#this chapter. since that’s what was translated before the localization was announced and the translator | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fantasticalchaos · 11 months ago

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Excuse me for prying, but what exactly are your fandoms? 'cause for me, some of my fandoms include Sonic the Hedgehog, Twisted Wonderland, Genshin Impact and to an extent, Skylanders (most particularly because of the dragons, namely Spyro, Cynder, Sunburn, Echo, Camo, Whirlwind, Flashwing, Drobot, Blackout and Spotlight).

Hello there!! It’s alright!! I would more than happy to talk about the fandoms I’m in! Hope you don’t mind the big clutter here underneath as I ramble on for a bit! Each are sorted into each category:

Major

Wandering Ones

Vtubers (they need their own category)

I tried to the best of my knowledge on ones I believe I participate (or lurk) the most in, so I hope this helps!! 😊

Major Ones

In which my fandom knowledge, and experience in them are pretty large and have spent a lot of time in (whether that be lurking or not)!

Skylanders = Especially with the Swap Force & the Dragons!!! One of the major fandoms I’ve been in since late elementary school, so it’s technically a childhood classic! I actually have Swap Force (only the starter pack ;w;) and Imaginators (along with the Boom Bloom pack & Crash Bandicoot pack) in my home that I play with my little sibling!! I also played Giants at a neighbour-friends house too!! Also one of the two fandoms I did for the inktober (most of it)!!

Twisted Wonderland = A mobile game I found since late 2020!!! Back when only the first 5 chapters were out in the JP server and part of the watching/reading translations! Preordered the EN game as soon as it’s announced too!! Right now I miss my dailies cause work and player burnout ;w; (I also need to catch up the story from the second part of Boom 6; Generally prefer the fan translations more since I’m more used due to being a watching a lot back before EN server was announced)

Dr. Stone = Major fan of the anime and picked up some of the manga and the later chapters at the local library I live nearby! I still need to catch up first and second half with Season 3!! In my words, a fun and (mostly accurate) educational sci-fi anime!! Reminds me of some of the edutainment kids shows I watched as a kid!!

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle = One of the few animes I was interested from the clips I saw during quarantine! During late July of this year, I had even motivation and time to watch the whole anime!!! A really comfy and lighthearted comedy I recommend! Also read a few manga I spotted at the library and discovered that she has other outfit jobs/classes in between chapters (Plus Princess’s design and outfits is S-tier!!!)

Monster High = Another childhood classic of mine (as I watched a lot of the episodes and movies on YouTube)! While I’m mainly a fan of Gen 1 since it was apart of my childhood, I’m open and happy seeing the other generations on my feed! :D

Ever After High = Another childhood classic!! Been around since the beginning I believe!! Really loved the aesthetic, clothes, characters and story in this one! I’m apart of the Rebels!

Crossovers / Crossover Friendships - LISTEN I MAY NOT BE KNOWLEDGEABLE IN ALL FANDOMS BUT I LOVE SEEING CROSSOVERS AND I WILL ABSORB ALL KNOWLEDGE OF THE CHARACTERS AND LORE OF THE ONES I DONT KNOW TO MAKE IT GOOD 👌👌 (For instance, the Secret Trio)

Vtubers (Please check the last section)

Wandering Ones

I wander into a lot of fandoms! So, basically these are some fandoms that I have some knowledge and experience in to be sufficient(?) in (take it with a grain with salt). Others are ones I do know (childhood classics, actual ones I finished, etc.)

Sky: Children of The Light (Sky Cotl) - Been around since Season of Sanctuary, though I stopped playing since Aurora (and some seasons before that) due to burnout

Penn Zero Part Time Hero

Rise of the Guardians

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K - Almost finished season 1 back in like the quarantine days… I’m procrastinating hard

Randy Cunningham 9th Grade Ninja (RC9GN)

Obey Me!

Wild Kratts

Wordgirl

Vtubers

Virtual YouTubers that use an avatar and do a variety of livestreaming content! Such as gaming, karaoke, zatsudans (chatting streams), art content, etc.

Note: If you are a new viewer and looking into them, please take your time to read the rules in their description box! If there isn’t any, either ask one of regular viewers from prechat (a chatroom made before the livestream starts where some fans can chill and chat as they wait until it starts) or probably on social media, or maybe some people you know that watch them (which is rare)!

Quick Legend:

✨ = Ones I watch the most, and are my oshi (fave)

🫡 = Means that they graduated. In vtuber terms, it means the person behind this avatar is no longer gonna be streaming or using that avatar anymore. It doesn’t mean that they are dead - they’re not using that avatar anymore and they can resume streaming (as long as it’s not their former avatar) As well as chatting with their friends and former co-workers offline.

Any other emojis are their oshi/fan marks! Usually to tell which vtuber you’re a fan of!

Also I tried hard to think who I watched the most too! I mostly support all of them group even tho I can’t watch everyone at the same time

✨Holostars EN - One of the main Vtubers I watch the most!!! (And probably the one that shows all the members since I watch at least a bit from anyone)

✨Regis Altare 🎇 - the one who reintroduced me back into Holostars back in Oct 2022 as well as introducing the EN branch! (From the HoloNiji Terraria collab with Alban Knox)

✨Axel Syrios ⛓️

Magni Dezmond 🧤 (🫡)

✨Vesper Noir 📗 (🫡)

Gavis Bettel 🎩

✨Machina X Flayon 🪫

✨ Banzoin Hakka 🔅

✨ Josuiji Shinri 🏹

✨Jurard T Rexford 🦖

✨Goldbullet 🦅

Octavio ♾️

✨Crimzon Ruze 💢

Holostars JP - How I was instantly pulled into the vtuber rabbit hole (and learn that timezones were a thing the hard way ;w;)

✨Kageyama Shien 🟣 - This one is the one that dragged me in through a clipper (a person who clips - and depending on the clipper, translates - a part in a livestream)! Funnily enough it was a Twst one, since I was looking for people reacting to it!

Aragami Oga 🐃

Yukoku Roberu 🍷

Nijisanji EN - The one who brought me back into the Vtuber Rabbit hole back in Sept 2022, right before my birthday

Luca Kaneshiro 🦁💰 - the one who brought me back

✨Shu Yamino 👟☯️

Ike Eveland 🖋️

✨Fulgur Ovid ⚡️🐑

✨Uki Violeta 🔮🌌

Alban Knox 🎭🕒

Kyo Kaneko 🤟

Doppio Dropscythe 🐣🎡

Nina Kosaka 🎰 (🫡)

Mysta Rias 🦊🕵️(🫡)

Yugo Asuma 🎧 (🫡)

Other

✨Rin Penrose 👑🦈 - Idol EN

Juna Unagi ⚠️ - Idol EN

Kai Saikota ☁️ - Idol EN

✨Ayla Yew 💞🫵 - Nexstage Project

Zhuni Excel 📊🔫 - Nexstage Project

✨Unnamed 💙🤍 - Independent Musician

#ask #thank you for the ask!#fandom tag #another lesson we learnt today is that I procrastinate a lot in finishing media OTL #also I already know where the graduated ones are now #but it’s generally known that it’s their past life and it’s not good to mention that in chat #edit: note to self - I gotta make a carrd for myself

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xbuster · 1 year ago

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It really does suck that there are no attempts to retranslate the Danganronpa series and get rid of all of NIS's awful, awful translation quirks. However! Anyone who wants a better experience can check out what most of us Danganronpa fans used to experience the first game before there were any translation patches or NIS localizations.

orenronen's Danganronpa let's play!

It was a text walkthrough of the original Danganronpa translated into English with CGs, portraits, audio, and videos extracted from the game and inserted when relevant throughout the walkthrough. Of course, it lacks the interactivity of the game, but if anyone has already played the game, it's a good way to experience it again with a better translation. It was originally uploaded to Something Awful and then archived by orenronen on LP Archive after he was finished. The links for the audio and video don't work, so you'd either need to use the Wayback Machine or look them up on YouTube.

Names are romanized differently (Kyouko instead of Kyoko and Oowada instead of Owada, for example), "Ultimates" are known as "Super High School Levels" and are more faithful to their Japanese titles (Junko is the SHSL Gyaru and Yamada is the SHSL Doujin Author, for example), most characters will refer to each other by their last names with some exceptions and the honorifics are kept to indicate closeness or how much respect each character has for the other like in the Japanese script (Kirigiri calls Naegi "Naegi-kun" while Togami just calls him "Naegi" and Naegi calls Maizono "Maizono-san"). There's also no stupid "Genocide Jack" or "Genocide Jill," just one Genocider Syo (which could also be romanized as Sho).

Though one gripe I had with orenronen's translation even before the official NIS localization was Monokuma being known as "Monobear." orenronen also provided well placed translation notes to explain Japanese terminology and plays-on-words that NIS opted to simply remove.

There's also the PSP translation, but I never got very far in it because I don't love some of the differences from orenronen's translation (I am forever faithful to "Super High School Level" over "Super Duper High School" or "Ultimate").

orenronen also started a Super Danganronpa 2 translation, but only got a few chapters into it since things got busy after he moved to Japan and NIS had released their localization of Danganronpa and announced they were also doing the second game. It's still worth checking out as you can still see how a lot was changed with NIS's translation.

There’s a lot to fairly criticize about Danganronpa, but I do wonder if the people who go on about how bad the writing in the series know any Japanese. Because these games have some of the worst localizations I’ve ever seen in the 2010’s. The games were genuinely made so much worse by NIS America’s botched translation “effort.”

#yeah i only ever got to experience a bit of sdr2 before the official release #i almost wish the official release didn't happen so orenronen could have finished (maybe)#though he might not have since he was getting busy

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watercolourdreamer · 3 years ago

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Arcane Treats | Chapter One

Viktor x Fem!Reader | Modern Bakery AU (Eventual NSFW)

Chapter Two | AO3

Synopsis: After years apart, you reunite with your childhood and old friend Viktor, a baker at Arcane Treats. Through your mutual appreciation and love of baked goods, you both learn how to find the courage to cross once-solid lines and embark on a journey of self-discovery together.

Credit to @thedreamlessnights for the original Bakery AU inspiration. I promise you'll see Viktor piping cupcakes and cakes soon.

Warnings: Mentions of family member death, global pandemic, unresolved grief/trauma

Translations:

dobrý den e vítej doma – hello and welcome home

dĕdeček/dĕde – grandfather/grandpa

babi – grandma

táta – dad

díky – thanks

Chapter One - Medovnik I

Word count: 1,607

It was a dismal day the first time you saw him again. Thunder had cracked as rain poured torrentially down from the heavens, turning the curb-side gutters into little oceans that sloshed around your green wellingtons. Rain had sluiced down the creases of your matching anorak, a gift from máma last Christmas.

“Make sure you wear your wellies, Kat’ya,” your sister had said absently when you announced you were going to make a coffee run to the local European bakery café. “They predicted rain this afternoon.”

Unsurprisingly, the Bureau of Meteorology’s prediction had been an optimistic one. Ten minutes into your walk to the local village shops a loud boom had resonated overhead followed by a deluge of rain that drenched your hair, plastering brunette locks to your forehead and cheeks. With an annoyed huff, you had hoisted the hood of your raincoat over your head, shoved your hands into your pocket, determined to make the trek to the bakery.

It was your first time back home after two years stranded in Prague on a tenure with the Prague Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra while the global pandemic spread across Europe. It had been an isolating experience and one of immense frustration: unable to return home to your family and unable to do what you enjoyed most, performing music. The final blow had been the death of your dear dĕdeček three months ago.

Over a late night Zoom link, you had watched as your family had laid dĕde to rest with babi finally; unable to embrace máma or táta or your sister, Nikola, as you sobbed in your one-bedroom Prague apartment. So when the time to review your position had arrived, and the orchestra offered to renew your contract, you politely declined and decided to return home on a repatriation flight.

The bakery café was owned by the Milosevic family, who had opened the business in the early 1970s alongside dĕde, a trained baker and patisserie maker prior to immigrating here. The Milosevic and dĕde had an ambition to bring a slice of home for the predominant Czech-Slovak community here, something they had enthusiastically embraced over the years.

Fifty years later, the Arcane Treats bakery had become a holy ground for your community, and a place of nostalgic comfort. It was your first time returning to the bakery since you left for Prague, farewelling dĕde and your sister Nikola, who had followed in dĕde’s footsteps.

Fastidiously wiping the soles of your wellies on the doormat, under the front face eaves, you opened the door of Arcane Treats for the first time in two years.

The bell chimed cheerfully overhead as you entered. To your right, there was a coat rack, along with two damp coats that draped drops of water onto the linoleum floor underneath. Careful not to add more water to the puddle, you unbuttoned and removed your raincoat, shaking it outside to disperse as much lingering rain before hanging it on the rack.

Quietly, you started the familiar walk to the patisserie display nestled into the back of the store.

“Be with you in a moment,” called a boisterous, husky voice from the backroom. From the periodic and familiar thumps you heard, you easily imagined someone hoisting and preparing the flour for the evening bakers. Nikola would be back here at eleven pm, ready to prepare fresh bread for the six am rush tomorrow.

“It’s okay. I’m still deciding what to get,” you replied, reassuring the disembodied voice from the backroom.

There was quite the choice after-all: kolaches, trdelniks, apple and blueberry strudls, and even some baked cheesecakes. There were also some unconventional and new options since your last visit, including a potato brioche donut, and a blood orange and rosemary chiffon cake with blood orange syrup. It was whilst you were admiring the finesse of a passionfruit and vanilla sponge cake, with exquisite violet flower and petal placement, that you registered someone from the backroom had come out to greet you.

“I’ve heard the medovnik is very good,” said a familiar mellow voice from your left side.

