#wall of text to end all walls of text

[old-desert]

Inktobertale 2024 Day 6: Hyperspeed

How convenient that I just so happened to have a biker gang au lying around, huh.

[sausage-rolll]

My take on the promised consort.

I believe that Radahn held the stars in place when Ranni began fearing her fate. She never wanted to become a puppet to the two fingers, and Radahn knowing this attempted to hold off her destiny for as long as possible. Though he likely knew that it would be an inevitability. The only other two living empyreans were cursed afterall. 

There was no way that Miquella or Malenia would be able to take Marika’s place, the two fingers weren’t even the slightest bit interested in either of them. Malenia was already claimed by the God of Rot and Miquella was perpetually in a state of adolescence. Ranni seems to be the only one who was ever actively bothered by her fingers and I believe this is because they had an intense desire for her to be the next god, assuming Miquella and Malenia as lost causes due to their curse.

I think this is when Miquella came to Radahn with a proposition. He will be seeking godhood. Even if the two fingers had no interest in him, even if the world thought him too small and frail to ascend, he was going to find a way, no matter the consequences. He was determined to become the next God and lead the world into an era of abundance and peace. To fix the mistakes of the past.

He only had one simple request.

“Promise me, you’ll be my consort.”

If Miquella were to ascend then Ranni would be free of her duty. She’d be able to live in peace knowing that she’d never have to be controlled by another's will. She wouldn’t have to become a god, she wouldn’t have to succeed queen Marika. And to top it all off, Radahn would get to play the role of his hero Godfrey. Ushering in a new era alongside a new god.

It was perfect.

That was, until the night of the black knives. The night the world was thrown into chaos. The night that the first demigods fell. And the night that he lost his sister.

Radahn likely wouldn’t have known about Ranni’s plot and would have thought her dead alongside the other victims of the night. Ranni was gone, and with her, so too was Radahns need for Miquella’s age.

I believe Radahn, fueled by grief, rage and the mad taint of his greatrune, denounced Miquella and struck out on his own as a warrior of the shattering. He didn’t need peace, he didn’t need Miquella. All he wanted was to fight. All he wanted now was endless war.

Maybe that would be enough to dull the pain of his loss? Not only the loss of his sibling and father, but also the loss of his purpose.

-

Now picture Miquella. Making the final preparations to begin his ascension. Only there’s one problem. His consort has abandoned him at the very last moment. As it turns out, it seems Radahn never really cared for Miquella or his visions for a new age, he was only really in it for his own gain. 

Imagine how devastated Miquella would be. Knowing that yet another one of his plans had fallen apart at the finish line. That the person he trusted to rule alongside him didn’t even hesitate to abandon him when it was no longer convenient for him.

His ascension to godhood would never happen. He would never be able to heal his sister. He would never be able to bring forth an age of compassion. He would never be able to right the wrongs of the past.

He had failed again.

Now imagine how furious this would make his people. How angry his followers and his sister would be to see Miquella rejected at such a pivotal moment. To see him mourning a consortship and an age that would never come to pass.

Is there really any wonder that they chose to march towards Caelid and deliver the promised consort by force?

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[flecks-of-stardust]

[ID in alt text]

hi sorry still obsessed with this gif i got. it's so funny to me. my baby's little feets sticking out. the pearl in their hands. the slime mold 'walking.' the neuron glow receding. earlier i laughed so hard it hurt and it's still just as funny now watching this help

[legionofpotatoes]

star wars outlaws

[steelycunt]

crushing! the ao3 title you started reading doesn’t punctuate speech correctly

[rad-roche]

I just wanted to tell you that the Nick Valentine Cat’s Paw magazine cover art is soooo STUNNING!!!

