#fansite: treasure

[yushibeans]

© 𝒄𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒆

[thetremorssaga]

It is truly becoming the best place for ALL fans of Tremors to gather. We're taking down Universal. One meme at a time.

Things are getting wild in our The Tremors Saga Facebook group.

Come join the #PrideMonth fun.

#Grabheads

[ebaybears]

Rainbow Furby Deepdive

Now that I've decided my website is a sea slug fansite (long story) I don't have anywhere to put my rainbow furby research. I considered putting it in a youtube video, but decided to post it to tumblr instead.

Anyway, here it is! The forbidden furby lore.

On the 14th of June 2016 supersonicmario0770 made a post on the adoptafurby forums. The thread was titled "Rainbow Furby?" and included a link to an archived ebay listing.

"I have never seen one of these before or where it came from. I can't find it when I look it up, no sign of it anywhere online but this ebay listing. It's pink with rainbow ears, hair, and chest."

At first most forum members thought it was a customized furby with dyed fur, although some thought it could be an unknown prototype. While the ebay listing is unarchived, we know roughly what it said.

On the 15th aibo7m3 posted this:

"I would err on the side of caution and and say that it's probably a custom too, but the seller's story is that this furby was an employee gift given to some of the members at tiger electronics (including her husband)."

Two weeks later on July 6th furbyandchips made a forum post, providing pictures of their own rainbow furby.

"My friend bought me the other rainbow furby the seller on ebay was selling. Identical to this one. I do not believe it to be fake or custom made. I have inspected it closely and the bottom of the box was open, so the inside cardboard can be removed, but the furby is still attached to the cardboard and didn't look tampered with. All tags are present and in mint condition. Everything is as it should be and looks like it was made in a factory and not customized by someone. The seller told my friend the same story which I believe to be true going by the fact the other furby she bought with it was only furby number 4 of that release, which makes me think it could of been someone who worked for tiger to have such a early one. This furby is in a regular box but if you look at some of the other special editions they too were in regular boxes."

Three years later, on the 19th of January 2019 furbyandchips provided an update on their website heyfurby.com.

"Hello Furby Fans! To start off our new blog, I thought I would write about a very interesting Furby in our collection. I do not know her Furby name as I have never switched her on, she is still attached to the cardboard base from the factory. We decided to name her May May, which means Love ;-)

A good friend found May May on Ebay America and I have never seen another furby like her. A while ago I posted about May May on a furby forum to try and find out some information about her, but no one there had ever seen or heard of this furby. I'm not sure which generation she is, if she is a prototype, limited edition or something very special. She has all tags present and looks to be an Official Furby Release.

Looking at the photo you will see she has rainbow eyelashes and a purple face plate, unlike any other furby. She also has rainbow pattern ears, mane and belly.

Her colours are amazing and I wonder if there are any more around like her. We will always treasure May May and hope to eventually find out more information about her. Stay tuned!"

furbyandchips quickly provided an update on the 21st. In this post, furbyandchips described searching the wayback machine for furby.com articles, finding what they were looking for on a page titled 'news updates'.

From the 9th of November 1999 until the 1st of August 2000 a competition to design a furby took place on the back of Post brand cereals. Children 17 and under were asked to color in their own furby design, and send their entry in the mail by the 1st of August 2000. Twelve designs at random would then be selected and posted on furby.com where a winner could be voted by the public.

The winner was Brittany from Missouri, who won a trip to the furby design studio in Illinois, as well as recieving their own furby. However, furbyandchips was still left with some unanswered questions.

"So it turns out that this is in fact an official Furby-Tiger Release! (some doubted this on AdoptaFurby Forum). I wonder if 'Brittany from Missouri' still has her Rainbow Furby? Also were any of the other 12 entries created?

As far as I know, there are only two Rainbow Furby's in existence. The one that I own, and the other one the original seller (maybe) still has? After some more detective work, I found out the other rainbow Furby had a highest bid of $525.00 before the seller chose to end the auction early! I can only guess they had a change of heart and wanted to keep it."

Eight months later, on the 11th of august 2019 an update was posted on the private facebook group Furby Collectors.

"Hi guys! I'm brand new to this group, and while I'm not a “collector” per-se, i am very proud of this furry rainbow dude right here. He's one of three in existence, made in 2000 when i was just 10 years old. i just so happened to be the lucky winner of a coloring “design your own Furby” contest hosted by Post cereals back in the day. i was flown to Rhode Island with my family and allowed to tour the Hasbro factory, meeting the artists, getting sneak peaks into prototype toys to come, and got to meet the CEO himself! He presented to me, in a formal greeting ceremony, with three of the Furbies I'd designed as a little girl. One to play with (kept outside of the box), one to keep sealed, and one they put into their archives. i felt ike a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Truly a dream come true for a kid. Sadly, when i was 16 years old, 13 years ago now, my boxed Furby was stolen from me and sold by my late older brother who had been battling an incredibly difficult and heartbreaking addiction. I've come to terms with it over the years, but have always wondered what happened to the rainbow siblings of this furry cutie. I'd seen images posted online of an Ebay listing with one of the sibling Furbies before but have not discovered much more about their fates. thought I'd reach out here and give a bit of backdrop to this weird story in hopes i may learn something! Here I've included a goofy photo of my multicolored friend from recently and a clipping of the arcticle written from when i was an excited 10 year old girl!"

