#i wish i could say this any better

[meteoratheory]

ive thought about writing this post every year since chester passed, and im still not even sure if im ready to write it as eloquently as i want to. i remember exactly where i was when he passed, i read the news on twitter in the parking lot of the cvs by my house and i broke down. i was already at rock bottom in my own life and i wanted to die myself bc i was hopped up on painkillers from a surgery i had gotten the month prior. and in some weird twisted way, the news of his passing shocked me back into reality and i had a "what am i doing?" moment with the depression/suicidal thoughts symptoms of the painkillers. he saved my life. their music saved my life. i wish he could still be here and i could have gotten out of that time without losing him too, but one more light really brought me out of that dark dark place where i was waking up by realizing i was involuntarily crying and i didnt even know it while i was sleeping. it was a friend when i had no one in my life and i felt so completely and utterly alone. chester and linkin park were friends for me during that time when i had no one else. i don't think i listened to them more in my life before that summer (and that's saying something, because they were a massive part of my growing up). i only wish chester could have been here and made it out of 2017 with me/us as a community. i still cant really listen to one more light (the song) without breaking down, it's a tough listen for me most days, but i've found myself more capable of coming back to the rest of the album these days in hindsight. i was thinking about him last night and then the realization that today was going to be SIX years hit and it took me out. chester, i miss you so much. thank you for saving my life and bringing me out of my lowest moment. i wish i could say this better and in prettier terms, but at least i can get the thought out for the first time in six years, and that's something. but god, how i wish you were here every day.

make chester proud ♥️

[vero-niche]

can i just say how much i adore how Nao-chan's gender is treated so casually in skip to loafer

like, as a white cis woman who is also quite tall and havent read the manga i didnt even realize she was trans until this scene in ep2:

and i didnt even have the time to get nervous how they would handle this as they already moved on, ignoring the comments (just like queer people learn to do so) except for Mitsumi's comforting touch (implying she also heard the comments):

and there were no sad words or anything about this either, it was just handled so.... normally. which should not be something worth highlighting, but, well, you know. also on that note, special shoutout to P.A. Works for casting a woman as her voice actor as well.

she's shown being the supportive and lively aunt and like seconds later in this scene she's back to being her usual self again:

in conclusion

[shopwitchvamp]

Note to self: look into getting a little folding table or something, because if you sit on the ground for 1 1/2 hours to film a tarot video your back WILL hurt after

[shadyvoidhologram]

I was laying in bed overthinking, as you do, and started to go on a depressive doom spiral. And then, to distract myself I started thinking about the things I like.

[Spoilers and some gross details incoming, you know what Mouthwashing is about]

So, eventually I started thinking about Curly being in a similar headspace as I was, laying down, incapable of doing anything, constantly in pain and hearing time and time again how quickly things are going to shit and that it's all your fault.

Him replaying his mistakes over and over on his head, imagining the many ways things could've gone a different way if only he had done something instead of ignoring the issues to "keep the peace".

Remembering every interaction that led to the accident, Anya's confession, his friends poorly disguised resentment, him ignoring and filtering details of his crew's mental state, her taking the gun, the notice, Jimmy.

Him being a coward and disguising his hate of confrontation with the guise of being a good friend.

And then comming back to reality, to is burning flesh. To the blood, shit and bile staining the bandages, robe and bed, to watching and hearing his friends suffer and die, unable to do anything.

When the kid dies, in the midst of all the emotional chaos, he feels some sick sense of relief knowing that probably Swansea will deal with both of them quickly and it'll be over at last.

Then Jimmy finds the gun.

And he can't help but laugh. He remembers the conversation they had and he cackles bitterly because not even in death can her wishes be respected. She trusted him and he failed her even after she was gone.

Soon enough it's just the two of them left.

Through muffled ears he hears Jimmy rambling, talking to himself, asking questions and answering right after, he sees him moving the bodies around. When Jimmy carries him from the infirmary to the common room table he's still as stone, not a sound leaves his mouth, he doesn't look at the bodies thrown on the chairs around the table, he doesn't even breathe.

But all of Jimmy's attention, hatred, idolatry, and envy are on him only. Eyes glossy, cut pieces of a one sided conversation and a tentative smile on his lips when he reaches for the slightly dented knife.

He screams until his lungs close and his throat burns. When he's fed parts of himself he cries and throws up until he is forced to swallow and keep it down.

He's dehidrated, half delirious from the blood loss and emotionally checked out when Jimmy picks him up and tells him they can still fix this, he knows what to do. That he's going home.

Sure, he thinks, he wants to go home.

When he's placed on the cryopod he just stares at Jimmy talk to himself at him some more, about being heroes and everything being all right now. Then he steps out of sight.

It's on the silence after the loud bang when his brain starts working again, he's completely and utterly alone on a crashed ship of a company that's closing it's doors, with a now depleted shipment that wasn't even important enough to guarantee a search party, and no way of fending for himself in the case of 20 years passing and no one coming, even less if the power gave out before that.

As the cryopod finally starts to cool, the few tears he has left fall from his remaining eye.

He hopes he doesn't wake up to see what happens next.

..ok see y'all when I wake up-

[dw-flagler]

In this post, I will attempt to calmly, reasonably, and in-a-good-faith-manner argue all the points raised by tumblr user @library-bat-girl in the following posts. I am starting a new thread so as not to further destroy the original poster, @skitterenjoyer's, tumblr notifications. Worm (+MHA) spoilers ahead. This will be a long post.

Firstly, I would like to apologize on the worm fandom's behalf. We will not engage in ableism of any kind. I sincerely hope that this was a singular incident and @skittersdrippygirlcock will be better about this in the future.

"MHA has better characters,"

My Hero Academia's primary achievement, I think, is managing to make many decently well rounded characters in a fairly short time-span. It certainly has very good visual character design, with easily memorable character designs, like Mina Ashido or Tsuyu Asui. Most of Class 1A is shown to be more than single-note gimmick characters. For a story with such a tight schedule, and only so much page real-estate, that's impressive! For instance, a character decidedly outside of the main cast, Fumikage Tokoyami, is shown to have more to his personality than "is an edgelord," showing a humility and friendliness that is highly against-type. This is very different than a lot of its peers, especially in Shonen manga, where side characters (and sometimes even main characters) are never more than their tropes (see Fairy Tale, One Punch Man*, The Seven Deadly Sins, or Black Clover). My Hero Academia does clear that bar, by making side characters little more than their tropes. This is to say nothing of the primary cast, who, again, is largely defined by tropes and easily slotted into standardized interchangeable Shonen roles. Rival, Love Interest, Rival but Nice About It. Additionally, MHA has an uncomfortably sexualized main cast, for one composed primarily of minors.

This is compared to Worm, in which many characters are fully realized and could have been the protagonist (and often were in older drafts of the story, due to Worm's 10-year development hell). Every character that gets an interlude, and most that don't, all have fully realized interiority, traumas, and wants. In fact, this is one of the major themes of Worm. Every character, from the protagonist Taylor, to characters so minor they're seen only once (see Damsel of Distress, Dauntless), to major antagonists and monsters (see Jack Slash, Bonesaw) all have their own story, even if this is never shown on-screen. There are no "side characters" in the same manner as in My Hero Academia, because every character is a protagonist of their own story, and not in a trite "life is so beautiful" way.

Taylor isn't the center of the universe, there's an entire world outside of her 3-block bubble. The mechanism by which all characters get their superpowers means that the mere fact of having powers implies this about them. Even the seeming exceptions, aren't (see Alexandria, Garotte). Taylor is a good character. I don't even know how to elaborate on that. She just is. Worm does not have the character Minoru Mineta.