Beside you stood a rakish man in a pinstripe apron over a soft rose-coloured button-down shirt tucked into burgundy slacks. He had dishevelled chestnut-coloured hair and brilliant, kind eyes you would recognise anywhere. They were eyes that had fervently asked questions with a fierce curiosity during Czech Language School on weekends; and eyes that had sparkled with mirth during dramatic re-enactments of bible parables during Sunday School.

“Vit’ya?”

Viktor nodded. A soft smile graced his lips, revealing that front tooth gap that had sent your heart racing as a teenager when you finished school assignments on each other’s bedroom floors. You beamed up at him, throwing caution to the wind as you eagerly threw yourself towards his frame in a tight embrace, his cane clattering loudly to the floor.

“Ah, dobrý den e vítej doma Kat’ya,” greeted Viktor, his words gentle against the shell of your ear. It made tears rise to your lashes, stinging your eyes as they threatened to fall. How could he be so kind after the heartbreaking terms you left on ages ago? How could he hold you so tightly like little time had passed since you parted ways?

“It’s been so long. Let me get a proper look at you.”

Viktor pulled back from you, hands grasping your shoulders firmly as amber eyes tenderly traced your face and your form. You’d be remiss to say you weren’t doing the same, admiring the new freckles that had blossomed along the zygomatic arch of his face since you last saw him. They were light, a dusting against his fair skin and the beginning of crows’ feet that rested near his eyes.

“You look exhausted,” said Viktor softly. “What did Europe do to you to put you in such a wretched state?”

You let out a self-deprecating laugh, but it came out sounding more bitter than you intended until a choked sob broke on the last note. Horrified, you brought a clenched fist to your mouth, trying to stifle the sound. It was in vain. Your shoulders heaved and the tears that you had so tightly held back overflowed into rivers down your cheeks.

“I miss him so much, Vit’ya.”

The words choked and stuttered over your tongue between staccato breaths. Your heart was racing and your hands felt clammy.

Dĕde was meant to be sitting over there – in the corner between the cake display and bookshelf, drinking his black tea with a poppyseed kolpache and newspaper. His laughter was meant to be filling this room, his thick Slavic lilt conveying a world enlivened by spirits, including water and forest deities to the children who often flocked to Dĕde Sergei when they visited; because he was everyone’s dĕde.

Everything felt overwhelming, like when you put too much water in a kettle and it boils over – your grief an exposed nerve in the overflow. This was a mistake, coming here, chided your mind, why did you think this was a sound idea? What had you hoped to achieve out of this vain attempt at nostalgia?

A small frown knotted itself between Viktor’s eyebrows as his thumbs rubbed soothing circles across your collarbone. Gingerly, Viktor picked up his cane and guided you to a nearby four-seater round table to sit down.

“Kat’ya, wait here. Deep breaths. I won’t be long,” said Viktor softly, gently. His hand squeezed your shoulder, a familiar expression of reassurance – his expression of reassurance that all would be well because he was here.

You nodded as he pushed the serviette holder on the table towards you.

“Eh, for your nose,” added Viktor awkwardly with a wry smile that made a laugh bubble up from your chest.

“Díky.”

Viktor disappeared whilst you blew your nose and dabbed the tears from your cheeks, chin and neck, attempting to regain your composure. Surely your face was a deep vermillion now; your eyes rimmed pink with irritation from your crying. This was meant to just be a coffee run for yourself and Nikola, not a breakdown in the middle of the bakery café. Yet here you were, a tearful mess when your oldest friend simply asked how you were. This was humiliating.

It was the sound of the chair’s feet grating across the linoleum floor that disrupted your thoughts, followed by the scent of freshly brewed coffee; which re-immersed you in the present. Viktor sat across from you now, his pinstripe apron removed with his cane resting against the wooden chair separating you.

Between you, on the table, sat a French press of coffee – its aroma earthy and robust; two espresso cups, each glass positioned neatly on the centre of a linen-brown saucer; and a large slice of medovnik on a plate with two dessert forks. You eyed the tableau fondly, blinking away absent tears.

“Dĕde used to do this. Except with tea,” you said quietly, voice scratchy from your crying. For me and you, you wanted to add over the stones in your throat, but the words remained in your chest.

Viktor hummed in response. Then he carefully and reverently, like he was performing a holy ceremony, poured the coffee into each cup, the dark liquid rising with even precision up each side. Viktor added a sugar cube to your coffee, stirring it diligently in with a spoon before sliding it across the table towards you.

“Though dĕde would disapprove of the coffee, I thought it might be an appropriate way to commemorate him.” Viktor extended a dessert fork towards you, a sympathetic but mischievous smile curling his lips upwards – the very mischief dĕde had condoned. “Shall we?”

Thanks for reading!

Chapter Two | AO3

Author's note: I chose to give reader a name, mostly for immersion. Your name is called Kateryna or Kat'ya, affectionately. There is a reason for this but I can't reveal it because spoilers. The chapters are broken into two parts: one from readers' perspective and another from Viktor's. I have no idea how long this will be because this started as a one-shot Bakery AU idea and has quickly evolved into a pastry-inspired romance (RIP or rest in pastries).

If you like my work, please consider joining my taglist.

#viktor x reader #viktor arcane x you #viktor x you #arcane viktor x reader #viktor arcane x reader #arcane viktor x you #viktor arcane #bakery au #watercolourdreams #arcane #arcane treats #arcanetreats #my writing

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oumakokichi · 4 years ago

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What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.) Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.) Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.) Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.) Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.) Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.) Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.) In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

#danganronpa #new danganronpa v3 #dangan ronpa #ndrv3 spoilers //#ask #anonymous #this isn't meta but it's IS a comprehensive masterlist of translation comparisons #so i think it's okay to post in the tag #okay to reblog

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thatphatoven · 3 years ago

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At the Beginning

Diluc x Fem! Reader; Anastasia inspired Au

The lost Princess of Fontaine, with vague memories, journeys back to her homeland with the darknight hero trying to discover her past.

Chapter one

AN; This series will set place when Diluc leaves the dawn winery after his dad's death. I apologize if the information is inaccurate or the characters are out of their personality. Also, I used google for translation for some French, so if anyone wants to correct me, feel free.

Word Count; 2,488

Unedited

Like a mystery, the night held infinite uncertainty. The blanket of stars provided the comfort of light to bystanders bustling in the streets. Boisterous waves of laughter mingled with the notes of the viola, while at the same time, the patter of feet dances amongst the cobbled pavement as constant jeers chant words of ambition.

A short and stout plump man clambers on the wooden bar table, raising his pint of beer. "Vive la Fontaine!" He bawls. The swarm of drunkards mimics his gesture, laughably heaving their beers. Everyone adores the late-night festivities of celebrations. Conspicuously for a certain Princesse. All classes of the hierarchy were divulging on her 10th birthday. The common folk paraded in the streets, as the aristocrats partake in the Château. One devotee perched away from the horde, gripping his pint considerably tight. Resentment filled this man to the brim. His eyebrows creased at the carefree atmosphere while his teeth clenched vigorously. His unsettlingly deep brown eyes leered at the ripples of his beer. The Tavener in duty glanced at him, wary of his movements. "Are you not enjoying the night, Monsieur?" he questioned. The cloaked man remained mute, desire to be alone with his brooding. Having enough of the repulsive atmosphere, he pushed the tankard towards the barkeep while fishing out a couple of mora before slamming it against the hard surface.

The barkeep raised a brow at the mug, filled to the brim untouched. "What a waste," he thought, his pupils trailed on that particular individual crashing into other patrons, not until he reached the knob of the entry, but only to slam it vigorously. Not one person wavered at his little act but happily drank more to feeding their drunken state. Outside the Tavern, least people loiter around the city streets. Only the occasional hidden couple is kissing in a dim alleyway as some hasten their journey back to their cozy homes.

Fog swarm the night while the chilly air nipped his skin. In a straight line, rows of oil lamps lit up the murky mist. He begins his stride of pace out of the precinct, and after turning and turning, this section of the city became less active. Only sealed up windows and abandon property lived here. He was passing an unkempt park, with rust and weed growing on the deteriorating swing set. There assigned next to it was where the citizens worship their God. A once tall, beautiful structure is now a decaying building with the statues nation archon, sat in the middle of the courtyard as vines grew on the idol. The wind whistled loudly, fabricating a frightening aura to his personality. Trudging up the cathedral's steps, he swiftly entered the church, in the process of ramming the heavy entree.

Crash.

Shards of a porcelain marble bowl were scattered on the flooring. The heel of his leather shoe crunched against the broken pieces as he stationed himself in front of the altar. Pope Marquis Puissant. A once righteous man was loyal to Fontaine's God, now castaway for betraying the regality and abandonment of faith. A wicked man, they call him. Instead of the common holy word of the Archon, he was preaching of Ursa the Drake. A draconic creature that wasn't a God. That dragon, though it held an intense amount of power, enrapturing his attention. The local faithful became weary of his sudden turn on his faith which his reputation took a turn. Fewer attended the mass and begged the crown to disown him as a Pope. It was a late Sunday morning when the priesthood strips his power as a Vicar. In a rage, he stormed the Palace ground. "You're all nothing but halfwits blinded by power!" pointing at each, and of them, he cursed words of unpleasantries. "You wait, like this poor country excuse of a God, justice will be served."

Ever since then, he took shelter in a deserted church. Where there in the middle of the stone tablet laid a delusion. The Tsaritsa must have pitted the vengeful man, even if he's not part of the fatui. He will gladly serve two Gods. Now on the night of the beloved nation princess, Marquis will commence his revenge scheme, starting on the birthday girl.

"Higher Papa!" a giggle of chortle escape the young girl's lips. The man twirling her oblige, raising her higher in the air to the beat of the ensemble's melody. The puffy maroon gown fitted around her petite body, while the style of her long white hair swayed with every movement. The (e/c) pierced her fathers, carrying mirth of cheekiness. Sitting on the throne mirrored with the same features of the Princess sat a kind queen, with soft eyes smiling at the ridiculous scene of her daughter's ambitions. "Look at my beautiful Granddaughter." grey-haired, tied in a tight bun with a crown, sat snugly on her head. The Grand-mère watched the ballroom flock in high spirit. However, it was the girl that danced with her Father that held all that energy. "Have the Ragnvindr's arrive yet?" she questioned, looking at her daughter. "Not that I'm aware of Mother, but you should stop inquiring for rare alcohol from Master Crepus." "It's not my fault that the family makes splendid wine" The elderly woman hid her smile behind her gloved hand. "Besides, it's the offspring I'm after," they watched (y/n) grinned at her son-in-law, ruffling the girl's hair. "A charming man, with a charming boy. Don't you agree?" The queen let out a sigh at her Mother's antics.

"Grand-mère!" a small cheer escape (y/n). Pulling the layers of cloth, she began to hurry to the pair leaving her Father on the dance floor. Spreading her arms, the elderly accepted her hug and began smothering with small kisses on her round cheeks; her granddaughter laughed. "Look at you, my little lumière. All grown up," she squished her cheeks together, holding tenderness behind her blue eyes. "Now that I'm ten, you're going to teach me how to play poker! Right?" Tiptoeing closer to her, she held the throne seat, giddy of the thought. Her Mother stared at the child and Grandmother in disbelief. Chuckling nervously, she patted her hair. "Maybe wait until you're coming of age." (Y/N) pouted at her answer, leaving her explanation unreasonable. "But I do have a little gift for you instead." Grabbing the tiny Princess's palm, placing a red leather ring box. In a rush, the child swiftly opened the present. A gasp emitted from her. "Oh, Grand-mère! It's beautiful!" (Y/N) cried. A simple golden chain sat in the cushion, with the same colored ore boldly gleaming in the middle. "Together in Fontaine," reading out loud as she deciphers the cursive writing. The two grinned at each other as her Grandmother help put the necklace together around her. "When you wear this, think of an old woman who loves you very, very much." (Y/N) nodded at her words, directing her attention to the lockets words—hugging her once more.

"Your majesty," a rich and velvety tone interrupts the tranquility. "Master Crepus," the aging regal announced. A tall, aristocratic gentleman with charm greeted the family. His attire consisted of a simple charcoal black two-piece suit, and the tie he was sporting matched his fiery red hair. A handsome man he was. "Finally declaring your arrival, it seems." she teased. (Y/N) gape at the lord, intimidated by his scarlet hooded eyes. "Apologies, I was struggling to convince my son to attend the party." Crepus sighed. "Is this the boy you took in? Kaeya was it?" The ensemble's melody began a new tune as she glanced at her associate.

“attentive as ever, your majesty." The older woman smirk at his reply, "when you reached a certain age, you recall every little detail." He let out a deep laugh only after he shakes his head. "Diluc was the one who managed to drag him." "Ah, the little Crepus did it?" "Indeed, he promised that he wouldn't abandon him during the party." Their eyes trailed over to a smaller version of the man, who was currently dragging a bashful blue-haired boy across the room. "That little ball of light does have his ways."

(Y/N) fidget on her spot, feeling increasingly uninterested in the adult's discussions. Aware of her actions, Crepus near the girl and kneeled. "Happy Birthday, your highness." Only to pass his present for her. She lightened up at the gift and hugged it."Thank you, my lord." she smiled at his action while showing a missing tooth in the middle of her teeth. "You must be bored just listening to us old people talk," he spoke. Standing straight, he called to the pair of boys. The bubbly red-haired boy was the first to respond, pulling his brother behind him. The Grand-mère scanned Crepus prized possessions; the boy replenish with enthusiasm did take after his Father. The same color hair, all down to his features. While his adopted brother next to him possessed blue hair and sapphire eyes. Though it was the eyepatch that caught her attention, she raised a brow but didn't question. It was like comparing them to the sun and moon.

