gave us another small look into these characters and their relationship.

Just like in her first appearance, Anjean is talking about Tetra in a way that could almost come across as dismissive, but we can also tell from her general mannerisms that she was actually friendly with her.

For me, it gives off this impression that Anjean and Tetra were probably the kind of friends that might tease each other, or even come across as harsh, but really are good friends at the end of the day.

Either way, in addition to making most references to Tetra more vague, the English version also lacks these small insights into her interactions with Anjean.

Going back to the beginning of the scene now, the Japanese version has Anjean specifically state: “There are four temples in charge of the barrier!”

The English version instead has her say: “In each of the four realms is a temple.”

This change was probably made since “the barrier” has been written out, but it technically creates a small error here.

If you consider the Sand Realm its own realm, there would be five realms, not four. And even if you don’t, that would mean there are two temples in the Ocean Realm.

The phrasing in the Japanese version in turn actually leaves the possibility open for there to be other temples that aren’t related to the barrier, which we later learn is the case.

In the Japanese version, the lithographs specifically need “Force” to work, while the English version just refers to it as “energy”.

I talked about Force a bit in the translation notes already, and like I mentioned there, it’s supposed to be an energy that dwells within all living beings, and so forth.

It’s a recurring element in Japanese Zelda games, but the English localizations don’t always adapt it the same way, making the concept more obscure.

For example, the items called “Force Gems” that appear later in Spirit Tracks are also simply called “Force” in Japanese, and the “life force” mentioned in Phantom Hourglass was also originally called “Force”.

Even the Sands of Hours from that game are supposed to be made out of Force.

I’m guessing the English version changed “Force” to “energy” here because the general concept of Force isn’t as prominent in English Zelda games, so it might just be confusing if it was mentioned here without context.

Adding to this, the English version also says that the energy was lost because of “the Demon King’s power”, rather than “the power of the monsters”, which is probably also to simplify the idea?

Anjean’s explanation of the Lokomo features some minor differences, aside from the already familiar changes like “God” to “spirits” and mentions of “the barrier” being replaced with “the Spirit Tracks”.

In the Japanese version, Anjean says that the Lokomo are “close to the heavens”, which the English version leaves out, possibly due to religious implications?

Strangely though, the English version does allow Anjean to mention “the heavens” later in the story.

Perhaps there was a limit to how many times they could mention these things? That’s my best guess, assuming it’s not just a result of different writers working on different parts.

Anjean also mentions that the Lokomo have been performing their divine task “for generations”, which isn’t mentioned in English.

This is crucial information if one wishes to figure out the general timing of this game’s story, as this means the initial defeat and sealing of the Demon King Malladus occurred multiple Lokomo generations ago.

Since Lokomo live a lot longer than humans, this must have been a timeframe of at least several centuries.

Also, as a bit of trivia, the English version of this game uses “Lokomos” as the plural for Lokomo, but the English version of The Legend of Zelda: Encyclopedia uses “Lokomo” as the plural instead.

I personally prefer the latter, which is why I go with that as well.

Seemingly minor difference, but look at this line from Zelda here:

When I listen to its sound, I feel like I can keep going, even when things are unpleasant…

If I was sad or upset, the sound of this flute would make me feel better.

The English version treats Zelda being cheered up by the flute’s sound like it’s something from her past, presumably when it was being played for her as a child.

But the phrasing in the Japanese version implies this is something that is still true today.

And if you think back, you may recall that in an earlier scene, we do see Zelda playing the flute by herself in her room, as she waits for Link to answer her request.

So the implication here might be that in the present day, Zelda still plays the flute on her own, in order to cheer herself up or calm herself down.

Anjean’s directions are slightly different between versions.

In Japanese she directs the children to “southwest of this tower“, and in English to “South of the Forest Temple“.

Both lead to the same place of course, but I think the English version changed it since just “south” might be easier to remember than “southwest”?

Story content aside, another factor to consider during localization is making sure the text is easy to understand for the player from a gameplay perspective.

All in all, the localization in this cutscene is another pretty faithful one.

Most of the changes are just the same general ones that appear constantly, like “the barrier” being written out.

You can tell Anjean is a bit more serious in English, like I mentioned before, but the content of what she actually says is generally the same, too.

The biggest difference is the way the references to Tetra are handled here, especially since the localization was a lot more accurate about it previously.

And again, I can’t say for sure if changing Zelda’s mother to her grandmother in English was also an intentional rewrite to make it seem like it was Tetra. But as I said, it did make many fans believe it really was Tetra.

And references to Tetra really do suffer quite a bit in this localization, I’m afraid to say. Both due to the reasons I have already gone over, and more that’s to come.

This scene is just another part of that larger issue, but I think it’s where it really starts.

But that’s the end of this part right here. Feel free to check out the next one!

< Previous Part | Start | Next Part >

#legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #tloz #spirit tracks #legend of zelda spirit tracks #legend of zelda translations #spirit tracks translations #my translations #spirit tracks comparisons

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albapuella · 4 years ago

Text

How to Lose a Lover in 10 Days or Less: A Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a Future Romantic Failure (Chapter One)

AO3

Fandom: Homestuck

Summary: How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days AU Dave needs to win a bet; Karkat needs to write an article. Shenanigans ensue.

Tags: Humanstuck, alternate universe - no sburb session, POV switches galore, implied/referenced child abuse Author’s note: This story is the result of a jam session I did with aceAdoxography on the davekat thirst federation discord server. This one's a little out of my usual wheelhouse, but I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. New chapters every Saturday/Sunday.

I also tried to be fancy with the html, but it didn't come out right (you will see what I mean). However, I'm leaving it as is for now.

Chapter 1: Inciting Incidents

Day 0:

“I'm smooth as peanut butter,” Dave protested, his coffee sloshing in its cup as he swung his arm out. “Choosy moms might choose Jiff, but I ain't in the market for an older woman at the moment. Just call me Skippy, because that's how smooth I am.”

Rose looked both unimpressed and unconvinced. “Really?” She took a small, dignified sip of her tea.

“Yes!” Dave frowned. “I'm like super suave. Fucking James Bond over here.”

She squinted at him for a moment. “You do realize that James Bond is characterized by his inability to keep any woman with him longer than the length of one of his movies.”

“That's only because he's too much man to be tied down,” Dave said. “And that's not even the point: the point is that the fucker's suave. He can have any girl he wants.”

“And I suppose you can get any boy you want?” It sounded dismissive. “It would be wonderful if you managed that feat before my wedding. You know how mother worries about you, and I would rather not spend the first day wedded to my wife listening to mother wailing about how her poor little Davey's going to be all alone in the world.”

Dave felt the flush creeping up his cheeks, and he wasn't sure if he was experiencing his future humiliation already or if he was getting mad. Just because he couldn't keep a relationship going for long, that didn't mean he wasn't smooth. It wasn't his fault that up until very recently he'd only pursued girls because he hadn't wanted to admit he was gay... Okay, yes, that actually was his fault. The point was of course those relationships had failed. His relationship prowess had never been given a fighting chance. “Yeah, I could. In fact, I could make any of the guys here fall for me.”

“Very well, brother of mine,” Rose said, smiling that particular smile which tended to portend bad things for the person it was directed at, “how about that one?” She pointed to a man sitting alone at a table on the other end of the cafe.

Dave looked over at him without making it obvious he was doing so. Damn, Rose. The guy was a snack, obviously, but his expression indicated that the whole world had pissed in his cornflakes one at a time and had made him miss the bus to his job at the blow job factory. Still, it was too late to back out now. “Fine,” he said, setting down his cup just a little too hard. “I'll see you in two weeks, Rose, and I'll have him on my arm in a matching tux. We're going to be the hottest, gayest penguins you've ever fucking seen.”

She laughed at him. Which was fine: he was going to have the last laugh here. And there was no time like the present. He stood and strode over to the other table, curving his mouth in his smoothest, suavest fucking smile.

The man had noticed Dave's approach and looked up from his coffee, the ire on his face now joined by confusion. “Can I help you?” His voice was rough but not unpleasant. His tone was less pleasant, but Dave had expected that from his expression.

“I sure hope so,” Dave said. He put one hand on his hip and held the other out to the man. “I've just lost my name: can I have yours?”

The man blinked. Then he laughed—less amused and more disbelieving. “Seriously? You're seriously going to open up with that? That has to be the cheesiest fucking pick up line I've heard in my life. And I've heard a lot of them.”

Dave only grinned. Breaking the ice was just one of Dave's many talents. “What can I say, dude, I'm a connoisseur of fine cheese. Premium, aged in wooden crocks or whatever.” He waggled his hand. “Don't leave me hanging.”

The man looked from Dave's hand to his face and back again before heaving a sigh. He shook Dave's hand, his grip solid but not crushing. “Karkat.” Then he frowned. “What do you want?”

“Thought that was obvious, Karkat,” Dave said, trying the name out. He liked it. “I want to ask you out. On a date. I'm Dave, by the way,” he added quickly. It probably would have been smarter to open up with that. It also occurred to Dave that there were a lot of other variables he hadn't considered until this moment. “If you're single. God, I hope you're single. And into guys. Otherwise, I'm going to feel pretty stupid.”

Karkat opened his mouth but didn't speak as something too quick for Dave to pick up flashed across his face. Then he grinned, perhaps a little too widely. “You're in luck,” he said. “I am in the market for a date.”

Oh. “Cool. Cool, that's—” Dave broke off with a fake cough into his fist. “Yeah, uh. So, are you free tomorrow? Night?”

A slow nod. “Yeah. Sure. Sounds great.” He dug through his bag and took out a small notepad. “Do you use Pesterchum?” he asked as he scribbled something down.

“I think everyone and their grandmother uses Pesterchum,” Dave said, still kind of surprised that this was going as well as it was. “Not my grandmother, I don't have one, but you know, grandmothers. Or the tech savvy ones anyway. I think your average grandmother might have some trouble—the text is kind of tiny, isn't it?”

Karkat looked up from his writing. “Right.” He ripped the page out and held it out to Dave. “Message me, and we can set up that date.”

Dave took the paper. “Thanks, I'll, uh, message you soon!” Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and made his way back to Rose. He knew his face was burning, but he decided to believe it was the flush of victory rather than anything else. She was still smiling at him, and he held the paper out in front of her face. “See? I've already got his chumhandle. You're going to eat your words, Rose. I hope you like the taste of humble pie.”

Rose laughed behind her hand. “Nice work, Dave,” she said once she'd recovered. “Try not to break his heart, won’t you?”

“What?” Dave shook his head. “His heart is going to be wrapped in three layers of bubble wrap and under ten pounds of packing peanuts.” He shoved the paper into his pocket. “I got this thing on lock.”

---

Karkat tore his eyes away from the retreating Dave to jot down some notes on his notepad. Looked like he'd be able to write this article sooner rather than later. Unless Dave had been dared to come over and get his phone number. That had happened before. He scowled into his coffee. Well, if Dave never got in touch with him, then he'd just use his last disaster of a relationship to base his article on. That was what he'd planned to do originally anyway.