This still leaves some questions. If the other furby furbyandchips's friend bought was number four, then why would the facebook poster believe there to be only three in existance, why would furbyandchip's believe only two to exist, and why would the original ebay seller say their husband recieved two as an employee gift?

We can most likely rule out the brother making both ebay listings, since he only had access to one furby. Could there be more rainbow furbies that we don't know of?

If you have any more information on this furby, please get in touch! I tracked down the news article the original creator was mentioned in, but I needed a newspaper.com subscription to view it so I wasn't able to get further information from that. I also wasn't able to check the facebook group for further updates as I don't use facebook. If anyone has pictures of the back of the rainbow furby and can share them, that would be appreciated!

Here's some more images:

[a-n-i-m-a-t-i-o-n]

Using the wayback machine, I found this page of notes on Treasure Planet from what I think is a now closed disney animation archive fansite. (I'm not certain but I haven't been able to access the website w/out using the internet archive).

There are some interviews with crew members, Don Bluth's opinion on the film, and discussions about its financial failure.

[deckofflora]

something something i manifested the astral design standard wands something soemthing

HAII!!!! Laura Sleepwalker here! are you tired of doing an old man’s dirty work? exhausted after a long day of fighting literal god? LOOK NO FURTHER!!!!!! With a little bit crowns and some mindless grinding, you too can become a pacifist in wizard101!

Now, the term ‘pacifist’ is being used loosely here, as the nature of the game is beating up baddies. HOWEVER, the young wizard won’t be the one with ancient blood on their hands. There are three ways we can achieve this.

Cantrip Wizard:

I like to call this one the ‘True Pacifist’ route, as you won’t be directly attacking the creatures, nor ‘acting’ within the battle at all.

To do this, I recommend acquiring some energy gear for every relevant level cap, (you can decide, but it ultimately depends on how long you’re willing to wait for more energy), and creating a full energy pet.

Next, using a character with access to the cantrip support spells within a guild, and other cantrip TC’s from the cauldron (or find some friends who are willing to help aid with donation/trading), trade to yourself any relevant Cantrips you would like to use for this build.

Then, with the assistance of someone to engage in the battle, you can help assist with the fight, make sure to join in on the very last round(s) for the kill so you can get credit for the quest.

School doesn’t really matter, but I suggest balance or life for the theming. Up to you if you choose to allow yourself to ‘act’ when joining the battle in the last round(s), such as using a heal or donate pip if you’d like more flexibility.

Monstrology Wizard:

By taking inspiration from Ambrose, we can instead pass the responsibility onto someone else! Conveniently, we can collect and summon minions to do it. Simple as that!!

On another wizard, collect as many minions as you can with decks and stats that intrigue you (you can check them on multiple forums and guide fansites).

And that’s all!!! Don’t hit, just support your minion and let it work it’s magic! Kick your feet up, you deserve to relax.

I recommend Life, Balance, or Myth as a base here.

Beastkeeper Wizard:

While probably being the least ethical method, why not put these pets to work? I mean, they live in our dorms rent free, they gobble up all our snacks, make THEM save the spiral.

By only using utility, pet item cards, willcasts, and maycasts, we can make our pets deal with the fight.

Create a pet (I recommend trying to get as many attacks as possible on the pet, as these are our only way to deal damage), and use whatever gear necessary to increase it’s spell’s damage.

Here I suggest, of course, Balance.

:)

and there we go! with some treasure cards and pets in hand, you can finally kick back and relax and let someone else save the spiral for a change.

[skz-files]

⠀⠀

📂 only lockscreens, packs & icons ‹ SKZ-FILES ‹ 🎱

be polite, treat everyone with kindness.

requests are open, but we only accept stray kids.

we have a blog just for kpop, k-hip hop, k-rnb and dramas, so all the wallpapers from this content are on @k-ture.

one of our admins has a treasure tumblr so everyone @treasure-locks.

we don't edit photos from fansites.

we don't allow you to repost our lockscreens elsewhere.

reblog and favorite if you liked, saved or are using it.

   

🏠. actions and psds are all from: @harupsds @awareatelier ♡

🗂️. visit our gallery (ACCESS HERE)

[k-ture]

📂 only lockscreens ‹ k-ture ‹ ♡

be polite, treat everyone with kindness.

requests are open, but we only accept kpop, k-hip hop, k-rnb and dramas.

we have a blog just for skz, so all @skz-files locks are reblogged here.

one of our admins has a treasure tumblr, so all @treasure-locks locks are reblogged here.

we don't edit photos from fansites.

we don't allow you to repost our lockscreens elsewhere.

reblog and favorite if you liked, saved or are using it.