"Your highness," The boy greeted as his brother mimic his actions muttering the same sentence. "This is Diluc and Kaeya" Crepus put both of his hands on both children's shoulders. (Y/N) looked at them with awe; she has never come across with blazing hot and cold calm hair. She ponders wanting those colors rather than her dull white hair. "It is an honor to be in your presence," Diluc address. "My, what a sophisticated son you raised." The women applaud. "That's Diluc for you." The group laughs at the small tease. The bold child reached the girl and stared. Uneasy, she dug her hands into the gown, afraid to look at Diluc. "You have pretty eyes," he said, still gazing. (Y/N) blushed at his compliment. "I like you and your brother's hair!" she returned—Kaeya observes behind his adoptive Father's legs, envious of his brother's daring personality. As the two new friends converse, he felt the older man nudge him towards the pair. "Don't be shy now, Kaeya."

As Kaeya approach the Princess and his brother, the girl let out a gasp. "Your eyes have stars!" she inspected closer, now flusters with her bold move. She kept rambling on waves of compliments towards Kaeya. Diluc giggled at the discomposed Kaeya and band in with more teasing. The child lifts his dark hands in defense, trying to calm them. Maybe it was better to stay back at the lodge.

"What's under your eyepatch?"

Kaeya stiffens at her direct question. All of a sudden, the air thickens, and the ambiance of unsettlement quickly replaces the mood. "(Y/N)," her grandmother warns. At once, she felt guilty at her grandmother's tone and the dismal Kaeya. "It's nothing," he whispers. The reflection of his face that the marble flooring held became more interesting. "I'm sorry." tears gathered at the corner of her eyes. She feverishly struggles to hold back the tears, surprising the two boys. "Ah, Princess, don't cry," Diluc reassures, hastily stop her tears with his tie. "But I made him sad! What PrincessPrincess does that to her people!!" Shutting her vision, and her gloves gripped tightly, feeling the harsh material. Diluc looked at both disheartened children; at that moment, he suddenly felt restless. "It's alright, Kaeya doesn't mind that question, right?" looking at his brother for support, he nodded at his words. Then softly smiling at her.

"Don't worry," he whispered.

The girl gape at him then mirrored his smile. Childish laughter once again replaces their sadness. "Princess, even though we live in another nation, the Ragnvindr's will always aid you," Crepus informed. "Yes! Kaeya and I will be your royal knights when you visit Mondstadt." Diluc hooked his arm under Kaeya while puffing his chest proudly. (Y/N) clapped her hands at his proclamation, "But Diluc were not knights yet." his older brother stiffen. "Maybe wait in five years."

The night crowd with freedom. Not one complained or did the fun died down. The triplex of kids, hanging around each other, and befit on being close friends. This night was the most fun the little Princess had as she watches Diluc tease Kaeya again. However, the night holds infinite uncertainty.

An instant gasp and the shatter of a wine glass caused a halt in the ballroom. The music ceased as a gust of wind expelled the chandelier candles. The cloaked man sauntered his way past the frightened crowd, clapping his hand in slow motion. He let out a deep laugh, approaching the family that strips away his power. "How dare you return to the palace!" The king spoke brashly, pushing his daughter behind. (Y/N) shook in fear, watching the mad man plastered a demented smile at her. "But I'm your confidant," he exclaimed. "Confidant? Ha! You are a traitor to Fontaine!" "Get out!"

"You think you can banish me? Pope Marquis Puissant!" he steps closer to him, hiding his delusion in his cloak. As (Y/n) was watching, she felt a slight tug pulling away from them. Diluc stood in front of her, furrowing his small brow. "By the holy power given by the Tsaritsa and Ursa, I'll banish you and your family with a curse!" The chamber gasp at his comment. "Mark my word I will not rest until I see the end of the Rousseau!" Bring out his power; he directed his attack toward the king. A shriek was let out from the queen as he shut his eye tightly, anticipating the attack.

"(Y/N)!"

The Grand-mère cried, flinging herself out of her throne. All eyes direct their attention towards Diluc; he didn't feel the girl's hand. Turning around, she was gone. "What did you do to my daughter!" Her Father roared. Marquis laughed and grinned, not saying a word. "Guards, get him!" he ordered to the once holy man. Laughing again, more mist gathered quickly in the ballroom; as the guard's closed onto him, fire circled his figure, preventing them from entering. The blaze grew quicker; Crepus felt Kaeya stiffen in his arm, watching the delusion in Marquis's hand. The windows exploded in one motion, making the room more in a frenzy while the wind blew harsher. Diluc, in rage, ran towards him. "Diluc, no!" Crepus warned, however, as he passed the flames and mist, he was gone.

The only ashes and embers replace his spot. Marquis was far gone, along with the Princess. "Quickly close all the borders! I don't want anyone leaving Fontaine!" The distraught Father ordered. " I want every house to be searched, every church, alleyway and caves checked!" "Whatever you do, find the Princess and Marquis!". Tears of despair escape the Mother and Grandmother crying for the kidnapped daughter. Diluc silently stood there watching the embers die down.

The once festive night took a turn into a nightmare.

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imagine-loki · 3 years ago

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What About Trust, Chapter 1

TITLE: What About Trust CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 1 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki owns a bookshop on Midgard. He had to do something there to try and avoid getting any attention. But he’s not fond of having customers, is rather grumpy and guarded. But then he meets a bright, bubbly and trusting young woman who doesn’t recognise him. To his dismay, he finds himself becoming rather fond of the mortal. RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS: Fluff ahoy in this fic! Lots of fluff.

Cleo was just strolling along the streets in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. It was her favourite place to be and since she had a day off, she was going to make the most of it.

As she worked in an independent record shop on Oxford street, she knew the importance of supporting small local businesses instead of the larger ones. And there was plenty of quirky shops in the area, including other record shops.

But suddenly the heavens decided to open and started dumping a load of rain on top of her.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ She had forgotten to take an umbrella. And her jacket wasn’t exactly waterproof either.

She pulled her jacket up over her head in an attempt to try and at least keep her hair from getting utterly soaked and she sprinted along the street. Then she ducked into a small doorway that had a small overhang, enough to save her from the sudden downpour anyway.

Sighing, she looked round to see what she was outside of. Her eyebrows shot upwards when she saw it was a bookshop. It didn’t look very brightly lit inside, but there was a very small sign that said open.

Unable to resist looking around a bookshop, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. There was a small bell above the door that announced her arrival. But the shop was empty, aside from books.

‘Oh wow.’ She gasped as she looked around, it was quite a small place but the owner had managed to stack hundreds and hundreds of books in, with really tall shelves on every wall and a few aisles on front of her.

There was a beautiful wooden spiral staircase just off the centre of the shop, leading to an upper floor that came out halfway, where she saw even more books.

A lit fireplace was to the left of her, in a space amongst the book shelves. It kept the place cosy and was one of the few light sources in the shop. As well as a large lamp to her right.

Cleo breathed in deeply, revelling in the book smell that surrounded her.

How she had never noticed this place before was beyond her. Considering she frequented the area all the time, pretty much every week. But she decided she was certainly going to make up for lost time now.

‘Hello?’ She called out, wondering if there was even anyone here manning the place.

There was no response. But she didn’t notice the green eyes watching her from the back corner, hidden in the shadows.

Not caring much, she started to the right and looked at some of the book titles. She felt giddy when she realised this was no normal bookshop, these were rare books. Some were foreign, a language she didn’t even recognise. But some of the books were decorated in beautiful and intricate patterns, capturing her attention.

She pulled a few books out from the shelves and went to the fireplace, where it was warmest. There was a lone green arm chair on front of it, she took a seat with the books on her lap and she started looking through the first one.

It was a William Shakespeare play that was said to have been lost many years ago, she couldn’t actually believe it was in her hands as she carefully turned the pages.

‘What are you doing?’ Came a rather cold voice from beside her.

She jumped, having not heard anyone approach. When she looked round, her eyes widened when she saw a really tall man… A really tall and rather handsome man, at that. With long black hair, nice cheekbones. He was wearing a dark green shirt and leather trousers with boots. He didn’t look like an ordinary book shop owner, but who was she to judge?

He had his arms folded across his chest and didn’t look overly pleased at her presence.

‘Oh, sorry. I did shout when I came in but no one answered… I’m reading, that’s not illegal, is it?’ She smirked up at him.

‘No, it is not.’ He drawled. ‘But this is not a library.’

‘I can see that. It’s way better than a library.’

Loki had no idea why this mortal was in his shop, reading a book and sitting on his chair. Sure, it was a book shop, but barely anyone ever came in. Never mind stayed for this long.

‘Are you going to buy that book or just put your grubby hands all over it?’ He grumbled.

Cleo narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You’re not very friendly for a shop owner. No, I am not going to be buying it, I suspect this would be well out of my price range. Do you not like to share with a fellow book lover? I was going to leave some money on my way out, I know it can be difficult for small businesses to keep afloat.’

Loki was a little surprised at her answer. And the fact she was still there, sitting on his chair. Normally when a mortal came in and stayed to look through his books, they soon scarpered when he made his presence known. Either because they recognised him, or were just put off by his coldness towards them.

‘Fine. Whatever. Just… don’t rip any of my books.’ He huffed and walked away again, leaving her to it.

Cleo was rather confused at what the hell had just happened.

‘Wait.’ She carefully placed the books down on the small coffee table on front of her and rushed after him to the back of the shop. ‘What’s your name? I’m guessing you are the owner?’

Loki rolled his eyes before turning around to face her. ‘I am… My name is Luke.’

‘Nice to meet you, Luke. I’m Cleo.’ She put her hand out towards him. He eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then shook her hand when he decided she didn’t seem much of a threat.

‘I’ve never seen your shop before, it’s quite hidden. But it’s incredible. I can actually see why you wouldn’t want it to get too busy, it would ruin the atmosphere. But it’s quite the wee gem.’ She said as she looked around, still taking it all in.

‘Thank you… You’re not from here, are you?’ He quirked an eyebrow up.

‘Nope. I’m from Inverness, but I’ve lived here for the past eight months. Much more exciting than back home.’ She smiled.

Loki nodded once. ‘Well, I shall leave you to your reading… If there areany books you’re interested in buying, let me know.’

Cleo’s face brightened. ‘I will, thanks.’

She watched as Loki disappeared through a door at the very back of the shop, it said staff only on it. She shrugged the encounter off and went back to the few books she had taken out to look at. After flicking through them, she carefully placed them back in their place and went upstairs to look some more.

As she carefully pulled a book out from its shelf, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Loki suddenly spoke next to her.

‘Are you still here?’

She held the book she had in her hands close to her chest in fright, her heart was racing but soon calmed down when she realised it was just the owner.

‘Jesus Christ. Do you always sneak up on your customers?’

‘Are you always so jumpy?’ Loki countered, raising an eyebrow. A ghost of a smirk on his lips.

Cleo rolled her eyes and looked down at the book in her hands. ‘How did you even get hold of most these? They’re so rare and expensive.’

‘You could say I’ve travelled a lot.’ Loki said as he started walking down the aisle, she followed him, curious.

‘Really? That’s cool. I’ve never been out of the UK before. But I would love to visit some countries like Iceland, Finland and Norway, for the culture and history. Those places fascinate me.’ Cleo rambled a bit.

Loki suddenly turned on his heels, going back right past her. Cleo was a little stunned but turned and followed him again.

‘How long have you had the shop?’ She asked as Loki stopped and started skimming through the shelves, looking for something.

‘A year.’ He said simply as his long fingers tapped gently along the spines of the books on the upper shelf.

‘I can’t believe I’ve only just found it. I’ve been living in the city for the last eight months, I’m around this area every week.’ She said as Loki plucked a book out, he briefly turned his back to her so she didn’t see the slight shimmer of green that surrounded the book before he quickly turned around to face her, holding the book out towards her.

‘What’s this?’ She asked, tucking the other book under her arm.

‘Nordic tales. Since you seem interested in the Nordic countries, perhaps you might find that of interest.’ Loki hummed.

Cleo’s eyes widened as she looked at the book. She looked up at Loki in disbelief. ‘I’ve been looking for an English edition of this for… years! I didn’t think one existed. I thought I was going to have to give in and google translate every single word.’

Loki scoffed. ‘Google translate is not reliable at all, believe me.’ He turned on his heels again and started heading back towards the stairs.

Cleo was too busy looking at the blurb of the book, by the time she looked up Loki was back downstairs. She hurried after him, putting the other book back in its rightful place first.

As she was rushing down the stairs, she held the Nordic Tales book out. ‘How much is this? Please, God. Let it be within my budget!’ She said as she rushed over to him by the fireplace.

Loki folded his arms over his chest and sighed, narrowing his eyes at her for a moment. Then he smiled, just a little bit. ‘Call it a gift, for a fellow book lover.’

Cleo’s mouth opened wide in shock. ‘What? Seriously? But the originals are like at least fifty quid anyway. This English version must be worth a shit load more than’

‘Do you want the book or not?’ Loki interrupted.

She nodded sheepishly. ‘I do…’

‘Well then, like I said. Consider it a gift. Before I change my mind and decide to charge you triple what it’s actually worth.’

Cleo grinned and slipped the book safely into her handbag. ‘Maybe I did get you wrong, you’re an alright shop owner.’

Loki chuckled. ‘What is it they say? Don’t judge a book by its cover.’

‘Never a truer word spoken.’ Cleo agreed. ‘Well, it was really nice meeting you. Thank you so much for the book, I really appreciate it. I’ll be back before you know it, I want to read that Shakespeare play through properly.’ She said as she started to head towards the door.

‘I look forward to your return.’ Loki said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Cleo turned back to face him and grinned widely. ‘Ohh, I bet you do.’ She laughed.

As Cleo left the shop, Loki shook his head. But he smiled.

‘What a curious mortal.’

