#i dont translate often so i apologize if the wording is confusing!!

[cubesugarss]

cnstars hiiai impression translations!

first two are in the context of alkaloid, second two are keito lecture

tl notes and original text under cut

the phrase 一窍不通 (yī qiào bù tōng) - knows nothing is used several times across all slides to describe hiiro's inexperience

slide 1: hiiro says he keeps aira's words close to heart 至今 (zhì jīn) - to this day slide 2: 懵懵懂懂 (měng měng dǒng dǒng) - ignorant is also used to describe hiiro's inexperience, 迷茫 (mí máng) - confused/lost and 脆弱 (cì ruò) - fragile are used to describe hiiro's mental state after the incident with his brother slide 3: hiiro uses the phrase 拓宽眼界 (tà kuān yǎn jiè) - broaden horizons, 亲切 (qīn qiè) - kindly slide 4: 欲望 (yù wàng) - desire is used to describe hiiro's passion for learning, aira describes hiiro's practicing after lectures as 热衷 (rè zhōng) - (to be) keen on/eager to do so

original text

[writing-in-april]

Poker Face

Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Summary: Reader thought she could get away with speaking her desires out loud as long as they were in a different language. Turns out, someone could understand her.

A/N: Hey guys! This is my fourth fic for my 1250 follower celebration!! I got this request from @imagining-in-the-margins and if you want to see the original request go checkout my follower celebration Masterlist! I do not speak Russian, nor do I know someone who does so I made everything in italics as if they were speaking in Russian! Hope y’all enjoy reading and requests are open!

Warnings: 18+, Public sex (who’s surprised lmao), Reader is very unprofessional and probably should be fired lmao, Dom Spencer with hints of Sub Spencer in the future (dont worry all my Sub Spencer lovers I’ve got more coming for that soon!), Nickname use: Princess, Unprotected sex, Fingering, Oral sex (M receiving),Creampie

Main Masterlist Word Count: 2.1k

Words in italics are in Russian

There was no harm in voicing my thoughts I thought to myself, in a different language, Russian specifically. Especially since the only one that could understand me wasn’t near me at the moment nor would she probably bat an eye at a slightly risqué remark. Emily was snuggled up at the other end of the jet, her headphones in both of her ears. They would plug up any sound around her preventing her from translating the lusty thought that sat on my lips.

If I said my thoughts in Russian, no one would be able to catch how much I wanted Spencer’s fingers inside me. They were long, obviously dexterous- I knew they’d be able to reach places inside me that I couldn’t reach myself. I couldn’t say these thoughts out loud, in English at least,

I didn’t want Spencer to ever know. But, I wanted to get the thoughts swirling in my head off my chest, the only way to do that without embarrassment was to say it in a way that no one here would be able to understand.

As Spencer shuffled with ease and delt the cards out with his dexterous fingers my lusty thoughts were too pressing for my lips to be able to contain. So I spoke quickly with my voice slightly lowered, maybe Spencer and the people around me would miss my transition into a different language, “I wished you would use those fingers on me instead, preferably inside of me.”

Spencer blinked back at me, obviously confused by my words.

“Sorry, just spaced out for a second, didn’t realize I had switched to Russian.” I giggled out, mostly because I was amazed that I had gotten away with it. I moved on quickly not wanting to linger on my ‘slip up’ any longer, plus I finally wanted to try and play against Spencer in a poker game, “Let’s see if your poker face is as good as everyone says it is, Spencer.”

—-

“Please, fuck me?” Over the course of my daring adventures I had become increasingly louder with my declarations. Last week I had commented about how much I wanted his cock in my mouth, of course in Russian and the week before that I had made my initial comment about how much I wanted his fingers inside me.

This one happened to be the loudest out of the three little sentences that seemed like innocent slips into another language to everyone else, but to me and only to me I was voicing my desires. Each time I did it a little rush of adrenaline sparked through me, no one besides Emily would be able to translate, who wasn’t with me in the file room. It was only Spencer and I in here right now, the rest of the team had gone home for the night.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do that at the office, but if you asked me again somewhere else I’d do it.” He answered me back and in perfect Russian as well.

My entire being withered in embarrassment as soon as I had translated Spencer’s words, he understood me. He had understood all of what I had said, every last word. I should’ve remembered that he spoke Russian, we had a case where he spent the whole time translating, I couldn’t believe how idiotic I had been. I wanted the earth to swallow me up in that moment, just so I could escape Spencer’s piercing gaze. I couldn’t tell from his words or the look on his face what exactly he was feeling about my words, some profiler I was. He didn’t seem angry at least, maybe a bit bemused?

I shrank back a little more over fear if he was making fun of me or not. If I hadn’t been feeling so mortified I would’ve realized that Spencer wasn’t one to make fun of anyone, hindsight is 20/20 after all.

“Your poker face is spot on.” Was the only measly response that I could find myself to come up with, in an attempt to cover my embarrassment if only a little bit. A bunch of apologies also felt like they were crawling up my throat. I was absolutely mortified that I had been caught red handed, it was beyond unprofessional- I don’t think there was even a word for it. I had crossed the line so far I might as well have leaped over it, forgetting that it had ever existed.

“Well- I am from Vegas and before you start apologizing, you don’t need to. I liked it.”

Silence fell between us again after his smart remark. It was like we were sizing each other up, deciding what to do.

“You know- there’s no one here tonight, everyone’s gone home…” My confidence seemingly had come back after being knocked down a few pegs. I tapped my fingers absentmindedly on the large desk in the file room, my mind wandering to think about what it would be like if he bent me over it.

“That’s true.” A smirk was on his face now, one that I didn’t see often from him. I felt like I was going to be ensnared by him as soon as I took the time to blink.

Sure enough in a flash he had brought me into a bruising kiss that I got swallowed up by so fast there was no chance for me to try and win back any dominance.

In no time he had me bent over the table, my face pressed into the cool silver metal with my back arching up trying to reach his touch in any way I could. He gripped the waistband of my skirt roughly, but did not pull it down right away. He pulled my skirt down ever so slowly that by the time it reached the floor I impatiently wiggled to step out of it.

“You’re impatient.” He stated simply. I couldn’t deny it because of how true it was, all he’d have to do was pull my black lace panties off to see how wet I had become.

Instead I decided to lean in on how needy and impatient I was by whining out, “Spencerrr, please?”

“What do you want? Is it the same thing you said to me on the plane?” He pressed a kiss to my hip as he pulled down my panties just as slowly as he had done with my skirt, making me squirm again. Once I was bare from the waist down before him he paused for a moment to look at me; I withered a little under his gaze. I whined again when he carefully took his long fingers to just slightly part my folds before speaking again, “Tell me.”

I hesitated a little for a moment trying to focus to remember exactly what I had said on the plane. When I had collected my thoughts I whispered out in Russian, much more shaky than I had said on the plane, “I wished you would use those fingers on me instead, preferably inside of me.”

He was seemingly satisfied by my breathless reply, immediately beginning to work me up to orgasm. As he started to work his fingers inside of me he pressed his other hand down on the small of my back, a silent warning to not move.

I contemplated disobeying him, but when two of his fingers curled inside me to perfectly hit my g-spot it felt too good to lose.

“You gonna cum so quick for me, princess?” I got even wetter when he said princess like that, in Russian made me get even wetter than I already was. I was practically dripping down my thighs- and Spencer’s fingers.

“Yes! I’m gonna cum soon!” I gasped out and tried in vain to wriggle my hips to gain more friction, his hand on my back however was unyielding.

“Ask nicely and I might let you.”

“Please?!” I even asked it in Russian to make the plea possibly better in Spencer’s eyes. He didn’t respond right away, only picking up his pace faster. I tried to hold off my orgasm as best as I could, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to hold it. “Please, sir?”

“Alright, since you asked so nicely. You can cum, princess.”

I gave up the fight of holding off my orgasm, it immediately washed over me. My legs shook with the force of how hard and fast my orgasm shot through me, causing me to cry out as well.

Once I had come down from my high I slid off the table and down to my knees to repeat what I had said while at the round table a week ago “I want your cock in my mouth.”

He looked at me with wild eyes and obliged me, letting his cock free from his slacks. My mouth watered at the sight of him, his tip was bright red and dripping with precum. He had obviously not been the only one to be turned on.

As I grasped him in my hands and jerked him slowly I relished in the way he felt in my hand. He felt hot and heavy, I couldn’t wait to take him into my mouth.

I wrapped my lips around his tip, sucking lightly. Spencer’s head tipped backwards, his hands curled into fists as if he was trying to prevent himself from grabbing my hair to fuck my face. Little did he know that was exactly what I wanted.

When I guided one of his hands to the back of my hair to reassure him that I didn’t mind if he took control that way he almost let out a groan, but successfully stifled it by biting into his other fist. He then fisted my hair harder, wrapping his hand around so tight that tears prickled a bit in my eyes. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all, I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it even more when he started to use his hand to guide my head up and down. He set the pace to the one he desired. It wasn’t too fast or hard, it was actually quite slow. He dragged out each of my movements and when my nose nuzzled at the base of his cock he had me stay there for a moment each time. Each time I gagged a little on him he let out an almost whine, it made me wonder whether or not he’d look good underneath me as well. Though I was thoroughly content with being underneath him at this time.

Even though I had already had one orgasm the tingling between my thighs was not satiated, looking up at Spencer’s blissed out face only served to make me even more turned on.

“Stop.” I blinked up at him like he had done so at me on the jet, confused. I pulled off of his cock, a slight pop echoed in the air. He then lifted me up onto the table with my legs wrapped around his waist before I could ask him why he wanted for me to stop.

“Now what was that last thing you said to me? I want you to ask me again. ” His cock was running up and down my folds teasing me. My head fell back and I moaned when he bumped my clit.

“Please, fuck me?” My breathless voice sounded wrecked already.

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” As he slid into me my eyes rolled back into my head as he slid into me. His pace was faster this time than what he had done while fucking my face. I was squirming with overstimulation and my orgasm was going to come ridiculously fast. Spencer could sense it too and brought his hand down to my clit to bring me over my peak even faster.

“You can cum again, princess.” My second orgasm was much longer than my first. It sparked through me slowly, almost in waves that felt like they had multiple peaks.

He too, was not that far behind me. When he tried to pull out to probably cum all over the tops of my thighs I kept him locked in place with my legs around my waist and asked, “Cum inside me?”

He obliged me with a groan pumping into me a few more times before spilling inside me. We were both slick with sweat, making me wish for a shower. As soon as I got cleaned up that would be the first thing I’d be doing when I bolted home. Maybe I could bring Spencer along for another round, I could hear him speak Russian to me all day.

“I’ll go get something to clean you up.” He spoke softly as if he was afraid I’d break, you’d think after the way he had fucked me that he’d realized I was not so breakable. I’d have to fix that later. As I sat there with his cum dribbling down my thighs waiting for him to return , mixing with my own I knew that I’d never underestimate Spencer’s poker face again.

—-

Tag list (message me if you want to be added):

All works:

@shotarosleftpinky @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar @s1utformgg

Spencer Reid/CM:

@calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss @slutforthegubes

Dom Spencer:

@rainsong01

[notmoreflippingelves]

diligencekit said: Oh! I like to go in detail with this. Maybe I do make a post. But yes, the JP ver if I would roughly translate it, I believe it would go smth like this “its Dark… A hopeless, cold feeling..” the word that is used here is “Zetsubou-teki”, Zetsubou on itself already means “despair” However its more used as an adjective here duo the “ni” particle, more empathized on the ‘feeling’ part (not the cold one) However, JP sentences are often backwards duo to different sentence structure + order In compression to English. They also don’t nearly use as much additional words as english because often, most of the “mood” goes into the particles. Which can be confusing to languages who dont do this. Its a little too much too explain but.. I can see why local went with ‘full of despair’ here. As I do believe its what it indicates in a certain way. Its about the message after all. (Excuse me for throwing this on it so randomly, but I thought it might could use some Explanation

Oh no, you don’t need to apologize at all. I love learning these kind of things :)

And it’s good to learn the meaning of the scene is very similar in the original Japanese with very similar connotations (i.e. an emphasis on the *despair* within Kristoph/Kirihito). That scene and that line in particular is a very large part of my interpretations/head canons of him and I’ve always been a little scared that I was relying too heavily on a mistranslation/only seeing what I wanted to see in it.

[crispyapplepies]

AkuRoku Defense pt 2

Axel and Roxas’s ship has had one of the most bizarre fandom journey’s i have ever come to witness. It has gone from being one of the most popular ships maybe ever, to being dead cancelled over a supposed age gap and I find that completely unfair, especially when it speaks to so many innocent people who emotionally depend on the ship, (yes innocent includes the spicy people because art literally is not a crime). So its time to defend it.

Brief Review on Nobodies vs Aging

First of all, l already explained in part 1 what the Nobodies Don’t Age thing means but I’ll go over it again briefly, since it can be confusing, though also many people seem to demand their hands be held rather than use their imaginations to understand. Even so, here’s the short version just for a review:

-A person in KH is made of a heart, body, and soul.