It wasn't a secret around the office that Karkat Vantas, despite being a font of romance wisdom, was dead in the water when it came to dating and keeping a boyfriend. He attributed this mostly to his abhorrent personality and lack of self-control. Whenever the opportunity came up for him to stick his foot in his mouth, you could find him there, furiously chewing on his toes. He'd lost count of how many times a date had ended because he'd said something he shouldn't have. Or rather, screamed something he shouldn't have at the top of his lungs with more profanity than was warranted in retrospect.

So, of course, the boss knew about Karkat's lackluster love life, too. The assignment had been one of her little jokes. One of her little mind games. “Oh, Mr. Vantas, please write an article about how to fuck up a relationship in less than two weeks—it should be easy for you seeing as you're such an expert at being so noxious that no one but your handful of friends can even stand to be anywhere around you, never mind a stranger who doesn't know your history or has any reason to want to stick around and deal with your bullshit.” Paraphrased, of course. Her version had been much less honest.

He re-read his notes.

* Dave, no last name given. Terrible pick up line. Rambles. Idiot or awkward. Or both. Dresses like a color-blind douche bag. Obnoxious sunglasses. Vision impaired? Hot. Attractive. Moderately attractive.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he set down his notepad to fish it out. He frowned down at the screen. A notification from Pesterchum? His heart rose a little despite himself until he saw the name. Kanaya. He sighed. While he was happy she was happy, he couldn't handle being gushed at right now. He put the phone on the table and finished his coffee.

---

Dave dithered for hours before he finally decided on the perfect message to open communications with.

TG: this is dave from the cafe TG: wanted to say hey TG: and ask what you want to do Saturday

Okay, so it wasn't the best rap ever, but he was stretched for material here. Also, it probably wasn't a good idea to blow up this guy's phone before Dave got some confirmation that this was even Karkat's chumhandle. It wouldn't be the first time someone had given him a dud. At least the messages were going through: that was a good sign.

CG: ARE YOU RHYMING ON PURPOSE? TG: hell yea dog TG: mc strider here by popular demand to lay down the jams TG: ive got all my adoring fans just waiting for me to shower them with stanz- TG: -as like youve never seen its a dream come true straight to you

That was enough; he had to give Karkat some time to respond. Assuming this was Karkat.

TG: this is karkat right? CG: OH I CAN TALK NOW? CG: YES THIS IS KARKAT. CG: AS CHARMING AS THIS IS (AND I AM SO UTTERLY CHARMED RIGHT NOW), DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME? TG: totally i totally do i knew as soon as i saw you yea im taking this total snack on a date

Which was not a lie, technically. Yes, Dave liked how Karkat looked, but he probably wouldn't have gone over to his table without Rose egging him on.

TG: where do you want to go skys the limit TG: but not really TG: cause no offense but i just met you TG: and i dont think were at the stage where id be willing to sell one my kidneys TG: to make your dreams of jumping out of an airplane onto the back of a narwhal or some shit like that come true TG: thats like after at least date number 5 and id expect some kind of thanks TG: at least a tongue kiss or something TG: not that i think you need to pay for dates physically TG: thats all kinds of gross TG: forget i said any of that please CG: … CG: HOW ABOUT DINNER AND A MOVIE. LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. CAN WE DO THAT?

Dave grinned with relief. He'd thought for sure he'd just blown this.

TG: sounds great nothing beats the classics

With that sorted out, the rest had been easy. Dave closed his phone, feeling accomplished. He was really doing this. He was really making this happen. But first, he had some clothes to throw in the shower!

---

Karkat slid his phone back into his pocket with a sigh. Well, now he had a date for tomorrow. He looked down at the new set of notes he'd written during that 'conversation'.

* Last name Strider? Raps without provocation. Definitely visually impaired. Goes off on wild tangents. I'm going to be murdered. What the hell am I doing?

It had been difficult not to react in his normal way to the frankly bizarre things Dave had said, and he knew that was only going to be more difficult to manage in person. Still, he had to 'hook' this man as best as he was able before he could fuck it up like always. After all, he couldn't 'lose' a guy he never 'had', right? He idly entertained the thought of what 'having' Dave might be like. He was clearly crazy, but there was something endearing in his total inability to communicate like a regular person. The way he'd been so obviously nervous and out of his depth when he'd come over to ask Karkat out. The way his cheeks had flushed when Karkat had accepted. The way his body had moved when he'd walked away.

Shaking his head, Karkat tucked the notepad into his bag. No point in even thinking about it. Even if he weren't getting into this just to ruin the relationship for his article, the end would have been the same anyway. Honestly, he was doing Dave a favor: at least this way, Dave would only be wasting ten days worth of his time rather than torturous months of dealing with Karkat's bullshit before finding an excuse to cut him loose.

#homestuck #fan fic #humanstuck #my fic #wip #the html looks fine on my end #don't know why it's messed up when it goes live #*shrugs*

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fratboykate · 5 years ago

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Fill me in. What is this new thing we're watching? Who is BA? Who is Claire? Who is Brad? We clearly like them? I always trust your opinion and my sister was supposed to hang out with me tonight but is going out with her high school friends instead so I need something to watch since she ditched me. Is this show on Netflix or something?

Lol your sister is about to miss out on the best entertainment around. OK so BA is short for Bon Appétit which is a really dope culinary magazine that has been around since like 1950 or something. Anyway, they eventually started expanding into video content when everyone in the print world did so maybe 6-7 years ago or something like that. You know how a lot of restaurants and culinary magazines have "test kitchens" where they develop the recipes they either sell or print every month? Well after a period of trial and error and weird stuff they eventually started shooting videos in their test kitchen. At the beginning they were like what I can only describe as "Tasty videos but instead of just hands and music you would actually see the talking head giving you the recipe and talking to you."

The writers/editors for the magazine are obviously also recipe testers so they were the first ones that started to host these little cooking videos. I think Carla and Claire were the first two to actually start doing them. Anyway so Claire was a full time Senior Food Editor at BA. She's a nerd with three degrees (one of them from Harvard). She can cook anything and has videos ranging the scope of savory and pastry but she really especializes in pastry.

Eventually BA started trying to expand their content and they were like "What would happen if we had one of our chefs try to recreate junk food in our fancy test kitchen?" That's how Claire's show Gourmet Makes started in 2017 and we've all been blessed infinitely since then. Basically every episode Claire is assigned a snack food of some kind (Twinkies, Cheetos, Pop Tarts, Cheeze Its, Snickers, etc) and she has to reverse engineer it and make it "gourmet". The videos started at like 13 minutes per episode and like three years later we're up to full on 40 minute episodes because they're the pinnacle of entertainment.

Claire is basically a grumpy house cat who goes through multiple entire existential crises every episode. Like...she actually truly does hate the show which makes it 10000000% more entertaining. She hates it so much that she actually said "FUCK THIS!" and quit BA in 2018. After a very nerve-wracking hiatus for all of us they somehow convinced her to come back just to host the show and make some other guest appearances but not as a full time employee because she wasn't having any of it anymore lol.

Her videos are CRAZY popular and they've made her some weird internet sensation. All her videos trend on YouTube the day they're dropped. She gets crazy amounts of views on her videos compared to literally anything else BA does. Goes to show how truly cool/funny she is. You legitimately can't help but love her and want to protect her from evil snack foods at all costs.

The best part of what has come to be known as the "BA Cinematic Universe" in the fandom is not the content of the actual videos. Am I ever going to make a homemade M&M in my entire life? Never. But legitimately every single person who works at the BA Test Kitchen is a character so good that no writer could've come up with in a fictional world so the shows/episodes have expanded to become this weird, real life, work place sitcom that is just as rich and detailed as any fictional show I've ever watched. And not a damn second of it is scripted.

They each have their own shows now but they all happen in the same place so it's literally just like watching the same show for hours even though one "episode" was about how to make a Twix and then the next "episode" I'm watching someone blindfolded and the next "episode" is a giant fluffy hyperactive man who can't properly pronounce a single word in the English language pickling some eggs. And all the jokes cross over from show to show because everyone appears in each other's show anyway so it truly is the Cinematic Universe Marvel wishes it had 😂

That brings us to our giant golden retriever in human form: Brad. Imagine the absolute antithesis to Claire in every way...you have Brad. That's exactly why they're lightning in a bottle together. They carry the entire BA video enterprises on their tired backs. Brad is just...Brad. I don't even know how to describe him because I wouldn't do him justice.

Honestly, I've given you enough context and background info already. You need to witness it for yourself now. Here's a playlist with all the episodes of Gourmet Makes. I promise you, you won't regret it.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtIunYVkv_RwB_yx1SZrZC-ddhxyXanh

There's only 33 episodes and more than half of them are less than 20 minutes long. Start from the oldest cuz if not you'll be lost with all the running jokes. When you're done with GM watch Brad's shows. They're called "It's Alive" and "It's Alive: Going Places." After that there's still like 30 other shows from all the other people you'll be introduced to along the way and hundreds of other videos/hours of content. But you won't even need to be prompted to watch them. Everyone is so great that you'll want to do it anyway cuz its genuinely shit that puts you in a good mood. It's been my Happy Juice for years now lol It's why the internet loves the BACU haha

#csaffitz #bleone #ba #kg answers #my screams #anonymous

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thedeadflag · 5 years ago

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G!P characters aren't necessarily trans, it seems pretty offensive that just because they share the same genital configuration as trans people (sometimes temporarily) do, that they should be deemed trans. There is so much more to being a trans person, especially the identity struggle that is just not in these characters.

You’re literally thisclose to understanding.

There is absolutely more to being trans than our typical genital configuration at birth. You don’t need to tell me that, I’m a trans woman, I know this intrinsically.

When it comes to the g!p trope, he’s some major points of what we know:

It became a known, if rare trope as trans porn started taking off in the late 80s and early 90s. As trans porn became more popular, it also became more prevalent in wlw fandom, solidifying its presence in the late 90s/early 00s, making a bit of a jump in popularity when the a/b/o trope took off during the height of the Supernatural fandom.

As a trope, its sexual content heavily mirrors the core elements of trans porn. It doesn’t deviate from that framework.

The g!p characters overwhelmingly possess the major aspects of transmisogynistic stigmas that get passed off as erotic taboo elements for people who aren’t us. The same things that amplify the cis gaze’s taboo fantasy gets us abused, exploited, hurt, isolated, and killed.

I could go on for a few hours on everything that makes g!p function as a trope, but I’ll limit myself and leave you those to chew on. You can look through my archived posts for some more detail on the nuances and specifics if you want.

But here’s what we also know:

Trans women are the overwhelming majority of women with penises. We’re virtually the only women with penises that cis people and trans people alike have come across in any form of media content.

This means that we are the framework worked off of when people think of women with penises, and we are the ones affected by media representation of women with penises.

When people create media including women with penises, the penis generally exists in that content as a vehicle for a variety of desires. When a marginalized person is desired for various physical aspects of themselves, with the substance of their character, their lived experiences, their diversity all tossed away? That is called fetishization.

Your argument breaks down to be essentially that because people fetishize trans women’s bodies and create media content through that fetishized lens, that those g!p characters aren’t necessarily trans, because there’s more to being trans than those fetishized parts of us. It’s an argument that fetishized caricatures of marginalized people aren’t necessarily those marginalized peoples.