����: nana (@art-nama) & babi (@awaregei) 🏠 : actions and psds are all from: @harupsds ♡

[bcbdrums]

🍓🕯️🔪

"🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?"

well. one day in 2004 when visiting my cousin in the hospital after her car accident. i missed an episode of Bonanza, due to...you know, being at the hospital. this was back in ye olden days of TV guides, recording things on VCR's, and....no....wikis.... not like we have now. no sites to tell you everything, no screencaps, no youtube... and ye olde dial-up internet days. and anyway.... the TV guide descrip made that episode sound thrilling. and...and i just had to know!

and i knew... i remember, knowing in my heart. that if i went online and tried to find out what happened. i'd never get off the computer again. well, i was right. the short conclusion to this tale is i found specific Bonanza fansites loaded with fanfiction!!! and i devoured it. i wanna say within the same month? i was hand-writing fanfic in spiral notebooks for Bonanza. still have that spiral notebook and that unfinished fic, literally locked in a treasure chest. and i still remember the entire plot, what i planned to do with it... yeah.

no, i never did find out what was in that episode i missed/didn't get to record... like i said, no wikis or anything of that nature... (we had to leave from school that day so i didn't get to go home and program the VCR; i'd not known that morning we'd be going to the hospital later.) and they didn't re-run the episode again... so i've still not seen it... but, i started writing fanfic that summer. a defining moment in my life. and yes, my cousin is well!

"🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?"

ohhh, hmmm... idk if i could scale it. maybe right in the middle, a 5 or 6? this will make more sense if i describe my process perhaps.

so if i'm really in the writing zone, i just...plow ahead until i'm finished. and then i go back and edit. when i'm "in the zone" oftentimes i don't see things that could genuinely be improved by better phrasing, better language choices... they just elude me cuz i'm so hyperfixated on the story and it's so clear in my head, so, of course it's great on the page! (example: Forfeit was written this way.) usually i then just quickly fix obvious typos/grammar things and toss the fic into the void. then i'll return a few months later when it's no longer fresh, and then see soooo many things that could be better, and depending on my mood i'll go back and heavily edit, or, i won't.

the other process... if i'm not "in the zone" usually i write a few lines, get stuck, and to get myself unstuck i go back and edit what i've done. fixing things, adding things... and usually once those few lines are edited i have the next ones ready to be written in my head. it's a slower process overall.

editing for other people is a whole different ball game. i love doing that (as long as i'm in the mood/have the energy/time) because it helps me refine my writing craft too, in trying to assist someone with a totally different style than mine. it's great. and i've edited/beta-read for so many diff people now with such a variety of styles it's really making me more aware of my own, and how it's changed over the years. and i also just enjoy helping people.

the idea of something getting better just appeals to me i guess. it's a good feeling, it's productive. so in that sense, i enjoy editing. if i feel really stuck on a project, then it can become just another slow-down however. that would be the only negative i suppose.

"🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?"

haha, already answered this in a prior ask but i'll choose a different one.

i spent days learning how to waltz properly. all the techniques, and the process by which one learns... to write one character teaching another character, very, very methodically. and apparently i did it well, i received a comment about it from someone who actually waltzes professionally if i remember correctly who was very pleased with my writing of it! can i waltz? or dance at all? no, no i cannot. but i could probably talk someone else through how to learn!

thank you SO much for the ask!!! ^_^

[sunburnacoustic]

Since the last Muse ask game took off but was a bit old, and since we all seem to like to get nerdy on the details on here, here's a new one:

Muse Down-To-The-Nitty-Gritties Asks

What's your favourite live performance?

What's a Muse song that sounds better live than in the studio?

What's a Muse song that sounds better in the studio than live? (if any!)

Favourite Muse cover?

Favourite Muse acoustic song/version?

Favourite one of Matt's dances?

Favourite Muse outfit? (from whenever, not just gigs)

Favourite 'live' performance? (mime ;) )

Favourite iconic Muse post (*Question originally said 'favourite iconic Muse Tumblr post' but that would disqualify 'wub wub fuckers' which came from Reddit)

Favourite non-studio lyrics (demos, live additions, etc.)

Favourite song that's never been played live

Favourite Muse/members Tweet/Instagram post

Favourite scene from a making-of DVD

Favourite live riff/jam/intro/outro

Favourite Dom live moment?

Favourite Chris pic?

Dan or Morgan?

Favourite Muse merch (including cover artwork)/fave era for Muse merch of any sort?

Favourite photoshoot of the band?

Favourite live moment?

Favourite wtf moment in an interview?