-The body reflects the heart in KH. (See: replica bodies taking on the appearance of the heart that’s inside them). 

-A nobody lacks a heart, making them just a body and soul. They’re advanced zombies of sorts.

Nobodies do not age because they have no heart for the body to reflect. This is why they won’t change until they form one. Change includes age

-Ergo, you can imagine any age you like for Axel to be nobodied, cuz he was frozen at that age and did not change for 10 years. Not until he met Roxas. 

We’ll come back to this again later.

Axel Loves Roxas Canonically

Second of all, Axel loves Roxas and you are allowed to interpret that as platonic, familial, or romantic, I don’t care as long as you’re not forcing that idea on others like the ship police. That said, people are allowed to explore how romantic this love potentially is. 

And what you might like to know is that the canon is even open to this. Axel’s love for Roxas is canonically expressed, and if you would like, you can even interpret that love as romantic. See below:

We are going to look at the japanese translation because AS ALWAYS good old SENA is here for the straights and erases the gay, like clockwork. 

In English, Axel says this:

Axel: I wanted to see Roxas. He...was the only one I liked... He made me feel...like I had a heart. It's kind of...funny... You make me feel...the same...

Axel’s line here in Japanese:

Axel: I wanted to see Roxas... I loved him. Being with him... it made me feel like I had a heart. I feel it from you, too... the same kind of....

You may notice that as romantic as the line “he made me feel like I had a heart” sounds, the original can be read as wAY gooier, specifically cuz of this word:

好き: "suki"

Now here’s the thing. Japanese is a pretty vague language which is why context is so important for these things, as well as what you say, and what you don’t say. 

“Suki” is a very key word here because it is often used in romantic confession scenes.

(I have no idea what this panel is from, I apologize lol) 

It CAN mean something casual, like “I love video games”, but considering Axel is saying this with his dying breath, I don’t think we should be treating it as some hyperbole. He is referring to a person and it is meaningful. However. It is still a word with plausible deniability. Japanese has several words for love, “ai” for example being one of the most inarguable means of referring to romantic love. So choosing “suki” still leaves room for the homophobes to disregard it as something not romantic. Which makes it objectively inconclusive. Here is the thing though… they specifically chose that word, suki, a word which IS so often used in a romantic context in many anime and manga. 

They also chose to use that word rather than something objectively platonic. Which means you also cannot conclude Axel did NOT mean it romantically. Given his devotion to Roxas, and the fact that they chose this word of all words for him to say… I’m personally going to assume it’s romantic. You are free not to interpret it that way. But I am because I am considering the fact that they did not choose something strictly platonic. 

(My translator friend actually freaked out when I showed her this, she’s translated and seen enough confession scenes to know what connotations that particular word comes with lol). 

If you’ve read my queer coding doc, you may recall I also go over how this is one of the most important tricks with queer coding. You write something that CAN be viewed as queer but with plausible deniability for straight people to ignore it. It’s a means of protecting oneself and the text from homophobic oppression. It is a legitimate practice. So even though it can be denied as a queer text, it can also very very well be viewed as a definite queer text. We are choosing to queer it here. It is not as explicit as it could be, but it is still very bold, suggestive coding considering the homophobic world we live in, and especially with KH2 being released in 2004. 

“But Age Gap!” (ughhhhh)

We’re back to this cuz I also finally have the Japanese version of that infamous page in the Day’s novel to look at.  

I hope you’ll forgive me if I get a little bit salty but I don’t like to repeat myself lol so I’m gonna try to keep this section short and to the point.

In this interview with Nomura, he expresses that nobodies do not age, and they exist as they were at the time of becoming a nobody. He then suggests Xemnas seems 30 ish.

Now I truly do not care to hold your hand through the process of thinking creatively because you should be using your own imagination, if you have one, to think critically and creatively about what this idea means.

Kingdom Hearts is a FANTASY game. Nobodies are a FANTASY concept. They can break ALL the rules about real life that you want them to. But I will go ahead and explain this for you even though I’ve already done it many times, in this very document even and in other meta posts.

The body reflects the heart. Nobodies are frozen as they are from the moment they are “born”, which is to say the moment they are created. Glorified zombies. They aren’t going to age unless they form a heart. Why does Xemnas look 30? He has a heart! Or he was formed 10 years after TerraNort defected. You tell me. Why did Ienzo age? I dunno, you tell me! Either he formed a heart and didn’t know it, (he’s passionate about his work, he loves Ansem the Wise, any number of things could’ve made him form a new heart), or he was nobodied later in life. Axel is frozen at whatever age he was when he was nobodied, all the while Ienzo could’ve been nobodied 10 years later. It’s a fantasy, and these are fantasy rules. That scenario can happen. YOU decide. Until the canon tells us for sure, your imaginations can run wild with explanations. Even if the canon does tell us, you can still imagine whatever you want for your own headcanons. Freedom is amazing, it’s salty and sweet. 

Now let’s talk about that annoying page in the Days novel people keep shoving in my face.

This one right here. The official english translation is this:

That’s not the worst translation I’ve seen them put out there. But let’s look closer at the Japanese:

 Here, Axel says he thinks Roxas is about 10 years separate from himself, but things like age don't exist for nobodies.

Already that’s making a lot more sense to me for nobodies since we are told nobodies do not age. As such Axel speaking like he is 10 years older would feels almost contradictory when he has no heart and cannot change. 

This wording is important. Recall me saying that Japanese is very vague so all of the context matters. No one is denying that 10 years passed between Birth By Sleep and Axel meeting Roxas. However. Nobodies don’t age.

(please dont make me explain that a third time in this essay alone)

The Japanese and English both express that age does not apply to nobodies, (as discussed above^^^^) and the Japanese furthers this with its wording. They have 10 years of separation between Axel being nobodied, and Roxas existing.  

Axel saying in English that Roxas is simply 10 years younger than himself is rather misleading considering the ambiguity of the original. I can’t fault the translators too much for not understanding this nobody concept so well because it is obviously confusing. However, I do not think Axel was saying Roxas is literally, in real life human somebody terms, 10 literal physical years younger than him. He is expressing that he became a nobody 10 years ago whereas this guy became a nobody very recently, and it shows with how little he can even function right now. A zombie who has been wandering around with no heart for 10 years meets a fresh zombie wandering around with no heart for 1 day. 

I know antis are gonna use it against us no matter what, but at least know that akuroku is not inherently pedophilia nor is it inherently an adult/minor ship.

In many of our headcanons, Axel was frozen at age 18 or 19, with Roxas being 16. Absolutely no one is required to view them with a big age gap because imagination is free and you literally have no right to police it, but also because the canon expresses these nobodies as beings outside of the realm of age. They do not operate under real life rules or somebody rules. Think of Steven Universe where Rose was thousands of years old but only “grew up” as a person when she fell in love with Greg, a human in his 20s-30s who asked her to consider other people’s feelings. Consider the mind of a nobody as a state of Neverland. You aren’t gonna age unless you step out of it and change. Mature. Isn’t it sad that Axel did not feel like he had a heart until Roxas? No wonder people ship it!

Coding is Obvious

Finally I wanna conclude on a simple thought. This interview right here? I’d be curious what the original Japanese actually says lol but the english translation of it says that romantic akuroku was not Nomura’s intent. 

Here’s the thing though. If you know anything about queer coding, you know that using romantic coding between 2 male characters is signaling something. It is not something you should ignore. It would not be there if the characters were meant to be viewed as objectively straight. And for something “unintentional”... there sure is a lot of coding at work here.

From Axel pinning Roxas down and asking him to come home in a very sexually suggestive pose,

to watching the sunset in sheer bliss together just enjoying the peace of reunion,

to watching the sunset together while talking about what LOVE is, specifICALLY romantic love,

To this. And I already told you what this was in Japanese.

I’m not saying Nomura lied…

But I am saying that a whole staff worked together to create these games, and it is very difficult for me to believe that no one thought to say “these characters appear to be romantic, let us change the scene to be more platonic” if the characters were not meant to be romantically suggestive. 

Tl;Dr I wanna live in the timeline where people let you ship akuroku lol

[deuce-duce]

I will NOT!

January 27, 2021

You WON... go...!! Leave... Please... Leave... Your DUMB!! Stop!! DONT!!

One more time... I... WILL NOT...!! 

so when it comes to what keeps me going I couldn't really tell ya... but what i can do is explain to you the things I do on a daily basis or often that must be what keeps me grounded and my head in the game. As you know I'm going to make sure things are explained properly so this might take me a couple of days hopefully you don't mind.

It has been said that when one does the right things for the right reasons there is nothing that can stand in their way. So I’m sold on the other saying that, its the little things that keep me going for when we look back on our lives we realize that its the little things, that were actually the most important and meaningful to us. Im such a strong believer in this because no matter what I encounter I always go back to the little things that bring me joy not happiness for happiness is a state of being but joy permeates Happiness, feeding your mind body and soul. A Few Of My Favorite Things, Julie Andrews (Music Notes). Above all else its the little things no one can take from you/I and are the fundamental components that make us who we are. these things are usually out of our control they don't cause anyone any harm and in all reality is just a sense of appreciation for what's already there. This also translates into hobbies or anything you do that doesn't cause yourself or anyone else any discontent but instead continuously provides encouragement, love, purpose and guidance. ALL of these are fundamental components in Maslow’s Hierarchy.

Over the last couple of months I've really searched within myself determining what it is that has helped me dance when I wanted to cry or rise when i wanted to die and TBH I cry when I dance and die so I can rise all while keeping that what makes me whole LOVE. Not only for myself but for my fellow human even the humans who make it difficult to love. The reason I have been so curious and delved deep within myself is so that I could share it with you. Unfortunately the only constant in common day life is hard times strife and adversity. which is something that I  have never been able to understand. My theory is that societal diplomats/cabal designed it that way for a couple of reason... 1 is so that people have an excuse to do the effed up POOP that they do... the other reason is so that we just write it off of our conscious, Whelp...! that's life... NO ITS NOT!! This mentality in turn breeds the attitude of cant beat em join em even when we don't want to... or know that what we were/are doing, doesn't bring us any joy at all. But everybody's doing it and all or any of us want is to belong and be accepted, Even ME. living this way though just make us succumb more and more to things we wouldn’t normally agree with digging the hole deeper and deeper to a point where no one even feels comfortable standing up for what's right or what they believe in period. This allows those who heap coals on your home to increase in size and rise to heights insurmountable to you or I. Happening so much it causes us to constantly question ourselves cascading through life confused of whether or not were good enough if were doing the right thing or worthy at all. Its my opinion that this constant state of second guessing ourselves is what stops us from growing into our individuality and blossoming vibrantly into a bloom of vibrant colorful thoughts, opinions, skills and emotions. For how can one go through Metamorphosis (Playboi Carti) If your lied to and belittled to a point that you question and doubt your ability to construct your chrysalis. Please pardon my scattered brainness (new word)  with wording the same concept in different ways for what I am explaining is complicated which is why its going to take a couple days. Its once again my opinion society is constructed this way because it just proves the point that its easier to OBEY (Consume indulge in your animalistic ways and never apologize) for asking for forgiveness is better then asking for permission?!?! now that I have explained what how and why let me explain what I do to ensure I'm happy every day.

So I don't know about you but I get into foul moods I wake up on the wrong side of the bed I even hate some things on a daily basis. somedays I don't even want to get out of bed. Some of it has to do with what I am eating but there is also something off chemically at that time in your brain. How do Fix that... I scroll the GRAM HAHA. seriously though i do, usually while listening to music. whether I'm angry depressed or just fed up and exhausted/overwhelmed I notice that triggering my emotions, usually the ones that make me cry Is almost like i hit the reset button on my mood and overall well being. there's a variety of things that trigger tears for me. sometimes its music, a particular song or verse that sums up what I'm going through or how I am feeling. sometimes I'm reading something thats reassuring me that what I'm feeling is valid or its supportive sometimes its something that is inspirational and beautiful. its not usually something that is sad that makes me cry... Although anger is a secondary emotion things that are truly sad invoke rage in me as they should everyone. once I have that moment where I've reached my emotional threshold and finish weeping lol I then focus on my favorite things music, sunsets, jokes, goals, aspirations and what I have already accomplished which fosters a better mood pushing me up the hierarchy on a regular basis. this in turn makes me a better person in the community and in life knowing I can handle what is thrown at me and that I'm going to make it through the day...

since I do have to work and all that stuff we have to do...ill continue over the next couple days sharing with you what makes me, the man I have come to depend on, Never changing for anything or anyone. #stubborn

Music and Nature Everyone!!