You should work for Bethesda lol

thank you very much!! it's been months and i still can't believe it. i posted so hard that the death shroud picture i painted is gonna be printed onto canvas after it wraps up and is gonna hang on nick's va's wall, which is SURREAL. truly, never stop posting.

god, doing stuff for bethesda, that'd be really crazy. ideal pie in the sky dream would be getting to do a nick comic for them officially. that's unlikely to happen, so alas, i'll just need to do it on my own time ;3c

[gunstellations]

"お前は失ってばかりじゃねえ"

"you haven't only received loss"

[ruvviks]

Following the chilling conclusion of All That's Left's first season, Mac and Layla and their friends find themselves scattered across a divided Los Angeles a year after their successful return to town. Matrix Corp has taken control— "With humanity's best interest in mind"— but with our protagonists' knowledge of Opportunity's destruction and Houston's unexpected fall, they know better than to trust the corporation and its near military-sized security force. Closed district gates separate them from one another and a new threat lurks just outside the city's walls— but resistance is on the rise, and it is only a matter of time before truth comes out. [SEASON ONE HERE]

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[sergle]

what was the leash training thing❔

Omg so a houseline isn't leash training Per Se, but the basic idea is that you keep a line on your pup at ALL times, for the early part of their training. For Hugo (and most dogs) that'd be a leash that you cut the handle off of, so it can't get caught on anything. For smaller breed dogs, I've seen people use very lightweight stuff, like macrame rope lol. It might sound like it's a strict thing, but dogs don't really give that much of a shit abt it, and you can correct behavior much much more easily. Puppy careens toward a pill dropped on the ground, you don't have to actually catch them, you can stomp on the line! You need them to come to you, you don't have to play a game of chase, you just reel them in. Someone opens the front door unexpectedly- stomp on the line. Puppy is jumping up on people, you can use the line to encourage them to stay on all four feet. Etc etc etc. Training tool, safety tool, convenience tool. I definitely think it saved me and Hugo from a lot of moments that could've been a lot worse. Another thing about the houseline is that it keeps you from fucking up the process of getting the dog used to being handled and touched. Without the line, there are a lot of situations where you need to GRAB the puppy all of a sudden, and maybe it's scary. A lot of dogs are Hand Weary. So there's no negative association attached to your touch, and you don't run into a situation where the puppy is reactive to being Reached towards. The leash that's always been attached to me forever and ever and is sometimes directed by, idk, god? Not scary. Big hands reaching towards me very suddenly? Scary! Anddd that's why Hugo has a raggedy leash on in every puppy photo!

[garygoldenbignaturals]

waves Hii im curious about your ocs, mind introducing a bit about them?

i have a. bajillion of them but! i shall introduce u to the ones i often talk about the most here :3

jaden blackwood (she/her) | iggy vitali (she/her)

jaden is the character i created out of the ventrue player character i played in vtm: bloodlines. she's a rich faildaughter in every sense of the word. business major, nepo baby exec, yuppie, from finance, etc etc. although she likes to think otherwise, she's never had to work a day in her life before being embraced. now that she's at the bottom of the vampire pecking order she can finally pull herself up by her bootstraps like how her types always say to prove how competent she really is at things. good thing those things often involve blood and violence, the latter of which she's had to suppress her want for. she's also a character born of my fascination with yuppies lol

iggy, on the other hand, is a much friendlier kind of gal. perhaps to a fault for a vampire, especially a tremere, but her sunny disposition wasn't born out of blind optimism. it's a bit long to get into here but after all the loss she's went through, her outlook on unlife is to keep going on. there's an eternity to go through after all! she sees her vampirism as a sort of blessing-- without it she wouldn't have learnt about as many things as she had, nor see and experience the world as much as she wanted. she always had that scholarly academic spirit and her thirst for knowledge is never quite quenched. she enjoys the nightlife too, you might see her in the club. reading it. and by "it" lets justr say. her tomes

saai rinjiani (she/her) | alfyrrha (she/her)

saai's artfight page has a lot written down for it but there's a chance i wrote it all in a haze and nothing makes sense so. she's a high ranking military officer assigned to be a governor general in a farming colony far off the mainland of her nation. never quite had any human treat her adequately before so she was conflicted when she was treated very cordially by the demon lord alfyrrha.

