#mod staff

[sealsdaily]

I'm so done with staff i hate that they're just going full mask off now

[14dayswithyou]

tell ren to turn his location on👉👈

I saw one of the posts of how ren does get jealous of pets being loved over him and alll that so now I have the thought of the one meme of ‘ah yes, me, my partner and their [enter normal pet size] foot [pet]’

I don’t have anything else, it did pop into my head though and I thought I’d share with the class.

⌞♥⌝ ItsNotVivy on Twitter actually made that exact meme with Ren a looong time ago!!

[phightingdoodles]

can we get some more catshot pretty please,,

hi i hope its okay that i kind of went nuts with this one

singles below the fold

[ahollowgrave]

ugh i'm just obsessed

[project-sekai-facts]

How are we feeling about ensekai’s emu3 translation!!! (I’m mad)

(if you remember the 3 whole posts i made when asahi got de-gayed on EN you'll know i am mad too and that this is probably going to get long)

i don't like to be too cynical but it was so obvious that they were going to change that line, i had a feeling since the event first released on JP and after the incident with Asahi where I went through and tracked down multiple other examples of EN removing queer subtext it became clear to me that in no way shape or form was "emu-chan really loves nene-chan" making it to EN without getting changed. what i didn't expect was them changing Nene's line after Luka's comment, which actually makes this whole situation far worse than many of their other instances of toning down queer subtext.

for anyone who isn't aware of what happened, in chapter 5 of the current Emu event, there's a scene where Nene, Rui and the Virtual Singers are talking about what would cheer Emu up. The vsingers all talk about how much Emu loves spending time with Nene, leading to the following exchange

If you look for them, any fan TL of this scene will be something similar to this:

Luka: ...Fufu. Emu-chan really loves Nene-chan, doesn't she? Nene: Th-that's nothing special...

EN's official translation is this:

So what's the issue? I'll start with Luka's part. In the original text, she uses the word daisuki, which can mean to "like a lot" or "love". It's a word you will see frequently in the idol/idol-adjacent genre of games, due to its ambiguity in that it can be read as either platonic or romantic when used towards a person, and often will be used in ambiguous situations so that it's harder to confirm the writers' intentions either way. so here, fans of the emu/nene ship could view the fact that emu loves spending her time with nene as more on the romantic side, but people who don't like the ship could view it as platonic and move on.

while they didn't translate daisuki directly, Luka's line still works, and still contains the ambiguity that works as ship tease in the original text. it's a perfectly fine localisation that still conveys the original intent. despite that, there is something to be said about EN's consistent refusal to translate daisuki as love in most instances when it's not used on An/Kohane (but then again, EN has literally teased An/Kohane on their twitter account so is it all that surprising?).

Here's some examples:

Aibou no koto ga daisuki de / he loves his partner -> he cares about his partner very much (The Power of Unity chapter 7 when Kaito is comparing Arata to Akito and Toya)

HARUKA-CHAN, DAISUKI DAYOOOO!!! / HARUKA-CHAN, I LOOOOOVEEE YOU!!! -> You're the best!!! (Dear Me, As I Was Back Then chapter 4 when minori is at an ASRUN concert. this one isn't actually that great of a localisation)

Honachan no koto daisuki dakara. Kore de iinda yo. / I love Honachan, so this is fine. -> I want what's best for her. And this is it. (Leo/need main story chapter 14 after Saki tells Honami she won't bother her anymore)

Minna daisuki de - taisetsuna tomodachi na no / I love them all - they're my dearest friends -> They're all amazing, and very dear to me. (Leo/need main story chapter 17. this isn't good either)

What's particularly amusing about that last one is that there's a second official translation for it that I assume was done by JP staff (since EN never promoted doing the Journey to Bloom subs like they did back when they provided subs for Petit SEKAI) that actually keeps the word daisuki as love.

Yeah. I love all my friends - and they mean the world to me.

It's a better localisation than the official EN team one.

Questionable localisation choices aside, Luka's line is fine and is actually in line with the original. The issue with this localisation very much lies with Nene's part, because that is an entirely new line.

In the original text, Nene's "that's just normal" or "that's nothing special" or however you choose to TL it, is meant to be her questioning Luka's statement, since all the things that the other vsingers said that Emu liked were pretty normal things like going shopping and playing video games with nene. To Nene, these things are normal activities for them to do together, so she gets embarrassed by the fact that Luka concludes from that information that Emu loves Nene. When I dissect it like that I think you can really tell what the writers were going for here lol.

"That's just us being friends" does still convey the idea that Nene thinks these activities aren't anything out of the ordinary and she isn't sure why the vsingers are picking these out as some of Emu's favorite things to do, but it's very different from the original line. "But those are just normal things we do together" is something I just came up with on the spot, but it's a lot closer to the original text and still conveys the same meaning. The fact they changed the line to "that's just us being friends" is, honestly, not even subtle that they're covering up queer subtext. The original scene was very clearly written in as ship tease, and EN mentioning "friends" for no reason, especially since the word nor anything close to it was not used in the original, is instantly a red flag because it's like the go-to for queerbaiting and censorship. This was intentional. There was no need for them to specify that the relationship is platonic, Luka's part is ambiguous for a reason so that fans can view it how they like.

Just to top all this off, here's Rin's original line just before that Luka+Nene interaction:

Oh, and! And! She said that playing games with Nene-chan is also super fun!