Already Home 🎶🎼🎵🎧

[junietuesday]

june I respect you but that recent post just seems... like the logic kinda falls apart? it just seems like it’s working off of an incredible lot limited definition of love. Like how else do you define the effort of creating an entire fictional language and translating stuff you’ve written into it? the thought you put into your writing? listening to your friends and helping them if they need? you have a sibling you’re on good terms with, right? all of these are labors of incredible care, like obviously you care about the Zelda franchise and your friends and sister? what’s wrong with calling that care love? it seems ridiculous to imply that you’d do these things *without* caring? and I mean... isnt that sense of ‘other humans in my life that I respect and want good things for matter to me’ or ‘other people’s well-being matter to be’ the basis of empathy, compassion? I apologize for being rude, if that’s how this comes across. I respect you and like you! the idea of not feeling ‘love’ for anyone or anything in your life just really confuses and honestly bothers me, ideas of being ace or aro specifically aside bc that’s 100% not what I’m talking about.

ok i dont know who you are, im assuming youre in the botw discord if youre comfortable coming up to me and saying all this. and im really not good at being coherent but for one thing. did you actually read the posts that made you send this ask. did you actually read the essay linked. bc here it is again, the author really words everything well. did you actually look at that blog linked in the post. bc here it is again.

essentially for me it's like, literally everything in society is telling you that you have to love. yes, the "romantically" is sort of implied, but it's not just romo love everyone's really talking abt. and for aromanticism specifically, people are always like "aros can still love tho!!" as like, a justification for the fact that we don't love romantically. like "yeah we dont have romo love but we're still human dw!!! cause we love our friends pets hobbies yada yada yada" and why do i have to justify anything to you? "love makes us human" fuck you! no matter how you change the definition as it suits you you dont get to tell me what makes me human! you cant make me love!

i do care abt all those things you listed off. i genuinely do, and often instead of explaining all of this i usually just slap the word "love" on what i feel bc its easiest. and maybe it sounds like im just being petty abt words but like, after all the shit tossed at aros abt loving and loving and loving, and all of the complicated experiences and thoughts i have surrounding it, for me it just feels so much more freeing to reject the concept entirely. i care about all of these things, but it "just really honestly bothers me" to call it love after all of my experiences as an aromantic. 

(sidenote, empathy is also something many people dont feel. thats separate from compassion and kindness, but empathy is something a bunch of neurodivergent people have issues with. just like love.)

[toaster-strudel1234]

Personal Ship #13

This is for @1dindaplace   I’m a Ravenclaw and Aries too! It’s so cool that you can juggle, I'm super uncoordinated and would probably end up hitting the audience in the face. :) Anyways, here you go...

I ship you with 

Harry Holland 

- You met Harry at the airport, you were late for your flight to the Bahamas. With coffee in one hand and a novel in the other you ran to your gate. You ran onto the plane and into your seat, beside you was none other than Harry Holland. 

- You sat down and gulped your coffee, he looked over at you and smirked. You were annoyed and snapped at him. “Whats your problem?” He was taken aback and tried to apologize, you felt bad and started to talk to him all about his life at home, his brothers and why he was going. 

- The plane service was horrible and not one attendant took your empty coffee cup, frustrated you put your cup on the table and fell asleep. Harry woke you up during touchdown. You landed and said goodbye, before leaving Harry said ‘Dont forget the cup’ confused, you picked it up and underneath a cute message was a phone number. You smiled and added the number to your phone. You both started talking constantly after that and became besties!

- He asked you out by giving you a bag of frozen peas, with the note ‘Will you PEAS go out with me?’ You loved his sense of humor and of course you said yes!

- He loved hearing you speak in french, he though it was super cute. One time, he wrote you a poem in French, but he decided to use google translate, and let’s just say that it didn’t go well. :) 

- He loved your height becasue it was super easy to cuddle you, he used this as an excuse whenever you told him to stop.

- To everyones surprise, Harry had an amazing singing voice, sometimes when you would play on the piano he would join in and sing along. Sometimes Sam would record these and post them on his snapchat, much to Harrys discomfort. Your man would go red and bury his head into your chest, as he blushed while Sam read the comments aloud, you took this as an excuse to play with his hair or rub circles on his back. 

- You taught Harry how to juggle, and sometimes if you were really bored. You two would have competitions to see  who could juggle the longest. The loser had to make the bed for 6 months, you both took these competitions really seriously. 

- Whenever you wanted to go out with friends, Harry always whined and begged you to stay home so you two could cuddle and spend time together. Sometimes you gave in, but sometimes you liked to make him miss you. 

- dancing all the time, he would stop you from doing the dishses and you two would just dance for a long time. 

- He loved how you tried to go out of your comfort zone, and tried to help you whenever he could. You ended up going bungee jumping once. 

- You always tried to make ravenclaw themed treats, but Harry never ate them becasue he was a gryffindor. He ALWAYS gave in at the end. ;) 

-Since he loved taking pictures,he often had you model for him. He said you were his inspiration :) 

- He propsed by having his friends and family sit on a park bench. They were all holding newspapers to cover their faces. On the back of the newspapers, everyone had a single word. Spelling out, “will you marry me?” You both went on a walk and while walking he pointed out the display to you, when you looked back at him, he was kneeling with a ring. You loved it becasue it was so creative and said Yes!!!

- You had a daughter named Madaleine, and you read to her all the time. Harry thought it was adorable and recorded it. He watched it whenever he was on a trip for work. 

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed! Remember to send me criteria for your own headcanons! Ships are open till November 7th!  Ask me questions regarding my hobbies and fandoms! I’m answering them!

-Zee xox

[chi-is-bored]

Rant

And wow this is long, and i have no idea how to keep reading it so I apologize in advance,

Just watch the Omar interview with Trevor and wow, does the trolling JUMP on the comments.

Alas, these american idiots be like, tHeiR rEliGioN is vIoLenT, iN tHe bOok theEy sAy tHis, aLL mUslIm haTe us, Isis is iSlam. -_- i mean they are probably troll cuz I just can't believe that someone from the US would actually believe an organisation (terrorist no less) is representative to all religion. Like that's literally saying the blue / the red are representative to all american. Like come on.

I mean as muslimah who spent most of her internet time in foreign english-speaking domain (which is dominated by america), I aint new on islam-hating words. But like it has and always been alittle frustatingly hilarious to me.

Also disclaimer i aint from english-speaking country so im translating the terms of my language, cuz y'know i dont know what english-speaking people would called them, i only know the terms in my language. Also im pretty sure my experience and lessons I get are island or even small city-oriented, but you may be surprised (like i did) but the islamic lessons that are taught have small differences in each country or nation based on cultures or even country's history.

Cuz it's always the same thing. AND the hilarious thing for me is that their arguments most often are similar to the radical or the terrorists. Just swap the people they called the devil worshipper / the enemy. Like the terrorist/radicals would say that the Jewish people (which honestly is very telling how they never say israeli) is a satanic / genocidal / evil etcetra, while these islamic-hating comments would say Islam is a satanic / genocidal / evil etcetra.

Which, huh, maybe those comments/posts are the reason why I never paid much to the radicals.

Like judging from those rhetorics where 'Islam as a religion hates christian and/or jewish people' etc, many non-muslim seem to not know this, but like there's this 6 elements that you HAVE TO truly and wholeheartedly believe (put faith on) in your heart to be muslim. And one them is having faith (as in truly believe) that Torah came from Prophet Moses and Bible came from Prophet Isa. So, whenever I spy these rhetorics, I just can't!! Because we were supposed to also learn from Torah and Bible too. But, I also think it's understandable, cuz it's probably an awkward thing to openly say right? Esp in these tension-filled interaction between religion where aLOT of things has been said to attack. Or maybe it's not an awkward thing, but words that cannot penetrate the walls that was built from conflict and hatred.

Also

I was taught that Qur'an is the last Holy Book to round-up or finish off all lessons from previous books that came from previous prophets. But I did come to realize that the lessons I was taught were only words they parrotted without meaning. Why? Because I was taught that in my single digit year old, now I'm on my twenties and I never learn what's in Bible or Torah. Even tho, the holy books we were supposed to learn, understand, and apply were Torah, Bible, and The Quran.

You maybe wondering if I do believe that why don't I research those holy book myself. Well I did, but the young me got confused at the bible versions that pop out from my initial search that I give up because I aint touching that without any Christian with me., Thats just a disaster in waiting, cuz I wouldn't be able to spot whats true or not since I have no base knowledge on it ya know? But, I did get that children book of Christian's prophet stories. Tho, I can't mention it willy-nilly cuz people would think I'm converting. T.T amd nobody would want to read it for fear, but like if anybody ask me I would say you are not afraid of the christian tales, you are afraid to find out how fragile your faith is.

I get to that point after many of these news that are viral on the islam part of internet where they glorify and amplify the news whenever someone converts to islam or whenever someone 'owned' non-muslim's in debate or whenever someone get non-muslim to convert.... Not gonna lie, at first, I did join on these people in amazement and happiness until I realized these people were only using these stories to back up their choice of religion. Like they scream while acting humble, I am right in choosing Islam, see it is undeniably the truth, those are the proofs!, look non-believers got converted the islam is true!. And my fellow muslim you would thought there was nothing wrong with these words (like I did) until you realize these people don't actually believe in Islam. They only interest to be saved or want the benefits of Islam, but they only filmsy believe the religion so they use as many of those stories to prop it up. They are in denial, deep deep denial how fragile their believe is so they seek these stories to prop up their faith.

How do I get there? Well, one of them is flat earth. Bro, I have interact wih these fools who jump on flat earth because apparently a quote in the Quran said so. At first I was like bro what? I did say that the word used for implying flat earth is ambiguous before I realize I don't have the authority nor accredited knowledge to say that. But I did jokingly say 'what are all the fusses with the earth shape and the Qur'an quote? What, you gonna stop being muslim over that? Lmao, can't relate' before i realized that THATS THE THING. These people have used those stories and believe blindly and narrowly that everything in the Qur'an is true and applicable to everything to prop and use as a foundation for their believe, that when they found any surface disperancies, they lost it.

I can already feel muslim frowning at me saying what's wrong with having these stories affirming their faith. you see, on the panic over the fragility of their believe they went on full stupid and just swallow ANY SENTENCES without any thought whatsoever abt Islam that would strengthen their faith. Girl, some ustad be saying that islam prohibits drinking while standing is proven scientifically right because when drinking while standing will make the water fall hard straight to your bladder and cause the water to not be absorbed and just pee out. And people be subhanallah God and God's wisdom. And when some profesor be like 'sir, please be careful on spreading these info cuz that's not how our body work', she got blasted and labeled as a non-believers, or proof that getting higher education is to be corrupted and losing ur faith.

Which, yo muslim fellow, was I dreaming this thing or did Prophet Muhammad did actually said 'to pursue knowledge, even to China' ( i am paraphrasing this)? I can't believe how I was taught this at young age, as a girl, that it is very important for mothers to pursue education as highly as possible because mother is the first person children are gonna learn from. To be at this age of mine, where some muslims be dissuading muslim from learning higher. Like what?! Actual religious muslim man be telling me I shouldn't get a master degree because no man would want to marry me. The muslim man who was taught like I was that every person on earth has their 'soulmate' that is predetermined before our birth by Allah. Seriously? He didn't even say that my 'soulmate' would not be attracted to me, which is how i know he was taught the same thing as me. He also went quite when I hit him with 'is he questioning Allah's decision and power over my soulmate? That a mere master degree will over overcome my predetermined 'soulmate' that Allah has chosen for me?'

(and yes, idk whats the English word for it so im using soulmate)

And no, he did not stop pursuing me, he just stop using religion as flirting method. He downright stop saying any religious thing around me, and straight on asking me on a date, as an 'uber' driver on my way home, at night, almost midnight, note: i was a restaurant waitress. That muslim getup really be accessories for him.

Wait, my main point is Islam lessons isn't as perfectly similar as alot of people believe. Like I said the islam lessons really be different. Like the foundation is the same, but the details differ.

One simple example is how I found out that English speaking country (idk which one) use he, him as god pronoun, when I was taught that Allah is genderless and is referred as ?substance? (idk the english term, just that Allah is not humanize ya know? Someone help me explain), and the mere thought of implying Allah's gender be a huge blapsemy (notice how i never use one) let alone using the pronoun he,him. But honestly I figured it's because english doesn't have neutral gender he/she/they like my language.

Also, yes I have a joke I thought when I first learn of non-binary people, but it is very blasphemous so i can not say it. Been hoping someone else say it, but alas I have not see it. :(

[written-time]

God’s kids all dance

It’s a book name of Haruki Murakami. 

I’m not sure if I write it correctly, because I read the name in Chinese, and now I just translate it into English. 

Kids. All dance. 

(how concentrated. Focus on one thing, just dance

 (and dance is always beautiful) )

Kids. they are all God’s. 

(So they won’t feel lonely, or abandoned. So they always feel beloved and understood)

Last night I was awaken up by two people arguing’s voice. 

At first I was in dream, wondering how strange it was, the people in my dream talk so loudly. 

Then I suddenly woke up, found the voice coming from outside my room. 