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #What About Trust #chapter 1 #fanficshiddles

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strifetxt · 3 years ago

Note

idk what beefleaf is but the art and characters are so pretty where can i see more

BOY OH BOY okay. beefleaf is a ship in heaven official's blessing (tian guan ci fu in chinese), a novel by mo xiang tong xiu, mxtx for short (it's the same author as mdzs/cql/the untamed, if you've seen those floating around, that one's definitely her most popular work!)

if you want a basic rundown of What Is TGCF, basically it follows the story of xie lian, a former crown prince who ascended to godhood, but has since been banished from the heavens not just once, but twice, and is now considered the laughingstock of the heavenly realm. however, at the beginning of the book, xie lian has somehow ascended to godhood a third time! over the course of the book, you follow xie lian as he investigates various mysteries that lead him to learn more about the heavens, as well as about his own past. and along the way, he catches the attention of the mysterious ghost king hua cheng, a relationship which develops throughout the story (not-spoiler alert: they're in love, like canonically, tgcf is a love story and hualian is beautiful)

in terms of beefleaf itself! beefleaf is the ship name between two side characters, shi qingxuan and ming yi! shi qingxuan is a god known as the wind master, and he is a canonically genderfluid icon who drags her surly best friend, the earth master ming yi, into also having genders with her, so that's a fun time! the more in-depth exploration of their relationship is the crux of one of the major story arcs in the novel, and it is A Lot. that said, if you have any interest in consuming tgcf in any fashion, i would highly encourage you not to google them or look up art and the like, because it is EXTREMELY difficult to talk about them without major plot spoilers!

as for Where To Read: the thing about tgcf is that it is Extremely Long. like, longer than the word count of the literal bible long. the chapters aren't super long, but there are 244 of them, not including the post-canon extras. the most easily accessible way to start the story would probably be the donghua/anime, which is available on netflix! just search up heaven official's blessing! the donghua covers the first 30ish chapters of the book, and it's a solid adaptation! i will say that some of the translation choices in the subtitles don't quite capture the right nuance, but that's just nitpicking from me haha. i would recommend, if you do start with the donghua, to go back and skim the chapters that it covers, if only to check for different terminology and translator's notes, and also because the donghua really does not capture the comedy of the first chapter wherein xie lian basically logging onto the heavenly discord server to see a new channel called FUCK XIE LIAN wherein everyone is taking bets on how long before he gets banned again.

ANYWAY, SORRY THIS POST IS GETTING SO LONG. in terms of actually reading the book! seven seas danmei is officially localizing heaven official's blessing, and the first two volumes are available for purchase on their site and at major bookstores! there are, it seems, eight total volumes planned, scheduled for release over the course of this year and next. so it'll be A While before we have the entirety of the story out officially.

since the localization got announced, the person who did the fan translation (who is now one of the official translators!) has taken down the free versions she had online of the whole book. i'm? wary of linking to a pdf publicly, since i def want to respect the translator's wishes! but if you dm me or ask off anon, i'd be willing to share it privately if you want it! tgcf is one of my favorite stories, and beefleaf in particular is one of my favorite ships, so i'm very happy to share them with anyone who wants! :D

#THIS POST GOT SO LONG AND TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER I'M SO SORRY #wrote this out between customers at work orz

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snowfall-fanfictions · 4 years ago

Text

A Long Time Ago...

Ao3 Link FFN Link

After making a dangerous and impromptu maneuver, Luke finds himself embroiled in a conflict that ended twenty years ago, with people who were supposed to be long dead.

Set between ANH and ESB.

Okay, time to blow the dust off of this account and start posting again. My life’s been getting a hell of a lot more hectic in the past five months, which kinda killed my drive to write. But rest assured, I’m still writing and will continue to write, it’s just going to take a little longer between chapters. Also, this is my first non-Frozen piece that I’ve uploaded to FFN and Ao3! Hope you enjoy!

Luke sat in silence as his X-wing blazed through hyperspace. He’d hoped the coordinates that the Rebel Alliance had acquired were legitimate and not some Imperial trap. For the past few months since Luke destroyed the Death Star, the Alliance had been living by the seat of its pants, jumping from system to system, desperately avoiding being captured by the Empire. It was certainly the excitement and adventure he’d been longing for since he was a young boy, longing to finally leave Tatooine to explore the wider galaxy, though he wasn’t expecting to do so under such circumstances.

The thought of Tatooine brought Luke’s memories back to that day when Ben, or Obi-wan, saved him from the Tusken Raiders. He moved his eyes from the streaking blues and whites of hyperspace to his immediate right. There, nestled between him and the cockpit, laid his lightsaber, worn and battered from the years of action it saw. Luke immediately thought back on Ben’s words to him as he placed it in his hands that day.

“I was once a Jedi Knight, same as your father… He was the best starfighter pilot in the galaxy… and he was a good friend…”

The thought of his father being a Jedi mesmerized Luke. All his life he had believed he had come from some spice trader in the Outer Rim, now he knew the truth. Well, most of the truth. Luke thought back to the daring rescue of Leia on the Death Star, how Ben sacrificed himself to Vader to let them escape. Now, in the entirety of the galaxy, there was only one man who knew his father.

And it was the man who killed him.

Luke encountered Vader only once after destroying the Death Star, on Cymoon 1. In hindsight, Luke considered it foolish for a farm boy from Tatooine to challenge a powerful Force wielder such as Vader. The Dark Force Weilder’s words rang in his mind, “You, boy, are no Jedi…”

And he was right. As much as it stung like the twin suns, it was the truth. Now, with the only Jedi he’d known dead, all Luke could do is hope that he’d find another Jedi somewhere in the galaxy. Luke scoffed at this. He’d have a better time finding a fish in the Dune Sea than a Jedi.

As he was lost in thought, the chirps and whistles of Artoo brought him back to the present. “We’re arriving at the coordinates,” The Aurebesh on the navigation computer said, translating the astromech’s various sounds, “Pulling us out of lightspeed now.”

“Alright, thanks Artoo,” Luke replied, flipping a series of switches and buttons. In an instant, the vortex of blue before him returned to the vast blackness of space, with countless stars glistening ahead of him. Luke scanned the area as best he could from his cockpit, only to be met with the vast infinity of space on all sides.

“Something’s wrong,” Luke said, “You sure these are the right coordinates?” Artoo whistled and chirped as the navigational computer quickly translated for him, “Positive. Looks like there’s nothing here, unless the Alliance was looking for a nice chunk of dead space.”

Luke let out a distressed groan allowing his head to slump back, “Well, beats running into a Star Destroyer, right?”

Before Artoo could reply, the X-wing jolted with tremendous force. Luke frantically scanned around as far as his cockpit allowed in an attempt to see what caused his ship to buck like that. Maybe this was a trap after all and the Imperials had finally caught up to them. The fact that nothing was in his immediate view did nothing to ease his panic. That’s when he saw it: space itself distorting, the stars disappearing into an inky nothingness just barely in eyesight of his cockpit.

“Kriff!” Luke barked, gripping the throttle with haste. With as much strength as he could muster, he thrusted the stick, causing the engines to roar. The X-wing groaned and cracked under the pressure of the black hole as Artoo let out a screech. Slowly, the ship was pulled backwards, chunks of metal could be heard being torn off. Luke’s heart raced as sweat formed underneath his helmet. “Artoo! Get ready to jump to lightspeed!” he shouted, frantically flipping switches and mashing buttons.

“Not advised,” the navigational computer translated, “could lead to serious issues.”

“We don’t have an option, Artoo! Get us out of here, now!” “To where?”

“Anywhere!”

Artoo said nothing more as he quickly calculated their jump to lightspeed. All the while, Luke multitasked between keeping the ship out of the hole as long as possible and locking the s-foils, both in preparation for the jump and to prevent the loss of a wing. After what felt like several eternities, Artoo let out a whistle of cautious triumph, announcing that they were ready for the jump. With no hesitation, Luke gave the throttle one last push as the familiar blue of hyperspace filled his vision before he slumped back into his seat. His heart raced like a skittish womp rat as he sighed in relief. “Th-thanks, Artoo,” he gasped.

After a long winded series of chirps and whistles, the navigational computer read, “We’re lucky to have survived that, you know…” “Yeah, I know. Where are we headed, anyway?”

“Chandar’s Folly. Just picked a random planet from my memory banks.”

Artoo flashed a picture of a brownish green planet on the navigation computer. It appeared to be uninhabited, yet should be in the range of the Alliance fleet. Luke scanned over the information thoroughly. “How long till we get there?” he asked.

“Now,” the computer screen read.

Luke slowly brought the ship out of hyperspace as he was met by a grey overcast. It was unorthodox to land so close to the planet’s atmosphere, but he couldn’t risk being out in open space while the Empire was still searching for him. Mountains rose high above the planet’s surface, with small clusters of trees dotting the landscape. There didn’t appear to be any signs of sentient life, no cities or encampments, which made this a perfect place to hide until the Alliance came.

As Luke scanned for a perfect place to land, a warning flashed on his short range scanner. Before he had time to process it, a loud explosion shook his X-wing. Luke could see his engines smoking as he quickly began losing altitude. Did the Empire find out where he was going? Bounty hunters? It didn’t matter much at the moment. Luke had to focus on not crashing into a mountain side.

He gripped the throttle as he jerked the snub fighter left and right, avoiding the large mountains while still finding a place to land. Eventually, Luke noticed a small valley, long enough to make an emergency landing. With careful positioning, he managed to angle his fighter into the valley. Luke didn’t even have time to activate his landing gears before the nose of his X-wing buried itself into the ground, creating a large streak of churned soil.

Luke groaned as he unstrapped himself from his seat. His arms felt like jelly and every muscle in his back screamed in pain. As he pushed the cockpit open, his nostrils were immediately filled with the smell of sulfur and fresh dirt as his eyes readjusted to the planet’s sun. He appeared to be in some sort of valley, with mountains towering over him on either side. Two sparsely clustered groups of fungus like trees lined the massive skid made by his X-wing.

“You okay, Artoo?” Luke asked, scanning the horizon. Artoo let out a series of beeps and whistles as he struggled to get out of his socket. Luke climbed over and, with a little help from Artoo, lifted the astromech out and onto the ground. Artoo let out a happy chirp as he rocked from side to side, causing the sides of Luke’s mouth to lift up. The young pilot scanned the horizon, listening for any local wildlife, only to be met by an eerie silence.

“So, this is Chandar’s Folly?” Luke asked Artoo. The droid beeped and chirped in confirmation. “Well, you weren’t kidding about it being abandoned. C’mon, let’s see if we can fix the X-wi-”

Luke… a faint voice called out, causing Luke to jump. He instantly recognized the voice.

“Ben?” he responded almost hopefully.

You are not where you’re supposed to be, Luke. There is a great disturbance in the Force… Ben’s voice became fainter with each passing word

“What do you mean?”

Be careful around those you meet, that is all I can say… Ben’s voice trailed off into silence.

What did he mean by that? Luke thought.

A low thumping sound coming from the edge of the valley interrupted Luke’s thought. Artoo let out a concerned moan as he whirled behind the X-wing. Luke jumped into the cockpit, grabbing his lightsaber before joining Artoo. So much for this place being abandoned. The thumping grew louder, becoming clearer and more intense. Stormtroopers, without a doubt. Luke gripped his lightsaber tighter as the thumping stopped. A few seconds passed, yet they felt like an eternity. One of the soldiers stepped forward, which caused some confusion to Luke. The footsteps sounded… mechanical, almost like it was a droid.

“Well, this looks like the crash site,” one of the troops said. The voice was robotic, sounding almost timid and nasally. The familiar sound of a comm unit powering on filled Luke’s ears.

“Corporal, status report,” the voice on the other end ordered. Even through the static of the comms, the voice on the other end sounded monotone, revealing no emotion.

“We’ve managed to find the ship, commander. It’s nothing like we’ve seen before.”

“Is it Republic made?”

“Uhhhhh, looks like it.”

“And what of the pilot?”

“Uhhhhhh… nowhere to be seen.”

“Find the pilot and either secure or eliminate them. We have begun our offensive on the Republic’s defenses, and I cannot have a random variable jeopardize my strategy.”

“Roger roger.” The soldier shut off the comms unit. “You heard the commander, find the pilot, stat!”

Luke’s heart pounded in his chest. He slowly crept his head around the wreckage like a timid Loth-cat. As the soldiers came into view, his eyes widened. Eleven tan battle droids stood rigid, with one standing in front of them with yellow markings on its head and torso. Luke couldn’t understand the sight before him. Battle droids hadn’t been used in combat since the early days of the Empire, at least that’s what Uncle Owen used to say. Did the Empire reactivate the droids? Luke lingered on the droids, trying to piece together what was going on. Then, one of the droids looked him square in the eyes, causing it to jump.

“Look!” the droid shouted, pointing at Luke, “There’s the pilot!”

The droids snapped their heads at the location their comrade pointed to. Luke shrank back, gripping his lightsaber tightly. At this point, his heart threatened to burst out of his chest.

“You are under arrest in the name of the Seperatist Alliance,” the commander announced, at least that’s what Luke assumed, “Step out from behind the wreckage with your hands up.”

Artoo let out a worried whimper. Luke’s mind raced with questions. This had to be one of the seperatist holdouts the Empire dealt with in the early years, during the Reconquest of the Rim. Maybe this was all that was left of the holdout. If so, he could probably take them. Even then, Luke still practiced a bit of caution. He fastened the lightsaber to his side and slowly made his way out to face the droids with raised hands. All eleven of them had their blasters at the ready, tracking Luke’s every move.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Luke announced, “I’m just like you, hiding from the Empire. We don’t have to-”

“Empire?” one of the droids interjected, “What’s an Empire?”

“Wait a minute, this isn’t a clone,” another droid commented, stepping forward. A clone? Luke thought. Clones haven’t been seen since the days of the Clone Wars. Perhaps these droids never had their memory wiped, so they still think the Clone Wars are still raging.

“You’re coming with u-” the commander looked down at the lightsaber resting beside Luke’s hip. “HE’S A JEDI!”

The droids stepped back in shock as the commander snatched the lightsaber from Luke, inspecting it thoroughly.

“We found a jedi? And we’re still operational?” one of them asked.

