#found in trenches

[lindaseccaspina]

Found in the Trenches-- V. F. Andrew - Father David Andrews

The German Fur Den Engang means “For the entrance” from the Doberitz Training Camp in Germany Doberitz Training Camp in Germany—Barracks, military training area, Doberitz GERMANY postcard p/u 1902– The birthplace of the German Air Force- In the first decade of the 20th century, the Heerstraße (today’s B 5) was expanded at military request. This served as a direct connection between Berlin and…

[hickeygender]

after literal years i finally got around to downloading a pdf of the wipers times, an unsancitioned satitical british trench magazine circulated among the troops in france from 1916-1918 after the fortuitous discovery of a printing press. i have approximately five million other things i need to read so idk when i'll be able to devote much time to it, and i gotta pick up a proper copy bc it's missing at least salient no 4 vol 2. that said? i'm genuinely laughing at what i've skimmed so far

[aibafiles]

Esperanto in Metaphor: ReFantazio

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

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

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

Continued under the cut, including content from the demo:

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

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

Here's the "deciphered" Esperanto:

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

And here's a more "direct" translation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Screenshot grabbed from justonegamr on Youtube.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Various graffiti found around Sunshade Row that reads:

Ĉi tio estis infero (this was hell)

Malbela elda (nasty/ugly elda)

Merdo (shit)

And in the words of our favorite tooth...

Elbe venontfoje! (Maybe next time!)

[blackbackedjackal]

searching for dog figures

[bri-cheeses]

personally I think that all queer books should have a “special edition” with a subtle cover (and a code name if it’s necessary) for all of the people in homophobic areas

[winterspiderpurrs]

Bucky stares at Peter. Peter who is tying up the straps of his rucksack as he prepares to leave with the unit that volunteered head out a few days before the rest to scout out in Austria.

After making another adjustment, Peter looks over at Bucky and gives him a small sad smile.

"We were always going to meet. If we are lucky we will meet again."

" You believe in that old wives tale? This isn't some fairy-tale shit Peter. There is a war going on. Your riskin-"

Peter gets on his tip toes and gives Bucky a small kiss.

" I have to believe. Cause I'm not changing my mind. And I know… that I won't come back from this. I do. But we are soul mates, and I know we are destined for more. But.."

Peter looks off in the distances before smiling back at Bucky again.

" Now just isn't our time. Look for me again James Barnes, I will be looking for you."

Peter pulls Bucky down for one more kiss.

" I'm glad I met you."

Weeks went by before they turned into a month. Bucky was captured and put to work in the camps. Found some men in the unit that Peter went off with. He already knew.

Peter was killed 2 weeks earlier.

Bucky had woken up in the middle of his nap in the woods with his team. His web soul-mark tattoo burning, it didn't fade completely off. Just turned to a shade of white, instead of the red and blue pattern that was there before.

Hydra, Steve's rescue attempt, Hydra again to be the Winter Soldier, breaking free of Hydra, trying to live his life, Avengers.

Its been a few years since he wasn't considered a flight risk, a danger to himself and others.

So here Bucky was, fiddling with one of his knifes as he waits to Tony to finish yammering on about expanding the team. Bringing Spiderman in to help assist. Bucky liked Spiderman just fine, its been years since they have interacted. But he knew he was a good guy. Bucky kept to himself as introductions were made. But as the meeting was winding down, Spiderman moved to seat next to him.

"Not much of a talker huh?"

Bucky raised an eyebrow, and looked at the huge white eyes of the mask. For some reason he sensed that Spiderman was smiling.

" That's okay Jamie. We got time to get to know each other now. Ya' know. Since I'm on the team now well unofficially, helping out when I can at least."

Bucky frown and stares Spiderman and tilts his head. There is like a roaring sound around his ears his focus narrowing in on the person in front of him.

Spiderman lifts his mask off, brown curls falling into his brown eyes as he grins big at Bucky.

"Peter?!"

" Hi Jamie…"

[l3irdl3rain]

making eggs and lo and behold. he’s out from under my bed and watching me

[jukinthebox]

miscellaneous bats doodle dump

so my tablet finally shit the bed and i gotta draw everything with my finger now so that’s why i’ve been mia for a bit….

(on a completely unrelated note my ko-fi is taking donations now…maybe u can be my first supporter maybe 😀)

​i might be slow to respond to comms requests bc of this but THEYRE STILL OPEN! (if ur waiting on comms and these delays will effect ur delivery date i have already contacted u)

[fanby-fckry]

[ID: An alignment chart meme with Hazbin Hotel characters; Panel One: good at being good; Charlie; Panel Two: bad at being good, Angel Dust; Panel Three: good at being bad, Alastor; Panel Four: bad at being bad, Sir Pentious; Panel Five: bad at everything, Tom Trench, screaming while on fire // End ID]

[goldenstarprincesses]

*modern trench warfare being used for the first time in a major conflict during the American civil war*

*trench warfare leaving mental scars on Alfred that takes years of healing to move past*

Alfred showing up to Europe and seeing they somehow made trench warfare worse

[frostedpuffs]

it's a ✨bad day✨

[leclercari]

I will not be caged. You won't be in shackles, George. Unless you want to try that?

MARY & GEORGE (2024) - Episode 5 "The Golden City"

[drrav3nb]

GET TO KNOW ME MEME: favourite lost/lesser known ships [3/10] - Jonas & Suyin (The Meg)

It's not just about the ones you lose, it's also about the ones you save. I'm glad you're here.

[willfullwanderer]

wonder who this is!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Magneto definitely uses his mutation to do magnetic bondage tell me I'm RIGHT

why would i ever doubt you when i have to see this man bind charles above his fireplace using the metal from his wheelchair