Favourite guitar/bass riff/drum fill?

Favourite Muse lyric?

What's something you wish Muse did that they don't normally do?

Dream Muse setlist (or just a few songs you'd like to see live if not a full setlist)

Favourite Muse pop song

Favourite Muse heavy song

Favourite Muse piano part/song(/organ, for obvious reasons)

Favourite Muse rarity (including hidden tracks)

Favourite Muse fan art?

Have Muse impacted your life?

Have you ever followed Matt's advice to not give a fuck if people think you're a pretentious wanker?

Which Muse member's autograph do you like most?

Have you met any of the band (/if not, any favourite fan interaction/gig stories)?

Favourite Muse moment that's overused in the fandom to literal meme status (e.g. fuck off you cunt, Soldier's Poem was on Absolution, anything at all from Panic Station, Hey You Crazy Kids!, etc.)

Favourite song to sing along to

Songs with lyrics that embarrass you in front of other people (no shame, our Matty has plenty of those too lol)

Favourite Muse instrumental to play (if you play an instrument, otherwise to listen to if you don't)

Do you prefer Muse in a club/small venue or a stadium?

Favourite live era?

Favourite stage/set?

Favourite festival performance?

Who's your favourite out of Muse's influences?

Have/Would you block someone for posting too much about Muse (asking for a friend)

Tell me a little-known fact about Muse

(Biased question but) Best Muse fan community? (Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, muse.mu messageboards, MuseWiki, any other old fansite, your IRL group of Muser friends)

Petition for takeabow19 to post again

Have you made friends through Muse fan communities?

Have you ever taken part in old Muse easter eggs? (e.g. anagram puzzles, the 2005 bicycle treasure hunt, etc.)

Chris' curls or the legend of Pedro?

Dom - bleach blond era, 90s slacker-band, wraparound shades-era, surfer dude era, Drones black era, 2022 'pornstache' baby blue era, or 2006 aviators era?

Matt offered £50,000 to whichever member of Muse is the first to go shirtless in the 2015 Nick Grimshaw Radio 1 interview. Who's getting paid?

brie or bananas?

Mirror Manson or Glitterati? (or any other Muse gear?)

Favourite catchphrase? ("Cheers!", "I've lost the plot", It's WOTPing time!, etc.)

Favourite silly Muse video (general)

Favourite music video?

Does the singer from Muse have only one tooth

(Okay I promised niche) Favourite Muse accessory? (Matt's OOS era thick necklace, the guitar-pick necklace, any rings, etc.)

(Let's pretend it's 2011 for a minute and the fandom is still losing their mind over Matt swearing in song) Favourite song/lyric that has Matt swearing?

[oldinterneticons]

Just wanted to give a thanks and shoutout to @addy-allure, who has been sending in links to tons of icons they have found browsing, including some Photobucket stuff and an old Britney Spears fansite!

As always, if you have a collection of old treasures or find some fun old avatars on your travels around the internet, drop me a line!

[laikaflash]

I was inspired by the post about archiving old Zelda fansites:

The Wayback Machine extension has earned its place on my Firefox toolbar. It's quicker than manually plugging in every URL to the site, more so if you check the box to save outlinks.

For my part, Kitai25.com is one of the oldest Soulcalibur fansites I'm aware of that's still accessible at time of posting. It's a treasure trove of fan art from as far back as 1998, so I'm duly archiving as much as I can tonight. So far, so good.

[xenosagaepisodeone]

so after a few days of my expedition through the way back machine, I finally come across one of these

(it's machine translated but you get the gist)

its not a secret that Xenosaga II initially received a lukewarm reception from fans due to it's aesthetic overhaul, truncated plot and average gameplay. a lot of the jp xeno fansites on the way back machine cease having any archived trace around 2005/2006, not too long after the game was released in 2004. i wasn't quick to assume that fan interest of the game died with II as the mid aughts saw a lot of webmasters retooling their online presence in response to the rapid changes occuring in web culture (and my persistant digging into individual cases often reveals that they just changed domains :p). finding an actual "this broke my heart" in response to a piece of media feels like uncovering some long lost treasure. people are disappointed by art they love all the time, but you rarely see anyone feel betrayed so deeply that they can't bear to look at it anymore. that they feel as if they witnessed something die. you may be "over" the movie franchise that pumped out a bad sequel or some really annoying discourse, but nobody acts like that guy from The People vs George Lucas who smashes all of his star wars merch after seeing the prequel trilogy anymore. some bitter, lingering attachment persists that keeps franchised media alive, forever. there is a hole in this person's heart that fanfiction and doujin were unable to fix, a black abyss that drew cruel borders around art, writing, friends, communities and the website they lovingly maintained to keep these things close to them for years, and enveloped them alongside the devastation of Episode II. this is love stretched into indifference. this is liberation from Fandom Samsara. this is Fandom Asceticism.