"a better plot,"

What... what is the plot of My Hero Academia? For the life of me, I can't seem to recall. I can tell you the general formula of most of the arcs for the first ~2/3rds of the story. Class 1A goes to do a hero high school thing, like do rescue training, or on-the-job training, or on-the-job-training, or on-the-job-training (they do it like 4 times for some reason), the League Of Villains shows up (even when it's seemingly not the league of villains it actually is the league of villains) they fight about it, the class beats all the villains, and Deku beats up strongest bad guy and also breaks his bones. Repeat step 1. But like. What's... the plot? The League of Villains is evil and wants to kill people and do bad stuff. They explicitly do not have greater motivations. There's generally themes of passing-on-to-the-new-generation, so there's Tomura Shigaraki as the arch nemesis to Izuku Midoriya, just as All Might's Nemesis is All For One. Eventually they fight a big fight about it and I stop reading because I find out about Worm. From what I understand (I have not read the conclusion) the series ends without addressing any long-running questions, wrapping up any character arcs, or concluding anything in a narratively satisfying manner. As if severely rushed.

Worm, there are maybe 15 main stories going on simultaneously, which are all tied into the final confrontation with Scion. The most obvious is Taylor's and the Undersiders' story, about taking over Brockton Bay and defeating Coil, which is a smaller part of Coil's story about taking over the bay, until their confrontation with him in arc 17, when it supersedes Coil's story, and then intersects with Cauldron's story, the Traveler's story, the Case 53s' stories, the Wards' story, all of it, in arcs 18-19. This is one example. A great deal of attention is spent making sure the reader knows that Taylor, the Undersiders, Coil, all of them, are bit players in a very large game. Despite this, it's never hard to follow, because Wildbow, while lacking some of the more flowery prose, manages extremely well at making his stories easy to understand.

"I feel like even people who like Worm can agree that Worm is not the most consistent piece of fiction ever written. The disjointed way it was written meant that emphasis was primarily put on 'What Wildbow thought was cool in the moment', [sic] and the story RADICALLY shifts gears every time a new arc starts."

What? Huh? Worm is extremely consistent. Like. 1.1 to E.x. It's, like. Not disjointed? Oh my god, are you talking about interludes? Is that what you mean? The interludes shift gears? Because that makes sense. It's one of the hardest things about worm, yeah. It's gripping! The interludes are a great idea to expand the world of worm, but the problem is that taylor's story is so intriguing that stepping away from it to focus on something else is hard, no matter how individually interesting. I want to read about taylor's escalation spiral, not the travelers! (As opposed to My Hero Academia having random escalation and de-escalation between arcs with no real explanation. We're reading about lives-on-the-line battles with child-slavers and then move to playing on a playground with little kids? Best I can think of is that this whiplash is intentional, but this is never communicated to the reader. Worm does not do this. Any de-escalation is met with the explicit understanding that this is merely a period of calm before things get even worse). Taylor's story wraps up in an extremely narratively satisfying fashion, following her story to its logical conclusion. There were so many ways it could have been avoided, but there was really only one way that it could have ended.

"better worldbuilding,"

This actually offends me. MHA could have had great world-building. It doesn't. Every potentially interesting bit of world-building is backpedaled out of or stopped before it could get anywhere. Or it's just never elaborated or expanded upon. Everyone having a superpower could have been cool, but the implications of this are nonexistent. The reasons for this having no real implications, that being the banning of quirks, also has implications that are also immediately backpedaled out of. It's been hundreds of years since our time, yet life is exactly the same. Nothing ever happens. Endeavor is a cool concept. I like Endeavor. his existence implies such interesting things about the world, how important hero ranking is to these people's lives, that he would create this horrific system of domestic abuse to try and get to the #1 spot. What does this say about this system of heroes that operates like a popularity contest? It could have said a lot. It says nothing. What does the League of Villains, a league of people who call themselves out-and-out villains, who base their ideology in opposing this system of heroes, say about society? Nothing. On purpose. Worm does something with this. One Punch Man does something with this. My Hero Academia puts it in the story, and lets it sit, unused, for a decade.

Worm has... unique world-building. Because it's both good and bad at the same time. Worm's #1 feature is its world. It's brilliant, full stop. Triggers, The Birdcage, the PRT, Exclusion Zones! Why does the status quo exist? what does it say about that society? What does it say about our society? Why hasn't society radically changed from how it is in our world? This is explained. This plays into the themes. The story wants to say something about this world, and so it does. There are characters whose stories explicitly delve into these themes that are set up in the worldbuilding, like Armsmaster, or Battery, or Bonesaw, or Coil, or Piggot or Alexandria or Taylor herself or Brian or Lisa or ANY OF THEM THEY ALL DO THIS. Sorry.

Anyway, the bad part is that the actual world is not well built (and is kind of racist). What's going on in Europe? There's a 3 blasphemies! a 3 what? never explained. What's going on in Asia, aside from Japan? China is a monarchy for some reason. Why? It's never elaborated on. India gets a little bit of elaboration, we're told its different but not how it's different. Wildbow uses machine translation wrong and names some guy caliph of dogs. This is like worm's #2 problem honestly (#1 is Amy). Wildbow tries to make the implication of a well thought out globe without actually making a well thought out globe.

"stronger themes,"

It really doesn't. As I said in the worldbuilding section, MHA makes a point out of not saying or doing anything. I don't know if editors made Horikoshi walk back the more ambitious story beats or what, but there are multiple points in the story where the author pretty much looks you directly in the eye and goes "This Story Isn't Saying Anything At All Even Though It Looked Like It Would. Lmao."

Worm has lots of themes. I think Armsmaster/Defiant's story is my favorite. His entire character arc (which is fully realized despite him being a background character for nearly the entire story) has a point to it. It says something. It's misanthropic and uplifting simultaneously, and manages to feel like it earns both. It's a shared theme with Bonesaw/Riley's story, explored in two different ways.

"Meanwhile MHA establishes an actual overall theme/message right from the start that expands and develops throughout the story. The worldbuilding is informed by the message, which informs the characters arcs and the people they become by the end of the story."

I notice that you never actually say what that message is. What is it? Like, for real. I'm not being confrontational or anything, like what is the message? Cuz' I can't think of one. My Hero Academia, at its very core, is a defense of the status quo. Much like its world-building, but much less forgivable, because it does do something new and unique with its world-building. MHA could have done some extremely interesting stuff with its early implicit critique of heroic society as shown with characters like Bakugo, or Shigaraki, or Endeavor, or Overhaul, or Midoriya himself! It just doesn't! It doesn't do stuff that Worm does do!

Worm does have a message. It has a lot of messages, actually, some that the author disagrees with somehow. Prison abolition, for one. We know Wildbow loves prison. Anyway, the big one is in the subtitle: doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Taylor's constant spiral of escalation, her dwindling attachments to her friends and greater focus on treating herself like a soldier is prevalent, and it is to be avoided. Taylor isn't a sin-eater. They don't exist. From what I remember, this is sort of explored in Deku's character arc for a short period of time, but much like everything else in MHA, it is backpedaled out of.

The funniest is "don't text and drive" though.

"Just on a basic level the way that the audience is meant to feel about Taylor oscillates wildly between being directed to think of her as a misunderstood victim of circumstance, or history's greatest monster."

That's kind of the point. Like. the audience isn't meant to look at Taylor the same way throughout the entire story. It's meant to change as she changes. Taylor's opinion of Taylor changes. The mistake here is saying it "oscillates wildly." it doesn't. It's a slow and steady change for the worse, as Taylor gets more violent and starts throwing away greater and greater parts of herself to become more like a robot and less like a person.