It’s my flatmate and her boyfriend. 

They argued with each other very fiercely, words in German, loud and fast. 

I couldnt catch a word. I was still in confusion.

So they had a quarrel. I guess. What are they arguing about? 

Suddenly they became quiet.

Then I heard people walking, closing the main door and the door of my flatmate’s door.

Everything sinks into silence. I still keep my eyes closed. Thinking...

My flatmate’s boyfriend goes home, to his own place. 

And my flatmate stays in her room. 

I turned my head to one side, left hand stretching out, found my cell phone on the floor. I slided it awake.

It’s 3:30 a.m. 

Where am I?

I’m lying in my bed, not fully covered by the blanket. 

I found the swivel chair in the darkness. It’s not occupied. standing there alone in front of my desk.

Look how lonely it is. No one was there.

I don’t even notice that I was actually a little angry and confused. 

So it is. this happens. Quarrel. I hate it. Everyone hates it. And the couple has been peaceful and harmonic for the last six months since I moved here.

Are they going to make it worse? What are they going to do next?

Apology from one side? Or both?

I dont even know the point they are talking about.

So many interesting questions, but they are just like shooting stars. Shoo, they are gone.

I begin to wonder, what would I do if at the moment I was in my parents home, hearing them in the middle of the night having a quarrel.

I would say as much as I can. 

My parents always cant put up with each other.

So I would say, can u just stop it and think about me?

But actually, I found that, my parents haven’t had a quarrel in the past few years.

They used to have a lot when I was in high school, middle school. 

So they changed a little bit?

It’s a long night. I couldnt fall asleep any more. I dont feel sleepy at the moment.

Then I thought of a female friend. 

She’s in the same city where I study, same University.

She was the deskmate of mine in high school.

We know each other for more than nine years.

And things change in these years.

I found I’m gay, I told her. 

I had relationships with some guys. There are things that I can’t share with her, there are now and then a period when I totally lost contact with her. I didn’t know what she did, what she experienced.

Now we’re together again. Same city, same University. 

And she has a boyfriend now. 

Since we both came to Germany, we are more often in touch with each other. 

I don’t know what is going on. 

I just cannot figure it out, the feeling for her, the friendship between us. 

It feels like, we are by chance together, but actually we’re getting away with each other.

How should I deal with my feeling for her?

In high school, in college, I had always a special feeling for her. 

like what happens between boys and girls.

and now things getting more and more complicated.

I was trying to do things right, but somehow messed up a little bit.

those come with feelings, with emotions.

with pain and hurts. with true but burried feelings.

I suddenly want to write in Chinese, to express how I truly feel.

But I won’t. My English is bad, but I still find a place for myself, to express how I truly feel. 

I’m feeling I’m losing her. I’m so desperate.

I think I’m not gonna show up in her life so frequently, just like a ghost. 

I think there’s no one gonna read this. No one gonna understand me. 

That’s why I write them down. Thoughts and feelings. 

Loneliness.

That’s what I come for?

It’s just because, people wont understand something, it’s the something I need to write down, not to show myself how I think about it, but to make it real, 

that I’m alone, no one understands. that’s what it exists for. 

Things exists for no one’s understanding.

[trendingnewsb]

20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You

Danielle Drislane

Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and friends. They use a plethora of diversionary tactics that distort the reality of their victims and deflect responsibility. Although those who are not narcissistic can employ these tactics as well, abusive narcissists use these to an excessive extent in an effort to escape accountability for their actions.

Here are the 20 diversionary tactics toxic people use to silence and degrade you.

1. Gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that can be described in different variations of three words: That didnt happen, You imagined it, and Are you crazy? Gaslighting is perhaps one of the most insidious manipulative tactics out there because it works to distort and erode your sense of reality; it eats away at your ability to trust yourself and inevitably disables you from feeling justified in calling out abuse and mistreatment.

When a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath gaslights you, you may be prone to gaslighting yourself as a way to reconcile the cognitive dissonance that might arise. Two conflicting beliefs battle it out: is this person right or can I trust what I experienced? A manipulative person will convince you that the former is an inevitable truth while the latter is a sign of dysfunction on your end.

In order to resist gaslighting, its important to ground yourself in your own reality sometimes writing things down as they happened, telling a friend or reiterating your experience to a support network can help to counteract the gaslighting effect. The power of having a validating community is that it can redirect you from the distorted reality of a malignant person and back to your own inner guidance.

2. Projection.

One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of ones negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

While we all engage in projection to some extent, according to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, the projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive. Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings, malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.

For example, a person who engages in pathological lying may accuse their partner of fibbing; a needy spouse may call their husband clingy in an attempt to depict them as the one who is dependent; a rude employee may call their boss ineffective in an effort to escape the truth about their own productivity.

Narcissistic abusers love to play the blameshifting game. Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and you or the world at large is blamed for everything thats wrong with . This way, you get to babysit their fragile ego while youre thrust into a sea of self-doubt. Fun, right?

Solution? Dont project your own sense of compassion or empathy onto a toxic person and dont own any of the toxic persons projections either. As manipulation expert and author Dr. George Simon (2010) notes in his book , projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.

Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in self-insight or change. Its important to cut ties and end interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your own reality and validate your own identity. You dont have to live in someone elses cesspool of dysfunction.

3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.

If you think youre going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness.

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, are the problem if you happen to exist.

Spend even ten minutes arguing with a toxic narcissist and youll find yourself wondering how the argument even began at all. You simply disagreed with them about their absurd claim that the sky is red and now your entire childhood, family, friends, career and lifestyle choices have come under attack. That is because your disagreement picked at their false belief that they are omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in a narcissistic injury.

Remember: toxic people dont argue with you, they essentially argue with themselves and you become privy to their long, draining monologues. They thrive off the drama and they live for it. Each and every time you attempt to provide a point that counters their ridiculous assertions, you feed them supply. Dont feed the narcissists supply rather, supply yourself with the confirmation that their abusive behavior is the problem, not you. Cut the interaction short as soon as you anticipate it escalating and use your energy on some decadent self-care instead.

4. Blanket statements and generalizations.

Malignant narcissists arent always intellectual masterminds many of them are intellectually lazy. Rather than taking the time to carefully consider a different perspective, they generalize anything and everything you say, making blanket statements that dont acknowledge the nuances in your argument or take into account the multiple perspectives youve paid homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on you that dismisses your perspective altogether?

On a larger scale, generalizations and blanket statements invalidate experiences that dont fit in the unsupported assumptions, schemas and stereotypes of society; they are also used to maintain the status quo. This form of digression exaggerates one perspective to the point where a social justice issue can become completely obscured. For example, rape accusations against well-liked figures are often met with the reminder that there are false reports of rape that occur. While those do occur, they are rare, and in this case, the actions of one become labeled the behavior of the majority while the specific report itself remains unaddressed.

These everyday microaggressions also happen in toxic relationships. If you bring up to a narcissistic abuser that their behavior is unacceptable for example, they will often make blanket generalizations about your hypersensitivity or make a generalization such as, You are satisfied, or Youre too sensitive rather than addressing the real issues at hand. Its possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.

Hold onto your truth and resist generalizing statements by realizing that they are in fact forms of black and white illogical thinking. Toxic people wielding blanket statements do not represent the full richness of experience they represent the limited one of their singular experience and overinflated sense of self.

5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.

In the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath, your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your irrationality.

Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe what youre actually saying as a way to make your opinions look absurd or heinous. Lets say you bring up the fact that youre unhappy with the way a toxic friend is speaking to you. In response, he or she may put words in your mouth, saying, Oh, so now perfect? or So I am a bad person, huh? when youve done nothing but express your feelings. This enables them to invalidate your right to have thoughts and emotions about their inappropriate behavior and instills in you a sense of guilt when you attempt to establish boundaries.

This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as mind reading. Toxic people often presume they know what youre thinking and feeling. They chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or outlandish viewpoint you didnt possess. They accuse you of thinking of them as toxic even before youve gotten the chance to call them out on their behavior and this also serves as a form of preemptive defense.

Simply stating, I never said that, and walking away should the person continue to accuse you of doing or saying something you didnt can help to set a firm boundary in this type of interaction. So long as the toxic person can blameshift and digress from their own behavior, they have succeeded in convincing you that you should be shamed for giving them any sort of realistic feedback.

6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.

The difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism is the presence of a personal attack and impossible standards. These so-called “critics” often don’t want to help you improve, they just want to nitpick, pull you down and scapegoat you in any way they can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths employ a logical fallacy known as moving the goalposts in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after youve provided all the evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand more proof.

Do you have a successful career? The narcissist will then start to pick on why you arent a multi-millionaire yet. Did you already fulfill their need to be excessively catered to? Now its time to prove that you can also remain independent. The goal posts will perpetually change and may not even be related to each other; they dont have any other point besides making you vie for the narcissists approval and validation.

By raising the expectations higher and higher each time or switching them completely, highly manipulative and toxic people are able to instill in you a pervasive sense of unworthiness and of never feeling quite enough. By pointing out one irrelevant fact or one thing you did wrong and developing a hyperfocus on it, narcissists get to divert from your strengths and pull you into obsessing over any flaws or weaknesses instead. They get you thinking about the next expectation of theirs youre going to have to meet until eventually youve bent over backwards trying to fulfill their every need only to realize it didnt change the horrific way they treated you.

Dont get sucked into nitpicking and changing goal posts if someone chooses to rehash an irrelevant point over and over again to the point where they arent acknowledging the work youve done to validate your point or satisfy them, their motive isnt to better understand. Its to further provoke you into feeling as if you have to constantly prove yourself. Validate and approve of yourself. Know that you are enough and you dont have to be made to feel constantly deficient or unworthy in some way.

7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.

This type of tactic is what I like to call the What about me? syndrome. It is a literal digression from the actual topic that works to redirect attention to a different issue altogether. Narcissists dont want you to be on the topic of holding them accountable for anything, so they will reroute discussions to benefit them. Complaining about their neglectful parenting? Theyll point out a mistake you committed seven years ago. This type of diversion has no limits in terms of time or subject content, and often begins with a sentence like What about the time when

On a macrolevel, these diversions work to derail discussions that challenge the status quo. A discussion about gay rights, for example, may be derailed quickly by someone who brings in another social justice issue just to distract people from the main argument.

As Tara Moss, author of , notes, specificity is needed in order to resolve and address issues appropriately that doesnt mean that the issues that are being brought up dont matter, it just means that the specific time and place may not be the best context to discuss them.

Dont be derailed if someone pulls a switcheroo on you, you can exercise what I call the broken record method and continue stating the facts without giving in to their distractions. Redirect their redirection by saying, Thats not what I am talking about. Lets stay focused on the real issue. If theyre not interested, disengage and spend your energy on something more constructive – like not having a debate with someone who has the mental age of a toddler.

8. Covert and overt threats.

Narcissistic abusers and otherwise toxic people feel very threatened when their excessive sense of entitlement, false sense of superiority and grandiose sense of self are challenged in any way. They are prone to making unreasonable demands on others while punishing you for not living up to their impossible to reach expectations.

Rather than tackle disagreements or compromises maturely, they set out to divert you from your right to have your own identity and perspective by attempting to instill fear in you about the consequences of disagreeing or complying with their demands. To them, any challenge results in an ultimatum and do this or Ill do that becomes their daily mantra.

If someones reaction to you setting boundaries or having a differing opinion from your own is to threaten you into submission, whether its a thinly veiled threat or an overt admission of what they plan to do, this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and has no plans of compromising. Take threats seriously and show the narcissist you mean business; document threats and report them whenever possible and legally feasible.

9. Name-calling.

Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage. As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority.

The lowest of the low resort to narcissistic rage in the form of name-calling when they cant think of a better way to manipulate your opinion or micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is a quick and easy way to put you down, degrade you and insult your intelligence, appearance or behavior while invalidating your right to be a separate person with a right to his or her perspective.

Name-calling can also be used to criticize your beliefs, opinions and insights. A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly becomes silly or idiotic in the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can. Its important to end any interaction that consists of name-calling and communicate that you wont tolerate it. Dont internalize it: realize that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in higher level methods.

Want more writing like this? Read the book

10. Destructive conditioning.

Toxic people condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits they once idealized as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlovs dogs, youre essentially trained over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.

Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise toxic people do this because they wish to divert attention back to themselves and how youre going to please them. If there is anything outside of them that may threaten their control over your life, they seek to destroy it. They need to be the center of attention at all times. In the idealization phase, you were once the center of a narcissists world now the narcissist becomes the center of yours.

Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious and dont want anything to come in between them and their influence over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the toxic person, whats to keep you from leaving them? To toxic people, a little conditioning can go a long way to keep you walking on eggshells and falling just short of your big dreams.