And here's Rin's line from the official EN translation:

That's not the same thing, but even more weirdly, the incorrect part (super fun->really loves) is a correct translation for the part changed in Luka's line. So, they can do it, they are willing to say "really loves", just not in the right places. Maybe because Rin's part is less personal than Luka's part? It's strange actually, this isn't the first time they've done this either. Off the top of my head I can think of an example from Shiho's Varied Kindness 2* story where they translated the word "suki" as really loves, despite that being much stronger than the original word used (and the fact that daisuki is used a lot in the Leo/need stories and it's incredibly rare if not entirely unknown for them to translate it correctly).

It's not subtle that they're trying to remove implications of the characters possibly being queer, they did it in curtain call and they did it in walk on and on, and multiple times before then too. And considering some of the content in this year's events and the amount of times they say daisuki alone, it's gonna keep happening. honestly i hate the fact that i keep trying to justify the translations in these posts. these translations are intentional. what happened in the curtain call translation back in october says enough. when a character who uses explicitly romantic language towards another guy passes as a straight character in the translation you know they're doing it on purpose.

oh and once again, it's only the EN server that has this issue. The scene in question was translated almost word-for-word on the TW and KR servers.

read fan translations. they're better than what EN gives us and people put a lot of effort into them.

[phightingships]

day 3: vinespace

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

KANAYA: Where Is My Wife

DAVE: murdering people

KANAYA: Okay ❤️ Yay

[phightinghottakes]

Random hot take I brewed up from the depths of my mind:

The devs practically treat the more feminine characters like they don’t even exist.

Sure, Scythe is cool and all, but she doesn’t hold any of the lore cards the way Broker does, because unless you’re one of the dev’s special snowflakes you can’t be important to the lore.

Vinestaff is very sweet but isn’t given much more to her personality, and honestly feels like she exists as angst for Shuri because “omg my sister is slowly turning into a tree…”

Ghosdeeri owns a library. And did I mention she exists?

Windforce on the other hand DOESN’T exist. She isn’t even in the game yet!

Lightblox just cries but even that has more personality than half the she/her characters.

“Make gay people canon in Phighting” this, “something something add more skin tone representation in Phighting” that, what about properly written she/her characters. I don’t care if they’re written like the he/him characters, at least WRITE them, my god.

Some of the more masculine characters have the personalities of a cardboard box and yet somehow the more feminine ones manage to be blander than that.

Edit; I’d also like to say I don’t care if the next she/her character is an awful person. Make her awful! Make her horrendous! Make her the absolute scum of the earth! But at least make her SOMETHING, and don’t take away from that.

Scythe is a literal serial killer, but her awfulness is generally downplayed by the community and devs alike because “hehe hot woman awooga awooga.” I know it’s inevitable that people might react like that but at least make it loud and clear that she’s nasty.

[weheartstims]

Tim Drake/Red Robin (DC Comics) with various suitable stims!

🔴|🔎|🔴 🔎|🔴|🔎 🔴|🔎|🔴

[homestuckss]

Hello! Halloween is quickly approaching, but this cold chill is from something different... It is from the applications for this year's Homestuck Secret Santa! The form will be posted on October 21st at Midnight CST! Feel free to spread the word, and start thinking about what characters you would want to be gifted a present of. ⛄

(Still images of the gif under the read more cut)

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is trying to access websites on aromantic terms at school but the website (aromanticism.org??)is blocked on the school firewalls

.

[girlballs]

carian greatsword but cooler

[phightingdoodles]

happy spawn day to everyones favorite samurai!!!!!!!

[weneedatdcharacterwho]

We need a character that gets kidnapped by a bear and the bear takes their place in the competition

Nobody notices until they like get eliminated or something

.

[vriskaserketdaily]

thoughts on tgirl vriska ? she’s real to me but ur like the #1 vriska enjoyer on my dash so I was wondering what u think

im gonna be real after going into the tag every day for the past 3+ years and seeing every possible take and headcanon my bar is so low that i'm just happy we're in agreement that vriska is a girl

tgirl vriska is a well-supported read of her character, but not the only valid one in my opinion. that being said, if you're a hardcore cis vriska truther, you do yourself a great disservice by ignoring her dysphoric characterization---whether you read that as early-transition transfem dysphoria, lesbian butch dysphoria, alternian caste dysphoria, or any combination of the above.

i do not, however, read her dysphoria as transmasculine in nature, and maintain that vriska's gender (girl/woman) is extremely important in understanding her role in the story, her relationships with other characters, and how the concepts of heroism, protagonism, justice, and strength impact her narrative. a transfem reading does not detract from this, nor does it particularly enhance anything to me, someone who already read vriska as a dysphoric lesbian & therefore already accounted for some form of Gender to be going on regardless of the hypothetical birth-assignment situation.

basically, my personal opinion is that her trans status is a nice garnish but irrelevant to what already is a fascinating, compelling, and well-rounded (dare i say, strong) female character. the fact that she's a female character is more important to me than the fact (or headcanon) that she is a trans character, because i regularly see and cope with the most asinine and blatantly incorrect headcanons and takes about her on this earth. you're asking a man dying of thirst whether a gallon of ice water or a gallon of merely cool water is better.

my bar for sexuality headcanons is likewise on the floor. y'all don't have to agree with me on the lesbian reading but as long as we concur that she's wlw then everything is a-okay by me. my final message 2 da world: never go into the tags of your favorite character.