"But a bigger issue in general is tone. It's very focused on being dark and gritty and edgy, and it makes the mistake a lot of consciously edgy media does. IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic. It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is."

Did you read the boys and think it was worm? What? It's not being smart when it's bleak or graphic? I actually personally like the endbringers or the slaughterhouse 9, and not because I like watching people suffer. These things exist for a reason. It's not being dark for the sake of being dark. The heroes could stop the slaughterhouse 9. We see that, when they almost stop the slaughterhouse 9 (it's explicitly shown that they are stopped from destroying the slaughterhouse 9). The question then becomes why don't they? It's a grim, brutal calculus, and one that wasn't worth it. That's the point. The Endbringers are different. It's not until arc 27 that they're really explained. You could either read them as a criticism of Eidolon or of ableism, honestly. I mean, it wasn't intentional, he didn't create them on purpose, he needed something to fight, because without that he's nothing. His powers are all he has.

"Worm spends so much time trying to be edgy that as with a lot of edgy media the edginess loses all impact quite quickly and becomes sort of cringe."

I don't really think so, but like. Okay. I don't think this is a reconcilable viewpoint (none of this is really but this especially), so like we're probably gonna have to agree to disagree. The only thing I can really think of as edgy for the sake of edginess is Amy's arc. But even that's not really true. It's meant to be an utterly avoidable tragedy that could never have been stopped because of the people involved. Much like Taylor, actually. Amy could have stepped back from the brink, but she didn't, because Amy could never have done that, and nobody else was willing/able to help. It's supposed to be a thing where you sit back and think of all the tiny ways this could have easily been avoided, but wasn't.

"When body horror happens it still has impact because it's not happening constantly."

I mean, I guess. But like. I never got desensitized to the body horror in Worm. It hit pretty consistently for me throughout. As opposed to MHA, where it was usually walked back by the end of every arc. I never felt much tension or suspense because it felt as if there weren't actual consequences. In Worm, when Brian was strung up on his nerves, it felt disgusting because I was fully aware Worm would explore the ripple effects of this. It felt entirely possible he would die there, or never recover, because Worm didn't pull its punches. MHA did. This is a matter of opinion. We'll just have to agree to disagree about it.

"But most importantly - you root for the heroes because the world actually seems like it's worth saving."

that's just, um. sorry. I'm really trying here. That's just. Uh. Dumb. Do you root for Batman cause Gotham is a nice city? Everything's worth saving, that's, like, at its most basic what the concept of a superhero is about.

"Not only that but MHA simply does villain protagonists objectively better than Worm."

um. No? There straight up aren't villain protagonists in MHA. The villains are the POV characters for, like, one arc? You know what, here's a good spot for it. It's stated throughout the story that Shigaraki and the League of Villains have a goal, beyond just death and destruction. They're here to stop the corrupt society of heroes (that MHA hints at the existence of before backpedaling away from), and bring about a fairer society. But then, and this part pissed me off, one of the characters, I think Bakugo, says: "you're just using that as cover! you just want to kill people, you have no noble goal!" and shigaraki's like "dang you caught me." and then it happens again with Deku! Because My Hero Academia is allergic to saying something. Nope! They're villains! No moral depth here! They're Villains, We're Heroes, Go Put Them In Jail.

This is opposed to Worm, where- "The characters of the villains and their origins are used to highlight the flaws in the Superhuman society"

"Most of the villains are only villains because society failed them in some way, and the specific ways in which that happened become big plot points that then play into the future arc of our heroic characters."

I had to walk away from my computer for this one. It's hard to be civil. It's really hard. Polite and reasonable.

So Worm is about this. To even say this without a shred of irony makes me thing you've never once read a single word of Worm and are doing this purely as bait. Or you've read all of Worm and are doing this purely as bait.

"They're actually extremely complex in a way that ends up being fundamentally important to the overall story - where in Worm the villains are either based heroes fighting a corrupt system or they're histories [sic] greatest monsters... until they're presented as heroes again."

I think I get it now. I really think I do. You're not supposed to agree with all the characters. Like. Worm is inconsistent, in that it follows the perspectives of inconsistent people. Of course Triumph and Armsmaster don't agree on what is right! They're different people, they have different perspectives!

"See. Worm fans keep saying "This is Bait." It's not Bait, you all are simply ridiculous and obsessed with this series to such a degree that you feel compelled to say "This is Bait" instead of just... ignoring it, because you have no actual counterargument."

Perhaps worm fans are inclined to believe you posted rage bait because you brazenly walked into another fandom's post and wholeheartedly proclaimed that the thing they liked was Stupid Idiot Bullshit For Fucking Morons, and refused to elaborate until prompted, at which point you said several things that are demonstrably false about Worm.

"Your only response to anything I've said is pedantry, bigotry, and deflection. If it was obviously just bait why are you engaging?"

Well, I'm engaging because I've been in a foul mood since I woke up this morning. Also because you, again, said some very rude and patently false statements about a story that I really enjoy and find narratively rich, even in its faults.

"MHA's characters do fall into archetypal shounen character roles - but they are all given a solid amount of focus explaining why they are like that and developing them into something bigger."

Again, as I said, it's a genuinely impressive feat to have an ensemble cast like what My Hero Academia has, and give so many of the characters a degree of depth, with such little manga to work with. I think worm does it better, but worm doesn't have to be economical about it. MHA does. The problem I have with this statement is that it becomes a question of scale. How much bigger? They're no longer defined by their tropes, instead defined by their opposition to their tropes. It's still a one-note character, you've merely changed the note from C to C sharp.

"so almost every member of the cast has an arc that either develops them past the person they initially seemed to be or explains why they're like that."

This is probably my favorite part about MHA. They do have arcs! I love ensemble casts! it does a much better job in this than all of its contemporaries, even One Piece. However, they are comparatively simplistic arcs that all follow a similar formula.

"I've heard people say MHA is neocon or pro-establishment but the story literally concludes by showing that society HAS TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE or the same problems that created the villains in the first place will keep happening. The entire time skip specifically focuses on the fact that for eight years the main characters have been forcing change in the world and addressing the issues the villains brought up."

Now, I'm going to be clear. I stopped reading My Hero Academia around chapter 275. I don't know the exact number, but it was the latest chapter in ~mid 2020. I would occasionally attempt to reread, in an attempt to catch up, but give up around chapter 200 out of boredom. I don't know exactly how the story ends, but I have read ~2/3rds of the story. I feel this gives me a pretty good understanding of the general tone of the story, unless it wildly changes tone at the 3/4ths mark, which you have explicitly said it does not, as it is extremely coherent and consistent. Therefore, I believe I can state with some degree of confidence that MHA does not do that.

I would certainly believe that it tries (and fails) to SFP it, but SFP does not promote a fundamental societal change. That's the problem. Strong Female Protagonist was willing to come up and say that Alison lived in a fundamentally unjust world, even if it was never willing or able to offer real change. And hey. You do what you can. I sincerely doubt My Hero Academia is even willing to call its world fundamentally unjust, from the 200+ chapters that I did read.

"In the case of the actual main characters, they have extremely comprehensive character arcs."

Adding this behind the last point just so that I don't have to reiterate I haven't finished the book. I am, however, very much not inclined to believe the actual main characters had extremely comprehensive character arcs.

Which plays back into the initial theory that ANYONE CAN BE A HERO.

man, spider-man did that better (not a real argument, but like, spider-man totally did that better). Not least because midoriya specifically could not become a hero were it not for all might giving him a power.