It’s a very cart-before-the-horse surface level perspective. Think of all the harmful media stereotypes out there and ask yourself if people shouldn’t be upset about them because they clearly don’t reflect the reality and complexity of the people they’re negatively representing.

Let’s take the well known character of Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter, at one point, remarks that Jame isn’t a trans woman. But every frame of Buffalo Bill’s existence in that film works to play on transmisogynistic stereotypes. Every single scene with that character sends the message that trans women are delusional, dangerous sexual predators. But since an authoritative character claims Buffalo Bill isn’t trans, am I supposed to declare the film free of transmisogynistic representation?

What about Rocky Horror Picture Show? Again, the main villain is an amalgamation of all the common transmisogynistic stigmas at that period in time, fused into a single murderous, rapist, alien entity. We also know the creator of RHPS considers (in the nicest light it can be stated) trans women to be cross dressing ‘third sex’ individuals, not actual women, and doesn’t believe anyone assigned one binary gender can actually be the other binary gender. But apparently, since it doesn’t explicitly say Frank N Furter is a trans woman, it’s not a problem? It’s not transmisogynistic representation?

No. Media literacy has taught us enough to know that there’s tremendous transmisogyny afoot in those two cases.

So there’s parallels with g!p, obviously. You get a lot of folks literally removing part of a trans woman’s experience and playing around with it and experimenting with it through people who aren’t explicitly trans women. They’re treating trans women as a collection of ideas and kink potential to be picked apart like a berry patch instead of real human beings. Even if they say it’s not a trans woman, the result of their effort is a character that is all the fetishized trans woman elements, often a fair bit of the stigmatized elements, minus all the meaningful experiences. If I carve a pumpkin and empty all the insides out of it, and put a candle in there, it’s still a pumpkin. A Jack o Lantern, sure, but still a 100% pumpkin.

And that’s bound to happen. It’s inescapable.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough G!P fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep. but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was entirely fetishistic.

So while the g!p trope was built on the foundation of trans women’s fetishization, and all such characters are inherently and implicitly trans women if not explicitly, they absolutely don’t reflect our realities, whether because of a lack of understanding, or an overriding fetish, or a cissexist & fetishistic mix-and-match approach, or what have you.

It is trans fetishization, it is transmisogyny, and they are erasing us through these works by overwhelmingly flooding the market with misinformation and messaging that ultimately does come back to bite us in the form of sexual violence, community exclusion, enhanced cissexism, .

Because it’s late and I’m exhausted after working and commuting, I’ll cut things a bit short and I’ll quote trans guy user SynthDicks here on his take on Mpreg a ways back, which was very on point and relevant to this discussion

like… you cant write about pregnant men in a way thats divorced from trans men. writing about one way in which bodies adjacent to trans manhood are sexy or fun or desirable, while writing some complicated world in which the rest of the ways trans male bodies are characterised are done away with is creepy and transphobic. all it means is that both bits of the revulsion/fetishisation complex that trans bodies are placed under happens at the same time …

and using trans manhood purely for a pregnancy arc- erasing all the experiences that come from being a trans man- for the purpose of focusing on that one aspect of trans bodies is dehumanising and fetishising. its a fetishisation of trans bodies and a revulsion at trans experiences. these arent opposing statements. theyre the same statements

I really, truly hope you’re a little closer to understanding how this all works after all this rambling. If I had the energy to make a properly structured and cohesive post, I would, but alas.

#g!p #creative responsibility #trans fetishization #trans representation #transmisogyny #mpreg #genitals tw #genital mention tw #education #fandom meta #fandom dynamics #fandom tropes #cissexism #writing trans #long post #wlw fandom #Anonymous

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csykora · 7 years ago

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i don't know if you know the answer, but if you do, would you mind explaining why some Russian names are always transliterated the same way (like Никита to Nikita), but some very much aren't? i've seen Evgeni, Evgeny, Evgenii, Yevgeni, and Yevgeny - is one 'more right' than the others?

Thanks for asking! You’re right, there’s some whacky variation in the League right now, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

(I’m going to focus on North American English speakers: if you’re not, sorry! The basics should still apply and make sense.)

The NHL follows the International Ice Hockey Federations 2011 standard for transcription of Russian names. Probably.

The NHL is a loose confederation of franchises. Historically, it’s been up to each team what they wrote on their Russian players’ jerseys. A lot of their creations were more artistic than phonetically accurate, but the surname would stay pretty consistent for PR and jersey purposes. First names were a free for all, with the team and official NHL media or licensed materials like video games all spelling them differently.

It’s still technically up to teams, but since 2011 the League is pushing a little harder to pick one spelling and stick with it across all media, and to have the spelling reflect how the name should be said.

Any Russian player who came over before 2011 is grandfathered in as whatever spelling they were assigned at the time, for PR reasons. (Like Craig MacTavish being the only one on the ice without a helmet, but less horrible.) Anyone who debuts in the League today should, theoretically, be assigned a spelling that follows the new rules.

The IIHF transcription standard has three basic principles:

Sound-emulating: Yevgeni instead of Evgeny

Simplicity: Yevgeni instead of Yevgeny, Alexander instead of Aleksandr

Consistency: same spelling for same name (and different spelling for different names)

Sound-emulating

What does Russian sound like?

youtube

This is one of my recital pieces, Tchaikovsky’s Moy geni, moy angel. Music is a great snapshot of the sounds that a language likes to use, particularly the vowels. Listening here, you’re going to hear a lot of “eh” and “ooh”, a lot of soft schwa sounds, and no “ae” or “oh”—the only long vowel is “ee”. You might pick up an odd nasal quality to a lot of those sounds, as if the singer is actually say, “yeh” or “yoo”.

Russian has different phonemes than North American English. A phoneme is “any of the speech sounds which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, skit.” There are a couple Russian consonants that seem to give English-speakers trouble (most obviously Ж in hockey fandom. The (Y)evgeni(i)ys just have to go and confuse North Americans more by also calling each other Женя, “Zhenya”, which fans often try to say with a G or a J sound. It’s pronounced like the S in “pleasure” or “treasure.”) But mostly, it’s all about the vowels, which don’t line up with English spelling or pronunciation very neatly.

In North American schools your teacher probably talked about how English has long and short vowel sounds.

And Y does double duty, as a mystery vowel and a consonant that can jump in before or after other vowels.

You’re not really going to hear any long vowel sounds in Russian, except for ē. Instead, Russian has hard and soft vowels:

The hard vowels are close to English short vowels. The matching soft vowel is pronounced pretty much the same but you glide into them with a “y” sound.

So Э and E are “ĕ” and “yĕ.”

O and ё are “ŏ” and “yŏ.”

(Standard Russian speakers splinch O and A (“ŏ” and “ă”) into a schwa sound, a phenomenon called аканье/akanye.)

And so on.

The exception is Ы and и, who are both shifty characters. Ы drifts between ĕ and ĭ, and и moves between ĭ and the long e sound.

(“и” also happens to mean “and.” You’ll hear hockey players, especially Kuznetsov, make a sort of horrible high-pitched eeeee sound all the time in interviews. That’s Russian Hockey Player for “…uh….” )

й is the Cyrillic character for the Y-consonant sound after a vowel, as in “Moй/Moy”. The symbols ь and Ъ can also appear on their own, and they palatalize the consonant before (adding a sort of Y twist to the end of it), or explicitly forbid you from doing that. This sound is rendered with a J or a Y after the consonant in different Russian transliteration systems. The IIHF uses Y.

So when we get transliterating, we’re going to have to have Ys all up in everything.

Евгений

This is where the many Yevgenis come in.

Every Евгений is best said as “Yev-gen-ee-y.” (I’d say it kind of ends in a little Y twist, but that’s because it’s kind of easier to say and a Cyrillic spelling artifact. You say “Yevgeneeee” or “Yevgenee-y” depending on your natural voice and how quickly you’re speaking.)

You don’t necessarily say the first syllable with a heavy Y like “yeah,” but the glide has to be there. “Eh-vgen-ee” would be an entirely different name, spelled Эвгений. And Э just isn’t a very popular sound in Russian: only 2 male names start with it. Maybe there’re some hipster parents out there naming their son Эвгений right now to annoy people, but otherwise, no.

Simplicity

Since Y is playing an important role in the basic vowels, we don’t really want to use it to represent the long e sound the way it sometimes does in English.

So “Yevgeni” is preferred over “Yevgeny” or “Yevgeniy.” Yevgeniy is the most technically accurate, but let’s be honest, North Americans are going to pronounce them all the same and the second two are just way too much Y.

The one time you will see reliably Ys standing alone is in patronymics. Yevgeni Kuznetsov’s father is also named Yevgeni, so his full, intensely boring name is Евгений Евгеньевич. “Yevgeneey Yevgen-ee-e-vich” is not exactly a delight to have to say. The suffix -евич/-evich means something, so you don’t change the letters in there, but you can drop the last vowel of the first name and palatalize the last consonant, making it into an easier “nyuh” sound. So it becomes “Yevgenyuh-evich,” which we can transliterate as Yevgenyevich.

With a name like “Aleksandr,” the IIHF standard says go ahead and spell it as the familiar “Alexander,” because you’re gonna pronounce the two the say anyway.

Consistency

So every Евгений whose name is pronounced the same way should be spelled the same way—and players whose names are pronounced differently…should be spelled differently.

Семён и Сёмин

The IIHF standards were introduced after feedback from Russian players, most directly Semyon Varlamov.

By 2011 the NHL had officially spelled Varlamov’s given name, Семён, as:

Simeon

Semyen

Simyan

Simyon

Semin

and of course, Semen.

Ah, cross-cultural respect.

Listen, the fact it’s Varlamov makes that feel just. But it was being done randomly to everyone.

And it was especially on the nose because Varlamov was on the same team as Александр Сёмин—Alexander Semin.

Semin’s surname, Сёмин, is pronounced something like “Syaw-min”. (Akanye turns it into an A-sound, which is how his nickname, Сёмa, is pretty much pronounced “Sam,” rather than the way North American fans probably read it when they see “Sema.”) Under IIHF rules, his current KHL jersey is spelled SYOMIN.

But when he entered the NHL someone said, “That sure looks like an e to me,” and wrote down “S-E-M-I-N” Few years later that same spelling wizard looked at Семён (pronounced “Sim-yawn”) and said, “Man, I got this.”

Team officials, media, fans, even their teammates read the Latin spellings, naturally assumed their names were pronounced the same way, and went around calling both of them the same thing. Someone yells something that sounds like “semen” in the locker room, or on the ice in the middle of a game, and both of them have to turn around.

Semyon addressed the pronunciation with media, pointed out the confusion with his own teammate, filed paperwork to officially change the spelling (because he had to do that, the League had functionally taken away his name), and contacted the IIHF to ask them to step in, which they did.

(Semin did…nothing, because he would literally rather turn into a snow leopard and run away to nap in the sunshine and eat flowers and squirrels and live in the forest forever than talk to an official. So his name is still spelled SEMIN.)