[allyssotd]

The Sweetest Way To Die

A lovely old Yami no Matsuei fansite! Angelfire is a real treasure trove for these old sites

content warnings: Sexual/violent content in the fanworks dection

[claire-starsword]

What if I stopped crying that SF2 doesn't have as much cool stuff to translate as the first game and just posted it anyway. Who could stop me. Anyway here's the prologue and character info from the manual.

A big island to the west of the continent of Parmecia, Grans. In this island lie the countries of Granseal and Galam, and they were allies.

A long time ago, in Grans Island, stood three demon lords. One was a fallen angel of supreme magical power, Lucifer, another was a skilled general of great wisdom, Darksol, and then there was one who surpassed both in power, the savage devil, Zeon. In the place where currently stands the castle of Granseal, a place called Arc Valley, the three fought a deadly battle to conquer the evil power that gathered there. But Zeon, who boasted being the superior force throughout the whole conflict, had his magic sealed in a jewel by Darksol, and having lost his power, sank into the ocean of flames in Arc Valley. The remaining two lords were also at the end of their strength, and were driven out of Arc Valley by the gods.

The evil power that gathers at Arc Valley was sealed in the ancient tower in the northeast of Granseal's castle. It is said that, should the seal in that tower be broken, that evil power will immediately resurrect Zeon. The tower is sealed by the two jewels in the ancient shrine... the Jewel of Darkness that represents the devils, and the Jewel of Light that represents heroes.

Well now, plenty of treasure hunters have heard rumors of these jewels, and dared to come to the ancient shrine. However, as they tried to take them, a mysterious power prevented them from even touching the jewels, and they went back home empty handed. Having heard of that, the noble thief Slade attempted it as well, and somehow! He could touch the jewels, and succeeded in getting both of them.

But, because the jewels were taken out, the seal of the ancient tower was broken. Dark clouds covered Grans Island, and lightning struck the tower as a terrible storm poured. And the shadows of devils drew near Granseal's castle...

Notes so far:

I didn't bring up Lucifer in this blog before because I thought it was a known localization problem, but I'm a nerd who spent my teen years in fansites so perhaps a have a skewed vision of how well known things are in a fanbase. Anyway! Lucifer and this lore are brought up in game in the lore dump at Tristan. It's no wonder why the western version had to do away with a name like Lucifer, but they complicated matters by replacing it with Dark Dragon's, who supposedly has nothing to do with this.

The rest of the lore itself is not that off in the official translation, but I'm already here, so:

"Arc Valley is an impure place! Evil power gathers there. One who rules over Arc Valley shall become the king among kings to the devils.”

“Lucifer, Darksol and Zeon fought as they all desired Arc Valley. Their battle was extremely fierce, scorching the land, staining the ocean, and parting the skies.”

“Zeon was victorious, and all devils called him the king among kings. The other two lords envied him, and attacked, sealing his power in a jewel.”

“With his powers lost, Zeon was swallowed by the ocean of flames in Arc Valley. Zeon's wails torn apart the mountains, and he was buried along with the valley.”

“A wise god lamented the devils' conflict, and created a righteous power. The righteous power chose a young person, and that person forged a sword at the wise god's mountain.”

“Given power by the wise god, the young one fought the two demon lords with the forged sword. The sword shone with a pure light, and the devils were driven off of Arc Valley.”

“The impure place of Arc Valley was sealed with the ancient shrine. It should never be violated, lest the great demon lord revive.”

“Should by any chance the evil power return, the power of the gods will choose another young one. Trust that righteous power! Take the sword and strike it into the devil's mouth."

[ignore the graphical differences in the english version i just used an unfinished sprite hack]

So unlike the english version, the original leaves it ambiguous if the "righteous power" created by the god is the Jewel of Light, but it's still not hard to infer that. Specifying a mountain also makes it way more obvious that the god is Volcanon, but, no surprise either. The whole lore about the sword does imply it was not meant to be the Chaos Breaker (since that one sounded specific for sealing Dark Dragon), but who knows, maybe light swords get around. Final Conflict is better anyway so it has the right to retcon whatever it wants to.

Anyway none of this is too worth noting, what I actually wanted to note was that Lucifer is the antagonist for the novel, though that's basically all I know on him.

Enough shallow lore, let's head up to shallow character bios. While I usually stick to the characters' english names, this game did the weird decision of sharing names with english Gaiden 2, so for once I'll use the JP names at first and comment on this stuff.

Protagonist (Bowie)

A boy from Granseal. He has trained to be a swordsman as a pupil of the sage Astral. As Granseal becomes isolated after the incident with the ancient tower, he sets out in a journey to deepen ties with the other species.

Species: Human Class: Swordsmen

As I've mentioned before in my playthrough, the japanese version puts a lot more emphasis on Granseal being unfamiliar with other species, even generalizing it as a human country sometimes. It makes no sense given you starting team and the countless centaurs in Galam's army, but it's there.