alfyrrha is a demon lord who holds reign over the region not far off from the colony saai oversees. she's not of the same world saai is and demon lords like her often do claim their own domains that they care and act as a warden for. although she sounds powerful described like this, demon lords are restricted to their territory. it's convoluted to explain bc this has to do with the worldbuilding that has marinated my brain for so so long (i need to talk to you about it sometime. ough) ok help i'm loosing the thread of what i was gonna write here. basically they are at odds with each other but without cooperation between the both of them along with the land and people they hold power over everything can end very badly.

their story is so all over the place and long atm hhrghrghrjh but the ideas i have are there. if i had to bastardize their characterizations saai is my poor little meow meow and alfyrrha gaslights gatekeeps girlbosses. and gets silly with it

[hotdrinks]

Reading house of leaves and being a tma fan is like *spider man pointing.jpg*

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[razzle-zazzle]

mm thinks about bad end craig. thinks about how being possessed for five+ (for a decade or more) feeds into a sense of helpless defeatism. thinks about how he gets ever more numb to it all, to every awful thing cavisuwa does with his hands his lightning his body and thinks about all the ways craig still cares despite that. humans are nothing but fodder to cavisuwa, little more than attendants and food for giant guinea pigs. craig sees people die every day and really, why should he care? he's not the one doing this, and it's nothing special anymore. his family is dead. jimmy was a damn good double agent until bebe sniffed out his real loyalties and now—but it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter and craig doesn't care he doesn't he doesn't (blood on his hands). his family is dead. he doesn't know where tweek is (but he has to be alive somewhere, he's always been tougher than anyone gives him credit for, if he could survive cavisuwa's attempted murder when they were 11 then he can survive a world overrun by giant omnivorous guinea pigs—), clyde is right there but it's not really clyde, not anymore, not after so many years with his whole nervous system under cavisuwa's control—and why does craig care anyway? clyde was always loud and annoying (but he doesn't deserve this, nobody does, not even cartman and butters deserved having their whole personalities rewritten just like that no matter how badly they sucked—) and cavisuwa only keeps clyde around to hurt craig, which is stupid anyway because craig doesn't care (there's nothing more cavisuwa can take from him and they both know this—) and it doesn't hurt him, it didn't hurt to have his own body taken from him and it didn't hurt to watch jimmy fry alive and it doesn't hurt when cavisuwa complains about how much humans just suck, oh they're so awful, and craig finds himself agreeing ever so slightly (there were so few people he'd have ever admitted to tolerating before all this) and it chafes that him and that rat bastard could ever agree on anything—

but it doesn't matter. because craig doesn't give a single fuck. he doesn't care. he doesn't.

(it does hurt. craig does care. but he's never gonna do anything about it, because he's a dick who doesn't care, never cared, and never will.)

(it hurts.)

[mistbow]

Sorey, the Vigil-Keeper

I know there’s a popular theory that Sorey might be reborn as a seraph at the ending, but to this, I would like to propose an alternative that is not less convincing, with hints spread throughout both Zestiria and Berseria.

スレイ「……オレ、メーヴィンに教えて貰ったこと絶対忘れない。ずっと伝えていく！」 メーヴィン「……ふ。俺が看取られるなんて……考えた事も……なかった」

In this dialogue from the screenshots above, I want you to pay attention to the word “看取る” and its variations, as it is a word that keeps coming up in the story.

If you look up in dictionaries, you would find that the Japanese word “看取る” means “to attend someone’s deathbed; to care for someone who is close to death until their death.” It is, admittedly, a word that is hard to translate to English.

Here’s how the official English translation goes about, emphasis mine, to bring attention to how it’s localized:

SOREY:  I promise... I'll never forget what you've told me, Mayvin. And I'll teach it to others as well! MAYVIN:  Heh. Never did I imagine I would die with others... By my... Side...

But I think the word has significance in Zestiria lore, with Mayvin, being one himself, didn’t expect to have someone to watch over him as he died.

And how do I know that? It’s in the name, as explained in the sidequest revolving the poet Mayvin.