More “Right”

Pronunciation isn’t a moral issue. As we grow up, our mouths learn to shape the phonemes we’re using all the time and our brains trim away the nerve connections for making sounds we don’t need. Some of us can learn some of those back, and some of us can’t, and we certainly can’t learn very well if we don’t have examples and help.

And it is strikingly hard to find that for Russian in North America.

Until the ’90s, management and especially announcers had no way to hear names pronounced before they had to try to spell or say them because there was no real cultural exchange between North America and the USSR: no TV, no radio, no way to hear the voices of Russian people except briefly on the ice. Miracle had Al Michaels recreate his goal calls because at the time he’d only had a hasty list of the Soviet line-up that he begged off the officials, and he took a wild swing at Vyacheslav Fetisov. A decade later Fetisov came to America and we were able to hear him speak and learn his name.

It’s unimaginable now, but when Ovechkin was drafted, many broadcasters were calling him “Alexander ov-itch-kin,” not “Oh-veh-chkin.” Because they actually did do their homework: they were trying to listen to Russian-language broadcasters and recreate their pronunciation. If you hear a Russian speaker say it, the middle vowel does sound a lot more like an I than a drawling North American “eh.” But then we all said it a thousand times a day and our mouths settled into sounds that are comfortable for us.

Which is fine, we’re not in any way Wrong for calling him “Oh-veh-chkin.” Just saying a Russian person’s name differently than native speakers say it isn’t a horrible thing. (‘Native speakers’ of every language fight each other all the time, too.) What matters is respect: trying our best to transliterate and pronounce a name shows that we’re listening to that person and we’re valuing them.

I think it says something that it’s still hard to hear any Russian in North America, it’s still hard to learn these names, and so we still say them in a very North American way. Even if we’re not the ones making it, the Russian voice still mostly exists in our consciousness as a joke.

Sometimes that joke feeds into innocent not-quite-accuracies. And sometimes like with the Se(i)(y)(o)mi(y)(o)ns, it feeds something that feels a little…less of us.

It’s been 16 years* and we’re still turning their names, one of the few personal things they were able to bring with them to the foreign world of North America, into dick jokes. It’s hardly the worst insult in the world or in the NHL: making each others’ names into dick jokes is hockey players’ primary sport. It’s just that the foundation of the joke is, “I actually didn’t take the time to listen to you say your own name,” and that makes it seem small of us. And it seems smaller after they made repeated requests and took legal action to ask for their names back, and we’ve not only kept doing it, most of us don’t know or remember that they asked us to stop.

some very much aren’t

It’s worth remembering Russians still make up a small percentage of the NHL, and most of the active Russian NHLers came over before 2011.The Russian voice in North American hockey is still small. So the spelling of Russian names is still controlled by North Americans NHL officials, and it’s a small and wild pool of possible spellings. Change comes slowly, if it comes at all.

Most of the new prospects’ surnames do seem to have been effectively standardized, but I’m not really sure where future Yevgenis stand at this point in the NHL. Евгений Свечников is the newest I know of: under IIHF rules he’s Yevgeni Svechnikov, but it seems he’s still being spelled “Evgeny” in the NHL. Because it’s such a common name and several Yevgeni-spelled-Evgenys have been high-profile players, we’re all already used to seeing Evgeni and Evgeny, and NHL officials might easily choose to keep using them for PR reasons.

This was fun! somebody ask me about nicknames or patronymics or the Czechs next, please. I need to keep expanding my embarrassing tabloid glitterbomb vocabulary.

#long post cw #Russian language #semyon varlamov mention #Sasha Semin #evgeny kuznetsov #nhl media

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lechevaliermalfet · 6 years ago

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Seasonally Appropriate, part II: A Long Look at the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Series

In the early to mid-2000s, there was an odd trend of Japanese game developers farming out high-profile intellectual properties to Western developers. To the best of my knowledge, this began with Metroid Prime, though it really got going with the beginning of the first HD generation of consoles, and would go on to include DMC: Devil May Cry, Bionic Commando, Sonic Boom, Sonic Mania, every Silent Hill game from Origins onward, and probably a host of others I’m forgetting.

The reasons for this are difficult to pinpoint, and probably vary considerably from developer to developer. Some developers seemed to have been caught flat-footed by the sheer amount of personnel and time required to make a game in HD. Konami is said to have, at one point or another, pulled basically every single human being capable of operating a keyboard to work on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Others may have wanted to capture a larger audience (thanks to the increased expense of creating games in HD), and felt that their games looked and felt “too Japanese” to cater to a more international audience (a move that ironically would have angered many existing fans, and often did). Still others may simply have wanted a breath of fresh air, to see what a different design sensibility brought to the table. Yet others may have noticed the upswing in popularity enjoyed by Western games and developers, and thought the best way to ride that gravy train was simply to give their franchises to Westerners to handle.

At any rate, it was a thing that happened.

More below the cut. There will be spoilers.

If Metroid Prime isn’t the first example of this, then it’s the first big, high-profile example. Nintendo basically co-founded Retro Studios, along with some of the development staff that had made the Turok gmes, and said “Here’s a big pile of money. Cancel all your ongoing projects and make us some Metroid games. Try not to fuck it up.” This looked completely insane on the surface of things. Nintendo buying what was at that time a no-name studio and giving them one of their sacred cow franchises to develop seemed unthinkable at the time. But, as they often (though not always) do, Nintendo knew what they were doing, though their reasoning was opaque to outsiders.

On the more recent side of this phenomenon, meanwhile, we have the Sonic games. If I had to guess, I’d say the decision to farm the series out to a Western developer was motivated by some of the same factors as Metroid Prime for Nintendo. Like the Metroid series, Sonic has greater appeal for a Western audience at this point, I think, so Sega let that audience call the shots. This initially resulted in Sonic Boom, a multimedia blitz that consisted of a decent cartoon, a couple portable games of variable quality, and a WiiU title broadly derided as a buggy, broken shit-heap of a game.

But this really just amounted to what was at the time the most recent manifestation of the so-called “Sonic Cycle”. It seems to go something like this: Sega announces a new Sonic game → The fanbase collectively gets hyped for the game on the strength of some carefully vetted videos, screenshots, and assorted other promotional materials → The game comes out → Reviews and impressions come in, and the game is revealed to fall somewhere on a spectrum that goes from “okay, I guess” to “complete, total, utter, and absolute flaming garbage” → The fandom reminisces mournfully about the good old days of the 16-bit era → Sega announces a new Sonic game… The Sonic Cycle is basically the perpetual triumph of hope over experience.

The exceptions tend to be of the rule-proving variety. Miraculously, Sega’s next move was ultimately to farm the series out to yet another developer, who had the dangerous idea that perhaps the best thing to do – by process of elimination, since Sega seemed to have tried literally everything else by this point – was to give the fans precisely the thing they had been clamoring for since Sonic 3 & Knuckles (which, for those of you playing at home, was over two decades ago): A new 16-bit Sonic game.

Sonic Mania is great, by the way. Incidentally, it’s also probably the most widely acclaimed game in the series since the 16-bit titles it so lovingly homages.

There’s probably a whole thinkpiece to be written, right there: Contrasting Nintendo and Sega’s decision-making abilities. But you really only have to look at where the companies have wound up over the years to get the essence of it. Nintendo is still bravely, confidently, profitably soldiering along in the hardware business despite having been technologically outclassed on both the console and portable fronts since 2006. Sega, meanwhile, ended the hardware side of their business with neither a bang nor a whimper, bur rather with a sort of resigned shrug, a sigh, and a muttered “Fuck it, we tried.” They have since managed to defy expectations by staying in business. And they still keep churning out Sonic games, despite the Cycle, to an audience that seems to consist primarily of

Children whose grandparents bought them the games

Furries of a certain stripe

Deluded Sega fanatics who are probably still waiting for the promised day when Sega releases the Dreamcast 2 and we all go home to glory.

The rest of these Western-helmed sequels, reboots, and re-imaginings of popular franchises have had varying reactions from the fans. The phenomenon seems to be over for the time being, the causative problem either having been solved or otherwise rendered irrelevant. At any rate, I have gone far, far afield in a piece that’s supposed to be about the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series.

I brought up all of the foregoing to lend some context, and it went to its own weird place, but it entertained me, and fuck it, it’s not like I have an editor. So…

Somewhere in the middle of all these Western-flavored farmings-out, we had Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. In terms of why it got farmed out to a Western developer, this one seems to descend from the House of Fuck If We Know What To Do With It; Let Someone Else Take a Crack At It. Castlevania 64 and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness tried to make the series work in 3D on the N64, and failed. There was a running joke for a while that Capcom had made 3D Castlevania work in the form of its Devil May Cry series, which must have incensed more than a few of the fine folks at Konami. Then Koji Igarashi, fresh off his successes with the Metroidvania games on the Playstation and the Gameboy Advance, was given a shot at it. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness were better games than the N64 efforts, but… well, you could make the argument that a good trepanning might be a better experience than those games. If anything, both were ultimately kind of shallow Devil May Cry imitators that lurked somewhere in the B tier of the PlayStation 2 library, far less than what the series deserved.

So, come the next generation, Konami decided to let Mercury Steam handle it, and assigned Hideo “Motherfucking” Kojima to keep an eye on the project from time to time.

It had been remarked by any number of industry wags that Capcom's Devil May Cry franchise was probably the closest we were going to get to a translation of Castlevania into three dimensions. This mostly amounted to a snide, backhanded swipe at Konami's troubles bringing the franchise into 3D on the N64 more than anything else. There are certainly some similarities at a surface level, such as the aesthetic. Like Castlevania, Devil May Cry is a horror fantasy that leans far more heavily into the fantasy side of its heritage. The horror imagery is less for actual scares, but more to project an easy sense of danger and menace. And like Castlevania had been in its 2D outings (Symphony of the Night aside), Devil May Cry was a pure balls-to-the-wall action game. But this is mostly where the similarities ended. Castlevania's pace, in the 2D games, was always more deliberate than many of its peers (contrasted against, say, Mega Man), though you still had to have nimble fingers and a keen sense of timing.

But perhaps the greatest difference was in personality. Devil May Cry's personality as a game was centered on its protagonist, Dante. Sarcastic, wise-cracking, brash, cocky, and irreverent, with his long red coat and his trademark giant sword and twin pistols, Dante was the epitome of badass. And that's before we get into all the crazy antics in his moveset. Castlevania, meanwhile, didn't as a general rule really have characters as vivid as Dante; in fact, the only real recurring character is its villain, Dracula. Its heroes, members of the Belmont clan of vampire slayers, tended to come across as grimly determined, muscular, sort of generic warriors who tore down all their enemies with a combination of skill and raw force, with a few straying into leather-and-fur-clad barbarian territory. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it does leave most of the characters lacking in personality. But it’s to be expected. The template for the series was created in the 8-bit days when any kind of personality was difficult to convey.