No, the Villains don't get happy endings,

Why not? Why do they go to jail, even the ones who changed and wanted to redeem themselves? Endeavor never goes to jail. He did some horrible stuff. He's redeemed himself in the eyes of the story, right? Anyone can be a hero, right? So why not them? Why haven't they redeemed themselves in the eyes of the story?

You may wish to turn this back on me and ask why doesn't Armsmaster go to prison? Because he's similar in some respects. But worm never calls prison justice. (for some reason, even though wildbow totally loves prison). Prison is punitive, a tool for those in charge to control those it manages to capture. Maybe some deserve life in the birdcage. Many don't. It doesn't matter. Because the birdcage isn't a tool of justice. It's not meant to be. it's a box to put the uncontrollable capes in, until they can be used as meat shields. So Armsmaster doesn't go to prison because the story says explicitly there is no point to it. But MHA? MHA says there is a point to it. Endeavor needs to go to prison if he wants to atone. He's escaping justice every second he's outside.

I have actually read Worm, and for the first half to two thirds I loved it.

Weird. That's exactly how long I really enjoyed MHA. Not, like relevant, to anything. Just odd. I mean, I don't actually dislike MHA. I think it's fine, actually. It feels like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to me. Funny (when Mineta isn't around), bombastic, and a good time, even if I don't think it's super thematically rich.

I'm not coming at this from the perspective of someone who has never seen any of the merits of Worm, I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right.

See, this makes me more inclined to think it's bait, actually. since you said "Oh yeah. MHA is published. MHA's been an ongoing publication with a large following for ten years, in a notoriously competitive industry. Now this might seem kind of unimpressive, it's a very low bar to clear I know. But it's one Worm hasn't, so. I dunno, I'd say that's fairly objective. Now you may think "Yeah, but Trash fiction gets published all the time." And that's true but again - Worm hasn't. The worst piece of fiction you can think of got published and Worm didn't. You wanna be an asshole about this? The thing you love is so mid that it was self published in 2013, couldn't get picked up for professional publishing until 2019 and as far as I can see has stayed in development hell since then." in your previous post. Sure, perhaps we can say you were pissed at the time, but "the thing you love is worse than trash fiction, an altogether nothing piece of literature that isn't even worth the paper it would hypothetically be printed on" does not strike me as the words of someone who "really liked it, gave it a fair shot, and was eventually disappointed when it ended up not tying together right." In fact, going back through your other statements on the story, you seem to have genuinely disliked it from the very beginning, on grounds of being too edgy (which I can fully understand the logic of): "IE: it thinks that all it has to do to be smart is be bleak and/or graphic," thematically incoherent: "It doesn't really try to say anything, in fact it contradicts itself throughout the book as I mentioned before, it just throws in extremely graphic scenes and content periodically to remind the audience how fucked everything is," and utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. "When it does introduce new lore that new lore is almost always overly convoluted and acts as a catalyst for things happening, but not really things happening that play into a wider theme or message. It's just "Oh and here's this team of god-level serial killers who are gonna string a dude up by his nervous system." Like yeah, cool visual, but what is any of this actually saying?" This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the first half of Worm to me. In fact, this sounds like you hated every second of it.

"And frankly given the number of comments that are just people saying "Bait" - I don't think any of y'all have engaged with this in a fair or honest way"

I'm going to reiterate on my previous statement. I like my hero academia. Capeshit is my favorite genre, it probably always will be. They're my favorite genre of story. While I find the themes—or lack thereof—extremely frustrating, I still think of it as fun. I gave it a fair shake. I would probably really enjoy the ending if I didn't have a reading list that was 300 books long.

[thychesters]

but marineford is a tragedy, isn't it. ace was always doomed by the narrative but that doesn't stop one from having hope--doesn't stop from wishing, waiting, watching as ace is freed from his cuffs and thinking now surely they will flee. but no one was ever going to leave marineford unscathed. they were never going to go up against every powerhouse in the marines and win because this wasn't an average run of the mill fleet. this world can be cruel and this isn't a game, and they were never going to leave unchanged by it.

this is a tragedy and the story of suffering, of wishful thinking and wondering if anything could have been done differently, wondering what could have changed, and knowing none of it would ever have. would any other action or inaction have mattered? it was always going to end the same. luffy was always going to go after his big brother to save him, whitebeard and his crew were always going to be there, and ace was always going to leap in front of his little brother to protect him. it's "you promised me you'd never die no matter what" and "thank you for loving me."

at their cores they were never going to change. they were nearly out of the underworld and ace was always going to turn around at the last moment because he could not leave an insult to his father unchecked. akainu was always going to kill one of them and if not ace, luffy, and if not luffy, ace, and if not one of them then the both of them. he was always going to take one and it did not matter which. and it is a tragedy that ripples, not just to luffy, not just to the whitebeard pirates, but beyond. this world was always going to have consequences and ace was always going to die and luffy was always going to go after him. it's knowing how the story ends but continuing regardless because maybe this time it will be different. maybe this time it will be different. it's would haves and could haves and should haves and none of them would have mattered. but what if it could have?

before he's freed ace looks at the crowd who's come to save him and sobs, because after spending his entire life wondering if he deserved to be born, if he's worthy of any of this, ready to die, says that he wants to live. his little brother holds him in his arms and there is blood on his hands and he says "you did great, i'm sorry i couldn't make it to the end with you. i'm sorry i'm going to miss out on seeing you fulfill your dream, but i know you'll make it." luffy clings and ace lets go. he dies just as he lived, even if he didn't realize it: loved and not alone. and so luffy saves his big brother, just not in the way he thought he would, not in the way he wanted to.

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[mod2amaryllis]

who else haunted by an apology you never got the chance to make???? 🤪🤪🤪

[whatwillyousing]

originally wrote a lengthy piece here to express my frustrations with the fact that its election day and what that obviously entails but im finding im running out of creative ways to accurately describe my complete and utter rage at the extent of liberal condescencion ive seen today

[lynxfrost13]

Holt’s vision was basically the first thing to go as she became infected with the corruption happening in Sierpinski-23 and it absolutely wrecks me

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

sorry for only saying this type of shit lately but i kinda wanna drive a car straight into a brick wall at the highest speed possible

[1tsjusty0u]

man. totk couldve been so good

[crossbackpoke-check]

Dysprosium, Mary Soon Lee

dysprosium, AN 66, is a silvery-white rare earth metal. its name is derived from the greek dysprositos, meaning “hard to get at”, owing to the difficulty in separating and isolating this rare earth element. dysprosium is used to measure neutron flux, to fuel reactors, and to activate phosphors. terfenol-d is a magnetorestrictive alloy, meaning that it changes shape when a magnetic field is applied, and is used to manufacture underwater acoustic systems.

jason “robo” robertson, dallas stars #21 for @simmyfrobby’s nhl periodic table poems <3

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[ganondoodle]

me: coming to terms with my fanworks being really niche and not interesting to the majority of the fandom and maybe not the greatest in anything but decent enough to have a few people be interested and thats fine and good and i shouldnt feel bad about it and feel grateful for what i do have-

-sees other people getting into the same niche but with way cooler designs, ideas and writing, also way faster in making anything-

me: fuck fuck shit god damn fuck im gonna get bad grades at fanworks which is very real and possible to happen fucking hell oh gods no

[goldentigerfestival]

Part 4 of the Vesperia differences between JP and the dub!

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

(Other) GTF Favorites.