Sarah

A pupil of Astral's. The big sister kind of girl who enjoys taking care of others. Skilled with healing magic.

Species: Elf Class: Priest

The Gaiden 2 priest is also called Sarah in the JP version, making this a rare case where the names were already repeated in the original versions.

Huey

A pupil of Astral's. A boy with a lot of pride that relies on his leg strength to act in the battlefield.

Species: Centaur Class: Knight

The Gaiden 2 archer was the one originally called Chester.

Jaja

Yet another pupil of Astral's. Scatterbrained, but his physical strength is huge.

Species: Hobbit Class: Warrior

Yes, "Jaja". The english version was fully right to tweak it a bit, actually english Jaha is superior in all ways. Meanwhile the Gaiden 2 warrior was called Aaron in the original.

Kazun

A mage that tries to look calm and collected, but can't help being juvenile at times.

Species: Elf Class: Mage

Yet another minor name tweak I barely remember, having to pay extra attention to this. Anyway this description is everything to me.

Jippo

The true culprit behind the incident at the ancient tower. A noble thief that steals for the poor.

Species: Scavenger Class: Thief

The Gaiden 2 priest was originally called Sain. Slade is thus a name fully made up by the english versions. And it's a great name! I just wish they hadn't given it to both the best and worst character at once!

Also, Slade's species. The term スケイブン (sukeibun) seems to come from Warhammer's skaven race, which is pronounced a bit different than the word scavenger (which would be something like スカベンジャー(sukabenjaa) in katakana instead). However, the term first showed up in this series for those rat enemies at the start of Gaiden 1 and SFCD translated it as Scavenger so I'm going with that. Honestly, I'd rather just call him a ratguy.

Kiwi

A mysterious character. Somewhat of a mascot for the Shining Force!? It's unclear.

Species: Green Turtle Class: Green Turtle

I usually stick to the official class translations but, TORT has always been a weird one.

Peter

A phoenix chick. He's a boy brimming with curiosity, who was raised by the god Volcanon.

Species: Phoenix Class: Phoenik

Matilda

A wild and free ranger who loves nature and runs through the hills and fields. Skilled with a bow and arrows.

Species: Centaur Class: Ranger

The Gaiden 2 wizard was called Marian in the original. The name May was likely taken from the SF1 knight, and then romanized different, and, given to a foxling mage as well?? Good localization™

Gerhalt

A beastman with little body hair, looking just like a human. Has a strong sense of justice, and fights enemies head on.

Species: Beastman Class: Beastman

Ludo

The prince of the birdmen country, Bedoe, and a great friend of Peter's. The mobility he gets thanks to those wings is his strong point.

Species: Birdman Class: Birdman

The Gaiden 2 monk was called Bill in the original, and as most know by now, SF1's Luke was originally Lug. That's right, we went from zero guys named Luke to three of them. Still not the worst name situation yet! Hold tight to your seats!

Lloyd

A middle-aged scholar who joins the force because he wishes to drive an ancient vehicle, the Caravan.

Species: Human Class: Brass Gunner

Rohde is actually a pretty clever adaptation of "roido" that also kind of puts a "rode" pun in the middle. But the "Lloyd" romanization is so much more common and stereotypical for a studious guy I felt like pointing it out. Meanwhile, the Gaiden 2 dwarf was originally called Games. Not like the word "games", more like gah-mes. Does anyone even remember who I'm talking about? I'm having trouble remembering the guy myself, all dwarves are generic in this series but the CD ones take the cake.

Mick

A knight who lives in the town of Hassan. Timid, but shows his power once brought to a few battles.

Species: Centaur Class: Knight

Yes, Mick. They changed one letter of it.

His description here, despite repeated in guide books, is a bit off compared to the game, where he has just arrived at Hassan, and has no plans to stay. Describing him as timid is also very off from the wakuwaku yahoo funny boy we get in game.

Most you can say is that in JP he isn't as hyped in HQ, but it's still more of a focused thing than timid:

"We centaurs are the main fighters in a battle, so we can't ever let our guard down."

now you know why he has the best defense among knights. Not that my screenshot reflects that lmao. Also a rare moment of the localization adding exclamation points instead of robbing them.

Polnaref

A resident of Fairy Woods. He is rescued by the protagonist while struggling and stuck in a spring.

Species: Elf Class: Archer

Elric

A calm and courteous knight, who has been shrunk due to certain circumstances. A noble.

Species: Centaur Class: Knight

Congratulations. You have reached Worst Name Situation.

That is not a typo. He was called Elric in the original. They changed it to Eric, and then gave the og name to a different guy in the same game. Meanwhile, the Gaiden 2 knight who also got the name Eric was called Kreid in the original. Little did they know that a single game after there would an actual Erik, who I romanize with a k in a futile attempt to minimize this mess.