11. Smear campaigns and stalking.

When toxic types cant control the way you see yourself, they start to control how others see you; they play the martyr while youre labeled the toxic one. A smear campaign is a preemptive strike to sabotage your reputation and slander your name so that you wont have a support network to fall back on lest you decide to detach and cut ties with this toxic person. They may even stalk and harass you or the people you know as a way to supposedly expose the truth about you; this exposure acts as a way to hide their own abusive behavior while projecting it onto you.

Some smear campaigns can even work to pit two people or two groups against each other. A victim in an abusive relationship with a narcissist often doesnt know whats being said about them during the relationship, but they eventually find out the falsehoods shortly after theyve been discarded.

Toxic people will gossip behind your back (and in front of your face), slander you to your loved ones or their loved ones, create stories that depict you as the aggressor while they play the victim, and claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that they are afraid you will accuse them of engaging in. They will also methodically, covertly and deliberately abuse you so they can use your reactions as a way to prove that they are the so-called victims of your abuse.

The best way to handle a smear campaign is to stay mindful of your reactions and stick to the facts. This is especially pertinent for high-conflict divorces with narcissists who may use your reactions to their provocations against you. Document any form of harassment, cyberbullying or stalking incidents and always speak to your narcissist through a lawyer whenever possible. You may wish to take legal action if you feel the stalking and harassment is getting out of control; finding a lawyer who is well-versed in Narcissistic Personality Disorder is crucial if thats the case. Your character and integrity will speak for itself when the narcissists false mask begins to slip.

12. Love-bombing and devaluation.

Toxic people put you through an idealization phase until youre sufficiently hooked and invested in beginning a friendship or relationship with you. Then, they begin to devalue you while insulting the very things they admired in the first place. Another variation of this is when a toxic individual puts you on a pedestal while aggressively devaluing and attacking someone else who threatens their sense of superiority.

Narcissistic abusers do this all the time they devalue their exes to their new partners, and eventually the new partner starts to receive the same sort of mistreatment as the narcissists ex-partner. Ultimately what will happen is that you will also be on the receiving end of the same abuse. You will one day be the ex-partner they degrade to their new source of supply. You just dont know it yet. Thats why its important to stay mindful of the love-bombing technique whenever you witness behavior that doesnt align with the saccharine sweetness a narcissist subjects you to.

As life coach Wendy Powell suggests, slowing things down with people you suspect may be toxic is an important way of combating the love-bombing technique. Be wary of the fact that how a person treats or speaks about someone else could potentially translate into the way they will treat you in the future.

13. Preemptive defense.

When someone stresses the fact that they are a nice guy or girl, that you should trust them right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.

Toxic and abusive people overstate their ability to be kind and compassionate. They often tell you that you should trust them without first building a solid foundation of trust. They may perform a high level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning of your relationship to dupe you, only to unveil their false mask later on. When you see their false mask begins to slip periodically during the devaluation phase of the abuse cycle, the true self is revealed to be terrifyingly cold, callous and contemptuous.

Genuinely nice people rarely have to persistently show off their positive qualities they exude their warmth more than they talk about it and they know that actions speak volumes more than mere words. They know that trust and respect is a two-way street that requires reciprocity, not repetition.

To counter a preemptive defense, reevaluate why a person may be emphasizing their good qualities. Is it because they think you dont trust them, or because they know you shouldnt? Trust actions more than empty words and see how someones actions communicate who they are, not who they say they are.

14. Triangulation.

Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as triangulation. Often used to validate the toxic persons abuse while invalidating the victims reactions to abuse, triangulation can also work to manufacture love triangles that leave you feeling unhinged and insecure.

Malignant narcissists love to triangulate their significant other with strangers, co-workers, ex-partners, friends and even family members in order to evoke jealousy and uncertainty in you. They also use the opinions of others to validate their point of view.

This is a diversionary tactic meant to pull your attention away from their abusive behavior and into a false image of them as a desirable, sought after person. It also leaves you questioning yourself if Mary did agree with Tom, doesnt that mean that you must be wrong? The truth is, narcissists love to report back falsehoods about others say about you, when in fact, they are the ones smearing you.

To resist triangulation tactics, realize that whoever the narcissist is triangulating with is also being triangulated by your relationship with the narcissist as well. Everyone is essentially being played by this one person. Reverse triangulate the narcissist by gaining support from a third party that is not under the narcissists influence and also by seeking your own validation.

15. Bait and feign innocence.

Toxic individuals lure you into a false sense of security simply to have a platform to showcase their cruelty. Baiting you into a mindless, chaotic argument can escalate into a showdown rather quickly with someone who doesnt know the meaning of respect. A simple disagreement may bait you into responding politely initially, until it becomes clear that the person has a malicious motive of tearing you down.

By baiting you with a seemingly innocuous comment disguised as a rational one, they can then begin to play with you. Remember: narcissistic abusers have learned about your insecurities, the unsettling catchphrases that interrupt your confidence, and the disturbing topics that reenact your wounds and they use this knowledge maliciously to provoke you. After youve fallen for it, hook line and sinker, theyll stand back and innocently ask whether youre okay and talk about how they didnt mean to agitate you. This faux innocence works to catch you off guard and make you believe that they truly didnt intend to hurt you, until it happens so often you cant deny the reality of their malice any longer.

It helps to realize when youre being baited so you can avoid engaging altogether. Provocative statements, name-calling, hurtful accusations or unsupported generalizations, for example, are common baiting tactics. Your gut instinct can also tell you when youre being baited if you feel off about a certain comment and continue to feel this way even after it has been expanded on, thats a sign you may need to take some space to reevaluate the situation before choosing to respond.

16. Boundary testing and hoovering.

Narcissists, sociopaths and otherwise toxic people continually try and test your boundaries to see which ones they can trespass. The more violations theyre able to commit without consequences, the more theyll push the envelope. Thats why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they go back to their abusers.

Abusers tend to hoover their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse and empty words of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more horrifically. In the abusers sick mind, this boundary testing serves as a punishment for standing up to the abuse and also for being going back to it. When narcissists try to press the emotional reset button, reinforce your boundaries even more strongly rather than backtracking on them.

17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.

Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at your expense. These are usually dressed up as just jokes so that they can get away with saying appalling things while still maintaining an innocent, cool demeanor. Yet any time you are outraged at an insensitive, harsh remark, you are accused of having no sense of humor. This is a tactic frequently used in verbal abuse.

The contemptuous smirk and sadistic gleam in their eyes gives it away, however like a predator that plays with its food, a toxic person gains pleasure from hurting you and being able to get away with it. After all, its just a joke, right? Wrong. Its a way to gaslight you into thinking their abuse is a joke a way to divert from their cruelty and onto your perceived sensitivity. It is important that when this happens, you stand up for yourself and make it clear that you wont tolerate this type of behavior.

Calling out manipulative people on their covert put-downs may result in further gaslighting from the abuser but maintain your stance that their behavior is not okay and end the interaction immediately if you have to.

18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.

Belittling and degrading a person is a toxic persons forte and their tone of voice is only one tool in their toolbox. Sarcasm can be a fun mode of communication when both parties are engaged, but narcissists use it chronically as a way to manipulate you and degrade you. If you in any way react to it, you must be too sensitive.

Forget that the toxic person constantly has temper tantrums every time their big bad ego is faced with realistic feedback the victim is the hypersensitive one, apparently. So long as youre treated like a child and constantly challenged for expressing yourself, youll start to develop a sense of hypervigilance about voicing your thoughts and opinions without reprimand. This self-censorship enables the abuser to put in less work in silencing you, because you begin to silence yourself.

Whenever you are met with a condescending demeanor or tone, call it out firmly and assertively. You dont deserve to be spoken down to like a child nor should you ever silence yourself to meet the expectation of someone elses superiority complex.

19. Shaming.

You should be ashamed of yourself is a favorite saying of toxic people. Though it can be used by someone who is non-toxic, in the realm of the narcissist or sociopath, shaming is an effective method that targets any behavior or belief that might challenge a toxic persons power. It can also be used to destroy and whittle away at a victims self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of something, shaming the victim for that specific trait, quality or accomplishment can serve to diminish their sense of self and stifle any pride they may have.

Malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths enjoy using your own wounds against you so they will even shame you about any abuse or injustice youve suffered in your lifetime as a way to retraumatize you. Were you a childhood abuse survivor? A malignant narcissist or sociopath will claim that you mustve done something to deserve it, or brag about their own happy childhood as a way to make you feel deficient and unworthy. What better way to injure you, after all, than to pick at the original wound? As surgeons of madness, they seek to exacerbate wounds, not help heal them.

If you suspect youre dealing with a toxic person, avoid revealing any of your vulnerabilities or past traumas. Until theyve proven their character to you, there is no point disclosing information that could be potentially used against you.

20. Control.

Most importantly, toxic abusers love to maintain control in whatever way they can. They isolate you, maintain control over your finances and social networks, and micromanage every facet of your life. Yet the most powerful mechanism they have for control is toying with your emotions.

Thats why abusive narcissists and sociopaths manufacture situations of conflict out of thin air to keep you feeling off center and off balanced. Thats why they chronically engage in disagreements about irrelevant things and rage over perceived slights. Thats why they emotionally withdraw, only to re-idealize you once they start to lose control. Thats why they vacillate between their false self and their true self, so you never get a sense of psychological safety or certainty about who your partner truly is.

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what youre facing and at the very least, develop a plan to regain control over your own life and away from toxic people.

Shahida Arabi is the author of the book , available here.

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

You may have heard – Shovel knight has finally made his way across the ocean to Japan! We’re very excited about the leap. We’ve invested a lot of time making sure our localization is fun and smartly done. Wait, what is localization? It’s the process of translating text and adapting a game for a local market, of course! We partnered with the super cool experts at 8-4 to make our localization the highest quality possible. Today, we wanted to talk about some of the neater changes we’ve made to the game to really go the extra mile for Japanese gamers.  

History

But before we jump in…it’s time for a history lesson! Way back in the day, game localization was the wild west. There was no standard or ruleset for what was appropriate in localizing a game. Sometimes developers would make translation changes that were absurd and riddled with typos, and other times, developers would put so much effort in that they’d completely change the name and create a whole new series.

(On the left is Bubble Bobble’s poorly worded text. On the right is Wonder Boy, a Japanese game that was changed to Adventure Island when ported to the NES/Famicom. The game actually split off into two distinct series.)

(Update 8/1/16: It’s come to our attention that Adventure Island was converted from Wonder Boy during its port from arcades. We were confused because often porting and localization are intermixed due to Famicom->NES transition. We apologize for the error!)

This inconsistency created a lot of interesting localization changes in games as developers learned with each title what were the appropriate changes to make. Also, due to the restrictions of the NES, lots of changes were required when bringing them from Japan. Some issues including complexity in fonts, technical limitations, or game design observations and learning that happened post-release. We’re going to discuss just a small sampling of the changes they made to games back in the day, so you can see where the reasoning came from for the changes we’ve made to Shovel Knight for Japan.

Before you read any history from us, it’s best to learn from the expert himself, Clyde Mandelyn: http://ift.tt/1bVVtHS. He’s put together really awesome pieces (and books!) on some famous game localizations and the changes they made post Japan release.

Common Japan to North America Localization changes

Obviously, lots of small or large text changes happen when localizing a game as a result of the complexities of translation. But we’re going to instead show some of the visual, sounds, and gameplay changes that you might have seen during the NES/Famicom era.

Graphic Changes

Of course, usually one of the big changes to a game was the title screen. Sometimes this could be a complete replacement, or sometimes it was just the removal of some Japanese text.

Sprite changes were very common in the NES days. Often, the logic was that players might not understand Japanese specific sprites like food:

Or alternatively, North American localization teams might think the Japanese characters or sprites wouldn’t be appealing. Below Power Blade, known as Power Blazer in Japan, changed its main character to look cooler instead of cute.

Common 80s Knowledge: Arnold Schwarzenegger makes every game sell.

Sometimes these changes were made to make the gameplay more clear and understandable:

Oh hey! I didn't know there was an enemy there before!

Super Mario Bros. 2 (known as Doki Doki Panic) in Japan is a case where Nintendo of America went to great lengths localizing the game. It’s a great example of what was typically changed at the time…they turned a game that wasn’t Mario into Mario!

In some cases, they decided to change sprites so they were now animated! Below is an example of one change where it made the gameplay objects really stand out:

Maybe I should pull those plants up!

Sprites could also be changed to be less or more complex. Or maybe they’d be changed to improve over the Japanese version. Here’s an animation change of that kind from Mario 2:

Sometimes these animation changes were due to restrictions in hardware between the Famicom, NES, or Famicom disk system. Here’s an animated sprite (actually a background tile that appears animated) in Zelda 2 that was removed in the NES version as the NES wasn’t able to manipulate VRAM in quite the same way as the FDS:

Wow...I actually believe it's water now!