One of the most distinct features of the heroes of the classic Castlevania games (for reference going forward, "classic" is going to be shorthand for "the 8-bit and 16-bit games prior to Symphony of the Night") is the sense of pace and momentum. There was a sense of weight and heaviness to the various members of the Belmont clan who served as player characters in those games. Some of it came down to the way they moved. None of them were especially fast on their feet, as video game characters went, and the series was unique for not letting you control the direction of your jump in mid-air the way so many other video games did. It's realistic, of course, but was unusual for the time. There was no course-correction possible if you jumped wrong, no mid-air take-backsies if you misjudged your timing. If you got your timing wrong, then oh well. Don’t fuck up next time.

And the Belmonts' weapon of choice, the Vampire Killer whip, was also a bit unique. As a whip, it's got a bit of a wind-up to it. Not a huge one, but enough that you have to be aware of it. Your attacks don't land immediately with the press of a button. Castlevania III was probably the best early demonstration of this, where even though it only takes three frames, swinging that whip for the attack and pelting the morning star forward is clearly animated as a full-body action. It gives the attacks a deeply satisfying feeling of force, regardless of how much damage they do, but also means you have to pay attention to how you maneuver through the game, and have a keener sense for spacing and timing when facing an enemy.

This is another reason I feel like the assessment of Devil May Cry as the ideal for a 3D Castlevania is off. Dante is a fun character to play as, but when it comes to maneuvering him, he's constantly leaping, dodging, and rolling about. He's lighter than air. And that's fun, naturally. But he also doesn't really feel like a Castlevania hero.

After the first disappointing venture into the third dimension with the N64 titles, Konami came out with a second set of 3D Castlevania titles for the PlayStation 2: Lament of Innocence, which aimed to tell the origins of the Belmont clan and their eternal war against Dracula and everything else that goes bump in the night; and Curse of Darkness, which was a sequel/side story to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. With Koji Igarashi at the helm, these fared somewhat better than the N64 entries, but still ultimately wound up climbing no higher than the upper end of the B tier of PlayStation 2 games. Which is kind of sad, really. Castlevania deserved better than to play second fiddle to the top tier of hack-and-slash action games. As a series that used to be a premier example of that kind of game back in the 2D days, it deserved to be on that top tier.

Really, you'd think all anyone had to do was just rip off Devil May Cry (which, given the accusations of Devil May Cry lifting liberally from Castlevania in the first place, would certainly seem justified if not terribly original), but the final products were ultimately lacking something, though it was difficult to say exactly what. The response from critics and fans alike was generally positive, but ultimately with a feeling that something was missing. The games were good, but didn't seem to quite live up to the legacy of their forebears. And so the idea of creating a 3D Castlevania seems to have gotten shelved again for the time being.

As the first generation of HD consoles really came into its own, it became apparent that the old total dominance of Japanese developers in that arena, at least at the upper end of technical and technological prowess, was on the wane. There are a number of different reasons for this, and the discussion frankly deserves its own write-up. The bottom line is that Western developers were quickly becoming ascendant in console gaming, where previously they had made up a small minority of the notable output. And so Konami got the idea to do with Castlevania what they had done with Silent Hill, what Capcom had done with Bionic Commando and what Nintendo had done with Metroid: give the franchise to a Western developer to handle.

MercurySteam was, in the beginning, basically a no-name outfit with nothing published under their own name. Wikipedia indicates that MercurySteam was made primarily of personnel from an older development studio called Rebel Act. They were notable apparently for just one game, and that had been back in 2001. What they did in the nine-ish years between that and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, if anything, is a mystery to me. Why they got chosen to work on one of Konami's classic series is likewise a mystery. But whatever; it happened.

Lords of Shadow was initially teased just by its subtitle, and first billed as a new intellectual property for Konami. This was done in part to avoid trampling the hype Konami wanted to build for Castlevania Judgment, a Wii-exclusive fighting game featuring multiple characters from different points in the timeline. This was almost universally dunked on and dumped on by critics and users alike, so it's questionable how much damage the announcement of Lords of Shadow could have done to it.

I can't pretend to know what the reaction was when Lords of Shadow was announced officially as a Castlevania game. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention until near its release, though I picked up a copy near launch. I sometimes think that even without the impending release of Castlevania Judgment, Konami might still have teased Lords of Shadow without the Castlevania name for a while. At that point, it may have been easier to build hype for an all-new IP than for a new Castlevania game on console, given the baggage the series carried.

I was curious to see what a Western-developed installment of the franchise might look like. In terms of aesthetics, the classic 8- and 16-bit Castlevanias had always had more of a Western look to them, which made sense given the eastern European setting and backing history/mythology. If anything, this was one of the franchises where handing it off to a Western developer made the most sense.

(As a side note, MercurySteam later went on to make Metroid: Samus Returns on the 3DS, which now makes them the only developer of Metroidvania games to have worked on both a Metroid and a 'vania.)

For inspiration, Lords of Shadow seems to have turned to the God of War series. From the burly, muscular hero, to the chain-based weapon that allows the player to operate at some distance from the enemy (though in fairness, the chain whip has been part of Castlevania since way before God of War was a thought in anyone’s head), to the brutal take-downs, to the regularly occurring puzzle-solving challenges, to the quick-time events used to finish off bosses and major enemies, there is a lot of God of War in this game. But one of the first, biggest differences is in tone. The player character's brutality in Lords of Shadow is more utilitarian, more matter of fact and by the way, where God of War's Kratos explicitly relishes his violence.

Rather than a sequel, though, Lords of Shadow serves as a reboot of the series, which frustrated some. There had been talk by various characters in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, which take place in 2035 and 2036, respectively, about a conflict in 1999 wherein Dracula was finally beaten and destroyed once and for all. Fans had naturally been clamoring for the chance to play this epic final showdown pretty much since it was first hinted at, and had been repeatedly disapopinted when it failed to materialize. The forecast for said showdown appearing seemed to go from "unlikely, but stay hopeful" to "nope" with the announcement that Lords of Shadow was going to be a reboot. This kind of thing usually signals that the old continuity is done for good. And it effectively is, though that's mainly because Konami seems to have gotten out of the video game business entirely at this point.

As a story, Lords of Shadow follows to some extent in the series tradition, which is to say, it's pretty ridiculous.

We start off with Gabriel Belmont, an original creation for this reboot series. He belongs to the Brotherhood of Light, a group of holy warriors whose purpose is to eliminate supernatural enemies of humankind. Clad in their signature red outfit (probably a nod to the artwork for Simon Belmont in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest), he wields the Combat Cross, which is (or rather, will become over the course of the game) this continuity's take on the Vampire Killer whip.

It is medieval times, and Satan has cast a spell to seperate Heaven and the Earth, trapping the souls of the dead in the world of the living, and generally causing all sorts of supernatural shenanigans. Gabriel, at the behest of the Brotherhood, is after an ancient relic called the God Mask, which should enable its wearer to break Satan's spell. However, it's been broken into three pieces, each one held by one of the titular Lords of Shadow.

Said Lords are revealed over the course of the game to have once been members of the Brotherhood of Light themselves, who achieved such a degree of holiness that their spirits ascended to Heaven. However, they were so holy that they didn't even have to die for this to happen. Their spirits just... ascended, and left their bodies behind. Their fleshly, mortal bodies, which were now susceptible to all manner of vice and villainy and corruption, and lacking none of their former power. Thus were the Lords of Shadow born as dark reflections of their former holiness.

Along the way, Gabriel is occasionally assisted by another, older member of the Brotherhood, named Zobek. In addition to his passive observation, advice, and occasional hands-on assistance in Gabriel's quest (all meant to subtly goad him in particular directions for reasons initially left unexplained), Zobek also narrates between chapters.

Zobek is voiced by Patrick Stewart, but unfortunately, he just seems ever-so-slightly off in Lords of Shadow. He's not bad at all. It's just that he seems to always be a little off from what I think of as the right tone for the character and his lines. Robert Carlyle, who provides the voice of Gabriel, seems to be a bit more on-point.

Gabriel also has a dead wife to avenge, or ideally, to bring back to life, a feat he hopes to accomplish with the power of the God Mask. He also has (without his knowledge) a son, whose gestation and birth occurred during one of his long absences on Brotherhood business, and whose existence goes unmentioned until later entries in the series. The secret of this child's birth was deliberately kept from him by the Brotherhood and his wife (who was sworn to secrecy by them) due to some unspecified danger they saw in his future.

His journey takes him through the wilderness of a version of Europe that never existed, and then into the ruins of the ancient fictional civilization of Agharta, and to worse places yet. Background lore is dispensed by way of scrolls found on the bodies of fallen Brotherhood members that Gabriel encounters as he goes. All of this, as well as information about the various creatures Gabriel faces, items he acquires, and moves he learns, is kept in a tome he brings with him, which the player can read at their leisure. Most of it is stupidly, wonderfully overwrought.

Gabriel, we are eventually told, is God's chosen champion, empowered to confront Satan himself in order to undo his malevolent magic. Slowly but surely, Gabriel confronts each of the Lords of Shadow and retrieves their piece of the God Mask. This includes Zobek, we eventually discover, who is a necromancer of considerable power, and who is ultimately revealed to have escaped death despite his defeat.

Through the course of Lords of Shadow, Gabriel does indeed successfully beat up Satan and restore the world to its normal order. However, he is unable to resurrect his wife after all. Then the DLC gives him a new foe to face, and in order to do this, he must give up his humanity and become a vampire.

This culminates in him becoming the evil Dracula who served as the villain for the vast majority of the original Castlevania series.

Mirror of Fate, a spinoff released physically for the 3DS and digitally for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, occurs in the ensuing years and decades after Gabriel rises to become a vampiric overlord with ambitions of world domination.

We start off as Simon Belmont, who is unaware that Dracula was once a Belmont himself (in fact, Dracula is his grandfather). Simon is a fur-clad, muscular barbarian with very little in the way of characterization, who is aided from time to time (sometimes without his knowledge) by a pale, black-clad stranger running around the castle, who turns out to be Alucard, the son of Dracula. The two team up to stake Dracula, though as series fans already know, this isn’t going to be permanent.

Then the game shifts focus, and we get to play as Alucard. Alucard likewise has very little character growth or development. Then, when his section is finished, the game shifts focus again. We end the game playing as Trevor Belmont, Gabriel's son, a generation or so before Simon's time, and find out just exactly how bad Trevor's own mission against Dracula went.

When we come to the opening of Lords of Shadow 2, we find that Gabriel-as-Dracula is still God's chosen one, despite all the murder and blood-drinking and oppression that's just du rigeur for being a vampiric overlord. As such, he is immortal – virtually impossible to kill even by the standards of vampires.

But Lords of Shadow 2 proper begins in the modern era. Zobek, now a wealthy and powerful businessman with his fingers in a variety of pies, approaches Dracula in the cathedral where he has recently reawakened. But the lord of vampires persists in a diminished state. Weakened and desiccated, he looks like a walking corpse, a pale shadow of his former self, hating his eternal life but feeling compelled to go on with it in order to spite his enemies (Zobek, Satan, and God Himself). So he lingers.

Zobek offers him a way out. Satan's minions are increasing in power, gearing up for their master's return to the human world. As God's chosen one, Dracula alone is empowered to fight against him. In exchange, Zobek promises he can finally put an end to Dracula's life once and for all, as he has reassembled the broken Vampire Killer whip once wielded by Gabriel himself. And so, after a meal to freshen up (probably one of the most disturbing and problematic parts of the entire series), Dracula sets off through the city that now stands on the foundations of his ancient, massive castle from centuries ago.