But it doesn't even end there. There's Shining Soul 2. In japanese, the warrior's default is Alex.

Guess what they changed it into for the english version

Twiggy

A female priest with a kind heart and a good head on her shoulders. Yet another one who has been shrunk down due to circumstances.

Species: Human Class: Priest

You read that right, human. Both this manual and every guide book I know lists both her and Taya as humans despite the ears. This happens to Ruburan as well in the Final Conflict manual (and you can note his overworld sprites lack pointy ears), but the guide book lists him as elf. The novel apparently goes around this by calling her a half-elf.

Dongo

Another one shrunk down. A rough and rowdy sort, but has a nice side as well. His destructive power is huge.

Species: Dwarf Class: Warrior

The Gaiden centaur was the one originally called Randolf.

Piper

A high-minded middle-aged mage who has been shrunk down. Has more physical strength than expected for his class.

Species: Elf Class: Mage

Janet

A resident of Fairy Woods. A girl whose skill with the bow is on par with Polnaref's.

Species: Elf Class: Archer

Higins

Captain of the army of the country of centaurs, Pacalon. His mobility and strength are nothing to complain about.

Species: Centaur Class: Paladin

I don't think i need to tell you that the Gaiden 2 ninja was actually Hanzou, right? It certainly wasn't a ninja called Higins, that's for sure.

That's not what matters here. What matters here is that a japanese onomatopoeia for horse clopping is "pacaran pacaran".

They live in clopclop town.

If I have to know this fact you have to know it as well.

Fielder

A birdboy with a strong body and wings boasting outstanding movement. He's modest and polite.

Species: Birdman Class: Birdbattler

Not exactly a name repeat, but the name Skreech is likely inspired by Gaiden 2's Shriek, who did have that name in JP as well.

Linda

A shrine maiden who turned to stone by orders of the goddess Mitula. She can control spirits of nature.

Species: Human Class: Sorcerer

Sharol

A priest of Moun, of pretty old age. Can use many kinds of healing spells.

Species: Hobbit Class: Vicar

Hobbit discourse! Some guide books call him human instead. His proportions are very different from the other hobbits/dwarves in the series so I'm willing to believe that more.

Also, I never brought it up before as I don't know much on religion but guess I'll do it now. The word used for the priest class is 僧侶 (souryo), which refers to buddhist monks. The word for the promotion, officially translated as vicar, is 司祭(shisai), which means catholic priest.

The word describing Frayja here is 神官 (shinkan), which is apparently a shinto role.

I don't think it's just my lack of religious knowledge making this look like a mess.

__

Anyway, look at that totally inconspicuous repeat of Bowie's art randomly in this page! Exactly in the position another character bio could go! And we have an even number of characters, so there was no reason to break this display of two side-by-side, right?

In case you haven't heard, Jaro is basically non-playable in the japanese version. There was an oopsie in the code as he joins, and he never stops being AI controlled like in his first battle. Guide books straight up refer to him as a NPC.

This game was A Lil' Rushed.

So yeah, my bad, Jaro doesn't get lore. Not that anyone is getting lore, but he really gets nothing. His japanese name is Falcon, if you're wondering.

Gyan

A hot headed man who can't stand still when others are in trouble. His strength is terrific.

Species: Hobbit Class: Gladiator

More hobbit discourse! Gyan calls himself a dwarf in-game, i’ll just use the english screenshot since it’s accurate.

Told you to not care about this. Some guide books do call him a dwarf as well.

Also, the bear beastman from the Gaiden games was called Teddy in the original games.

Sheela

A former pupil of Astral's. She joins the force to avenge her lover, killed by Galam's army.

Species: Human Class: Master Monk

Bacchus

He was once just junk lying around in the ancient pathway. A highly-skilled fighting machine.

Species: Robot Class: Robot

Rude, manual, rude.

The wording is a bit ambiguous here as in, maybe he was made of junk found in the pathways. But he remembers ancient times, so I doubt that's it. Unless he was already made of junk material back then, which makes this some pretty resistant garbage. I love recycling.

Oneia

A rare kind of mage, active and enthusiastic. Lives in the town of Yeel, currently in danger.

Species: Human Class: Wizard

I don't think it's that rare for mages to be enthusiastic in this setting, and he doesn't even act much like it in game, but he does seem to be confused by his own feelings in HQ:

"I usually seem gentle but, I'm thrilled when in battle. Perhaps it is in my nature to like conflict?"

Lemon

The commander of the Galam army. An enemy general who was possessed by a devil and committed one slaughter after another.

Species: Human Class: Red Baron

Mud

An inorganic creation given life, that is, a golem. Skills are yet unknown. A curious existence.

Species: Golem Class: Golem

Final name discourse. According to the dictionary "mud" is more commonly written as マッド in katakana instead of マード here, but I still don't see anything else it could be. The Gaiden birdman was called Barry in the original, so Claude is fully a localization name, though I suspect it was initially thought for the birdman since, you know, sounds like cloud.