Font changes

Fonts were often a big area where changes were made. Creating a game in Japanese was difficult due to the common character set, Kanji, being nearly impossible to contain on the small amount of memory that the NES could afford. Kanji can contain thousands of characters (a common newspaper might include 2500+)! To get around this issue, sometimes games chose to use the smaller Kana character set (up to around 100 characters), or they decided to use the much smaller English character set! English is somewhat common in Japan, so it didn’t make the games completely unplayable as you might expect (especially given the typically small amount of text in NES games). Here are some examples of Kana text on the NES/Famicom:

Here’s an example of Zelda using English in the Famicom version:

Notice the difference in font here. The NES had a standard 8×8 thick font, so the North American text was re-appropriated to use what players were accustomed to seeing. You might also be realizing that all the letters are in uppercase! This is to cut the number of characters needed in half. Shovel Knight already does the same thing!

In cases where text readability was very important, the developers dedicated more resources to represent more complicated text. Below, you can see how Final Fantasy on the NES broke the lower case barrier:

Ah! Much easier on the eyes.

You may notice the odd looking ‘g’ in the letter king. This is due to NES/Famicom games only having space for 8×8 characters. A lowercase g, to be properly spaced would break this boundary, so they’ve instead positioned the character higher. This is another reason why Kanji was so hard to represent on the NES/Famicom. Each character’s complexity is nearly impossible to represent clearly with only 8×8 pixels. But there were limited cases where developers were still able to pull off Kanji on the NES/Famicom. Take a look at Faxandu:

As you can see the font is much larger than the typical 8×8 size. This is due to how Kanji’s complexity is almost impossible to clearly represent with an 8×8 pixel block. Faxanadu doubles the size using 16×16 blocks (where the characters fit in 14×14). On the Super Famicom/SNES, developers had a little more freedom, so Kanji fonts often were 12×12:

Audio

It wasn’t just visuals that were changed, sometimes game localization teams changed the sounds associated with a gameplay object.

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And they even went as far to change music compositions. This was sometimes due to differences between the hardware for a Famicom, NES, and Famicom disk system. Or as we’ve stated previously, this could be due to the difference of the actual cart technology. Check how different Castlevania 3’s soundtrack is between versions:

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Gameplay

Finally, sometimes the NES transition from Famicom would go as far to changing gameplay. This could be anywhere from making the game easier or harder, removing glitches, accounting for hardware differences, or simply trying to make the game more fun.  Here are a couple of rooms from Zelda where they decided to add bats!

And infamously in Zelda, Pols were weak to sound in the Famicom version, but the NES controller didn’t have a microphone, so they were instead weak to arrows:

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Shovel Knight Localization Differences

So when we went about localizing Shovel Knight, we wanted to recreate some of the fun differences you might find between regions. We even went through the process of trying to “reverse” localize it. That meant to us, asking what features Shovel Knight would have had if it started out as a Japanese game. We had a few rules in all our changes though: 1) We wanted the gameplay to remain consistent 2) We didn’t want any significant change that made you feel like you missed out by not playing the original version 3) We didn’t want to do something that was traditionally considered bad localization. To us that meant, no typos or bad English, and nothing that would diminish the quality of the game. We also didn’t want to change too much! In the end, we wanted create a great localization by today’s standards. But we had to add a little fun! So we made a few subtle changes here and there that we think really made a big difference!

Graphic Changes

The title Screen is an obvious one. We wanted to match what you’d expect out of a Japanese game in the era, which meant having Japanese text alongside the English logo:

After that, we made some more changes to the static sprites. Below you can see that when upgrading your health, Gastronomer sometimes will randomly serve up a Rice Ball dish.

Additionally, the Midas Coin now has a hole more representative of some Japanese coins:

Also, the Hall of Champions statues have an alternate design.

We also made some slight color changes. Certain Wizzem and Iron Knight palette types have changed as you can see below:

The final static sprite change we made was reworking the character portraits for Reize, Baz, Polar Knight, and The Enchantress. We tried to make them have a slightly more anime-esque art style.

After that, we decided it was time to make some static art be more animated – really show off the power of the Famicom! First up, in Plains, we decided to animate the grass:

For Dragon Whelps (green and blue), we originally created sprites with a lot of frames in their flying animation, but decided to cut it back as it didn’t look like something that could appear on the NES. But we left it in for the Japanese version!

For the Village Fountain, we created a different design and animated it to flow with water!

And the last graphic change we made: sleeping Shovel Knight at the Campfire now has a snooze bubble!

Font Changes!

Font was a really tricky decision for us. We wanted to use Kana characters because that was most representative of the NES era and its limitations. That said, most Japanese players would rather play the game in Kanji. Kanji can be considered nostalgic and retro as well as it was widely used on the Super Famicom. Additionally, Kanji would require us to redo every text box in the game, as we created our menus, dialogue boxes, etc to fit 8×8 font characters. So obviously the easy way out would be to do Kana…so after much deliberation, we caved and decided to do both!

The game has officially been translated into both alphabets, and supports the player switching between both on the fly:

You might see that we opted for 12×12 pixel sizes on the Kanji font. This allowed us to get a look most closely aligned with the Super Famicom.

Notice also, that we haven’t changed the HUD text from English. We felt it was very common at the time to use English words for the HUD, and we decided to stick with what we had:

Sounds Changes

Not much to go on about here. We already took the Famicom route with themusic and included a VR6 chip. So we instead decided to change a few sounds:

Gryphon death SFX and Bubble Dragon death have been swapped

Wizard Fire (and Shovel Knight’s fire rod) uses the burner SFX instead of magic SFX

Fairy enemy plays different SFX when attacking with a bite.

Extra Cheats!

We couldn’t just stop there! We decided to add a few more extra bits. Remember the X&BUTT cheat code? Well, butt is sadly not exactly the funniest word in Japan, so we’ve come up with a different replacement scheme. Along with text replacement, the cheat also enables two new graphic replacements that we thought were a little too far for the graphic changes in the main game.

Carrots are replaced with Daikon Radishes:

And Gold coins are vertical, more closely resembling koban style coin.

We’ve also made it so this Japanese specific cheat turns on localization changes in all languages. Pretty cool, huh! But if you don’t want to use a cheat, you can switch to Japanese at any time to see all the changes!

Thank you

Hope you enjoyed a little look at the extra efforts we put into the Japanese localization. Translating a game is a ton of work, and we hope more people will now see how much love goes into each and every release of a game. You should give it a shot once our update with the Japanese changes are out in the wild!

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20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You

Danielle Drislane

Toxic people such as malignant narcissists, psychopaths and those with antisocial traits engage in maladaptive behaviors in relationships that ultimately exploit, demean and hurt their intimate partners, family members and friends. They use a plethora of diversionary tactics that distort the reality of their victims and deflect responsibility. Although those who are not narcissistic can employ these tactics as well, abusive narcissists use these to an excessive extent in an effort to escape accountability for their actions.

Here are the 20 diversionary tactics toxic people use to silence and degrade you.

1. Gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic that can be described in different variations of three words: That didnt happen, You imagined it, and Are you crazy? Gaslighting is perhaps one of the most insidious manipulative tactics out there because it works to distort and erode your sense of reality; it eats away at your ability to trust yourself and inevitably disables you from feeling justified in calling out abuse and mistreatment.

When a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath gaslights you, you may be prone to gaslighting yourself as a way to reconcile the cognitive dissonance that might arise. Two conflicting beliefs battle it out: is this person right or can I trust what I experienced? A manipulative person will convince you that the former is an inevitable truth while the latter is a sign of dysfunction on your end.

In order to resist gaslighting, its important to ground yourself in your own reality sometimes writing things down as they happened, telling a friend or reiterating your experience to a support network can help to counteract the gaslighting effect. The power of having a validating community is that it can redirect you from the distorted reality of a malignant person and back to your own inner guidance.

2. Projection.

One sure sign of toxicity is when a person is chronically unwilling to see his or her own shortcomings and uses everything in their power to avoid being held accountable for them. This is known as projection. Projection is a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility of ones negative behavior and traits by attributing them to someone else. It ultimately acts as a digression that avoids ownership and accountability.

While we all engage in projection to some extent, according to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, the projections of a narcissist are often psychologically abusive. Rather than acknowledge their own flaws, imperfections and wrongdoings, malignant narcissists and sociopaths opt to dump their own traits on their unsuspecting suspects in a way that is painful and excessively cruel. Instead of admitting that self-improvement may be in order, they would prefer that their victims take responsibility for their behavior and feel ashamed of themselves. This is a way for a narcissist to project any toxic shame they have about themselves onto another.

For example, a person who engages in pathological lying may accuse their partner of fibbing; a needy spouse may call their husband clingy in an attempt to depict them as the one who is dependent; a rude employee may call their boss ineffective in an effort to escape the truth about their own productivity.

Narcissistic abusers love to play the blameshifting game. Objectives of the game: they win, you lose, and you or the world at large is blamed for everything thats wrong with . This way, you get to babysit their fragile ego while youre thrust into a sea of self-doubt. Fun, right?

Solution? Dont project your own sense of compassion or empathy onto a toxic person and dont own any of the toxic persons projections either. As manipulation expert and author Dr. George Simon (2010) notes in his book , projecting our own conscience and value system onto others has the potential consequence of being met with further exploitation.

Narcissists on the extreme end of the spectrum usually have no interest in self-insight or change. Its important to cut ties and end interactions with toxic people as soon as possible so you can get centered in your own reality and validate your own identity. You dont have to live in someone elses cesspool of dysfunction.

3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.

If you think youre going to have a thoughtful discussion with someone who is toxic, be prepared for epic mindfuckery rather than conversational mindfulness.

Malignant narcissists and sociopaths use word salad, circular conversations, ad hominem arguments, projection and gaslighting to disorient you and get you off track should you ever disagree with them or challenge them in any way. They do this in order to discredit, confuse and frustrate you, distract you from the main problem and make you feel guilty for being a human being with actual thoughts and feelings that might differ from their own. In their eyes, are the problem if you happen to exist.

Spend even ten minutes arguing with a toxic narcissist and youll find yourself wondering how the argument even began at all. You simply disagreed with them about their absurd claim that the sky is red and now your entire childhood, family, friends, career and lifestyle choices have come under attack. That is because your disagreement picked at their false belief that they are omnipotent and omniscient, resulting in a narcissistic injury.

Remember: toxic people dont argue with you, they essentially argue with themselves and you become privy to their long, draining monologues. They thrive off the drama and they live for it. Each and every time you attempt to provide a point that counters their ridiculous assertions, you feed them supply. Dont feed the narcissists supply rather, supply yourself with the confirmation that their abusive behavior is the problem, not you. Cut the interaction short as soon as you anticipate it escalating and use your energy on some decadent self-care instead.

4. Blanket statements and generalizations.

Malignant narcissists arent always intellectual masterminds many of them are intellectually lazy. Rather than taking the time to carefully consider a different perspective, they generalize anything and everything you say, making blanket statements that dont acknowledge the nuances in your argument or take into account the multiple perspectives youve paid homage to. Better yet, why not put a label on you that dismisses your perspective altogether?

On a larger scale, generalizations and blanket statements invalidate experiences that dont fit in the unsupported assumptions, schemas and stereotypes of society; they are also used to maintain the status quo. This form of digression exaggerates one perspective to the point where a social justice issue can become completely obscured. For example, rape accusations against well-liked figures are often met with the reminder that there are false reports of rape that occur. While those do occur, they are rare, and in this case, the actions of one become labeled the behavior of the majority while the specific report itself remains unaddressed.

These everyday microaggressions also happen in toxic relationships. If you bring up to a narcissistic abuser that their behavior is unacceptable for example, they will often make blanket generalizations about your hypersensitivity or make a generalization such as, You are satisfied, or Youre too sensitive rather than addressing the real issues at hand. Its possible that you are oversensitive at times, but it is also possible that the abuser is also insensitive and cruel the majority of the time.

Hold onto your truth and resist generalizing statements by realizing that they are in fact forms of black and white illogical thinking. Toxic people wielding blanket statements do not represent the full richness of experience they represent the limited one of their singular experience and overinflated sense of self.

5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.

In the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath, your differing opinions, legitimate emotions and lived experiences get translated into character flaws and evidence of your irrationality.

Narcissists weave tall tales to reframe what youre actually saying as a way to make your opinions look absurd or heinous. Lets say you bring up the fact that youre unhappy with the way a toxic friend is speaking to you. In response, he or she may put words in your mouth, saying, Oh, so now perfect? or So I am a bad person, huh? when youve done nothing but express your feelings. This enables them to invalidate your right to have thoughts and emotions about their inappropriate behavior and instills in you a sense of guilt when you attempt to establish boundaries.

This is also a popular form of diversion and cognitive distortion that is known as mind reading. Toxic people often presume they know what youre thinking and feeling. They chronically jump to conclusions based on their own triggers rather than stepping back to evaluate the situation mindfully. They act accordingly based on their own delusions and fallacies and make no apologies for the harm they cause as a result. Notorious for putting words in your mouth, they depict you as having an intention or outlandish viewpoint you didnt possess. They accuse you of thinking of them as toxic even before youve gotten the chance to call them out on their behavior and this also serves as a form of preemptive defense.