“That’s impossible!” Another said, “He hasn’t done those weird hand motions yet!”

“Have you tried to fight a Jedi? The only one who has one that isn’t a Jedi is the General!”

“I sense promotions!” the commander waved the lightsaber in the air triumphantly.

All the droids cheered at the commander’s announcement. Just then, the commander began levitating in the air. The other droids stared in amazement, only to have their awe cut short by the sound of blasters. One by one, each droid received an azure bolt to the head, collapsing to the floor. The commanding droid yelled in horror as an invisible force crushed it like a canister in the vacuum of space before falling to the ground with a loud thud. Luke’s lightsaber tumbled out of the droid’s hand directly in front of him. He stared in amazement at the heaps of scrap before him, all sputtering sparks while twitching faintly, before scanning the immediate area for whoever saved him. Artoo slowly crept out from behind the wreckage with a low whistle.

“That… wasn’t you, right, Artoo?” Luke asked half-jokingly, lowering his now tired arms.. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted faint rustling from the clusters of trees. Must be the ones who did all this Luke thought as he carefully stepped over the metallic corpses. He fastened his lightsaber back onto his side before waving in the direction of the trees. “Thanks, whoever you are,” Luke shouted, “Guess this planet isn’t as abandoned as I thought it… was?”

Luke’s approach slowed to a halt as a figure emerged from the tree line. His apparent savior wore bone white armor, accented by black around the joints. The face was obscured by a helmet, and in their hands rested a small black rifle. Artoo screeched as Luke’s heart skipped a beat. Without hesitation, Luke tore the lightsaber off his side and immediately ignited it. The blue blade jettisoned out of the hilt with a screech as Luke pointed the tip towards the trooper.

“I thought the Empire didn’t operate on Chandar’s Folly,” Luke said, “What are you doing on this planet?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the trooper said, raising his hands carefully over his head, “You’re a Jedi, right? Part of this military campaign?” Luke eased a bit of tension in his body.

“Military campaign?”

Just then, another trooper, similarly outfitted, made his way out of the thick cluster. Then another. And another. In total, about ten stormtroopers stood before him, all with weapons pointed at Luke. Artoo began panicking beside Luke as another trooper came out of the brush. His armor was similar to those around him, but instead of bone white, it was accented with dark blues and sported a worn gray kama wrapped around his waist. Luke deduced that it was some kind of elite trooper the Empire was keeping a secret. If he got out of this alive, that would be invaluable information to relay to the alliance.

“Well,” the blue trooper said, “no wonder the clankers were so eager to find this wreck.” Luke cocked his head as he raised an eyebrow. The trooper’s voice was identical to the first soldier who emerged out of the trees. Luke swung the lightsaber towards the elite soldier.

“Who are you?” he demanded. Luke was taken aback when the trooper stood at attention and saluted him.

“Captain Rex, designation CT-7567 of the 501st Legion, sir.” he announced. Clones! Luke thought. There were a few clones in the rebellion, but they were all incredibly old and rarely if ever took active combat roles because of it. The clone’s name rang a bell, almost as if Luke had heard that name before.

“I thought the Empire discontinued the use of clones,” Luke said, “Or are you with the Rebellion?”

The trooper took off his helmet, revealing a man with light brown skin and eyes and blond hair cut so close it appeared as part of his skin. “Empire? Rebellion?” Rex asked, “Sounds like that crash might’ve scrambled your brains.”

“Hey!” Luke blurted out as Artoo whirled behind him. Before Luke could chastise his astromech, another figure stepped out of the farthest tree cluster. Unlike the clones, this man was adorned in blue and maroon robes, with a light gray armor piece around his neck. A faint scar draped itself over his right eye and, on his side, rested a lightsaber, almost similar to the one Luke held in his hand.

“Well, this is… unusual,” the man said, hands clasped behind his back. Luke disabled his lightsaber and approached the man.

“Thanks for the save,” Luke sighed, “Never thought I’d see battle droids in action.”

The man cocked an eyebrow. “Are you part of the Agricultural Corps?”

Luke looked at the man as if his head was floating off his shoulders. “The what?”

“I assume you’re a Jedi with that lightsaber.”

Luke stared down at his lightsaber before letting out a sigh. “I mean, I thought I was a Jedi…”

“I sense some power inside you… it’s low, but it’s there. When did you discover this power?”

“A few months ago…”

The man’s face reeled in shock. “You have to be at least as old as me!”

“Y-yeah…”

The man rubbed his chin. “Perhaps Master Yoda and the council would know more about this…”

“The council?”

“The Jedi Council… you’ve had to have heard of them, right?”

Luke opened his mouth to speak, but then thought of Ben’s words crept into his brain. Maybe this was what he was talking about.

“Yeah,” Luke lied, “I-I’ve heard of them.”

“Good.” the man extended one of his hands, “Why don’t you come with us? Our forward camp isn’t too far from here.”

Luke clasped his hand and shook it firmly. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice. Name’s Luke.”

“Anakin,” the man replied, “Anakin Skywalker.”

Luke’s eyes went wide as his body stiffened. His mind raced, connecting all the information he had. Jedi Council, Anakin Skywalker, clones and droids… did we…?

“C’mon, Obi-wan will want to talk to you as well,” Anakin turned and made his way out of the valley as the clones followed suit. Luke and Artoo exchanged concerned looks, as if they both came to the same conclusions.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Artoo…” Luke said as he followed his father out of the valley.

XXXXXX

The bridge of the Executor was draped in the light blue of hyperspace. The sounds of computers and low murmur of the crew were completely drowned out by the deep and chilling breathing of Darth Vader. The Dark Lord stood silently as he peered out of the Super Star Destroyer’s viewports. Probe droids mentioned a lone X-wing that exited hyperspace from these coordinates. The markings the ship was described with matched up with the one that destroyed the Death Star. The one piloted by Luke Skywalker.

Vader’s own son.

Upon discovering that Padmè had given birth before she died, rage consumed Vader’s every being. Not only had the Emperor attempted to replace him with subpar weaklings, he lied about the death of his child. The Emperor needed to be eliminated, that much was certain. And Luke was the key to his downfall. Once Luke was in his grasp, they would rule the galaxy as father and son.

“Lord Vader,” Admiral Ozzel announced, strolling up to the towering cyborg, “We’ll be exiting hyperspace shortly, but our scanners have picked up something… unusual…”

Vader turned to the admiral, who shrank back in response. “Does it pose immediate threat to the ship, admiral?” Vader interrogated.

“Well, we are unsure, m’lord, but I felt it wise to inform y-”

“If it poses no threat, then we shall proceed as planned. I will not allow this… Jedi, to slip through our hands once again.”

“Yes, Lord Vader…”

As the Executor left hyperspace, Vader was met by a mixture of confusion and shock. Instead of the vast expanse of space, the ship was met with a series of jagged red energy bolts cutting through the stars. Vader felt the Force shaking and bending, as if it were a tortured animal. The bridge was filled with shocked gasps and hushed murmurs from petty officers and stormtroopers. Admiral Ozzel stood with his mouth agape, trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

“What are your orders, sir?” he said after a moment.

“Prepare my ship at once,” Vader decreed, turning to leave the bridge, “And ready a detachment of fighters. I shall investigate this myself.” Vader didn’t stop to hear Ozzel’s reply as the massive doors sealed shut behind him.

XXXXXXX

From the cockpit of Vader’s TIE Advanced, the damage appeared to be much worse. It appeared as if space were a large pane of shattered glass, with pure nothingness hiding behind it. Only a fool would dare venture out here alone. Three TIEs split off from Vader as he scoured for the source of this damage. As they dispersed, a streak of red energy jutted out in front of them. Two managed to alter their course with a deafening roar, but one flew directly through it, incinerating it completely. Fool, Vader thought, These are supposed to be the Empire’s greatest pilots?

Vader’s thoughts were disturbed by the fervent beeping of his comm unit. Upon activation, he was greeted by Ozzel, hands clasped behind his back.

“M’lord,” Ozzel began, “It appears we’re the only ones in this sector, perhaps we should-”

“No,” Vader abruptly interrupted, “Skywalker is here, he must be. Send another detachment of fighters. I want every inch of this sector swept.”

“As you w-”

Before Ozzel could finish his thought, the comm unit abruptly shut off as Vader’s ship rocked violently. The cyborg attempted to restabilize his ship, but only seemed to jostle it even further. Out of the corners of the cockpit, Vader saw the inky nothingness creep into view.

“Admiral!” Vader said, activating the comms link, “Activate the tractor beam, and target myself.” the Sith lord was met with static. “Admiral, respond!” Again, static. Seeing no other option, Vader began calculating a desperate jump to hyperspace. As soon as coordinates were set, he launched himself out of the nothingness and into hyperspace. The tension receded from his body as he attempted to contact the Executor once again.

“Admiral Ozzel!” Vader said, anger rising in his voice, “Do I need to remind you of the Emperor’s decree? I am not to be ignored!” Vader was once again met with static and no admiral. He slammed his metallic fist onto the unit, causing a small dent. He would deal with Ozzel in the future. For now, Vader needed to refocus on getting back to the fleet and refocus his efforts on finding Skywalker.

Vader quickly disabled his hyperdrive as he took in his surroundings. While he was still in dead space, the damage he witnessed was completely absent. While it appeared the damage to space itself was contained, Vader couldn’t help but feel a disturbance in the Force, as if catastrophe struck on a galactic scale. The Sith lord pushed this thought to the side for the time being. His priority was to return to the Executor. Vader activated his sensor array, broadcasting his location to every sector in range.

“This is a distress call from Lord Vader,” he decreed, “All Imperial naval units converge on my position.”

Just as he finished his message, Vader’s TIE shook abruptly once again. Again?! He thought as he was thrown around in his own cockpit. Perhaps it was a rebel ship attacking him. Vader activated his scanner, and his suspicions were confirmed almost immediately. A large frigate had entered the sector not too long after he arrived, with armaments similar to those used by rebels. If they wished for a fight, then so be it, he thought. Vader maneuvered his ship into attack mode, but hesitated once his target came into view. Instead of a Mon Calamari cruiser, he was met by the long and thin outline of a Munificent-Class frigate. He hadn’t seen one of them since the Clone Wars, and no separatist holdout could house one of them discreetly.

Vader’s comm unit lit up with hailing frequencies, no doubt from the frigate. Upon answering the call, he was met by a Neimoidian, his bony fingers steepling as he glared.

“This is General Uurd Mak of the Confederacy of Independent Systems!” he announced, “You are in a military zone, leave now or be destroyed!”

“The Confederacy has been disbanded for nearly twenty years,” Vader replied, “You are in direct violation of Imperial law. It would be wise to surrender now, or the consequences will be dire.” “I assure you, the Sepratist Alliance is active and strong. Allow me to demonstrate…”

Vader felt his TIE jolt as he was dragged towards the frigate. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop from approaching the ship. Rage began boiling within the Sith lord. First Ozzel refused to acknowledge him, now he had this worm disrespecting him. “If it is a fight you wish for,” Vader said, “Then you shall get one.” And with that, Vader cut the communication just as he was pulled into the frigate’s hangar.

Out of his viewing port, Vader saw hundreds of battle droids, with blasters pointing at him. Vulture droids were perched throughout the hangar, with various tubes and supplies strewn about. Once his TIE landed, a commander droid stepped forward and knocked on the glass.

“Alright,” it said, “Come out with your hands up and you won’t be shot!”

With the press of a button, the top of the TIE opened with a hiss, followed by an eruption of steam. Vader then leaped out of the opening, igniting his lightsaber and cutting down the commander with the crimson blade.

“JEDI! OPEN FIRE!” one of the droids shouted. Every droid around Vader unleashed a torrent of blaster fire, which the sith managed to either deflect or dodge. Vader managed to cut down a few more before the remaining droids ran, leaving him alone with the sound of his lightsaber humming. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but what Vader did know was that no one would be leaving this ship alive.

XXXXXX

The Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace with immense speed. Han and Chewbacca scanned the vastness of space before them in horror. Blood red cracks streaked across the expanse like magma flowing from a volcano. Chewie let out a worried roar, not tearing his eyes from the scene.

“Yeah, I hear ya, pal,” Han said worryingly, “Let’s hope Luke didn’t get too close to those things…” The smuggler and Luke grew close over the past few months, whether it be from sharing their experiences with flying to taking the Empire head on. To Han, Luke was the brother he never had. Well, the second brother, behind Chewie of course, but still like family nonetheless. The two pilots flew cautiously around the damage and chaos, trying to figure out the point of origin. As they were scanning the expanse, C-3PO trotted into the cabin.

“By the Maker!” Threepio blurted, causing Han to jump slightly, “The damage is much worse than Alliance intel relayed!”

“Thanks for the insight, goldie,” Han said sarcastically, “now unless you can tell me how space itself can bleed, I need you to make yourself useful and get Leia up here.”

“At once, Captain Solo, but Alliance Command will be requesting an update on the situation.” “Tell them things have gone to hell, but no Imperials so far. Now get Leia.”

“Yes, sir.” Threepeeo waddled back out of the cabin, leaving Han and Chewie to themselves once more. Chewie let out a concerning wimper directed to Han.

“What?” The smuggler asked, “I know that droid’s a pain to you as much as he is to me.”

Chewie let out a quick bark in defiance.

“I know he means a lot to Leia and that clone, but they could’ve at least changed his vocal patterns. And who programs a droid to feel fear?”

The wookie simply roared, seemingly scolding his friend.

“You’re right, we need to get back to this. If the Empire has a new weapon that can do this, we’re all in danger…”

XXXXXX

“Thank you for joining us, Commander Rex,” Leia said, “I know it must be difficult with your age to come on these missions.” The two of them sat around the holochess table, which was in desperate need of repair. Upon the table sat Rex’s ARC helmet, greyed by years of use with tally marks on the temples. The clone simply laughed as he calibrated his blaster pistols.