Sage Astral

A retired sage who lives in Granseal. Teacher to the protagonist, Sarah, Chester and others. He awaits their return while helping to rebuild the country.

Astral is mostly referred to as a sage in game, or by some honorific like -sama or -dono. The localization lumped all of this into "sir", like it usually does. It's not perfect but I struggle a lot with adapting honorifics as well so I tend to go with it.

King Granseal

The king of Granseal. Has suffered greatly since the incident of one year ago, as he lost his beloved Princess Elis, and faced against the neighboring country of Galam that used to be his ally.

Princess Elis

The daughter of King Granseal. When the seal of the ancient tower broke, she was taken by King Galam, who had been possessed by a devil, and dragged to the Demon World.

Volcanon

The great god who lives in a volcano at South Parmecia. Also a father figure to the phoenix chick, Peter. He is angry at the people of the surface who revived Zeon.

Oddler

A boy met at the village of Polca. His eyes are injured, and he doesn't remember a thing from his past. At the village chief's request, he begins to travel with the protagonists. Is being targeted by the devils.

Creed

A misanthropist great devil who lives in a mansion in the Devil's Tail in the Parmecia continent. He comes to know of the demon lord Zeon's revival, and to help stop it, lends some of his warriors to the force.

Yeah. One of them.

The term I translated as great devil is 大悪魔, different from the one used for Oddeye, Cameela and Zalbard, 悪魔軍隊長, which the game adapted as Greater Devil, but is more like Devil Army Captain.

[themainspoon]

Goddamnit, I hate when I create stupid fucking rules and traditions for myself that I feel the need to follow.

The reason I’m complaining about this is because of one rule I have which is temporal in nature, it dictates that there is a certain thing I can only partake in at certain times.

So, growing up in Australia my parents never let me celebrate Halloween, because it is an American holiday and ‘we don’t celebrate it here’ (we actually do now, and we did back when I was little, not to the same extent, but the fun horror holiday is probably the only non-negative thing that the US’s attempts to expand its cultural hegemony ever gave us).

So, as a kid I never went trick or treating, never got to dress up, and as an awkward teen I didn’t get invited to any Halloween parties either, despite the fact I knew they were happening.

October always used to be a bit of a downer of a month for me, and I spent my entire childhood feeling like I missed out. So, now that I’m an adult I decided that in order to make it up to little kid me in a way he would probably think was a great idea, October would be “Emulate retro horror games” month. Emulating and playing through old horror games is what I do now during October, and only in October.

Last year I sat down and played Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2, and it was a great time, I genuinely fell in love with the franchise. But now we get to my issue: After last year I planned to play through Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room this year.

But I’m growing increasingly impatient.

Like Goddamn, I just really have that old school survival horror itch atm, and I am honour bound to not scratch it. It’s not even fucking September yet, could October hurry the fuck up please?!?!

There is also another issue I face, what do I play next year after I beat Silent Hill 3 and 4? Those are the last of the Silent Hill games that are actually worth playing. After that what do I do? Honestly the 2002 remake of the OG Resident Evil seems like it could be interesting, and maybe the first Fatal Frame could also be fun. But what do I play after that? How many good PS1 to PS2 era horror games actually are there? When does the tradition have to die?

Also, just while I’m talking about this I want to shout out SilentHillMemories.net, a Silent Hill fansite that contains a whole treasure trove of information on all the games, including detailed walkthroughs available in English and Russian (at the moment). It isn’t a wiki, but it’s still a pretty cool site, and it is really nice to be able to access all this stuff on a site that isn’t fandom or some dumbass gaming journalism website trying to projectile vomit ads and other stupid bullshit directly into your eyeballs. So huge shoutout to them:

[plaexus]

https://x.com/buyiweiqi/status/1858662915639046368?s=46&t=AYetJNafs2ZqO7s5-93jDA

We need go enshrine this queen bc she always comes through with the best jmj content. Jm was so so proud and I feel she would’ve geeked out more but she was also very conscious many eyes were on her (i know she typically has no problem showing how down bad she is for mj but idk, i got that feeling). Like when the sheet part came along, you can see she was so taken by it and yet she underplayed her reaction a bit, maybe trying to control the heart eyes for a change (we got plenty of them that night but still 😭)

buyiweiqi and all the other dedicated jmj fansites deserve their slot in heaven. other than being proud of and taken with her as she usually is, jm really admires mj as an artist. she felt a bit of a rivalry with her when they were trainees, but i think it's just a sign that she respects her talent a lot. you could really feel how proud she was of mj throughout the award show, and yeah especially during her solo stage. and i felt too that she reined her reactions in a bit, but still, she can't hide the heart eyes. jm was such a stage gf – waving at mj, trying to get her to notice them, cheering out loud for her. i'll treasure 241117 forever