Here’s a bit of the dialogue as a refresher, with omissions here and there:

アカシャ「語り部は個の名を持たない一族。『メーヴィン』とは一族が代々受け継ぐ名なのです」 ミクリオ「つまり、詩人は何代前のメーヴィンか！」 ザビーダ「メーヴィン……『看取る者』って意味だっけか？」 アカシャ「彼らは、その名と共に契約を受け継ぎ、世界を傍観する宿命を負うのです」 ミクリオ「しかし、なぜそんな宿命を？」 ザビーダ「初代がなんかやらかしちまって、強制的に誓約が与えられた……とかなんとかだっけ？」 スレイ「応えなきゃな。メーヴィンが託してくれた想いに」

Here is how it goes in the official English localization (emphasis, again, mine):

AKSHA: Those in the clan of Storytellers have no names of their own. The name “Mayvin” is passed down through the generations. MIKLEO: So the poet Mayvin was his ancestor from centuries ago! ZAVEID: Doesn’t “Mayvin” mean “Caregiver” in the old tongue? AKSHA: Those born into that name and that oath must accept their fate to be observers of the world. MIKLEO: But I wonder... why is that their fate? ZAVEID: Wasn’t it, like, the first one did some damn fool thing and wound up forced to take the oath as punishment or something? SOREY: We need to work hard to live up to the hopes that Mayvin placed in us.

But if I were to translate it myself more closely to the original Japanese, it would be more like this:

AKSHA: Those in the clan of Storytellers have no names of their own. The name “Mayvin” is passed down through the generations. MIKLEO: So the poet Mayvin was from several generations ago! ZAVEID: Doesn’t “Mayvin” mean “Vigil-Keeper” in the old tongue? AKSHA: Those inheriting that name and that oath must accept their fate to be observers of the world. MIKLEO: But I wonder... why is that their fate? ZAVEID: Wasn’t it, like, the first one did some damn fool thing and wound up forced to take the oath as punishment or something? SOREY: We need to work hard to live up to the hopes that Mayvin placed in us.

What am I implying here? I think that the Storytellers of Time, as a clan, don’t have to be related by blood. The wording used here to me implies that the name is inherited, passed down. (Fits nicely with Zestiria’s theme that “Legend will someday become hope.” Legends or “伝承” are things that get passed down. That get inherited. That outlives its keepers, because it is the hope or will that will not die as long as there’s someone out there to accept it.)

It’s a name that means 看取る者, the one who attends someone on their deathbed. As for why I translated this as “Vigil-Keeper”, I will bring it up later.

(As a sidenote: Sorey gets his alternative costume from this sidequest. Makes you think.)

But first. Let’s talk about Mayvin more. After all, there’s also “Mayvin” in Berseria.

マギルゥ「メルキオル・メーヴィン、火山で待っておれ」 マギルゥ「案ずるな。お主の最期は儂が”看取る”」

MAGILOU: Melchior Mayvin, I’ll see you at the volcano. MAGILOU: Don’t you worry. I’ll be sure to be there as you breathe your last.

Hard, isn’t it, to get this point across in English? But they actually put the word in the quotes as ”看取る” as if trying to get your focus on that word. Part of why I think the name “Mayvin” (along with the oath that comes with it) gets inherited as you watch someone die before your eyes, and take on their name.

Now back to Zestiria. Sorey actually has a title series that corresponds to the turning points of his character development, namely:

Lad of Separation (別離の若者) (Bronze): Obtained when he left Elysia, as he learned the lesson of farewells.

Reunited Traveler (旅は道連れ) (Silver): Obtained when Rose joined the party, as he learned to be with a human companion that can understand him as a fellow human.

Vigil-Keeper (看取りし人) (Gold): Obtained as he watched Mayvin die in his arms. I will explain more on this below.

看取りし人 消えゆく命を見届け、その想いを胸に刻んだ者に託された称号。

Vigil-Keeper A title entrusted to one who sees off passing lives, and engraves the wishes of the fallen upon his heart.