As a heads up, I had to piece several images here as "one" image to circumvent the image limit because I was not about to make a part five by the time I got toward the end LOL.

For some reason the dub completely removed Alexei jokingly/sarcastically saying it makes his heart hurt (brings him down in this tl) how Estelle will come to her senses and see what she's done to her friends. As usual, the dub has a very weird habit of adding sentences where they never existed and completely removing sentences for no literally no reason.

I feel that "set you free" can also have the implication of saving her alive (which the dub heavily seems to lean toward versus wording that really shows Yuri's resolve here, the latter of which fits right in with Flynn and Ioder's acceptance that he may have to kill her), so I included this one to go with the previous case of Flynn mentioning that Yuri's group was going to "save" Estelle. The original is more ambiguous about her possible survival, but the dub leans more into being ambiguous in a way that doesn't lean toward her dying.

The dub changed this to nothing but literally "aye" so... do with that what you will.

Another case of them randomly wiping out an entire sentence (the last one).

As with other cases, there are some slight changes I don't feel are worth mentioning and often tend to be just slight changes in word choice that ultimately mean close to the same thing. This is generally the case for most of the spirit gathering arc. The overall tl of this arc is pretty much accurate, just with some odd cases like the above.

I really don't wanna say like, it's because Flynn's not around for a chunk of the plot in arc 3, but uh... let's be honest, it's once again as soon as Flynn gets back into the picture that the tl starts to go haywire again - especially where Yuri is concerned. Like. Literally. As usual.

In the dub, this was "but Duke isn't". Just putting this one here because I feel like this gives more of a sense how the characters are feeling about it, more than just him not working out in their favor.

This one was calling Ba'ul "weak" in the dub, but here Yuri is just asking if he's that stubborn about changing his form to a spirit. Putting this here because I feel using "weak" is a lot more harsh and has negative connotations on it compared to a more ignorant "stubborn" before Yuri understands.

Yuri mentions here that Duke seems to have thought a lot about what he's doing. In the dub, this was "he seems totally obsessed". Not sure what the reason for that change was.

Raven makes this more of a question in the dub, but here is more of him realizing it and putting the pieces together, so I figured I'd include this one since it's a slight change in a character's perception of something.

The first line was changed to "could you be any more worthless" (I guess because they thought the "boring" line was weird? idk lol). The second and third line got swapped for some reason, even though it does kind of change the general meaning behind what's being said.

Yuri says first that Sodia gave up, only to tell her she has no right to say it was all for Flynn (thus saying it's because of giving up). At least imo, in the dub it comes across as "you say it's for him but you gave up thus it's an excuse", versus "you have no right to say it's for him".

I'm trying not to say it again, y'all.

Karol says that Yuri going off alone is a bad habit. The dub changed this to "you keep forgetting us", which I'm kind of confused by because he's not forgetting them and literally told them to get ready to go to Tarqaron. Not really sure why they'd change this line since like yeah, it is a bad habit of his lol.

Another translation error in the dub, so this one's here for clarification. The dub says Astal "lost control", but Astal by this point is dead (and he never "lost control"). Judith also says in the dub that it made all the monsters gather here, rather than saying they've gone savage. It seems like they misunderstood something thinking Astal losing control brought all the monsters here, but obviously we know that can't be the case because Astal is dead.

This was changed in the dub to "it's our turn to do Yuri a favor", when he's actually supposed to be teasing him, which Yuri directly replies to.

Still trying not to say it.

Dub Karol sounds more like he's prepared to go in, but in the original audio, Karol sounds nervous about the hoard they're about to have to get involved with. Raven's line was changed to Flynn looking like he needs help and not that so much that he's cornered, and the original audio has him sounding more urgent about it. Minor changes here, but tonally I think they impact the scene differently (and definitely give more of a "this is really fuckin' dangerous" vibe in the original audio).

Another slight change and not an important one, but figured I'd include this since it has a slightly different meaning/vibe to it.

Including this just for Yuri's little laugh when he shows up (I love him! A Yuri Lowell!) and Flynn's shocked response. More tonal in change, but definitely worth a listen and will be linked below with Flynn's laugh!

This can also be translated as "it's simple/it will be simple", because it's "me and you" doing it. Imo this makes it more clear he's referring to just them (i.e. the upcoming fight) and not the entire group, but Yuri also specifically specifies "you and me", so it's much more clear that he's referring only to them (which I think, also given Yuri's levity in this situation despite the danger, shows how much they've completely come back from and recovered from the Nordopolica/Alexei stuff). Shoutout to Yuri deciding this on the spot and totally not even planning it though.

Again, there are some wording choice changes littered around, but nothing really significant (when I say small things, I mean things like Rita saying it's reckless for just the two of them to deal with this, versus the dub using "are you stupid?!". It basically changes nothing even if it is technically a difference, but I usually skip things like that because these posts would be even longer for changes that don't have a large impact).

As for the Yuri-Flynn-Repede battle, there were some... choice dialogue changes here.

Firstly, Yuri actually tells Flynn to be careful (rare carefulness from him, especially in regard to someone he knows can handle fighting).

Second, Flynn telling him not to worry was removed entirely.

Third, (this one is more difficult for me to completely discern because of the lack of text) Flynn mentions (you too, i.e. you be careful too) if Yuri keeps looking over (at him), that he won't be able to run to save Yuri fast enough (i.e. he'll get into trouble if he keeps staring at him).

Fourth, the dub changed Yuri saying he's just captivated by how handsome/good looking Flynn is (and I shit you not if Judith said that to Yuri people would call it flirting so yes, I am going to tell you that the dub censored men flirting here). The original wording used is "ii otoko", i.e. good/nice looking man, which in translation could come across a bit awkwardly and would be more likely to officially be translated to "handsome"... if they weren't so spooked at the idea of it and had to wipe it for "the great Flynn Scifo" which is not actually what was said. Personally I'd say "nice looking man" has a very specific ring to it versus handsome, but again, obviously that might sound a bit odd in translation without really specific wording (as in, it's possible to be used in a way that doesn't sound awkward but the wording leading up to it would probably have to be changed a little, or some words simply added in to make it flow more native-sounding).

Fifth, Flynn said it's not the time to be making jokes (the dub changed this to just "sh-shut up!").

Sixth, the goofy, playful tone Yuri carries when he says "I am being serious" was changed (very typical of the dub at this point though to remove his playfulness and I'm literally saying that objectively). Similarly, his following line's tone was also changed.

Seventh, "so we're kind of stuck". Yuri says he can't concentrate without talking, then ends (the battle conversation) with a following sentence of "it can't be helped!".

This could be translated in a few ways just to make it more clear what he's referring to (because a plain ol' "it can't be helped" is a bit too vague here), but you could translate that to something like "guess we can't help it", yadda yadda. My guess is that's where "we're kind of stuck" came from, but given the blatant trajectory change of the entire conversation, I'm not surprised I'm left feeling like the meaning of that line is just weird (primarily because he says that and the conversation abruptly ends, so they're not very stuck if Flynn won that one!) Something like "guess we can't help it/that's just how we are" etc imo would have done the job for translating that.

Flynn just sounds so, so happy and soft and my heart is full. Same dialogue in the dub, but the original audio was (imo much?) more lighthearted and so sweet and soft.

Made a clip of both their laughs because they're adorable and I love them.

No idea why the dub actually dropped her giving Yuri a whole ass honorific. Yeah, you can't always use JP suffixes in a dubbed game, but you can translate some of them to the closest thing they mean. Sodia here calls him "Yuri-...dono...", so rather than just dropping his last name in her accusatory tone, she calls him by only his first name and attaches a respectful term to his name.

