#no i don't live under a rock

[melodramatic-mcdouble]

Normalize not knowing shit about celebrities, who TF is Selena Gomez??? That's just some random person???

[goldenivy0]

So... I haven't watched one second of HOTD buuuuuut Tom Glynn-Carney might or might not be the single reason I will... possibly 👀🔎

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[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.

[thelightattheendofthistunnel]

this is my favourite interaction of the evening

[tev-the-random]

So the thing that gets me about Starlo — the thing that really gets me — is how much this guy hates himself.

It's not something you notice the first time you're playing, because he's so confident and enthusiastic. He'd almost be cool if he wasn't such a dork. But after replaying the game with the context of where he came from, — and I'll admit, after reading some very interesting, in-depth fanfics and analysis about him, I'll try to link them if I find them again — his character becomes a bit... blurred. How much of this is Starlo, and how much of it is North Star?

Because- because the whole point of his sheriff persona is that he gets to be someone else, isn't it? When he's out there rootin' and tootin', acting out his hero fantasies and trying to imitate the characters from the westerns he admires, he becomes someone much cooler than himself. North Star is everything Starlo wishes he was: the fearless leader, the cunning cowboy, the confident sheriff who saves lives and wrangles bandits and hangs out with humans. Not just some nobody farmer who could disappear in the corn field without anyone noticing, not the son who wastes his time on daydreams.

He craves praise so deeply. That's the big difference between Star and Papyrus, I think, because Papyrus is just so unapologetically himself, while Star... he starts spending more and more time with this mask of greatness he made himself. Because people like North Star. Not Starlo.

North Star is a real sheriff. Not Starlo.

North Star is the one who brings help and hope and fun to monsters. Not Starlo.

North Star is the one worthy of being appreciated. Not Starlo.

And like... he wants to be liked so badly. So much effort is put into making sure North Star is good enough that Starlo tends to assume people hate him. He assumes his parents hate his life choices (they don't; they're proud of him and know he cares), he assumes Clover will laugh at him when he shows his face to them (they don't; despite everything, it's still him), he assumes the reason he fell out with his friends is because he wasn't a good enough sheriff (he knows damn well it wasn't actually Clover's fault, he's not THAT stupid. But he's still desperately grasping at the last pieces of his shattered persona, so if he just works harder, if he does what a real sheriff does and captures this human, then everything will be alright, won't it?)

I really wish we could have gotten more insight on Starlo's relationships and personality before the whole Wild East thing consumed him. Ceroba and the Feisty Five say they miss the old Starlo, but we never really get to know who the old Starlo was. And I don't think he knows either.

Wake the hell up, Star. People started liking you before you were North Star. Go eat some corn and calm down.

Point is, the impostor syndrome goes hard and that's such a mood. He was supposed to be the cool and silly cowboy guy, what the fuck–

[r-aindr0p]

Flamm and flames 3/?? Song : Allumer le feu - Johnny Halliday Translation : A sparkle will be sufficient - A mere nothing, a gesture - To - Light the fire

Ok so this one is more of a joke/shitpost one, the song isn't on my playlist at all but it's just an extremely iconic song by an (late) iconic rock singer for whole France. Like, the whole country knows at least the name of the singer, there's even a dedicated merch corner of him in a shop in my area (it's like cheap merch of clocks and posters with his face on it lmao) Sorry Johnny tho, never been a fan of your songs, I'm more of a Jean Jacques Goldman listener in terms of French artist/songwriter from the 80's/90's (he even wrote songs for Céline Dion)

[mfshipbracket]

As someone who also lives under a rock (does not watch anime), if I don’t recognize the ship going against Reylo, I simply Do Not Vote. I still want Reylo to lose across the board, but I’m leaving it in the hands of each fandom to take that strike against them.

anon abstaining when they don't recognize the ship:

anon joining when they do recognize the ship:

[sosclancy]

I'm seeing a lot of love for Saturday now but can't help but to feel that it's a litle hum how to say it... fabricated? Like it was put in blast and now everyone suddenly loves it

I mean, I did all that poll stuff earlier and Saturday was the only song with zero votes, so it's weird seeing that suddenly everyone loves Saturday

[essektheylyss]

Oh have fun reading ASoIaF, those are truly my favourite books! Also I definitely had the same experience of "I was right to like those characters off the bat but was too young to articulate why" so have fun rediscovering those books as you go!

Thanks! It's been so fascinating, especially with the biggest pieces, having a much better understanding of tragedy, because good lord they really are such a stunning set of ongoing tragedies. I keep finding myself so earnestly hoping that maybe this time Ned will act differently, that he'll get out of King's Landing with his head intact, but he can't, and in all reality, the rest of the story can't really exist if he does. The chapter with Catelyn and Tyrion at the inn was PAINFUL because it could not have happened any other way, and dear god I wish it had.

Honestly, it's so apparent that even Cersei, who I couldn't bring myself to hate either back in high school, is very clearly surviving the only way she knows how. Which is really the gist of it—each of these houses is surviving in the only way it knows, and these clashing methods of survival are what is driving them to such ruin. It is really fabulously well done in terms of balancing a lot of interwoven narratives and points of view in such a way that makes it clear that Martin does not want you to despise any of these characters, even the ones that are truly despicable.

[anatheyma]

i've only really been talking about this on twitter since i have a bigger platform on there (should speak here too regardless) but just so we're clear i don't want any zionist fucks following me, you can block me if you support israel and the genocide against palestinians. kill yourself even.

[thechekhov]

I've only just gotten to this Kabru fella and he's giving me REAL BAD Griffiths vibes tbh

I have no idea who Griffiths is but sure! 👍

[gertritude]

Continuing to revisit persona 5. Was examining fanfic stats before and after royal coming out and I still find it insane how much pr that game did for akechi

[brownskinsugarplum76]

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A post shared by ☆UrFavEdits☆ (@mrs.pascal1)

Lil' something for the Pedro Pascal lovers who follow me. 🫶🏽

[synonymroll648]

sophie: how are you feeling?

keefe, sighing: i’m blue

sophie: da ba dee da ba di? 

[solradguy]

A few people have compared some of my Soltober drawings this year to characters from other things and like I don't watch TV, keep up with Youtubers, have a Tiktok, or play hardly any video games so I see these comments and it might as well be in Simlish lol "This looks just like Johnrick Sprunkle from Neko no Tabemono Adventure." I don't know what that is. How am I expected to reply to that?? "Ok that's cool" ??????