Where the original Lords of Shadow was more plot-focused, Lords of Shadow 2 tries to be more character driven, focusing on Dracula's return to humanity – in spirit, if not physically. Unfortunately, the focus on story, not just in Lords of Shadow 2 but in the entire reboot series, is where it most falls flat.

The whole thing is difficult to take seriously much of the time. Granted, Castlevania as a whole is ridiculous and over the top. This has been true from the very first game, which was riddled with anachronisms (fighting Frankenstein's monster somewhere in the sixteenth or seventeenth century) and featuring Death himself as Dracula's right-hand man – well, right-hand personification of the abstract concept of the end of life – all throughout the series. Seriously, it isn't a proper Castlevania game if there isn't a boss fight against Death somewhere near the end, preferably one tough as nails. But that oddly makes a certain amount of sense. As a being who routinely flouts death by coming back to life once a century just as a matter of course (not even getting into all the times people resurrect him just because), Dracula might be expected to be on some kind of terms with the Grim Reaper.

But then the Lords of Shadow continuity introduces this whole Satan business, and I just...

No.

So the idea in the Lords of Shadow continuity is that Gabriel Belmont is for whatever reason God's champion, chosen to face down Satan and prevent him from taking over the world. And for some reason, I just have a hard time buying it. Having a character fight off lesser demons and mythological monsters? Sure, no problem. Having that character fighting off the servants of Satan in this world to prevent him from entering it, yeah, that's perfectly fine. But having a knock-down, drag-out with the big man, the capital-D Devil himself? Somehow, my brain draws a line there. Maybe it's because the game uses a generally Christian mythological framework, and Lords of Shadows' idea of Satan doesn't really mesh with that. You don't just throw down with the Father of Lies. I mean, yes, there are all sorts of folktales about conflicts between humankind and the devil, but none of them end in a brawl. That's just not how it goes; that's not what he's there for.

Which is a goddamn shame, because there are hints of something more interesting going on. Gabriel-as-Dracula in Lords of Shadow 2 has positioned himself as an enemy of God (he refers at least once to being a thorn in His side), mainly by going against God's stated purpose for him. The game opens pretty memorably with him in a conflict against the Brotherhood of Light, displaying his immunity to the holy powers they try to call down on him, screaming at one paladin in particular that his reliance upon God is his undoing, because despite Gabriel's defiance, he is still God's chosen one. There's also the idea that as Dracula, Gabriel is a necessary evil, that although he stands in opposition to God (over his anger at the fate God thrust upon him), he also stands as a bulwark against Satan, as well as Zobek, who has his own designs on the world.

And the games are gorgeous. All of them lean hard into a sort of quasi-gothic horror-fantasy aesthetic that I really would love to see more of. This is all quite apart from the technical capability on display, which is also top-notch. I love just running around in them, looking at the scenery and beating the unholy hell out of the monsters that come crawling out of it.

But it ultimately falls apart for being too self-serious. Castlevania has always had an odd silly streak. As mentioned, the original games took a bunch of mythological creatures and classic horror movie monsters, mashed them all together, and played the whole thing completely straight. They did this knowing how ridiculous it was, but doing it anyway because it was also completely fucking awesome. This is in the grand tradition of old-school video games, where the plot was less of a story that you got invested in and more of an excuse for all the things the game was going to have you do.

The problem is that this really works best when you do it in the style of those older games, when you don't draw too much attention to it or elaborate on it too much. I mean, let's break down the series mythology from the original continuity:

-- Since the Middle Ages, Dracula the vampire has been terrorizing Europe, returning to life once every century to do it. He summons to him all manner of creatures from myth and legend (and other fiction) in pursuit of this goal.

-- The Belmont clan, carriers of the Vampire Killer whip, are uniquely empowered to smite him. This they do, with as much reliability as Dracula's return, alongside a growing number of allies.

-- Sometimes there are cultists or other Bad People who resurrect Dracula for their own ends outside the usual once-per-century pattern, or other evil entities who borrow his power in some fashion.

And that's basically it. And it worked. It was simple, but it was effective, in the way that the stories of games like, say, Super Mario Bros. or the early Sonic the Hedgehog games were. It wasn't built to handle a lot of lore and characterization, and in fact it kind of falls apart under the weight of those things. You start trying to give Castlevania a really deep, involving story, and that just exposes how ridiculous the whole thing actually is, how shaky the framework, how unsteady the foundation is to build lore upon. You can hear its light, almost slapped-together framework creaking under the weight of all that load.

We see this happening in the original series. Symphony of the Night, and the portable entries that followed in its footsteps, crammed in just about all the story that the games were really set up to handle. Then we get to Lament of Innocence, which tries hard to justify Dracula's motives and tendency to return from death to fulfill them, the Belmont clan's struggle against him, and all the rest. And the real problem is that it's totally unnecessary, and the attempt to sell it as high drama with this inherent silliness in its premise just continually falls flat.

To a certain extent, I get the perceived need to do this. We seem to have left behind the era when major, big-budget games can be just fun. They have to be these big, trampling, sober, serious things now, all high stakes and serious business. Most of the games that revolve around being fun tend to find themselves in the vanishing B-tier of games, or else indie titles. Or the exclusive province of Nintendo. There doesn't seem to be room in the industry any more for big-budget games that don't take themselves entirely seriously.

So what does Lords of Shadow, as a sub-series, get right?

Quite a bit, it turns out.

Despite its missteps with the story, the world looks gorgeous. I'd love to see a remastered version that features the games running at 60 frames per second in 1080p, and maybe sharpens the textures up a bit, but honestly, it looks pretty much fine as it is. The characters and environments are nicely detailed, and I love the overall sense of design. Especially toward the middle of the first game, where the levels tend toward "Gothic, but totally over the top".

The beginning of Lords of Shadow seems a little questionable, mainly because of the focus on purely fantasy creatures: goblins, trolls, etc.; things that don't really have much to do with the horror imagery Castlevania typically goes for. It's not bad, it just doesn't quite fit right.

But as the game goes on, it dives more into horror territory, with werewolves, vampires, and more outlandish creatures still. Boss battles are giant setpieces which are plenty challenging, and usually end with a series of quick-time events that work you through an ultimately brutal but satisfying take-down of the boss in question.

The sense of substantiality, of heaviness, that I usually associate with the classic Castlevania heroes is present and accounted for. With his broad shoulders and muscular physique, Gabriel evokes the deliberate movements of the heroes of the classic Castlevania games. And his attacks land with a satisfying impact, again hitting that feeling of "considered and deliberate" that I associate with the classic titles. At the same time, he's actually quite light on his feet. While that still makes him a little different from the Belmonts of old, it makes sense with the way the game's designed. Unlike those classic games, most of the enemies don't die in just one or two hits. Like many hack-and-slash games, Gabriel's movement through the game's areas is very stop-and-go, stretches of travel and puzzle-solving punctuated by combat encounters with multiple enemies (or one major enemy), each of which takes some work to bring down. Faster and more complex maneuvers are necessary to avoid being obliterated.

There are also a few callbacks here and there to the previous series. Although Gabriel is a completely original character to the series, his design is clearly meant to evoke the look of Simon Belmont as he appeared in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Structurally, Lords of Shadow borrows from the more linear structure old-school, classic style of Castlevania games. The first Lords of Shadow follows in the classic mold more than either of its sequels in the rebooted continuity. Lords of Shadow 2 features a seamlessly interconnected environment, but in the end, the player is still directed through it in a mostly linear fashion, with the optional digressions being just that.

Mirror of Fate, meanwhile, is the least classic-like of the three, instead hewing much closer to the Metroidvania style, but it's pretty shallow as Metroidvanias go. It apes the style of Igarashi's 2D predecessors, but lacks much of the real substance. It's not bad, but it's sort of a letdown. It’s disappointing mainly in the way that it presents itself as a Metroidvania game, but then... isn't, really. The whole thing is so on-rails that most of the major backtracking feels forced, and the backtracking that isn't is so minor that you can safely skip over it. It's more of a straight-up action game dressed up like a Metroidvania, as if they did it because that's just what's expected of a 2D Castlevania these days. Which is a shame, becasue MercurySteam can make a good Metroidvania – they went on to do it with Metroid: Samus Returns (though, admittedly, they were working from the template of a pre-existing game).

Interestingly, one of the classic series features that doesn't get touched on in Lords of Shadow is the music. Over the years, the classic Castlevania titles have built up a variety of iconic pieces that people tend to expect to hear. "Vampire Killer", "Wicked Child", and "Bloody Tears" are just some of the more famous ones. These often get worked into the various sequels and remakes in one form or another. Lords of Shadow mostly lacks these, barring a music-box rendition of "Vampire Killer" in an unlikely spot. In fact, the soundtrack is mainly comprised of generic orchestral pieces which are nice – they swell and pound in all the right places to evoke the appropriate mood – but not really melodic or memorable.

A number of fans of the series were upset by the lack of classic tracks. While I can understand the general complaints about the soundtrack on its own merits, I do find it somewhat overblown. It would've been nice, sure. But plenty of other well-regarded games in the classic seriess, such as the particularly revered Symphony of the Night, did without the classic tunes from the series history, and nobody complained then.

Bits of original series lore also pop up here and there, recycled and repurposed to match the tone and style of the new continuity, as a wink and nod from the developer to the fans. But in the end, it almost feels more frustrating than anything else. These bits of the original series that poke up into view here and there seem to serve as reminders of the game that I wanted, bolted onto the game that we got. I was looking for something dark and grim and gloriously over the top, borderline goofy in its melodrama.

And that, I think, is most of my problem with Lords of Shadow, as a continuity unto itself. There are some great setpieces, and the combat is fine, and the games look about as good as it's possible for last-gen console hardware to get. And the story is gloriously over the top. It just... It takes itself too seriously. It gets in its own way, falls over itself, and just generally doesn't land right. It looks right, it just doesn't feel quite right. The tone is off, and it dwells on itself too much. Classic Castlevania would do something over the top and ridiculous and awesome, and then move on. Lords of Shadow dwells on it, lingers on it, and it’s neither deep enough nor solid enough to support that level of seriousness. I think most times that it really should have been its own intellectual property.

It's better than the 3D Castlevania games to come before it. But Castlevania still deserves better.

It's a shame that, with Konami being what they are now, we're probably never going to get it.

#halloween #castlevania #lords of shadow #lords of shadow 2 #mirror of fate #video games #games #video gaming #gaming

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summerscramble-event · 6 years ago

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VOLLEYBALL FREE FOR ALL.

❝ It’s every man for himself out there ! Er --- every team for themselves, is more well put. I know, I know, you haven’t heard from me yet and you’re all probably wondering if I fell off the face of the globe since I’m usually the first one you hear from -- SURPRISE !!

Anyway, you’re probably waiting for me to announce this to get the show on the road. You all know how this works for the most part, but in case you don’t, here’s how this is going to go down:

You’re now officially a fan of Laslow’s Deliverance. Congratulations !!