(By the way, it’s also part of a series of titles belonging to the seraphim too.)

Yes, it’s the same word/characters you see in all of the previous ones shown above. He actually obtained a title that is basically the ancient tongue meaning for “Mayvin.”

刻遺の語り部 「メーヴィン」という名を代々受け継ぐ人間の一族がいる。彼らは「刻遺の語り部」と呼ばれる存在で、「人間・天族・導師・憑魔などの歴史に干渉しない」という誓約により、非常な長命を得ている。「刻（とき）に遺される」という名からわかるように、人間では考えられないような時間を生きながら、人や天族が織りなす歴史を語り、後世に残すことを使命としている。これは初代メーヴィンに対して課せられた、一種の義務や罰ではないか、という説が伝わっている。歴史に干渉しないためその存在を知る者は少なく、天族のあいだでも語ることは禁忌とされているようだ。

Storytellers of Time There is a human clan which inherits the name “Mayvin” from generation to generation. They are known as the “Storytellers of Time” and have a very long life due to their oath not to interfere with the history of humans, seraphim, Shepherds, and hellions. As implied from the name “abandoned in time,” they have the duty to tell the history as woven by humans and seraphim while living for a long time unimaginable for humans, preserving for the future generations, left behind by the world and time. It has been theorized that this may have been some kind of obligation or punishment imposed on the first Mayvin. Since they do not interfere with history, few humans know of their existence, and it has become something of a taboo to talk about, even among the seraphim.

As a note, the “Time” part of the title is “刻遺” and I believe I had already talked about the word “time” being written as “刻” before. It also implies “abandoned in time” (“刻に遺される”).

ミクリオ「マオテラスと繋がり、刻にとり残され、何年……いや、何百年待つのか……」

MIKLEO: By bonding with Maotelus, you’ll be abandoned in time. It could take years… It could take centuries.

Interesting wording, is it not?

By the way, another interesting but easy-to-miss detail:

If you squint closely, both Magilou and Zestiria!Mayvin have bird motifs (on her notebook for Magilou, where presumably she wrote the stories to tell to the next generations, and on both his pipe and book for Z!Mayvin). You know who else has bird motifs?

空に飛び立って 幼い頃からいつも身に着けている羽の耳飾り。穢れを知らない鳥は故郷を飛び立ち広い世界を目指す。

Flying into the sky A feather earring that he has always worn since he was a child. The bird, knowing nothing of malevolence, takes a flight off from its homeland to the vast world.

(I mean, a lot of Zestiria and Berseria characters have bird motifs, but hey. And I will someday talk about this too, but we’ll save this for the future.)

スレイ「『人が育てたら、飛べない鳥になってしまう。巣に戻せ』って……」 スレイ「あいつ……無事に巣立てたんだな」

SOREY: “A kept bird will never learn to fly,” he said. “Put it back.” SOREY: Guess you made it out of the nest on your own, huh?

And I love it. I love this because at its core, Zestiria is about humans and seraphim, and Sorey and Mikleo are intended by the creators to symbolize that. Being a storyteller and explorer fits him as his defining character trait is that he is passionate about history, passionate about finding ways on how to unite humans and seraphim. Sure, he was still the Shepherd up until before he brought out that second strike to Heldalf, and ended his suffering of Eternal Solitude, but right after that? Right after all this is done? I’m inclined to believe he might take the oath, take the name “Mayvin” after the one human he learned from the most. 

But I don’t think he is going to see it as a burden, an obligation, a punishment... after all, the essence of adventure lies in exploration, in the words of Mayvin, the Explorer. 

And, in the words of Mayvin, the Storyteller, you can’t fathom the true meaning of legends until you’ve seen their history with your own eyes...

(He might not be able to interfere with the world history after this, sure, but in a way, that also frees him from the shackles that used to bind him as the Shepherd. He had done what he needed to. Now is the time to entrust it to the next generations.)