Technically "dono" would mean "lord" or "master" in a non nobility manner, and is more of a formality than if she were to use, say, -san, which would have her referring to him as more of a regular/casual equal (-san is a suffix that often gets lost in translation, whereas dono can actually be roughly translated like it is here from this translator. Someone of her rank would still refer to others even equal to her rank as "sir" in translation, while people who use "dono" may also still use that term for people of their rank. Remember, at this point she's the second in command to the Commandant himself, so that's an awfully high bar for Yuri to have jumped in her eyes). Sodia has realized his actions have been just and honest and that she was very wrong about him, so as an indicator that she's changing her stance on him, she refers to him this way instead.

Basically, coming from someone of her rank, it's a very respectful term and is not used casually/in a casual relationship, much less to someone one dislikes or even hates (which she previously did, so this by itself is a massive step up in her view of him just from her suffix usage alone).

Honestly a huge shame that they didn't even translate this to "sir" in the dub when there was no reason not to. Just using that alone would have indicated a much higher level of respect from her toward him, and unfortunately that open respect is completely lost to dub only players (she only expresses her guilt, whereas in the original, just by using "dono" alone, she's indicated respect and not just guilt. In a way you could even argue that she's approaching him, someone she gives her respect to now, for advice and not just out of guilt alone).

In the dub this is only "it would have been easier if you'd blame me for this..." Here she's admitting she wants some form of punishment by way of saying she didn't receive it (which she could have from Yuri himself if he told Flynn what she did), but if she can't even have that, she at least would rather be hated. Basically, she's saying she wants to be hated if she can't at least be punished for her crime (and I believe you could also translate this to wishing she could be hated if she wasn't blamed for it, so basically they removed half the statement).

Also, in general, Sodia sounds very distraught.

Here Yuri admits he does have a grudge against her (you could translate this to something like "it's not like I don't hold a grudge against you"). The dub changed this to "don't think I'm doing this for your own good". Basically the dub is having him say he's making her live with her regret without mentioning that yes, he does in fact have a grudge against her for what she did.

The translation here is essentially the same (think about it for yourself. The dub just uses "go figure it out yourself").

The important part here comes in the form of how he refers to her. This is something he's done since he survived her stabbing him - not using a neutral form of "you" but instead openly using a rude form (in JP there are several ways of referring to oneself and others, similar to how Flynn alternates between boku and watashi when referring to himself).

In other words, Yuri is openly expressing disdain for her by using "teme". At this point he's been using it for a little while now (he also talks to her this way back in Nor at the inn as well. Worth noting that he starts out by using "omae" (neutral), but as soon as she drops the "I did it for Captain Flynn's sake", he hops to "teme" in a heartbeat, because of saying it was for Flynn but having just given up on him. Yuri continues using "teme" from that point on), but since here it's with very other little dialogue and also because she just recently referred to him as "Yuri-dono", I think it's a perfect time to point it out, as they've openly, verbally switched how they treat each other.

Sodia, wracked with guilt and left unresolved, has a newfound respect for Yuri after their interaction at Nor (and presumably everything he's done for Flynn). Yuri, still angry at her for what she did and holding a grudge (a fact lost in the dub that he mentions in this scene as mentioned above, adding to this role reversal), now openly chastises her and expresses his contempt by changing how he refers to her.

NEXT!

Not gonna put a picture here for it, but when Rita asks Witcher where his notes are, she gets super excited and it's just cute and funny.

Also not putting a picture here for this one, but Flynn sounds extremely relaxed/calm/casual in JP when he asks if Yuri is all set/ready to talk. Something worth noting is that even at this point, the dub keeps Flynn sounding very uptight and serious where he otherwise is relaxed, calm or even emotional. I get the feeling the dub kind of missed the mark with Flynn's soft gentle side. I don't know how or why, but it's more absent in the dub where he's otherwise much more soft.

Similarly, not pictured because this isn't about the translation, Flynn trying to convince Yuri to tell everyone what he's done is given in a more angry-upset tone, versus the original's (super!) soft and sad tone. Again, I think they had a different perception of Flynn in mind when it comes to audio (particularly in arc 3 here because the other arcs are... again, their own whole can of worms), because here he's speaking sadly that Yuri won't take credit, whereas in the dub it's more energy-fueled and comes off much harsher. I have a video clip of that scene here. I felt like mentioning it here because overall Flynn can be extremely soft and gentle in tone and it got lost in the dub for whatever the reason was.

Still on that train of thought, while the translation itself is still pretty accurate, Flynn says "I'll just yell at you again" but in JP says that he'll just say unnecessary words. Earlier, in the dub Yuri asks why he's so serious when he doesn't actually mention that he's being serious in the original (because honestly, he wasn't. He was very calm when they set out). In this case it's not really negative (the way Yuri yelling at people in the dub is portrayed negatively on their end), it's just... a change that I can only guess they had the wrong idea about with him? Previously the changes with Flynn were treating him negatively, but here it's more just... a notable but narratively generally neutral tone difference.

Not making a clip just for this unless it's requested, but when Yuri wins the solo fight against Flynn, in the original, Yuri says it with actual shock but awareness/clarity that it actually happened (with a sort of underlying excited vibe to it). In the dub Yuri says it with more of a laugh and disbelief.

As for this point onward, since the subbed playthrough ended before this point, I'll be using another playthrough for images, though I'll be translating them here instead since they won't be pre-translated.

Sliiightly different vibe here so I figured I'd include it (doesn't really change anything): Here Flynn says "Even with a sword... I lost." The reason I'm including it is because "I can't even win with a sword anymore" makes it sound like Flynn has been losing again and again to Yuri in various ways when it's always been the opposite. Using a sword has always been one of his highest selling points, so to lose in that area comes across more as, even with my best asset I still lost to you.

Yuri's line is more like, "(laughs) Serves you right."

Running out of images I can use for this post here but I really don't want to make another part at this point in the game, but Flynn's following line is more along the lines of "be proud of yourself" (literally "raise your arms (in victory/pride)"), to which Yuri says the same thing in both versions (Flynn's dub line is "you've gotten better"). Including this because "you've gotten better" to me isn't really the same as telling Yuri to be proud of himself for the victory (something he'd never been able to do before). Since the dub came across as much more casual, I figured I'd add this part here too.

During Flynn and Patty's conversation, Flynn says "it's true there is no end to my worries." In the dub this was, "I have no want for trouble". This was probably a mix up of terms/intended meaning honestly, because Patty was basically saying he has a lot of burdens for being so young. It's not about trouble so much as he just has a lot on his mind and a lot to worry about in his current position.

Flynn proceeds to say he's made up his mind, basically saying he's made up his mind to accept those worries. In the dub, he says he's prepared to face it (the troubles), versus that he's made up his mind in accepting these new worries.

Patty's response is "made up your mind?" In the dub it's just "is that right?"

Flynn continues by saying in the end he'll have to worry a lot (more literally with all his might, so basically he'll be experiencing a whole lot of worries in the future) and that it will be a tough road, but he won't run away anymore.

I'm not sure why the dub used "path full of pain" since that sounds a lot more dramatic than "it will be a tough road". I imagine yeah, there will be pain in the future, but full of pain just sounds a bit... much? The dub also removed "anymore" from "won't run away anymore". Not sure what the idea behind that was.

Patty follows up saying it's admirable but that's no good, which the dub changed to a fish pun.