“Never liked sitting around,” Rex chortled, “We clones were bred to fight.”

“I remember the stories my father used to tell me about the wars. Is it true you were under the command of Luke’s father?”

“Sure was. Few Jedi cared about their clones as much as General Skywalker. He and I led the 501st through thick and thin, come hell or high water.” The smile on Rex’s face dissipated as he stared at his helmet. “I just can’t believe he’s really… dead, y’know.”

Leia placed a hand on Rex’s shoulder, “I’m sorry. With all the loss you’ve probably seen, that must’ve been hard.”

“Indeed, but their deaths are what keep me fighting. So that his, and the sacrifices my brothers made, aren’t in vain.”

Leia thanked the aging clone once more before excusing herself to find Threepio. She held a deep respect for the old clone, even before General Syndulla’s recommendation for this mission. Leia remembered hearing that he was one of the five clones that held off an entire invasion force on the moon of Rishi. If the Alliance could get a hold of the cloning technology used for him, the war would be a hell of a lot shorter. Though with these rumors of a new Imperial superweapon, one that rivaled the destructive power of the Death Star, it would take much more than just manpower to deal with the Empire.

Leia managed to find Threepio coming from the cockpit, muttering to himself as usual. “Everything alright, Threepio?” Leia asked.

“Oh, Princess Leia!” Threepio responded, attempting to mask the annoyance in his vocal programming, “Captain Solo is requesting your presence, albeit rather rudely.”

“Has he found the weapon?” “No, but… it’s hard to explain, but it’s almost as if space has been… shattered. Like glass.”

“Bah!” Rex said peering out of the access door, “Space warps, not breaks. With as long as you’ve been around, droid, I’d thought you’d know that too.”

“My visual receptors don’t lie. Also, how would you know how long I’ve been around?”

Rex turned his attention to Leia. “Guess they weren’t kidding about a memory wipe…”

The ship suddenly jolted, nearly knocking everyone onto the floor. As the three of them scrambled back onto their feet, an alarm began blaring throughout the ship. Leia dashed past Threepio towards the cockpit, followed by Rex, then the protocol droid. Han and Chewie were frantically flipping switches and pressing buttons, their eyes wildly darting all across the dashboard.

“What the hell’s going on?” Leia demanded before turning her gaze out to the expanse of space. It was just as Threepio described; space itself seemed to have shattered like glass.

“Looks like we’re caught in a black hole,” Han said, trying to keep his voice calm, “That might be what caused all this.” “How?” Rex interrogated, “Black holes warp space, not shatter it!” “Well, there’s no superweapon out here, so if you’ve got a better explanation, old man, I’d love to hear them!”

The ship bucked again, forcing Leia and Rex to grip the passenger seats to remain standing. Threepio was not so lucky, falling to the ground with a yelp.

“I hope you have a solution to this, otherwise we’re done for!” Leia yelled over the blaring alarm.

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot, Princess! I always have a solution. Chewie, prepare to jump to lightspeed.”

“What?!” Rex and Leia said in unison.

“You two got any better ideas?”

“But sir!” Threepio said as he stood back up, “There is a 99.9 percent chance that the ship will be torn asunder if we attempt a jump to hyperspace!” “Never tell me the odds. Chewie, you got the coordinates?” The wookie let out a bellowing roar. “Then punch it!”

In an instant, the stars became streaks of light as the Falcon launched forward into the emptiness of space.

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #luke skywalker #han solo #leia organa #darth vader #obi-wan #ben kenobi #c3po #r2d2 #general grievous #count dooku #Teen #science fantasy #time travel #fanfiction #ahsoka tano #padme amidala #future angst

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years ago

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10/11/2021 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 16:16-18:23, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-5:3, Psalms 81:1-16, Proverbs 25:6-8

Today is the 11th day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you today, today and every day around the Global Campfire together taking the next step forward together. And, so, as we dive into this workweek, we pick up where we left off each and every day, will lead us into Jeremiah. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Jeremiah chapter 16 verse 16 through 18 verse 23 today.

Commentary:

Okay. Let's talk for a minute about God's plan since God wanted to talk about his plan today in the Scriptures that we read in the book of Jeremiah. So, let’s talk about God's plan. And its unlikely that nobody in the sound of my voice has ever heard that phrase, that term, “God's plan” before. We think God has a plan and we start considering that plan in different sets of circumstances. For example, if things are going bad, poorly for us, we’re challenged, we’re being pressed or having to endure, or things have just gotten crazy in the world than often we’ll blame God's plan. We’ll just be like, “well, it's beyond me, but God has a plan. I don't understand it, we don't…but it will all make sense someday, because God is sovereign and He has a plan.” And on one level that can be a comforting thing to consider. Like, “okay this is beyond the scope of what I can comprehend or understand. I'm upside down. I…like I feel like I'm spinning in a tornado. I don't even know where up is, but God has a plan.” That can become a comforting thought. A lot of the time, though it's more of an excuse. We can look at the messes that we make, try to take several steps away from what we've done because maybe we’ve part…we’ve just been participating with other human beings in creating havoc in some sort of way and we’ll just try to distance ourselves and then It’s God’s fault because God has a plan. The things we don't understand, the things that happen, the messes that are made in this world, whether like locally or in our homes or globally. It’s not my fault, right? It’s not our fault. It's God's fault because God has a plan, and this must be His plan. So…so, God's to blame for it all. So, we can get our minds around those kinds of scenarios and how we would say things about God's plan. Here's what God said today about his plan in Jeremiah. And by the way Jeremiah contains the most famous verse in all of the Bible about God's plans once we get to chapter 29 and we’ll talk about that then. But He's already talking about plans here in the 18th chapter. So, here's…here's the Lord speaking. “If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed but then that nation renounces its evil ways I will not destroy it as I had planned. And if I announce that I will plant and build up a certain nation or kingdom but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me I will not bless it as I said I would.” So, it's safe to say God has a plan. It's safe throughout Scripture to consider that perfect plan to be the restoration of humanity. But what we see in God's words as spoken to the prophet Jeremiah, our choices matter in that plan. We have a role to play as ourselves as individual people, but as the human race. And we have seen many times in the Scripture where God relents. We saw that beginning with Abraham. God responds to a contrite spirit. God responds to a broken heart. God responds when we humble ourselves under His mighty hand and that, at least as we see in Jeremiah today can change God's plan, that He adjusts based on the actions and motives of His people, that He has allowed our decisions and our choices, our humility or our pride and arrogance to lead where it's going to lead. And that's kind of a big deal. It…it's kind of a biblical concept that runs through the Scriptures. We would know it as sowing and reaping, right? So, you sow weeds, and you reap weeds If you sow corn then you're going to reap corn if you have a harvest. So, if you’re gonna sow bitterness you're going to reap bitterness. If you’re gonna sow arrogance then you're going to reap arrogance. If you’re gonna sow gossip you’re gonna reap gossip. And we could go on and on and on. You're going to reap what you sow. It's a natural law put in place by God. You don't plant grass seed and get turnups. You get what you plant and cultivate. God's ultimate plan is to redeem humanity, and we are the redeemed already. And still we’re confused about sowing and reaping. And, so, we sow garbage and reap garbage and go “well, it's God's plan. And, so, let's put that in our cup and stir it around and consider the fact that we have a role to play in our own lives and we have a role to play in the story of God and He has allowed us to be here at all. And we are supposed to be a part of the plan of redemption.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come help this is sink into our lives. Help us to see the ways that we’ve blamed you for things you didn't do and we've accused you of things you were not involved in. And we’ve labeled our plan. Your plan sometimes when things don't work out right so that we can pass the blame, take some side steps. We are a peculiar people. We are like sheep who have gone astray. We can be so stiff necked. We see all these examples in the Scriptures. We see that this is a human condition because it's been going on for thousands of years, and yet we want your patience and your kindness continuing to respond toward us, always ready to reach out your strong arm of redemption on our behalf if we aren’t bound and determined to rebel against you. And, so, come Holy Spirit help us just to see our lives and the state that our lives are in because of the way that we make decisions and help us to know that every choice leads somewhere. And if we will continue to consistently habitually slow down and make wisdom a voice in our lives and wise decisions the norm, we will be in your plan having so much fun. Come Holy Spirit. Help us to realize this. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen

Announcements:

dailyaudibible.com is home base, that is the web address, that’s where you find out what's going on around here. And, so, certainly check it out. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can check these things out as well by pressing the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Yeah, check out the resources that are available there in a number of different categories all aimed specifically at the journey, the voyage that we take each year through the Bible and through life together, a whole year of life together in the Scriptures. And, so, the resources are there for that. Check out like the God of Your Story for example, is a written resource. There are a number of other books that are available, but the God of Your Story is a written resource that is a 365 day walk through of the kinds of things that we talk about on the Daily Audio Bible every day. And, so, if you are away from the Internet or unplugged or gone somewhere or there are issues or anything that's going on you can always…this…this rhythm can always continue. And, so, being able to have, like a hard copy version of sort of the ethos of the way that we’re moving through the Scriptures and the pattern that we’re using to move through the Scriptures ensures that we, no matter whether we’re plugged in or were not plugged in we can continue our journey forward. And, so, that resource is called the God of Your Story and that can be found in the books and audiobooks section of the Daily Audio Bible Shop. So, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this mission that we share collectively to, every day bring the spoken word of God fresh to anyone who will listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night, and to build community around that rhythm, that we show up every day around the Global Campfire and take the next step forward together. If that is life-giving to you than thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

and that's it for today. I'm Brian. I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey, Tony the Narrator this is Tiffany from New Mexico, and I heard your prayer request this morning for your mom who has COVID. And I just wanted to let you know that my mom also just had her second bout with COVID and thankfully she's doing better now but it was really scary. So, I can only imagine…or I can imagine how you're feeling because I was just in that same place worried about my mom. And I know that you would never in a million years wish something like this on your mom, but I am so grateful and encouraged to hear that you're using this time to show her love and take care of her as Jesus would and be a witness through it all. How wonderful that she has such a great son to take care of her and…and share Jesus with her. So, I wanted you to know that you are 100% right and that we will all be praying for her, and she will have hundreds or thousands of people kneeling on her behalf. And just give her a big hug from us and…and let her know that she's loved. Take care everybody. Bye.

Hey, my adorable DAB family this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel. Family, just want to pray for a couple of our DABbers. So, let's all pray. Dear Jesus, I come lifting up our beloved sister Victoria Soldier who has lost a brother on this side. Where heaven has gained him, she has suffered a great loss. We ask God that you would send comfort and strength to her and her family. Lord will you cause Victoria Soldier to know that it's OK for her not to be OK. Even though she is known as a soldier, in this particular season Lord it's OK for her to show weakness because in her weakness that's when she's made strong because of You. So, father I pray that You would help our beloved sister to lean into You as well as to lean into her DAB and DABC family because we've got her. She's had us for so long for so many. Now it's our turn. So, God would you rally to her aid and let her know that she is OK to let it all go and let you carry her and let us carry her. We love you sis. We got you. In Jesus’ name. And then for my dear brother Tony the Narrator. Lord be with his mom as she's battling COVID and a cold and we’re praying for complete turn around and healing of both her body and her soul. Thank you for the opportunity for Tony to minister Your word. Do a complete work of healing in her life in Jesus’ name. Amen. Love you family.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this Alfio calling from Central Valley CA. I hope each one of you is doing great. I want to pray and remember those of our brothers and sisters who are struggling with mental health. I know the days where sometimes a lot of us struggle and don't want to share because of cultural differences for whatever the case it may be. It's OK to be anxious. It's OK to be depressed. It's not OK to stay down there. It's OK to seek help. It's OK to take medications. It's OK to seek counseling. It's OK to seek supportive services. Please feel free to seek all these resources for your good, your own good. And in the Bible, we see a lot of characters who were struggling with anxiety and depression. God is a God of healing. God is a God of a good mind. No matter the case, I pray that you may recover anyone who's struggling at this moment, especially during this time of the pandemic. And I also wanted to pray for my sister of Victoria Soldier. You called in yesterday or a couple of days ago for the loss of your brother. I remember you in my prayers and I pray that your brother’s soul may rest in peace. And even those who are struggling with the loss of their loved ones, may God be with you. May God sustain you and may God grant you peace that surpasses all understanding. Love you family.

DABbers this is Kira Contrite Spirit and this message is for Kansas from Oregon and also anyone else who's dealing with someone who has a meth problem, methamphetamine. I was…I did meth for about 12 years. And, so, I encountered another…theft is common and stealing and lying and deception. And I repent from my…all my experience involved in that kind of stuff, and I repent for your daughters ex’s stealing of the computers and I pray that, you know, she'll get back…maybe if he doesn't give those back she'll just get an abundance of what she needs. And I pray for the children, the child involved in that situation and…yeah…I repent for his sins too, that he…that God would draw him your ex’s, your daughters ex’s to Him and that also that…that he would know that Jesus is Lord and that he would turn away from his wrongdoing for the…for his sake…for God’s sake, for the sake of his child and for your daughter. And I pray for the whole situation, and everyone involved that…that all of you guys including you Candace will find peace in this situation and for everyone else involved and these hard-core addictions, especially meth, alcohol too. It just…it's a scourge in…in the world. And we need to have the peace of Christ and pray for everyone at all times without ceasing in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hi DAB family it's James here from the UK. It's been a long time since I've called in and I've been out of touch if I'm honest with the DAB. I would really appreciate your prayers. Some people will know a little bit about my situation from previous prayer requests, but yeah things have got really tough and I think ultimately my wife and myself are at…are in a situation now where we're really trying to work out what we can do to reconcile things. It's a super stressful situation and there's three children involved, three teenage kids. I'm trying to support my mom who is dealing with my father. He's got dementia and doesn't really know who I am anymore. And it's just all taking its toll, moving here to support them and trying to stand in the gap has just left us in a very bleak situation. So, it's challenged. Our faith is depleted, our faith. It’s…it's put us in for a real tailspin and it's made us really question the strength of our marriage and what we do next. So, prayer is very much appreciated.