ところで『探検家』であるために一番大切なことはなんだと思う？ 好奇心や勇気も重要だが、一番じゃないな 答えは『探検から無事に帰ること』だ

By the way, what would you say is the most important quality of an explorer? Curiosity and courage are definitely key, but they are not the most vital. The answer is the wherewithal to come back from your exploration safely.

And he did come home safely. At the end.

[leonbastralle]

part 2!

sticky business: the other game of my wife's that i played on my wife's deck! you run a sticker business in this one. the concept and the vibe of this is really cute, i love the sticker element options (though most of my favorites were from the pride update ksdfhksjdfs) i love that you can buy different paper to wrap the orders and also put in extra gifts! just generally such a lovely time just making stickers, putting them on sheets, printing them, packing them up, mailing them....i love that everything needs time so you need to structure your day or you will miss orders, it just feels really immersive. also the characters and stories are rly sweet and queer, though keeping track of active quests is really difficult because your progress isn't really marked anywhere and you can miss out on new developments for a long time. sometimes also there just aren't developments for an age kjdsfhskdfsd

été: i have been waiting for this one to come out for a long time and it kept its promises to me: you're just a painter staying in montreal for the summer finding inspiration around town. it did have some performance issues and bugs, but from what i saw they got worked on quickly. the characters you meet and their questlines were really interesting and diverse, and i love the stamp system and the gratification that comes from painting your surroundings (this is how you discover the stamps you build your art from), especially when you can afford a big burst! towards the end it started to drag because the main questline requires you to make more and more art without a given theme, but i did also avoid continuing in favor of exploration, so it might have been on me. don't do that skjfhsdfs

coral island: oh man this was my biggest disappointment i think, which is really sad considering it was my first game on my own steam deck. i love farming sims and i loved the concept of this one (farming sim in a different environment! a different culture! different festivals! different mechanisms!) but i do not think they embraced those differences at all and instead tried to streamline it as much as possible. we have a whole new exploration area with the ocean but we still need to have 100+ mine levels plus a late game endless dungeon? and what do you mean there's still snow in winter!!! that makes no sense! and the grindiness of it all drove me crazy. every bit of story is locked behind soooo much grinding it's unbelievable. be it 25 mine levels or several ocean areas or 100+ levels of the late game dungeon or several town ranks (that are impossible to level easily). also yes, the cast is diverse, but it feels very performative at times, and i honestly would have much preferred a smaller cast for some depth and more than one (1) romance line. same with how i really, really would have wanted the game to lead with what makes it unique and embrace it, dropping the "farming sim staples" in favor of that. not pushing all the most interesting content to late game. i ended up not finishing the story of this one for obvious reasons

leaving lyndow: eastshade is one of my favorite games so i enjoyed playing this prequel because it brought me back to eastshade during a different time and it was cool to see how things were then and how they changed until the start of eastshade, the game. and then going back and getting the references. it didn't do much more for me, but if you're an eastshade fan you will probably like it. it's only like 30 mins worth of content though, so best gotten on a sale.

book of hours: wowie this is one of my new all time favorite games. you're a librarian in this one, returning to the abandoned hush house and trying to restore it and catalogue the books. for the longest time i had no idea what my end goal truly was but i didn't mind, time really passes quickly as you're trying to unlock rooms and cataloguing books and reading books and learning skills and so on. this game is so pretty and vibey in an unsettling way, it's the only game i've played from this universe so i missed a lot of the lore, but what i did grasp from reading book summaries and descriptions was super interesting (though absolutely fucking wild). i enjoyed the card mechanics with memories and weather boosting certain aspects and the skills you slowly amass, upgrade and commit to certain parts of your soul and the way you need to pass checks to read the books. i enjoyed gambling with that and sometimes being lucky and sometimes failing and getting every disease aksjhkajhsja also the endings were banger. i love this game. i already started a second playthrough and i got so many new books and events, there truly is so much replayability in there. i will keep enjoying it and i'm looking forward to the next release!