I'd also like to mention at this point, Flynn has completely dropped his use of "watashi" in favor of "boku" (he uses boku normally, but typically switched to watashi for formality/his status as a knight, which indicates he no longer feels the need to do this around Yuri's friends, and possibly does not feel the same level of distance he used to. At the very least it means he's allowing himself to be more of himself/more familiar and not viewing his position as a knight so formally).

Here Flynn says "thinking together, worrying together, and then one day realizing the world we dreamed of". Adding this since Flynn in the dub says "if we all work through our troubles together". It's kind of the same thing and kind of not, since in the original Flynn isn't mentioning "troubles" between anyone - simply the idea of everyone doing this together (the rest is basically the same in the dub).

Another change I'm not sure what it was for, but Ioder never mentions the Entelexeia specifically. He says this (what he's about to say) concerns the empire, guilds and everyone who lives in the world (which would include the Entelexeia by default, but literally everyone else too, which is the point because he's about to tell them about the blastia to start making plans). The dub never mentions about this affecting everyone in the world despite that being the whole reason he wants to talk to everyone about this.

Yuri calls Duke an "ignorant fool" here, rather than a "stubborn bastard", which I'm including because "ignorant" and "stubborn" aren't the same thing. Yes, Duke is stubborn about it, but in Yuri's eyes he's also being very ignorant of everything they're trying to tell him.

Not grabbing an image for this, but at the end of the game when Yuri is talking to Duke right after the battle, he's completely out of breath before and when he starts talking (the first line). Just a very nice touch!

In the dub Duke says Eluficer's wish was simply to protect the world and all living things. Here Duke says his wish is to protect the world and all living things with a good heart.

Also don't want to use an image here because of the image limit per post (especially because it's already tight even with me putting what images I can into "one" image as it is), but Yuri says "yeah, let's do it" (including the others), versus "I'm on it" in the dub at Flynn's prompting. Not a big change, but he does treat it as the whole group doing it together, which I find to be a nice touch for his character development.

Patty actually says "it- it stopped?!" The dub goofed and wrote "it's- it's over?!". The power of the blastia wasn't enough and its power was weakening.

Estelle says "No way, after we've come this far!". The dub changed this for some reason to "but how? There isn't any more!" in response to Rita instead of leaving it as it was.

Judith says "Please!" The dub used "It's gotta work!"

Flynn says "It's not over yet!" For some reason the dub used "This can't be how it ends!", which... idk, I feel like original Flynn has much more faith in it LOL.

Yuri says "Is it no good...?" Dub Yuri says "Dammit... come on!"

For the most part the rest is the same.

Adding this in because the old cutscene in the 360 version had to get changed to accommodate where Flynn was. Somewhat different than what we see with the other characters, you can see the power shoot out and push Flynn back as if it was grabbing the blastia itself, and you can see it pulled away from him (with everyone else we just see the blastia head toward the rest!).

Aside from that, Flynn says "you are my pride, dear friend" (the dub changed this to "I am so proud to call you my friend, Yuri Lowell").

The voice acting took me out with the happiness portrayed in Flynn's voice. (For just the Flynn part of the ending, I have a clip of that too, unsurprisingly.)

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Personal ending notes:

To sum it up briefly: I personally see a strong inserted bias put into the localization instead of just keeping things the way they were (i.e. changing context/character behavior to fit their bias despite that not being what the original context was, and inserting this into an official release). I say this because there are times when the translation is basically perfect, but there are very specific characters and instances where this suddenly changes, and unfortunately, there's a repetitive pattern that to me reads as intentional. Otherwise, I see no need for that to continuously happen only when select characters are involved.

As for the not so short version, y'all might be wondering why I mention things like it seems like they changed Yuri and berated Flynn so much on purpose. This is because the translation of this game sometimes can be astoundingly spot on. Perfect in some cases, even. There are times when the largest difference is just the wording itself and is simply given flavor, or uses a variety of wording so that sentences don't sound repetitive.

Yet when it comes to those two (individually but also between the two of them), the context quickly devolves into being either completely changed, the tones used are completely changed, and/or there's a slight alteration in the text that ends up giving a very particular notion that was not otherwise there (ex. "like a good knight" was added into Flynn's dialogue in a situation where he's being berated and yelled at, and it completely comes across as putting Flynn down the entire way through the conversation, versus him coming around and taking responsibility and that being accepted. In the original he simply mentions following his orders as a knight. There's no attempt to sound like the narrative itself is trying to insult him or bring him down).

I made these posts precisely because a heavy majority of the changed context involved them, and a lot of it either portrays Flynn in a negative light for the vast majority of the game which was not originally present, or it made Yuri come across as a much darker, scarier, "cool" type, which is a pretty stark contrast to his original personality/behavior.

Other things:

Yuri:

A lot of his lines come out neutral/flat, and that got even worse, like a hundred times worse, in his new DE lines. Yuri is pretty peppy in JP, and as a reference I would say his victory quotes are a big indicator of the personality shift ("cool" guy versus "silly" guy would be a big one for me). Other than that, Yuri is more silly and almost childish, sometimes even pretty pouty, and it shows blatantly right in his voice. He's also extremely not threatening to people who are not his enemy (liiike threatening Ioder with a real weapon with a serious voice).

I think the easiest way to explain this from my own perspective is that I adore JP Yuri completely. Dub Yuri I often find myself wanting to punch in the face for how he treats Flynn, Ioder and the one time, Leblanc. He lacks compassion in the dub where he otherwise does have it (even if it's not him being rude vocally/tonally, the dub dropped a load of emotional nuance in his voice). He's not a rough, overly cool edgy man (I hate people saying Yuri is an edgelord because damn if that ain't the farthest thing from the truth in JP, but it also shows how much they really leaned into that trope in the dub if people actually walked out of the game feeling that way about Yuri). He's a silly, goofy, caring man who is very gentle with people when they need a boost. That doesn't mean he doesn't have his "scary" dark moments, but the dub obviously leaned super far into it - enough that they would change Yuri mentioning punching someone to outright threatening to use a weapon against an unarmed man who is actually being quite polite.

Basically, he has a range of emotions and he has a lot of emotional intelligence. As one example, when he sees Karol down and sad when they first meet, he changes his tone to a combination of how you'd talk to a child with that child-y tone (he does this at the base of Halure's tree when he's asking Karol how to heal the tree), but then sometimes he shifts to actual gentle and soft to let Karol know he's there for him (when he's heading out to the woods to find the eggbear).

Ultimately, my point is that they took a perfectly well rounded character and changed him to, what? Fit their own bias/agenda/whatever? Because I can't look at both Yuris and be like "same person". I've never wanted to punch JP Yuri in the face. Only hugs here. What I'm saying is that I came out of both versions with two very different opinions on Yuri.

Next, Flynn (and Ioder and Leblanc).

Starting with Flynn, I get a very strong mindset of anti government shoved into the dub with these characters (i.e. not just the unnamed bad people in the government and the few named bad ones, but also directed toward the good ones, making it a more black and white approach). The dub makes Yuri out to be aggressive toward Flynn on the spot when they see each other again despite that in the original audio, he's not at all actually upset. He understands why Flynn is upset and that he's stressed out with his current mission. And no, the whole "Flynn swung a sword at him!" doesn't work here. Yuri knows Flynn. Very, very well. He reeeeally was not mad about that... especially if, you know, his tone in JP was anything to go by during and after. Flynn was the more upset one between the two, and Yuri remains calm - again, indicating his emotional intelligence and, most likely as it's not directly said, determining that being worked up about it would only cause Flynn more aggravation/stress. Thus, he doesn't press any buttons and remains calm. It makes his smile to Flynn later at Torim make that much more sense.