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four-loose-screws · 4 years ago

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FE8 Novelization Translation - Chapter 5, Section 1

If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!

FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations

If you are interested in donating to support my work, please check out my Ko-fi here. Thank you!

———————————

I call this a “section” because it is not a separate part of the chapter in the book, but divided from the rest of the chapter by a scene break.

———————————

Chapter 5: Fog of War

"Alright, that should do it! You'll probably be in pain for a while, but so long as you don't push yourself, you'll eventually be able to walk again." Ephraim said cheerfully and finished wrapping a bandage around the soldier's injured foot.

He was so skilled with his hands that you'd think he wasn't a prince at all. As the grueling battles continued on, he had mastered not only combat, but also basic first aid.

Now that he was finished tending to the man's wounds, Ephraim stepped away from the injured and walked over to Forde and a few other soldiers, who were all mending their weapons under the shade of a tree.

He sat down and let out a heavy sigh. His expression was so grim that he looked like a completely different person than the one who'd just been cheerful in front of the soldiers.

"Forde, how is our food and medicine stock doing?" He whispered.

Forde's voice was also low as he answered, "Bad. Really bad. We're really low on both. We've used up almost all of our weapons, too."

"I see…" The furrow in Ephraim's brow slowly creased more and more.

Forde and Kyle, who was sitting next to him, both looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes.

"If we… collect… some money from the local villages, we could probably manage to get a hold of some food, but..."

He knew there was no way Ephraim could agree to what he was saying, but he tried it anyway.

As expected, Ephraim shook his head and said with conviction, "We can't do that! We can't cause trouble for the common people just because we're in enemy territory. We need to think of another way."

"I knew you'd say that." Forde smiled.

It had already been several months since Ephaim’s army left the capital to protect the border from the Grado Army’s invasion. Ephraim’s army put up a flawless fight, but was overwhelmed by the difference in power.

The number of casualties grew by the day, and now so few soldiers were left that they could easily be counted by one person. And to make matters even worse, nearly all of those remaining were injured and could hardly move.

Any normal general would cast aside soldiers that could not move, but Ephraim would never do any such thing. He would boil plants to use as medicine for the soldiers all on his own, and even carry them around himself sometimes.

Their battlefield was currently taking place near Renvall Castle, a location that was strategically chosen to build upon because it was surrounded by a lake, and was famous for having never once fallen to an enemy. For the past few days, the Grado Army had been chasing them around the area, leaving them nowhere to run but the middle of a forest.

A sense that it was likely already only a matter of time before they surrendered had begun to permeate Ephraim’s army, but their leader had not given up hope, not even now. Forde and Kyle knew that was not just a bluff, but something he firmly believed in. It was for that reason that they admired Ephraim and had served him since they day they’d become knights.

“So then, what are we going to do now, Lord Ephraim? We’re at our limit. We can’t even run around anymore.” Forde said.

Kyle also interjected into the conversation, “From what we know, the Grado Army has already invaded very far into Renais. Rumor also has it that the capital has already fallen.”

Those words from the overserious Kyle sounded even darker than everything else they were facing.

But Ephraim brushed aside their concern with confidence in his response, “Everything will be okay. My father is there, along with Seth and his unit. They will not lose so easily.”

“Even if you say that, still…”

“If you say that the capital is in danger, then that is all the more reason to start a skirmish here and draw the attention of the Grado Army. It will give Father and Eirika time to escape.”

“A skirmish, huh…?”

Was he serious? What could they possibly accomplish with such few troops left?

Forde was dumbfounded, just as anyone else would be in this situation.

“I have returned with my report.” A tired voice said from above them.

Ephraim and the knights all looked up.

It was Orson, returning from gathering information. He was a calm and composed knight much older than them. He'd been a knight for many, many years now, and had risen to the highest position of his unit.

“I confirmed the presence of Grado soldiers in many locations. A large unit has deployed from Renvall Castle. They are likely putting great effort into searching for us as we speak. It may be dangerous for us to stay here for long.”

“Mm-hmm…” Ephraim was deep in thought.

Forde argued, “We’re at our limit, right? It would be best for us to retreat to the capital and regroup.”

“...No.” Ephraim stood up. The words he uttered were a complete surprise. “We will continue to march, and conquer Renvall Castle.”

“What!?” Forde and Kyle said in unison. Even the calm Orson’s eyes widened in shock.

Forde stood up as well, and looked in the same direction that Ephraim was. The impenetrable Renvall Castle was white as snow, striking fear into the hearts of any who dared to try challenging it.

"A-Are you sane, Lord Ephraim? What are you thinking, suggesting such a foolish plan…?"

"Hey! Watch your mouth!" Kyle quickly stood up and jabbed Forde in the side. He was always strict about manners, no matter the situation.

Ephraim appeared to be unconcerned as he said, "That's what you think, right? The enemy will have the exact same idea. No sane person would ever think of attacking Renvall under these circumstances."

"Lord Ephraim…"

"It's not that I am desperate. Renvall is a stronghold for the Grado Army, so if it falls, then the enemy will panic. The forces marching towards the capital will probably have to divide and send some units here. If that happens, then at the very least, it should help Father and Eirika."

"Yes, that might be true, but…"

Ephraim was being true to his ideals. However, if they thought about the problem realistically, then his plan was reckless.

Forde and Kyle's expressions made Ephraim laugh. "I know it is a reckless strategy. That is why it will be a good one. The enemy won't possibly be thinking that we will attack. We will strike them while their guard is down."

"Well… no matter what path we may take, we can't run around forever. And then if we run out of supplies… Alright then, shall we try it?" Forde said. When he looked at Ephraim's face, he felt that he could see a glimmer of hope in his lord's expression, that they might just be able to succeed with this strategy that no one would think was possible.

Ephraim announced with confidence in his voice, "I do not pick fights that I cannot win. Trust me."

"Yes, Milord!" Forde and Kyle nodded.

'Jeez, what a strange person he is.' Forde could not help but think.

This war marked his first experience with real combat, yet somehow, Ephraim knew how to fight extremely well. He was astonishingly optimistic, but also not to be underestimated. There were aspects of battle that only Ephraim could see.

They had a chance to win this battle. No, they would win. Ephraim inspired that feeling within him.

Forde looked up at Renvall Castle, which he could see through the gaps in the trees, in a completely new light.

Just as Ephraim had predicted, the defenses at Renvall Castle were light.

The enemy was focused solely on chasing them, and was not even thinking about protecting the castle. The gate only had a few soldiers surrounding it, and even they had their guards down.

These guards, so relaxed they did not even have their weapons in their hands, flew into a panic at the surprise attack. The way they scrambled to find their weapons was even comedic. Ephraim’s army broke down the gate with ease, and invaded the castle grounds.

“Are you alright, Orson?” He noticed how pale the knight was, and it concerned him. “Your wounds from our last battle haven’t healed yet, have they? Don’t push yourself.”

“Understood…”

“Let’s go!” Ephraim readied his lance and rushed straight into the group of enemies.

Forde and Kyle eagerly followed along after him. Orson sighed deeply and prepared to protect them from behind.

With the soldiers having been taken advantage of with their guard down, Renvall Castle fell into complete chaos. There were even panicking soldiers who didn’t understand at all what was going on.

Ephraim swung his lance as if he was a rampaging angry god, cutting down any enemy soldier who tried to stand in his way, which put immense pressure on the Grado Army, who should have been the superior side in this battle. Since they’d had no interest in trying to defend the castle, the result was clear. Those on Grado’s side gradually fell, and Ephraim’s army was unyielding in their assault. They didn’t let up for even a moment.

When Ephraim's army rushed into the throne room, with Ephraim leading the charge, all that was left of the Grado Army was the unit’s commanding officer and the handful of soldiers surrounding him. Every single one of their faces stared at them in disbelief. The commanding officer yelled “Come at me!” with a determined look on his face, however, his soldiers’ movements were stiff.

When he was defeated, Ephraim’s soldiers all shouted out a victory cry.

However, Ephraim did not rejoice, rather, his expression stiffened. “There were more soldiers out elsewhere than there were inside the castle. When they return, we will not be able to defend it with these numbers. There is no reason for us to stay here for long, so we will march for the capital as we are now.”

“Yes, Milord!” Kyle nodded.

Just then, Forde ran up to him. The moment he’d seen that the castle had been seized, he'd left to watch over the perimeter.

“We’re in trouble, Lord Ephraim! The enemy has us surrounded!”

“What!?” Ephraim’s face paled. “Reinforcements? But it’s still too early…”

“What shall we do?”

Ephraim did not falter. He immediately began to stomp off. “We will escape! Dammit, so Grado was one step ahead of us after all…” He said, words dripping with regret as he exited the throne room.

Just as Forde had reported, Renvall Castle was surrounded by a large group of Grado soldiers. Their circular formation was several lines of soldiers strong. This unit was in a completely different league from the one that had been at the castle. And on top of it all, these troops were full of morale as well.

Even Ephraim could not hide his pained expression this time. Forde and Kyle were also pale, but gripped their weapons tightly, and readied themselves to protect Ephraim. They were already prepared to die in a situation like this. In their eyes was the determination to single handedly take as many enemies as they could down with them.

Across the bridge over the lake, a wyvern unit was there waiting for them. The man riding the largest, most majestic of the wyverns noticed Ephraim and his soldiers and flew down to them.

He was an eerie man with a terrifyingly coldhearted cackle. Though his face was pale, his body was well-toned. Ephraim assumed him to be the unit’s leader and faced him.

“I’m impressed! Your army is smaller than I thought. You attacked and seized the castle with these numbers? The rumors of your military prowess are true, Prince Ephraim.”

Ephraim glared at the man.

“I am Valter, the Moonstone, a general of Grado’s Imperial Army. It took a lot of effort to track you down. You just don’t know when to give up… Although I could never hate fresh prey.” Valter mocked him. His laugh was grating and sarcastic.

"But playtime is over. The palace has fallen and the king is dead. Now, you will surrender here."

"What…? Father is…?" Ephraim started shaking, but balled his hands into tight fists. He couldn't believe a word a man like him said. Surely Valter was just bluffing to crush their spirits.

Rather than press him for more information about his father, Ephraim asked Valter another question. "How were you able to surround the castle so quickly? It's as if you were able to somehow read our movements."

"I wonder. You'll figure it out eventually. It is of no concern to someone in your position. Throw down your weapons. Get on your knees, and beg for your life."

"Lord Ephraim, we'll back you up!!" Kyle quickly shouted out. He was always so calm that he was stiff and formal, and scolded Forde often for getting carried away too easily, but this time, it was him who was worked up.

However, Ephraim did not drop his weapon, instead glaring at Valter.

Valter laughed at the panicking Kyle. "Yes, writhe, you worms, writhe! Nothing is more enjoyable for me than seeing you dare to fight a hopeless battle!"

However, Ephraim did not move. Valter raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

"I see, so you don’t really have the will to fight. Then surrender! Bleat like sheep, and beg for your lives!”

"I refuse." Ephraim answered coldly.

"What?"

"Valter, was it? I don't have time to play with the likes of you. We will rout your army and leave this castle.”

"Really?" Valter narrowed his eyes, however, the sarcastic smile vanished from his face.

"Are you telling me you're going to break through our formation? Do you seriously think you will escape from our wyvern knights? I did not think you were such a fool, Prince Ephraim."

"Say whatever you want. I do not pick battles that I cannot win." Ephraim's gaze did not move away from Valter as he asked the two knights behind him, "Kyle. Forde. You ready?"

The two answered without even a moment's hesitation.

"I have been prepared to give my life for my country since the moment I became a knight."

"It's because of moments like these that I could never quit my position as your retainer."

Kyle was stiff and Forde was lighthearted, but the two were resolute in their responses.

Valter's face twisted in displeasure. "Of course you would have two fools beyond saving following you. Then come face me, and I will teach you the difference in our power!"

"Let's go!" Ephraim called out to his soldiers, then grabbed his lance and started running.

#fire emblem #fe #fe8 #sacred stones #nintendo #gba #game boy advance #japan #japanese #translation #novel #light novel #fe8 novelization translation

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srhlsx · 4 years ago

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master | chapter 1 | CHAPTER 2 | chapter 3

On weekends when there were no games, and when practice got out early enough to make it, you liked to venture into the city square to explore the fresh market. You didn’t always have time to go to the grocery store as much as you’d like to, and this way you also got to interact with the San Juan locals and brush up on your Spanish.

With a huge part of your job being meal planning for the athletes, you liked experimenting with the local foods and coming up with tasty options for them to try. Oikawa trailed along behind you, observing for the most part but also goofing off a little bit here and there. If he wasn’t busy with the club he liked to join you on these food adventures, and you enjoyed the additional company as well.

You were picking through a crate of vegetables when you heard him rustling through one of the bags you had asked him to hold. Looking over your shoulder, you saw Oikawa raising his hand to his mouth with a small bunch of grapes in his grasp. “Hey!” You cried out, swatting at him. “If you keep snacking on my food there won’t be any left for me!”

He smiled as he dodged your hand, stepping back and holding his hand high up in the air to keep you away from taking his snack. “Oh relax, (Y/n).” He teased, continuing to pick off the grapes with his teeth and also managing to keep them out of your reach. “I’ll buy you some more.”

“You’re such a butthead,” You grumbled, turning back to the man running the vegetable stand. You handed over the money you owed, apologizing to him with a roll of your eyes as he bagged up the produce you had selected before handing it over to you with a cheerful grin.

“I haven’t been called a butthead since middle school,” Oikawa laughed, stretching his arms then lacing his hands together to rest behind his head. A faraway look came over his face and he thought more and more about the childish insult you gave him.