saltsea chronicles: post apocalyptic little sailing game! this one has a whole bunch of branches (both for routes you take and for team composition) which i thought was cool. i enjoyed the art style and the characters, especially the main characters and their struggles all felt very real to me. also a fan of the diversity regarding gender/sexuality and the way it's handled in the universe. all the choices and management of squad issues can get overwhelming, but it felt realistic and didn't really hinder my enjoyment. overall cool universe with interesting lore. i enjoyed the main storyline, though it did get a lot heavier than what i was prepared for. however it did handle those heavy topics with a lot of care. i liked the open ending too, though i've seen people complain about that. truly heartbreaking to see die gute fabrik go. they were making great games.

no longer home: a surreal little game about transitional periods in your life where you don't really know where you're going. i really enjoyed this one and related a lot to it, though that might also be because it follows the two main characters as they leave their shared apartment/time behind and move towards a long distance relationship and as an ldr girlie i felt that ksjfhkajshfa either way i really enjoyed the game, the whole thing is quite disorienting and inconclusive but honestly to me that felt intentional considering the themes of it. i do know this game was not that well received so maybe i just am being too kind to it. but anyway, i liked it, and the ending rly hit me in the feels.

skyrim: honestly just here since i wanted an even number of games. picked this back up on my own deck and was delighted to see the improvement in quality! i was super happy to finally enjoy it again after the especially bugged experience i had on the switch. 10/10 will pick up again soon.

elsinore: i love a good time loop game, and this definitely was one. i'm not familiar with the original hamlet so i can't say anything about how accurate it is or how much it respects the source material, but i enjoyed this version of it- or versions, since there are a whole bunch of endings, one more tragic than the other. there's always a lot happening, many leads to follow up on and many events, but the game has a bunch of systems to make it easier to stay on top of things, plus you can always rewind/speed through the loop if you miss something. and if something goes wrong, usually you can use the rest of the loop to figure out a bunch of other shit. i loved the diverse cast, too, the main character of this is a mixed bisexual woman and there are a bunch of other lesbian, bi, and gay characters and even a genderfluid characters. plus a whole bunch of different ethnicities. also, let's not forget about the tragic time loop yaoi........i'm always weak for the tragic time loop yaoi.......then again, everything is tragic in this game. and i like that, too, i like that there isn't any ending that truly feels satisfying, it's a good kind of sadness you feel when you finish the game. however i am force uncloseting hamlet. go and be happy good sir

pentiment: oOF i truly had a streak of bangers. this game absolutely wrecked me. the first act was interesting, the second unsettling, and the third absolutely heartwrenching. this game so clearly was made with love, as a german i usually am very suspicious of games featuring germany but this one didn't make me cringe at all. i loved the very accurate medieval art style complete with shittily drawn cats (that you can pet!). i loved the bits of history and the portrayal of the struggles people were facing. i loved the main character(s), flawed as they may be. maybe exactly because of the flaws. i loved how unsatisfying the choices feel and how much you miss (i'm going to replay it soon, making some other choices). i especially loved the meal scenes ksjdfhskdhskd they looked soooo yummy. and it was so cool to see the town change with every time skip, though not necessarily for the better. the whole last half hour of this absolutely killed me. i could not recommend this game enough

little kitty big city: great palate cleanser after the heartbreak that was pentiment. just a little kitty trying to make its way back home and meeting a bunch of other wacky animals around town on the way. the cat content was sublime, you can hunt birds, meow, nap, clean yourself, steal fish, be petted by random people on the street, you can make them stumble, you're scared of water, dogs and cucumbers, and just all the noises and animations of the main character were delightful. also there's 40+ stupid hats for you to collect and wear!!! what more do you want!!! honestly this game was far too short to me. i would have really expected it to be longer, especially considering the price. also got stuck quite badly early on because you're so restricted at first. definitely pick this one up on a sale!

birds organized neatly: as an enjoyer of cats and dogs organized neatly, i already kind of knew what to expect, and this one delivered, too. the levels are all quite doable (though i haven't played the final chapter), the birds are funky and their descriptions funny and relatable, the music and sound design is great (so many chirps!). just another great little puzzle game at a low price (even lower if you already have the others!)