......... Ha . . . ha ha, only kidding. D --- Don’t give me that look.

The rumors are true, forces between myself and the Deliverance’s team captain have combined ! So it’ll be tough luck for you guys to take us down this go around ! If you think you stand a chance, you’re more than welcome to recruit a team of your very own ! Your team must consist of a Captain, a Co-Captain, and at least six other players. We’re looking for teams of twelve, including your captain slots.The bare minimum is 8 players, but if you have gaps in your teams, we have decided to open up player reserves--- so you might be lucky enough to gain a few extra team members at the end of the run ! Which could very well make or break you in these intense matches . . .

Reserves are just people who are indifferent to what team they’re on, or are having trouble being on a team in general. If you as a captain are having trouble finding people, we’ll refer you to our reserves to recruit. Who knows---enough reserves may make a team of their own ! But as a fair warning, if you have gaps on your team, you may get some reserves to fill the holes -- so as a team captain, you MUST be okay with this !

As always, try and recruit some new faces ! There are many people out there who may just be shy on the approach, so be friendly and welcoming to people who approach you !

When and if you have the courage to submit your teams to go up against us, feel free to turn in your application ! We’ll be accepting up to eight teams, but if demand proves high, we’ll bump that number to ten !

Happy recruiting, we’ll see you on the volleyball court ! ❞

VOLLEYBALL RULES:

- Teams must consist of 8-12 players. Of those players, you must have at least 2 from a different game than the one your muse is from ( ie, TEAM LASLOW will need a character from AWAKENING, and one from ECHOES , etc. ), and try to include one OC/Custom MU ( more often than not, the custom MUs in the fandom are considered ocs in some way shape or form, but we do urge you to try and include an OC on your team if you are able to ! Recruit some people you’ve not had interactions with ! ) We are looking for 8 teams to start off, but will expand to 10 if there is demand for it.

- When submitting your full teams, please send TEAM NAME, MUSE NAMES AND URLS. So for instance:

LASLOW’S DELIVERANCE.

Captain: Laslow/@danciique. Co Captain: Alm/@saintkingisms Team Members: MUSE/URL, MUSE/URL, etc.

This will ensure that no one is on two teams and that people can be recognized !

- This will be run so as to not condone a ‘ popularity ’ vote. This is going to be run as randomized as we can possibly get it. It’ll be done ala Hunger Games Simulator style, in which the last person standing from a team will name their team the victor. We are going to mod the text to reflect to volleyball lingo and make updates throughout Saturday. Depending on team count, there will be one to two volleyball games per day. Times will be posted for match start ! You’re still welcome to trade a few volleys of roleplaying out the game, of course, but the final outcomes will be determined by the generator.

- No vaguing or sending anon hate over whom a team captain chooses for their team. If you want on a team, we are opening up PLAYER RESERVES for this competition. If you are unbiased to a team, or are having trouble finding one, we will assign you to a team with empty spots or make a team from the reserves themselves ! Captains -- if you are submitting a team and have spaces in your roster, YOU MUST BE 100% OKAY WITH RESERVES POSSIBLY BEING ADDED TO YOUR TEAM !

- YOUR MUSE CANNOT BE ON TWO TEAMS AT ONCE. A single muse cannot captain a team, and play on a different team, or exist on two teams at once. We realize there are double muses of near everyone, but YOUR MUSE PERSONALLY cannot be on two teams at one time. As per last competition, you are able to have up to THREE muses participating on teams, but they must all be on separate teams. Whether you be multi-muse or single muse, the rule still applies. There is also no ‘ age restriction ’ on muses for this event !

- If you are looking for team players or captains to approach, post in the SPECIAL EVENT TAG ( cliffside carnival ;; volleyball ) to try filling any empty spots !

#cliffside carnival ;; summer scramble #;; mod laslow aka everyone's favorite.#cliffside carnival ;; volleyball

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pkmnjesus · 7 years ago

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P J’s PokéAni Trivia Tuesday #13 (Global Tour edition)

This is part 3 of 5 PTTs digging into some really cool PokéAni facts from all over the world! This week’s global research was MASSIVE! I really wanted to cover as much EU as I can, since I know a lot of people in this fandom coming from Europe, but tried to make my post as minimal as I can! Due to a lot of info I’ve read, I will only mention 1 or 2 facts for each country (except U.K.). Good thing I had 2 weeks to prepare for this, otherwise this thing would have been more stressful to put together. Shoutout to all my European PokéAni peeps reading this! Let’s see if you may or may not know the trivia behind these countries 👀

Pokémon anime in EUROPE

In the UNITED KINGDOM DID YOU KNOW? The Pokémon anime famously aired on ITV, a public service network station that broadcasts in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

SM:TV Live was a live Saturday morning entertainment show that replace the Who's That Pokémon? segment with small sketches that featured the famous English comedic duo, Ant & Dec as hosts, having their own "PokéFight" and even performed their own Pokérap.

ITV has skipped episodes or canceled airings mid-series. These are planned as the TV guides published over a week before date of transmission reflect this. It commonly happens other animated shows in the line-up such as ReBoot, Cardcaptors, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Pokémon has been cancelled prematurely TWICE on different TV channels! Once during the Orange Islands arc, and another just after Pokémon: Advanced started. Neither series has been seen on ITV since.

CN (Cartoon Network) TOO was the channel location for the world premiere of Pokémon Chronicles. The U.K. got their English dubbed The Legend of Thunder! specials first than the U.S. by a year early.

In other EU COUNTRIES DID YOU KNOW?

In the Netherlands (Ik wil ze allemaal!), Fox Kids announced that it would stop broadcasting Pokémon on March 2001. Around 32,000 complaining children called to Fox Kids in outrage because of this, but it turned out to be an early April Fool’s joke. On April 1st, the channel announced that the 3rd season of the anime would begin airing the same day. GOT’EEM!!!

In Iceland (Þarf að fanga þá!), only the first 54 episodes of the 1st season aired. The first five movies were also dubbed. They pulled the plug on the Icelandic dub due to the lack of popularity it received in the country.

In Finland (Omakseni saan!), it was the first Nordic country to air the Pokémon anime, with Denmark, Norway and Sweden followed shortly in the spring of 2000. While it may have been the first, many episodes of the first couple of seasons in the Finnish dub were not shown (or skipped?) for unknown reasons. In fact, Advanced Challenge was the first ever season to be shown completely in the country, and moving forward after that, every season have been broadcasted entirety as well.

In Sweden (Måste fånga fler!), the Battle Frontier season broadcasted exclusively online via TV4+ and TV4′s site, as it got skipped and did not air after Advanced Battle, going directly to the Diamond & Pearl series.

In the Czech Republic (Všechny chytit máš!), Ash Ketchum’s voice actor was Radek Škvor, who was 10 years old at the time when the series first reached the country. He was same age as his assigned character! Eventually he got replaced by his older brother, Jan Škvor some time during the XY series. Ash may be 10 forever, but not the VAs.

In Belgium, the Pokémon anime is distributed in two dubbed languages: Flanders (Belgian Dutch) and Wallonia (Belgian French).

In France (Attrapez-les tous!), they had an unprecedented 2-hour special for the first four episodes of the XY series on May 1st 2015 along with a bonus special airing Mega Evolution Special I afterwards. They did ANOTHER 2-hour special on April 13th 2016 with the premier of the first four episodes of the XY&Z season. The French sure do love the Kalos region...I mean isn’t Kalos based on the country of France?

In Greece (Τα θέλω τώρα εδώ! Ta thélo̱ tóra edó̱!), the anime first aired on Star Channel until it moved to Disney XD when they acquired the rights during Diamond & Pearl. Despite this, irregular broadcasts of specials and movies still show on Star Channel, especially during holiday seasons, but the regular series airs exclusively on Disney XD.

In Italy (Acchiappali tutti!), Brock's first Italian VA was Nicola Bartolini Carrassi. Who is Nicola you ask? He is a journalist, anchor, scriptwriter, anime expert, and the man who brought the Pokémon franchise to Italy in the first place. He has been chosen by Warner Bros, 4Kids, Pokémon INC., Nintendo Games Freak and Buena Vista to become the Italian dubbed voice of Brock and he has been praised for his work, even if it was only for 2 seasons. He left the show after the Orange Islands arc.

In Poland (Czy już wszystkie masz?), when the tenth season was dubbed by a new studio, Sun Studio Polska, they decided to ignore the previous cast of the series and choose all new actors for every character. There were a lot of mixed reactions among fans to the sudden recast, but in February 2009 when DP: Battle Dimension started, most of the original cast of the Polish dub were restored.

In Portugal (Vou apanhá-los todos!), the show aired in an irregular pattern, shifting from 6am to 10am, but it always in the same programing block, named LOL@SIC. On a side note, Ash Ketchum had no less than ten different Portuguese VAs over the years. Y I K E S

In Spain (¡Hazte con todos!), Adolfo Moreno has provided the voice of Ash Ketchum in the entire anime. This is quite rare as a lot of foreign dubs, constantly change VAs for their cast, and even the English dub had to recast Ash’s voice after Battle Frontier. One exception is the 3rd Pokémon movie and the Mewtwo Returns special since it had a different VA cast. On another interesting note, there were 2 different dubs for the Pokémon anime in Spain: an Iberian Spanish dub, and a Catalan dub.

In Norway (Fanger alle nå!), the setting of the Pokémon movie Giratina and the Sky Warrior is based on Norway's nature. Three places were used as inspiration; Sognefjorden, Jostedalsbreen, and Bergen. The scene with the Glacier threatening to destroy the town was based on a little town of Geiranger, which is threatened by a collapsing mountainside in real life! Speaking of other movie trivia, the single Don't Say You Love Me, promoting the official soundtrack worldwide for Pokémon the First Movie, was performed by the Norwegian group M2M.

In Denmark (Jeg ska' fange dem!), the anime took a 3-season break from Danish TV after the episode Charizard Chiils. The series would not return until Address Unown! (with a new cast of voice actors) leaving no explanation as to why the episodes in between were never aired.

In Ireland, there is no Irish dub in the country since over 90% of people there speaks English as their primary language, and what they got was the English dub from the United States. For some reason though, two episodes from the Hoenn saga didn’t air. Specifically speaking the episodes: The Bicker the Better and Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut?.

In Slovakia, only the first four seasons of the anime have been dubbed into Slovak, nothing else after. All the English theme songs were left in their original form, untranslated, however the Pokémon movies had both their opening and ending themes Slovak dubbed.

In Albania (Duhet ti kap!), Pokémon movies were dubbed in Albanian by "Jess" Discographic. This company is recognized for providing "illegal" dubbings of other shows they have done.

In Lithuania, the Pokémon anime debuted the Lithuanian dub at Christmas Eve of 2005 on BTV. The first seven Pokémon movies, on the other hand, aired at different channels, though the dates of their original airings cannot be traced and have gone lost.