Simply stating, I never said that, and walking away should the person continue to accuse you of doing or saying something you didnt can help to set a firm boundary in this type of interaction. So long as the toxic person can blameshift and digress from their own behavior, they have succeeded in convincing you that you should be shamed for giving them any sort of realistic feedback.

6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.

The difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism is the presence of a personal attack and impossible standards. These so-called “critics” often don’t want to help you improve, they just want to nitpick, pull you down and scapegoat you in any way they can. Abusive narcissists and sociopaths employ a logical fallacy known as moving the goalposts in order to ensure that they have every reason to be perpetually dissatisfied with you. This is when, even after youve provided all the evidence in the world to validate your argument or taken an action to meet their request, they set up another expectation of you or demand more proof.

Do you have a successful career? The narcissist will then start to pick on why you arent a multi-millionaire yet. Did you already fulfill their need to be excessively catered to? Now its time to prove that you can also remain independent. The goal posts will perpetually change and may not even be related to each other; they dont have any other point besides making you vie for the narcissists approval and validation.

By raising the expectations higher and higher each time or switching them completely, highly manipulative and toxic people are able to instill in you a pervasive sense of unworthiness and of never feeling quite enough. By pointing out one irrelevant fact or one thing you did wrong and developing a hyperfocus on it, narcissists get to divert from your strengths and pull you into obsessing over any flaws or weaknesses instead. They get you thinking about the next expectation of theirs youre going to have to meet until eventually youve bent over backwards trying to fulfill their every need only to realize it didnt change the horrific way they treated you.

Dont get sucked into nitpicking and changing goal posts if someone chooses to rehash an irrelevant point over and over again to the point where they arent acknowledging the work youve done to validate your point or satisfy them, their motive isnt to better understand. Its to further provoke you into feeling as if you have to constantly prove yourself. Validate and approve of yourself. Know that you are enough and you dont have to be made to feel constantly deficient or unworthy in some way.

7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.

This type of tactic is what I like to call the What about me? syndrome. It is a literal digression from the actual topic that works to redirect attention to a different issue altogether. Narcissists dont want you to be on the topic of holding them accountable for anything, so they will reroute discussions to benefit them. Complaining about their neglectful parenting? Theyll point out a mistake you committed seven years ago. This type of diversion has no limits in terms of time or subject content, and often begins with a sentence like What about the time when

On a macrolevel, these diversions work to derail discussions that challenge the status quo. A discussion about gay rights, for example, may be derailed quickly by someone who brings in another social justice issue just to distract people from the main argument.

As Tara Moss, author of , notes, specificity is needed in order to resolve and address issues appropriately that doesnt mean that the issues that are being brought up dont matter, it just means that the specific time and place may not be the best context to discuss them.

Dont be derailed if someone pulls a switcheroo on you, you can exercise what I call the broken record method and continue stating the facts without giving in to their distractions. Redirect their redirection by saying, Thats not what I am talking about. Lets stay focused on the real issue. If theyre not interested, disengage and spend your energy on something more constructive – like not having a debate with someone who has the mental age of a toddler.

8. Covert and overt threats.

Narcissistic abusers and otherwise toxic people feel very threatened when their excessive sense of entitlement, false sense of superiority and grandiose sense of self are challenged in any way. They are prone to making unreasonable demands on others while punishing you for not living up to their impossible to reach expectations.

Rather than tackle disagreements or compromises maturely, they set out to divert you from your right to have your own identity and perspective by attempting to instill fear in you about the consequences of disagreeing or complying with their demands. To them, any challenge results in an ultimatum and do this or Ill do that becomes their daily mantra.

If someones reaction to you setting boundaries or having a differing opinion from your own is to threaten you into submission, whether its a thinly veiled threat or an overt admission of what they plan to do, this is a red flag of someone who has a high degree of entitlement and has no plans of compromising. Take threats seriously and show the narcissist you mean business; document threats and report them whenever possible and legally feasible.

9. Name-calling.

Narcissists preemptively blow anything they perceive as a threat to their superiority out of proportion. In their world, only they can ever be right and anyone who dares to say otherwise creates a narcissistic injury that results in narcissistic rage. As Mark Goulston, M.D. asserts, narcissistic rage does not result from low self-esteem but rather a high sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority.

The lowest of the low resort to narcissistic rage in the form of name-calling when they cant think of a better way to manipulate your opinion or micromanage your emotions. Name-calling is a quick and easy way to put you down, degrade you and insult your intelligence, appearance or behavior while invalidating your right to be a separate person with a right to his or her perspective.

Name-calling can also be used to criticize your beliefs, opinions and insights. A well-researched perspective or informed opinion suddenly becomes silly or idiotic in the hands of a malignant narcissist or sociopath who feels threatened by it and cannot make a respectful, convincing rebuttal. Rather than target your argument, they target you as a person and seek to undermine your credibility and intelligence in any way they possibly can. Its important to end any interaction that consists of name-calling and communicate that you wont tolerate it. Dont internalize it: realize that they are resorting to name-calling because they are deficient in higher level methods.

Want more writing like this? Read the book

10. Destructive conditioning.

Toxic people condition you to associate your strengths, talents, and happy memories with abuse, frustration and disrespect. They do this by sneaking in covert and overt put-downs about the qualities and traits they once idealized as well as sabotaging your goals, ruining celebrations, vacations and holidays. They may even isolate you from your friends and family and make you financially dependent upon them. Like Pavlovs dogs, youre essentially trained over time to become afraid of doing the very things that once made your life fulfilling.

Narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and otherwise toxic people do this because they wish to divert attention back to themselves and how youre going to please them. If there is anything outside of them that may threaten their control over your life, they seek to destroy it. They need to be the center of attention at all times. In the idealization phase, you were once the center of a narcissists world now the narcissist becomes the center of yours.

Narcissists are also naturally pathologically envious and dont want anything to come in between them and their influence over you. Your happiness represents everything they feel they cannot have in their emotionally shallow lives. After all, if you learn that you can get validation, respect and love from other sources besides the toxic person, whats to keep you from leaving them? To toxic people, a little conditioning can go a long way to keep you walking on eggshells and falling just short of your big dreams.

11. Smear campaigns and stalking.

When toxic types cant control the way you see yourself, they start to control how others see you; they play the martyr while youre labeled the toxic one. A smear campaign is a preemptive strike to sabotage your reputation and slander your name so that you wont have a support network to fall back on lest you decide to detach and cut ties with this toxic person. They may even stalk and harass you or the people you know as a way to supposedly expose the truth about you; this exposure acts as a way to hide their own abusive behavior while projecting it onto you.

Some smear campaigns can even work to pit two people or two groups against each other. A victim in an abusive relationship with a narcissist often doesnt know whats being said about them during the relationship, but they eventually find out the falsehoods shortly after theyve been discarded.

Toxic people will gossip behind your back (and in front of your face), slander you to your loved ones or their loved ones, create stories that depict you as the aggressor while they play the victim, and claim that you engaged in the same behaviors that they are afraid you will accuse them of engaging in. They will also methodically, covertly and deliberately abuse you so they can use your reactions as a way to prove that they are the so-called victims of your abuse.

The best way to handle a smear campaign is to stay mindful of your reactions and stick to the facts. This is especially pertinent for high-conflict divorces with narcissists who may use your reactions to their provocations against you. Document any form of harassment, cyberbullying or stalking incidents and always speak to your narcissist through a lawyer whenever possible. You may wish to take legal action if you feel the stalking and harassment is getting out of control; finding a lawyer who is well-versed in Narcissistic Personality Disorder is crucial if thats the case. Your character and integrity will speak for itself when the narcissists false mask begins to slip.

12. Love-bombing and devaluation.

Toxic people put you through an idealization phase until youre sufficiently hooked and invested in beginning a friendship or relationship with you. Then, they begin to devalue you while insulting the very things they admired in the first place. Another variation of this is when a toxic individual puts you on a pedestal while aggressively devaluing and attacking someone else who threatens their sense of superiority.

Narcissistic abusers do this all the time they devalue their exes to their new partners, and eventually the new partner starts to receive the same sort of mistreatment as the narcissists ex-partner. Ultimately what will happen is that you will also be on the receiving end of the same abuse. You will one day be the ex-partner they degrade to their new source of supply. You just dont know it yet. Thats why its important to stay mindful of the love-bombing technique whenever you witness behavior that doesnt align with the saccharine sweetness a narcissist subjects you to.

As life coach Wendy Powell suggests, slowing things down with people you suspect may be toxic is an important way of combating the love-bombing technique. Be wary of the fact that how a person treats or speaks about someone else could potentially translate into the way they will treat you in the future.

13. Preemptive defense.

When someone stresses the fact that they are a nice guy or girl, that you should trust them right away or emphasizes their credibility without any provocation from you whatsoever, be wary.

Toxic and abusive people overstate their ability to be kind and compassionate. They often tell you that you should trust them without first building a solid foundation of trust. They may perform a high level of sympathy and empathy at the beginning of your relationship to dupe you, only to unveil their false mask later on. When you see their false mask begins to slip periodically during the devaluation phase of the abuse cycle, the true self is revealed to be terrifyingly cold, callous and contemptuous.

Genuinely nice people rarely have to persistently show off their positive qualities they exude their warmth more than they talk about it and they know that actions speak volumes more than mere words. They know that trust and respect is a two-way street that requires reciprocity, not repetition.

To counter a preemptive defense, reevaluate why a person may be emphasizing their good qualities. Is it because they think you dont trust them, or because they know you shouldnt? Trust actions more than empty words and see how someones actions communicate who they are, not who they say they are.

14. Triangulation.

Bringing in the opinion, perspective or suggested threat of another person into the dynamic of an interaction is known as triangulation. Often used to validate the toxic persons abuse while invalidating the victims reactions to abuse, triangulation can also work to manufacture love triangles that leave you feeling unhinged and insecure.

Malignant narcissists love to triangulate their significant other with strangers, co-workers, ex-partners, friends and even family members in order to evoke jealousy and uncertainty in you. They also use the opinions of others to validate their point of view.

This is a diversionary tactic meant to pull your attention away from their abusive behavior and into a false image of them as a desirable, sought after person. It also leaves you questioning yourself if Mary did agree with Tom, doesnt that mean that you must be wrong? The truth is, narcissists love to report back falsehoods about others say about you, when in fact, they are the ones smearing you.

To resist triangulation tactics, realize that whoever the narcissist is triangulating with is also being triangulated by your relationship with the narcissist as well. Everyone is essentially being played by this one person. Reverse triangulate the narcissist by gaining support from a third party that is not under the narcissists influence and also by seeking your own validation.

15. Bait and feign innocence.

Toxic individuals lure you into a false sense of security simply to have a platform to showcase their cruelty. Baiting you into a mindless, chaotic argument can escalate into a showdown rather quickly with someone who doesnt know the meaning of respect. A simple disagreement may bait you into responding politely initially, until it becomes clear that the person has a malicious motive of tearing you down.

By baiting you with a seemingly innocuous comment disguised as a rational one, they can then begin to play with you. Remember: narcissistic abusers have learned about your insecurities, the unsettling catchphrases that interrupt your confidence, and the disturbing topics that reenact your wounds and they use this knowledge maliciously to provoke you. After youve fallen for it, hook line and sinker, theyll stand back and innocently ask whether youre okay and talk about how they didnt mean to agitate you. This faux innocence works to catch you off guard and make you believe that they truly didnt intend to hurt you, until it happens so often you cant deny the reality of their malice any longer.

It helps to realize when youre being baited so you can avoid engaging altogether. Provocative statements, name-calling, hurtful accusations or unsupported generalizations, for example, are common baiting tactics. Your gut instinct can also tell you when youre being baited if you feel off about a certain comment and continue to feel this way even after it has been expanded on, thats a sign you may need to take some space to reevaluate the situation before choosing to respond.

16. Boundary testing and hoovering.

Narcissists, sociopaths and otherwise toxic people continually try and test your boundaries to see which ones they can trespass. The more violations theyre able to commit without consequences, the more theyll push the envelope. Thats why survivors of emotional as well as physical abuse often experience even more severe incidents of abuse each and every time they go back to their abusers.

Abusers tend to hoover their victims back in with sweet promises, fake remorse and empty words of how they are going to change, only to abuse their victims even more horrifically. In the abusers sick mind, this boundary testing serves as a punishment for standing up to the abuse and also for being going back to it. When narcissists try to press the emotional reset button, reinforce your boundaries even more strongly rather than backtracking on them.

17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.

Covert narcissists enjoy making malicious remarks at your expense. These are usually dressed up as just jokes so that they can get away with saying appalling things while still maintaining an innocent, cool demeanor. Yet any time you are outraged at an insensitive, harsh remark, you are accused of having no sense of humor. This is a tactic frequently used in verbal abuse.