“Well, you’re acting like one.” You told him.

He was snooping around the stall you were currently at, his eyes studying everything and trying to translate the words on the small signs. As he reached out a hand to try and study something closer, you quickly slapped it away - making him flinch and wail dramatically. “Wha-“

“Those are nuts - read the sign.” You shook a finger at him, scolding him like a mother would. His eyes widened considerably as he backed away from the stand filled with food that could easily swell his throat shut. “Where would you be without me?”

“Probably lost.” The two of you continued through the market stands, eyeing what was available. “You know, I don’t think I knew how good your Spanish was?”

“It better be,” You snorted as you studied some of the fruit a woman was selling. “I only minored in it in college.”

“Really?” Oikawa seemed surprised at your admission.

“Is that so hard to believe?” You turned from him and asked the woman at the stand a few questions before agreeing and buying some of her produce.

Oikawa went to grab the bag for you and you smiled in thanks. “No,” He started again. “So you minored in Spanish, and then double-majored in Nutrition and kineticology?”

“Kinesiology, Tooru.” You laughed at his mistake. You were reaching the end of the market and moved to sit at the bench Oikawa had motioned towards. “And don’t forget playing soccer on top of it all~”

“Can’t forget that,” He laughed, slinging an arm around the back of the bench the two of you sat on. “Is that why you came here? Because you spoke Spanish?”

You chewed at your lip a little bit, thinking over the question as you looked off in the distance at all the people going about their business in the major square. “I mean, that definitely helped the decision.” You told him. “But there were other factors that pushed me.”

Oikawa turned to look down at you, seeing the thoughtful expression on your face as you continued to watch people walk by and gnaw at the plump skin of your lower lip. It was not lost on him that you were deep in thought, even with the warm sun beating down and the gentle breeze blowing past, your eyes seemed distant and Oikawa was curious about why.

“Factors such as…” He let his voice trail off.

“That’s a little personal, don’t you think?” You turned and grinned at him, letting him know you were only joking but really you fully intended on not going down that route.

“I don’t know,” Oikawa shrugged, getting up from the bench and stretching his back, getting a faraway look on his face until he turned back and focused his brown eyes on you. “These days, it seems like everyone has something they are trying to get away from.”

You slouched a little bit as you gave him a pout, “What are you running from, then?”

“That’s a little personal, don’t you think?” Oikawa repeated, mocking the tone of your voice with a snotty yet teasing look on his face.

You rolled your eyes and stood up, taking his outstretched hand to help. “You jerk,” You swatted at him, the blow landing on his shoulder and making him laugh as he flinched.

After spending the rest of the afternoon wandering around with Oikawa, dipping in and out of stores, you set all your bags down on the floor of your apartment and tossed your mail on the table. You sifted through the junk, random ads for local restaurants and television services, when one envelope in particular caught your attention.

Your name was scrawled across the front in delicate handwriting, the name on the return address making your breath catch in your lungs and choke you a little bit. A sudden rush of heat came over your cheeks and you heard a faint ringing in your ears as you simply stared at the envelope in your hand. You got that overwhelming feeling of emptiness rushing across your body, palms getting sweaty as you shook yourself out of the stupor and flipped it over to open.

The thick card stock slipped out of the envelope easily, embossed lettering in glittery foil caught your attention right away as your eyes read over the words carefully. Save the Date! We’re getting married! Below the announcement was a date and two names, both painfully familiar to you.

You felt the heat of tears stinging at the back of your eyes before you even registered what you were looking at, the memories rushing back to you in an instant.

The bar was dark, smelling of a mix of every type of alcohol you could think of - but only the cheap brands, this it was still a college watering hole after all.

You laughed at something one of your friends had said, bringing your drink up for another sip as you felt a tapping on your shoulder. Turning around, you found a familiar face looking at you with those deep eyes and sideways smirk. Your heart clenched a little and you smiled back brightly.

“You made it!” You called out over the thumping music being played from the corner DJ booth. You put down your drink and handed your darts over to one of your friends, asking them to take your turn for you. Tuning your attention back to the boy waiting for you, you were about to go in for a hug when you stopped yourself.

“(Y/n), this is-” You tried your best to put on your best smile and not let the disappointment show through on your face. As he introduced you to the girl on his arm, your heart broke piece by piece until it almost became hard for you to breathe.

The feeling of being pulled into a crushing hug dragged you out of your trance, you lifted your arms up after a brief hesitation and hugged the girl back. “It is so good to finally meet his best friend! He talks about you all the time!”

You nodded with a smile, responding with the cliche “Hopefully nothing too terrible!”

You knew this was coming. He had told you, warned you, that he was going to bring his new girlfriend to the meet-up because it had been a few weeks of dating and he really wanted you to meet her. Your opinion mattered to him, and if he was getting serious with someone he needed his ‘best girl to approve’.

You would approve. Of course you would. You could tell she was sweet, funny, made the same jokes that you would and laughed when you made them first. When she went to the bathroom he had asked what you thought, and you told him she was great.

As much as it broke you up inside you kept the mask on the outside the best you could. Up until a few hours later, when they said their goodbyes, getting another warm hug from her before parting ways. When the door shut behind them, you felt a hand on your shoulder and looked up to the familiar face of one of your other friends.

She looked down at you with a sad expression, opening her mouth to speak, probably wanting to say something apologetic or reassuring, but you cut her off. “It’s fine,” You said, waving a hand dismissively and swallowing the lump that had been stuck in your throat for most of the night. “He seems happy.”

In your small kitchen, a thousand miles away from that old college bar, you stood with shaking hands looking at the card. They posed together in a loving embrace, his lips on her cheek as she smiled brightly at the camera with her left hand extended to show off the glittering gem that adorned her ring finger. It was a lovely picture and you were sure that had it been literally anyone else, you might’ve smiled warmly and immediately sent them a congratulating text.

However, the feeling of your stomach churning made you let go of the card. As it fluttered back onto the table, you rushed to your kitchen sink and gripped the edge with white knuckles and immediately felt the muscles of your abdomen contract and lurch you forward.

With tears streaming down your face and the sound of your dry heaving echoing in your otherwise silent apartment, you felt your heart break into pieces all over again.

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meta-squash · 4 years ago

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Brick Club 1.3.9 “Joyful End Of Joy”

This title is such a weird choice. This time it’s not a translation thing, but a Hugo thing. He decides not to focus on Fantine’s reaction to the surprise, but on the other girls’ reactions. It’s weird, but I think it also works, because it serves to highlight how unusual Fantine’s reaction really is. The rest of the girls shake off the abandonment pretty quickly, because none of them made the same attachments as Fantine. Her devastation is highlighted by their mirth.

The men keep up the pretense long enough to even turn and wave at the women, laughing. I get the impression they’re giggling at their prank, but the girls probably think they’re just being jaunty. Also, I wish I had a better visual of the area. I imagine them kind of blending in with the crowd, maybe turning a corner or something out of sight, and then heading to wait for the stagecoach.

Again, Hugo shows the difference between Fantine and the others. While Fantine repeats herself with “Don’t be long,” the other grisettes are more preoccupied with what the surprise might be. Also, so far Fantine’s really only had two lines, since one was about the horse, and the next two lines are nearly identical to each other.

“You’d think piles of chains were flying off into the heavens.” I love the visual of this line so much. There are so many visuals in this book that I wish I had the skill to draw. This line’s an interesting one. My first instinct is to say that the metaphor feels backwards? “Piles of chains flying off into the heavens” sounds to me like saying these men that could have held these women down are leaving. But that seems backward. Unless perhaps that’s the opinion of the other grisettes aside from Fantine? My other thought is that maybe it’s not really a good thing or a backward metaphor. These chains which are the men are flying off, but the next ones could be even worse, could leave the rest of them in the type of situation that Fantine is now left in. These specific chains have flown off into the heavens, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more waiting in the wings.

The fact that Fantine gets the most important, foreshadowing line is interesting to me because it’s a very specific observation. “That’s strange,” she said. “I thought the stagecoaches never stopped.” The group has just spent the last 8 chapters mocking Fantine’s head-in-the-clouds state of being and how she doesn’t notice anything. And yet she notices this little detail and points out that the stagecoaches don’t usually stop. (I like this from the headcanon that she’s autistic, too. Social cues etc are harder to pick up on, but a change in a weird little detail like when the stagecoaches stop is something she notices because it’s wrong but no one else notices or cares.)

Favourite then insults Fantine and says she knows nothing of life and essentially calls her a simpleton while making fun of her observation. What is Favourite’s problem? She’s really the only one aside from Tholomyes who gets actual dialogue mocking Fantine. God, this whole group is so awful. The next line is “Some time passed this way.” I can’t tell if Hugo is saying that some time passed where they were just staring out the window, or if he’s saying some time passed where they were making fun of Fantine. Either way, this constant picking on Fantine is so cruel, from all of them. Especially Favourite and Tholomyes. It seems like Favourite is in the best situation out of all of them, too: she’s the eldest, has her own home, and is cheating on Blacheville with Tholomyes. Maybe she’s guilty and that’s why she’s so aggressive towards Fantine; she’s trying to convince herself there’s a reason she’s doing this thing with Tholomyes. I don’t know.

It seems like Fantine has never really had stable friendships in her life. These girls have been having affairs with the students for two years. It might be the longest Fantine has every really had a friendly, familiar, consistent relationship with other grisettes outside of work. And it seems like the other grisettes, particularly Favourite, really take advantage of that naivety to mock her.

Why is Favourite the only one so preoccupied with the surprise? She was the one to ask for it properly, to announce it the morning of and get everyone up early, to keep reminding everyone of it, and now to read the letter. Nobody else seems to be as obsessed with the surprise as her. No one else has dialogue mentioning it. She’s like the “leader” of this little group, so it stands to reason that she’s Tholomyes’ counterpart and that would make her be the one who thinks about the surprise kind of in tandem with the fact that Tholomyes is the one orchestrating it. But I still think it’s odd that nobody else seems to care as much as she does. It almost sounds like an insecurity, a point of anxiety for her? Everyone but Fantine seems to be expecting Gifts. I actually wonder now if this is why they are unsurprised by the letter being a parting one. What they think is going to happen is that they are going to get parting gifts; instead they get this letter and a paid for meal. It’s a letdown, but the leaving is expected, I think.

Before I get into the letter, I just want to point out how weirdly classical the line “they desire our return and offer to kill the fatted calf for us” is. The rest of the letter just sounds like a regular letter, but that line in particular sounds like I’m reading Homer or something.

The men start off their letter explicitly pointing out the class differences between the themselves and the grisettes. Despite the fact that Favourite’s mother lives with her, the men obviously don’t see that as similar to their own, rich parents. Hugo says earlier that Fantine is, essentially, a child of France. The students seem to see all of the women in that way, as crude orphans who have been taken in and socialized by Paris. The men then contradict themselves, quoting their parents as calling them “prodigal sons” and then in the next sentence calling themselves “virtuous.”

I can’t find anything on the Bossuet line; I assume it’s a pun that I don’t know enough French and/or Bossuet literature to understand. “Fleeing to the arms of Laffitte,” I assume, means running back to high society, back to rich families and political connections and all that stuff. They’re no longer slumming in Paris with working girls, they’re going back to the safety of the society of banking and politics and all that. I don’t know what the “wings of Caillard” is referencing, because the only Caillard I can find is Gaspar Caillard, whose writings aren’t translated into English.

The gall of them to straight up call the girls “the abyss,” man I hate these men. They see these women as a fun little jaunt into lower society. These women, who are without family (or the same kind of family as these men), who are very poor and probably teetering on the edge of penniless, are the closest these students can get to this “abyss.” I bet they think they did some sort of fucking charity, too, and treated these girls to a “good time” for two years or something before dropping them. Ugh.

“It is necessary to our country that we become, like everybody else, prefects, fathers of families, country policemen, and councilors of state.” Reading this line just makes me feel so disgusted. That men like this, who are slimy and manipulative and selfish and uncaring like this, are the ones who are going to become people in charge of the infrastructure of their local society and who will have power over people in similar positions to these grisettes. It reminds me of Bamatabois, who not only was able to harass Fantine and then get her nearly thrown in prison, but was also a juror at Chapmathieu’s trial. Twice he has the power to decide someone’s freedom; I imagine these law students will have similar positions in their own respective towns. It’s also such a gross flaunting of their social position, telling these women that they have all these opportunities and connections and money to become whatever they want, and these women are left in barely-paying labor positions on the edge of total poverty.

(This is also a really important piece of characterization, I think. It contrasts massively with the students we see later on, who come from rich families (minus Bahorel, I suppose) but who are dedicated to the betterment of others.)

Something I don’t quite understand is the paying for dinner thing? Why? Is it just because they knew maybe the girls wouldn’t be able to afford it? Why do that one niceness with such a cruel prank? Was it like a last “look at us, we can afford one last lavish meal before we vanish” sort of thing?

Favourite is so odd to me. She decides that if this prank was Blacheville’s idea, it makes her fall in love with him. She says “No sooner loved than left,” which makes me think it’s a sort of “you don’t want it until it’s gone” type of thing. But I’m also wondering if it’s a comment on potential cleverness. She only likes him more now that she thinks he’s clever enough and cunning enough to come up with and pull off a joke like this one.

Then the realization that it was actually Tholomyes comes. None of them seem surprised (neither are we). They laugh about it and I assume that, again, the “Vive Tholomyes” is a celebration of his cleverness at this elaborate joke. But they seemed to know that the end was coming, so it’s just a funny and interesting ending to them, rather than a boring goodbye. Also, I wonder if they would have been more upset if the dinner had not been paid for.

I don’t have much to say about that last visual of Fantine crying in her rooms, except for fuck Tholomyes. Also, what a damn bombshell for Hugo to drop on us, spending all that time describing Fantine and then in the last sentence revealing a child.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.3.9 #les mis #les mis meta

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