In Germany (Komm und schnapp sie dir!), one of Ash’s German VAs is named Veronika Neugebauer. She shares the same name (sort of) with Verinoca Taylor who is famous for being the original English dub voice actress for Ash. Unfortunately, Neugebauer died during the production of dubbing Diamond & Pearl, and they had to bring back the original German VA for Ash, Caroline Combrinck, who previously quit the show to study in New York City. Ash is currently voiced by, Felix Mayer, Sun & Moon. *Also I want to briefly mention one of the largest German Pokéfan sites: Filb.de. because I have been to that site a lot looking at screen-caps, and even using some of them for my posts (specifically PokéAni Highlights/Rewind). Basically the German Serebii.net!

In Croatia (Fes-te'ls tots teus!), they have dubbed a few Pokémon movies in their language, however the theme music remained in English.

In Romania (Să îi prind pe toți!), the Romanian dub has aired the first 5 seasons in the country, but everything else after that was skipped EXCEPT Diamond & Pearl (Sinnoh League Victors was SKIPPED though), and Sun & Moon which just recently debuted last month (as of this post).

In Serbia (Треба да скупиш све Treba da skupiš sve!), the only seasons to be fully dubbed in Serbian dubbed is the original series and Black & White. Advanced Challenge, and some of Pokémon Chronicles were dubbed as well. In the very few Pokémon movies they have dubbed, the opening and ending themes remained in English.

In Bulgaria (Да ги уловим! Da gi ulovim!), the anime was originally broadcasted on Nova Television, but eventually made the jump to Disney Channel Bulgaria. Some other countries air the series on Disney as well, so I guess America wasn’t the first country to make the jump, huh?

In Russia (Всех их соберём! Vsekh ikh soberyom!), after the first 104 episodes of the original series were shown, the Pokémon anime was not broadcasted in Russia for SEVEN years. Many Russian fans wrote to TV channels asking them to bring back the anime. Countless rumors of why the ORT channel pulled the anime off air included: newspapers and the yellow press pressuring the station to cancel the show for showing “offensive” content, while some say that Pokémon was “brainwashing children with subliminal stimuli”. ORT was worried about its reputation, so they stopped airing Pokémon, and that they couldn’t make an agreement on the price of licensing the anime with the Japanese creators. On September 20th 2008, the Pokémon anime made its miraculous return to Russian television via the TNT channel, where they premiered the first episode of the Diamond & Pearl series.

Source: Bulbapedia

← (The Middle East) Previous | Next (Oceania) →

#PokeAni #Pokemon anime #PokéAni Trivia Tuesday #AniPoke #Pokemon the series #international #global #Europe #The United Kingdom #EU countries #Pokemon #Pokemon movie #Pokemon dub #trivia #probably the GREATEST and LONGEST PTT EVER!#it was a very fun research!

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captainkirkk · 7 years ago

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ok so. so so so. this will be a long message, because frick on a stick there is so much i want to tell you and thank you for. so brace yoself: i read history has its eyes on you only yesterday, but i've been desparately rereading it ever since, almost non-stop, because holy macaroni if this fic ain't one of the most perfect stories these tired eyes have ever seen. i love SO MANY THINGS i'm not sure where to even start, gosh. okay. okay. let's start at the beginning. (1/?)

WEEPS. You sent me A DOZEN messages, bless you? And thank you!!!

This ask and my response got long, so I’m putting it under the cut. There’s a bunch of headcanons about the ‘see it all in bloom’ universe in here, so if you’re interested, keep reading.

your headcanons regarding class 3-a’s rise to fame/the july attacks/deku’s leap in the limelight as future number one, i adore it all. it makes sense, it’s exciting even if we don’t get to see it on the page word-for-word/in real time, and it’s inspiring too! but most of all, it fits them all so well – they deserve to be written as great heroes and i’m beyond happy you gave that to them in your story – to ALL of them, including shinsou. cookies for you. (2/?)

secondly, the rankings you picked for them – deku as no.1 of course, and katsuki ACTUALLY BEING CONTENT WITH SECOND PLACE, EFF YEAH! and shouto at no.4, holding neither all might’s nor his father’s former ranks, i appreciate the heck out of this. just… all the kids becoming awesome heroes and having wonderful, fulfilling careers just like they’ve always wanted, i’m here for this and i’m here to STAY. (3/?)

thirdly, katsuki’s character. i will be the first person in this fandom to admit my intense dislike of him, but you’ve written him in exactly the way i’ve always wanted him to turn out – significantly less jaded, noticeably more humble (and sane…), actively working to correct the mistakes of his past by becoming an advocate for quirkless kids and participating in anti-bullying campaigns (as an ex bully-victim, reading this made me want to kiss you) with deku, that felt sweet on the soul (4/?)

and also being married to kirishima, of course. DUH. speaking of which, the ships! THE SHIPS! ALL. MY. FAVOURITE. SHIPS. they were all there, they all got attention, and i love you all the more for it. tododeku especially. i just love how tenderly yet comfortably they were written. in my mind, they’ve always felt like the couple that will get the happily-ever-after kind of romance, like two souls mated in a fairy tale come to life. and they, above all others, deserve that everlasting joy (5/?)

and the parts with toshinoti, how he’s dealing with his new(-ish?) lifestyle and the world is spinning on without him, but also taking care of him, because he’s more than earned it – how all his former friends and students have become family to him and are so eager to remain an active part of his life, how he helps bakugou with teaching (for dummies ;P) and is so painfully proud of deku, it was all so deeply touching and heartwarming, i loved every single one of his scenes to bits! (6/?)

the writing was wonderful forma purely technical point as well: there were some typos but nothing serious, and it all flowed quickly yet smoothly – you stylde felt simple and dynamic, but also somehow profound, perhaps precisely because of its simplicity. i still can’t put my finger on it. i just know i loved it. your ocs were a great addition too! their personalities felt distinct and they left good impressions without overstaying their welcome in a class 3-a-centred story, top job! (7/?)

the whole domestic feel of the fic was wonderful as well! it felt like a true slice-of-life piece, even though the lives in question are filled with action and danger. you captured the nature of the balance between working your (adventurous and stardom-speckled) dream job and living your private life/spending quality off-time with friends very accurately. the final excerpt (the description of the photo) left a sweetly nostalgic sense buzzing in my chest. just… thank you for this story. (8/?)

and now that i’m done singing your praises, time for the payback! i adore this verse, and therefore i naturally have questions. first and most importantly, the tododeku relationship development. could you tell me when and how they got together in this verse, how that whole tidbit with suing endeavour went, and when and how exactly they got engaged? i assume it’s in the 5 months leading up to the reunion, but details please? future wedding details too? give me ALL THE DETAILS. (9/?)

then, ranking details! we know deku’s no.1, bakugou’s no.2, and shouto’s no.4, but the fic mentions the class currently has 6 members in the top 10. who are the rest, and who’s the number 3 hero? please tell me it’s momo. PLEASE. also, have their ranks changed since the time they graduated, or have they remained the same for the last 7 years (i.e. deku’s always been no.1 ever since he entered the ranklist, shouto’s always been no.4, etc.)? and what’s shinsou’s rank? (10/?)

what about teaching details? where’s nedzu if aizawa’s principle? is shinsou a part-time teacher or a guest lecturer? does bakugou now do teaching full time, or does he only do homeroom for one class and keeps hero-ing in the meantime? will he even remain in the ranklist if he stops fighting villains? will he even care? and on a less-related note, are bakushima the only married couple? and when did they get married? was deku best man? my shameless curiosity demands to know everything (11/?)

finally, in case i haven’t tormented you enough, i wanted to ask, how do you envision our heroes’ futures? we know they’re only 25 in the story, and tododeku are about to soon get married. and bakushima are married already, bakugou’s switching careers, yada yada. but if you had to plot a course for the rest of class 3-a’s lives, what would it look like? all might mentioned grandchildren, but would tododeku want that? and where even was/is kouda in this entire fic? xDDD thank you!!! (12/12)

Again: thanks for the comments! I’m so glad you enjoyed this.

The next ‘in bloom’ instalment will focus on Bakugou becoming involved in anti-bullying campaigns. I’m with you, Bakugou makes me very uncomfortable in canon, but occasionally we get these glimpses of character development (esp in the manga), and I just needed to bring that out and expand on it.

And there will always be typos in my work, unfortunately. I don’t have a beta, and I’m a dumb-ass who always misses my errors. I do my best, but I am only human.

I won’t give you all the details (partly because I don’t have this universe entirely mapped out yet), but you can have some answers:

TodoDeku have a long engagement. They were engaged before we see them in ‘history…’ actually. They’re in no rush, and are very busy with their work lives, and are enjoying the blissfully engaged lifestyle. They’ve been engaged for about a year, and they have some vague plans, but nothing concrete. At the moment, they’re debating the merits of getting married somewhere private in the city vs. getting married on Toshinori’s estate. I’m not sure which one will win out.

Their rankings have changed A LOT! When he officially entered the rankings when he was 19, Deku only ended up no. 20, because it had been over a year since the July Attacks, and he hasn’t actually done much since then, being busy with exams/graduating/entering a hero agency. A lot of people were upset by this, but it didn’t bother Deku. He was ecstatic to scrap into the Top 20 as it was.

Sorry, no. 3 belongs to Inasa (from the manga). The top 10 has changed a lot, too. There’s actually seven 1a heroes in the top 10 - Uravity was No. 11 but got a jump in popularity recently. In order: Deku, Detonation, Gale (Inasa), Polarise, unnamed number 5, Creati, Red Riot, Ingenium, an unnamed number 9, and Uravity.

Shinsou is rankless. He’s an underground hero, and I headcanon that those types of heroes are not typically assigned ranks.

Shinsou has his own role at UA. He does a bunch of stuff: watches the entrance exams, works with some of the Gen. Ed kids, oversees possible transfers between courses, and does guest lectures. Aizawa gives him a lot of independent power.

Bakugou co-teaches Class 1-B. He occasionally guest lecturers other classes (like how Thirteen worked one-off with 1-A during the USJ attack). He has enough time to do hero work too, but he has a less intense work-load now that he’s also teaching.

Kirishima and Bakugou are the only married couple at the moment. They got married when they were 23, before TodoDeku had gotten engaged. They were the first couple to start dating in high school, too. They just … clicked, and never looked back.

Do you mean Kouda or Kouta? Kouda is probably off running a rescue animal shelter while doing minor hero work, too. Kouta is doing amateur film work and arguing with classmates when they don’t believe that he knows pro heroes irl.

I almost wrote Jirou and Momo announcing their engagement at the reunion, but at that point, I had been writing the fic for months, and I needed to upload it before I combusted. So. Yeah. They get engaged around the end of the fic.

I haven’t thought too hard about kids but … I can’t get the image of Kiri/Baku adopting an orphaned girl when they’re in their 30s, and Bakugou ringing up Midoriya to ask him to be the godfather, and Midoriya CRYING FOR HOURS. HOURS. He catches the train over at like 11pm, still in his pjs, still crying, and all over twitter there’s pics of Deku crying into a phone, sparking all kinds of terrible rumours, until he uploads a photo of him cradling his goddaughter in his arms a few hours later.

I also have more headcanons in my history verse tag, if you’re curious. Thanks again!

#history verse #ask #curiousbluepencil

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