The contemptuous smirk and sadistic gleam in their eyes gives it away, however like a predator that plays with its food, a toxic person gains pleasure from hurting you and being able to get away with it. After all, its just a joke, right? Wrong. Its a way to gaslight you into thinking their abuse is a joke a way to divert from their cruelty and onto your perceived sensitivity. It is important that when this happens, you stand up for yourself and make it clear that you wont tolerate this type of behavior.

Calling out manipulative people on their covert put-downs may result in further gaslighting from the abuser but maintain your stance that their behavior is not okay and end the interaction immediately if you have to.

18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.

Belittling and degrading a person is a toxic persons forte and their tone of voice is only one tool in their toolbox. Sarcasm can be a fun mode of communication when both parties are engaged, but narcissists use it chronically as a way to manipulate you and degrade you. If you in any way react to it, you must be too sensitive.

Forget that the toxic person constantly has temper tantrums every time their big bad ego is faced with realistic feedback the victim is the hypersensitive one, apparently. So long as youre treated like a child and constantly challenged for expressing yourself, youll start to develop a sense of hypervigilance about voicing your thoughts and opinions without reprimand. This self-censorship enables the abuser to put in less work in silencing you, because you begin to silence yourself.

Whenever you are met with a condescending demeanor or tone, call it out firmly and assertively. You dont deserve to be spoken down to like a child nor should you ever silence yourself to meet the expectation of someone elses superiority complex.

19. Shaming.

You should be ashamed of yourself is a favorite saying of toxic people. Though it can be used by someone who is non-toxic, in the realm of the narcissist or sociopath, shaming is an effective method that targets any behavior or belief that might challenge a toxic persons power. It can also be used to destroy and whittle away at a victims self-esteem: if a victim dares to be proud of something, shaming the victim for that specific trait, quality or accomplishment can serve to diminish their sense of self and stifle any pride they may have.

Malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths enjoy using your own wounds against you so they will even shame you about any abuse or injustice youve suffered in your lifetime as a way to retraumatize you. Were you a childhood abuse survivor? A malignant narcissist or sociopath will claim that you mustve done something to deserve it, or brag about their own happy childhood as a way to make you feel deficient and unworthy. What better way to injure you, after all, than to pick at the original wound? As surgeons of madness, they seek to exacerbate wounds, not help heal them.

If you suspect youre dealing with a toxic person, avoid revealing any of your vulnerabilities or past traumas. Until theyve proven their character to you, there is no point disclosing information that could be potentially used against you.

20. Control.

Most importantly, toxic abusers love to maintain control in whatever way they can. They isolate you, maintain control over your finances and social networks, and micromanage every facet of your life. Yet the most powerful mechanism they have for control is toying with your emotions.

Thats why abusive narcissists and sociopaths manufacture situations of conflict out of thin air to keep you feeling off center and off balanced. Thats why they chronically engage in disagreements about irrelevant things and rage over perceived slights. Thats why they emotionally withdraw, only to re-idealize you once they start to lose control. Thats why they vacillate between their false self and their true self, so you never get a sense of psychological safety or certainty about who your partner truly is.

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you’ll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you’re enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what youre facing and at the very least, develop a plan to regain control over your own life and away from toxic people.

Shahida Arabi is the author of the book , available here.

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You may have heard – Shovel knight has finally made his way across the ocean to Japan! We’re very excited about the leap. We’ve invested a lot of time making sure our localization is fun and smartly done. Wait, what is localization? It’s the process of translating text and adapting a game for a local market, of course! We partnered with the super cool experts at 8-4 to make our localization the highest quality possible. Today, we wanted to talk about some of the neater changes we’ve made to the game to really go the extra mile for Japanese gamers.  

History

But before we jump in…it’s time for a history lesson! Way back in the day, game localization was the wild west. There was no standard or ruleset for what was appropriate in localizing a game. Sometimes developers would make translation changes that were absurd and riddled with typos, and other times, developers would put so much effort in that they’d completely change the name and create a whole new series.

(On the left is Bubble Bobble’s poorly worded text. On the right is Wonder Boy, a Japanese game that was changed to Adventure Island when ported to the NES/Famicom. The game actually split off into two distinct series.)

(Update 8/1/16: It’s come to our attention that Adventure Island was converted from Wonder Boy during its port from arcades. We were confused because often porting and localization are intermixed due to Famicom->NES transition. We apologize for the error!)

This inconsistency created a lot of interesting localization changes in games as developers learned with each title what were the appropriate changes to make. Also, due to the restrictions of the NES, lots of changes were required when bringing them from Japan. Some issues including complexity in fonts, technical limitations, or game design observations and learning that happened post-release. We’re going to discuss just a small sampling of the changes they made to games back in the day, so you can see where the reasoning came from for the changes we’ve made to Shovel Knight for Japan.

Before you read any history from us, it’s best to learn from the expert himself, Clyde Mandelyn: http://ift.tt/1bVVtHS. He’s put together really awesome pieces (and books!) on some famous game localizations and the changes they made post Japan release.

Common Japan to North America Localization changes

Obviously, lots of small or large text changes happen when localizing a game as a result of the complexities of translation. But we’re going to instead show some of the visual, sounds, and gameplay changes that you might have seen during the NES/Famicom era.

Graphic Changes

Of course, usually one of the big changes to a game was the title screen. Sometimes this could be a complete replacement, or sometimes it was just the removal of some Japanese text.

Sprite changes were very common in the NES days. Often, the logic was that players might not understand Japanese specific sprites like food:

Or alternatively, North American localization teams might think the Japanese characters or sprites wouldn’t be appealing. Below Power Blade, known as Power Blazer in Japan, changed its main character to look cooler instead of cute.

Common 80s Knowledge: Arnold Schwarzenegger makes every game sell.

Sometimes these changes were made to make the gameplay more clear and understandable:

Oh hey! I didn't know there was an enemy there before!

Super Mario Bros. 2 (known as Doki Doki Panic) in Japan is a case where Nintendo of America went to great lengths localizing the game. It’s a great example of what was typically changed at the time…they turned a game that wasn’t Mario into Mario!

In some cases, they decided to change sprites so they were now animated! Below is an example of one change where it made the gameplay objects really stand out:

Maybe I should pull those plants up!

Sprites could also be changed to be less or more complex. Or maybe they’d be changed to improve over the Japanese version. Here’s an animation change of that kind from Mario 2:

Sometimes these animation changes were due to restrictions in hardware between the Famicom, NES, or Famicom disk system. Here’s an animated sprite (actually a background tile that appears animated) in Zelda 2 that was removed in the NES version as the NES wasn’t able to manipulate VRAM in quite the same way as the FDS:

Wow...I actually believe it's water now!

Font changes

Fonts were often a big area where changes were made. Creating a game in Japanese was difficult due to the common character set, Kanji, being nearly impossible to contain on the small amount of memory that the NES could afford. Kanji can contain thousands of characters (a common newspaper might include 2500+)! To get around this issue, sometimes games chose to use the smaller Kana character set (up to around 100 characters), or they decided to use the much smaller English character set! English is somewhat common in Japan, so it didn’t make the games completely unplayable as you might expect (especially given the typically small amount of text in NES games). Here are some examples of Kana text on the NES/Famicom:

Here’s an example of Zelda using English in the Famicom version:

Notice the difference in font here. The NES had a standard 8×8 thick font, so the North American text was re-appropriated to use what players were accustomed to seeing. You might also be realizing that all the letters are in uppercase! This is to cut the number of characters needed in half. Shovel Knight already does the same thing!

In cases where text readability was very important, the developers dedicated more resources to represent more complicated text. Below, you can see how Final Fantasy on the NES broke the lower case barrier:

Ah! Much easier on the eyes.

You may notice the odd looking ‘g’ in the letter king. This is due to NES/Famicom games only having space for 8×8 characters. A lowercase g, to be properly spaced would break this boundary, so they’ve instead positioned the character higher. This is another reason why Kanji was so hard to represent on the NES/Famicom. Each character’s complexity is nearly impossible to represent clearly with only 8×8 pixels. But there were limited cases where developers were still able to pull off Kanji on the NES/Famicom. Take a look at Faxandu:

As you can see the font is much larger than the typical 8×8 size. This is due to how Kanji’s complexity is almost impossible to clearly represent with an 8×8 pixel block. Faxanadu doubles the size using 16×16 blocks (where the characters fit in 14×14). On the Super Famicom/SNES, developers had a little more freedom, so Kanji fonts often were 12×12:

Audio

It wasn’t just visuals that were changed, sometimes game localization teams changed the sounds associated with a gameplay object.

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And they even went as far to change music compositions. This was sometimes due to differences between the hardware for a Famicom, NES, and Famicom disk system. Or as we’ve stated previously, this could be due to the difference of the actual cart technology. Check how different Castlevania 3’s soundtrack is between versions:

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Gameplay

Finally, sometimes the NES transition from Famicom would go as far to changing gameplay. This could be anywhere from making the game easier or harder, removing glitches, accounting for hardware differences, or simply trying to make the game more fun.  Here are a couple of rooms from Zelda where they decided to add bats!

And infamously in Zelda, Pols were weak to sound in the Famicom version, but the NES controller didn’t have a microphone, so they were instead weak to arrows:

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Shovel Knight Localization Differences

So when we went about localizing Shovel Knight, we wanted to recreate some of the fun differences you might find between regions. We even went through the process of trying to “reverse” localize it. That meant to us, asking what features Shovel Knight would have had if it started out as a Japanese game. We had a few rules in all our changes though: 1) We wanted the gameplay to remain consistent 2) We didn’t want any significant change that made you feel like you missed out by not playing the original version 3) We didn’t want to do something that was traditionally considered bad localization. To us that meant, no typos or bad English, and nothing that would diminish the quality of the game. We also didn’t want to change too much! In the end, we wanted create a great localization by today’s standards. But we had to add a little fun! So we made a few subtle changes here and there that we think really made a big difference!

Graphic Changes

The title Screen is an obvious one. We wanted to match what you’d expect out of a Japanese game in the era, which meant having Japanese text alongside the English logo:

After that, we made some more changes to the static sprites. Below you can see that when upgrading your health, Gastronomer sometimes will randomly serve up a Rice Ball dish.

Additionally, the Midas Coin now has a hole more representative of some Japanese coins:

Also, the Hall of Champions statues have an alternate design.

We also made some slight color changes. Certain Wizzem and Iron Knight palette types have changed as you can see below:

The final static sprite change we made was reworking the character portraits for Reize, Baz, Polar Knight, and The Enchantress. We tried to make them have a slightly more anime-esque art style.

After that, we decided it was time to make some static art be more animated – really show off the power of the Famicom! First up, in Plains, we decided to animate the grass:

For Dragon Whelps (green and blue), we originally created sprites with a lot of frames in their flying animation, but decided to cut it back as it didn’t look like something that could appear on the NES. But we left it in for the Japanese version!

For the Village Fountain, we created a different design and animated it to flow with water!

And the last graphic change we made: sleeping Shovel Knight at the Campfire now has a snooze bubble!

Font Changes!

Font was a really tricky decision for us. We wanted to use Kana characters because that was most representative of the NES era and its limitations. That said, most Japanese players would rather play the game in Kanji. Kanji can be considered nostalgic and retro as well as it was widely used on the Super Famicom. Additionally, Kanji would require us to redo every text box in the game, as we created our menus, dialogue boxes, etc to fit 8×8 font characters. So obviously the easy way out would be to do Kana…so after much deliberation, we caved and decided to do both!

The game has officially been translated into both alphabets, and supports the player switching between both on the fly:

You might see that we opted for 12×12 pixel sizes on the Kanji font. This allowed us to get a look most closely aligned with the Super Famicom.

Notice also, that we haven’t changed the HUD text from English. We felt it was very common at the time to use English words for the HUD, and we decided to stick with what we had:

Sounds Changes

Not much to go on about here. We already took the Famicom route with themusic and included a VR6 chip. So we instead decided to change a few sounds:

Gryphon death SFX and Bubble Dragon death have been swapped

Wizard Fire (and Shovel Knight’s fire rod) uses the burner SFX instead of magic SFX

Fairy enemy plays different SFX when attacking with a bite.

Extra Cheats!

We couldn’t just stop there! We decided to add a few more extra bits. Remember the X&BUTT cheat code? Well, butt is sadly not exactly the funniest word in Japan, so we’ve come up with a different replacement scheme. Along with text replacement, the cheat also enables two new graphic replacements that we thought were a little too far for the graphic changes in the main game.

Carrots are replaced with Daikon Radishes:

And Gold coins are vertical, more closely resembling koban style coin.

We’ve also made it so this Japanese specific cheat turns on localization changes in all languages. Pretty cool, huh! But if you don’t want to use a cheat, you can switch to Japanese at any time to see all the changes!

Thank you

Hope you enjoyed a little look at the extra efforts we put into the Japanese localization. Translating a game is a ton of work, and we hope more people will now see how much love goes into each and every release of a game. You should give it a shot once our update with the Japanese changes are out in the wild!