The thing is, I get the impression the dub wanted us rooting for Yuri and cheering for him digging into Flynn, when that was literally not the point of their interactions. We're not supposed to always blindly follow Yuri. Sometimes he is right, but sometimes Flynn is right. Like. That's it. That's the game. Not everything is simple or black and white. There's nuance.

That and/or like, someone in the loc team really hated Flynn. Based on everything, I'm... not against believing that at this point. Basically, the dub portrays Flynn in a negative light at most (arguably all) possible opportunities around every turn, even though the context/tone for that did not originally exist, until it couldn't anymore (i.e. he was past his character arc).

Ioder and Leblanc.

Ioder never does anything except keep Yuri in the loop, tell him important information and be genuinely happy to see him. There was never any vitriol between them. The way dub Yuri gives him an attitude just comes out of nowhere. Their relationship is pretty casual, which is pretty meaningful given that Ioder is on track to be on the emperor and Yuri is, plain and simple, a commoner. One who rescued Ioder, yes, but if Ioder was a "typical" noble in this game, he might have just brushed that off as "to be expected", even if Yuri didn't know he was saving a noble at first. Point being, Ioder is nothing but pleasant toward Yuri. Yuri has no reason to be rude, much less threaten him.

At Baction, JP Yuri is understanding that Leblanc needs to grieve and is in disbelief. He doesn't know if Leblanc will try to stop them, but he does offer his condolences with the tone of his voice, i.e. again: emotional intelligence. Something they changed in the dub to be nothing but rudeness and anger. Yuri made a statement to him at that moment, i.e. not to get in their way (mind you, again, he's polite about it given the situation), but not without understanding in his tone, which is a very common aspect of Yuri in his entirety. His wording (in general, not strictly with this specific scene) comes out rough and lacks politeness, but that's made up for in how he speaks to people (either relaxed, casual, gentle, etc).

In other words, the dub pretty much always slaps a point of view bias against these characters and uses Yuri as their proxy for it. Yuri, normally, in the original context, just treats them as human beings with ebb and flow in all of their emotions and situations. Things aren't black and white - humans are complex - and that is not the point of view that I feel we're given by way of dub Yuri. We're given a man who is constantly using anger in his voice toward imperial figures even when it's completely unwarranted, and even when he knows the people in question.

Other Stuff:

Assorted things are different mainly because of the acting, but Raven's goofiness got toned way down and Karol screams much... quieter, I guess you could say. They're both more lively in general though than how they were in the dub, so that's a plus from me too.

Rita is significantly softer with Estelle in JP, and she also is much more noticeably devastated about Raven's "death" and more panicked for Karol at Zopheir. I do love Michelle Ruff's portrayal and don't know that I truly have a preference, but I think a lot of Rita's emotional barrier breaking is truly expressed more in JP.

You know I gotta bring it up: Yuri and Flynn's relationship was kind of a mess in the dub. It gives the impression of Yuri being angry a lot more often than he ever actually is, and gives off the impression that we're supposed to dislike Flynn more than we're supposed to like him. Flynn isn't someone we're supposed to actively dislike, but the portrayal of him as expressed through dub Yuri does not come off as "we're supposed to like or root for this guy", when they're much closer than that in JP.

So yeah. The bulk of this is that Yuri is just not the same person to me between versions. Also, Vesperia has way more content in Japan (drama CDs galore frankly, and Yuri is still insanely popular in Japan and is thus a frequent character alt release in the gacha games and so has tons of voice lines and general story content, there's new merch of him every year because they make merch for the characters that have their voice actors showing up to TalesFes, etc).

There's much more ease in seeing JP Yuri's personality through all of it. I think it may be more difficult for people who don't understand Japanese or any Japanese at all, and that's such a shame to me because all those people get otherwise, without anyone posting about JP Yuri, is this... weird shell of Yuri that I sometimes even hesitate to call a shell because he just feels completely different to me.

Anyway uh I love Yuri (and Flynn) and that was the point of all this, but uh... if you made it this far thank you bunches and I hope people who maybe didn't like Yuri and/or Flynn who only knew the dub will change their perspectives. 🙇‍♀️

Side update:

People have since been saying Troy was partially responsible for dub Yuri's attitude and it's the same information across people- that he had more freedom to do what he wanted with the portrayal. On that note, I feel like I'd heard this before some time back, but I couldn't remember where or if I was remembering wrong... but with this stuff in mind, I guess not. There's also the fact that, as mentioned in a reblog I've done, I've read something where he claimed he was "paying homage" to Toriumi's portrayal (to which he apparently didn't drop Toriumi's name, making me believe he did not even know it, which is honestly disrespectful imo, and I'm hoping that was a matter of the people interviewing him condensing what he said, but I can't be certain).

As I mentioned for this situation, Vesperia was the first Tales game to be released in the west at the same time as the JP release (or in this case very shortly after). Higuchi said the localization team was not in contact with the JP team. This means Troy could not have known what Toriumi's portrayal was and nor was there time to study it, as the game was released in both regions in close proximity. By the time the JP release happened, the acting on the English release would've been long finished.

This would mean Troy lied for PR and tried to make it sound good, possibly aware people would be impressed/appreciative, which is not only a lie, but is honestly an insult imo to Toriumi's work when the portrayals are nothing alike and he's implying he was inspired by Toriumi's work (despite them being nothing alike becoming obvious with audio alone). This also gives people the wrong idea because generally people would want to take that at his word and not immediately think it's not true.

Previously, I was willing to give Troy the benefit of the doubt that he didn't have too much influence on the dub versions' behavior, and that was also the case at the time I made these posts. However, between the interview with him lying about paying homage to a voice actor he apparently can't even name, and that he had influence on the direction of Yuri's tone despite that Yuri's tone already existed, I'm not interested in pretending he had nothing to do with it.

That said, I take back anything I may have said at any point about Troy not being reflected in my criticisms. Yes, I have been told "maybe they didn't have the audio though", and maybe they did. I don't know. But I do know the localization team is still largely at fault (again, regardless of who made the decision, because it wasn't necessarily the translators themselves. This refers to whoever made the decision) here because someone made the knowing decision to outright change Yuri's dialogue (when again, other stuff was accurate. This was intentional). And again, for whatever reason, they weren't in contact with the original team, and yes, Higuchi was pretty bummed about that.

Yes, I recognize this was many years ago and maybe Troy wouldn't do that again. However, in this particular situation, I do need to recognize that he did have some sway in how Yuri behaved in the dub, and I am certainly not happy that he lied about paying homage, which becomes very obvious just with audio alone, but given Higuchi's statement, well... suffice to say I'm not happy with what he did. I could've gotten past him having more freedom with the acting if that wasn't coupled with the homage comment, but... yeah. I personally can't really look past it.

Do I hate the guy? No, and I recognize this was well over a decade ago. I'm just very aggravated that this happened at all and I can't say he didn't have a hand in it because he did.

And before anyone wants to cry "she hates localizations!", no, I don't. There's a reason I point to Graces when I talk about localizations. I appreciate good and faithful localizations. To me, Yuri is not by any means a good or faithful localization. Believe me, I used to have nostalgia goggles on too. They were strong. I used to really love Troy's performance too. Those nostalgia goggles came off when I started to realize, well, everything (this is also not a dunk on the other actors. I have some gripes with Flynn's VA's comments about Flynn, but otherwise, this stuff really doesn't extend to the other actors). There are also very few localizations I get this deep into this sort of thing with, and some I would even defend.

Anyway! Again! For real this time! Thanks for reading! I do honestly appreciate it and your interest!