#when gender is not stated English translators always make it a he

[katyspersonal]

Starting a collection of English localisation team accidentally creating the he/she women

(Pharis is an non-respawning archer in Forest Cat Covenant whom legends turned into a Goddess even though she was just a human)

[project-sekai-facts]

Wait An/Kohane have outright stated romantic interest?

poor wording on my end bc they never actually say "an and kohane like each other romantically" but the evidence it very much there and it is clearly depicted and phrased in other ways. for example: the shoujo sparkle effect that is used for An from Kohane's POV.

This effect is often used on Haruka in Minori's imagination, which, well, let's just say it doesn't disprove that Kohane is attracted to An. While the effect is also used to show a character being cute or having a strong "idol" aura without any attraction attached, it's prettly clear the intent was to show Kohane's attraction. Also she was blushing.

Bonus points to the fact the wedding event has a underlying message (they say it on screen) about how marriage should be equal regardless of the genders of the couple [because gay marriage currently isn't legal in Japan].

There's also literally everything in Buddy Funny Spend Time. While almost all of the interactions in that event can be read as platonic if you really want to, they're written so you can interpret it as romantic if you choose to. And considering the featured pairs in this event were Minori/Haruka, An/Kohane, and (briefly) Shizuku/Airi, it's not like that reading isn't supported by the writers lol. There's one part where Minori and Kohane get jealous of how close Haruka and An are as childhood friends and aren't sure if they can amount to that, but they want to try. Doesn't necessarily have to be romantic but can be if you choose to read it as such.

When Kohane is visibly attracted to Haruka, An gets slightly jealous and says that her singing should be the only thing that makes Kohane react that way.

Haruka also points out that although An has always been super friendly she's never been like this with anyone until Kohane came into her life, and still keeps this behaviour Kohane-exclusive. An says it's because they're partners, which, kinda friendzones them, but kinda doesn't.

The word for partner used in the story - "aibou" - means, to put it in incredibly basic terms, coworkers. It's like the cowboy or detective word for partner, though I believe it comes up in shounen every so often (the genre vbs story is based on). In itself, aibou has no romantic connotation. But 3 of the partnerships we see in VBS' story have lots of interactions that easily read as having romantic undertones, so basically in the context of VBS story the nature of said partnerships becomes a little more ambiguous. The word is still platonic and that doesn't change, but you get the idea. Oh and VBS has recurring romantic soulmate imagery more on that later.

continuing on BFST, yeah they went on a date. which is strongly suggested to be a romantic date unlike how it's sometimes used platonically. like the other characters say An is "seeing someone", at least in the English translation, which is very much associated with romantic interest. Also the original Japanese for the "do you know who she's going out with" line uses the phrase デートの相手 which is the Japanese equivalent for the word "date" (as in a person/your date), so it's not really any different. they go on another one in Kick it up a notch and An's card story for the event. their relationship is never labelled or anything (probably bc this genre avoids that sorta thing for fan-related reasons) but this very much was a thing that happened.

(also when ken says partner he says aibou. so not partner /r but anyway it does clarify that this date is to do with their relationship on a different level to partners /p. ie: an's going on a date with kohane because she's cute not because she's her partner. language is fun)

Lastly back on that thing I said I'd come back to. The Walk on and on costumes have romantic soulmate symbolism included on them. The wings on the backs of the outfits are based on the mythical hiyoku bird, a one-winged bird that could only fly after meeting its other half. Kohane's costume has pink accents, one of the variants has accents in An's image color and the wings on the backs of those variants match up to each other. The card illstrations themselves also feature crows, which mate for life. While the symbolism is mostly associated with Toya, the Whip the Wimp Girl! cards take place in the same location as the woao cards which is pretty neat, and makes sense given the themes of both events. I've put both their gacha logos above as well. Oh and An's card for wtwg was. Something.

And Kohane got the valentine event this year and it was about her entering a contest to win limited edition chocolates for An I forgot about that until just now.

Have fun with that.

[kerubimcrepin]

LIVEBLOG: Wakfu Season 4, Episode 4 [PART 2]

I wonder how long he's been standing there. Did he come an hour early? 20 minutes early? Just standing there, doing nothing...

Dios mio... la creatura!

Something very weird happened with the Eni queen/leader. In s2, her cape and hands were like this because she was sitting, in this season — it's just part of her design. Did nobody check this stuff? Am I going insane thinking this is an error? Did she look bad when her cape was down? What the fuck is happening?

Once again, something very silly is happening with Sufokia, if they have an empress and a king. My headcanon to fix it is "the king is a consort-king" or something.

(*sobs in Ankama, or, really, 89% of all media, not understanding that whoever marries the ruler of the nation is a [insert title]-consort, and does not have as much political power or the right of succession* *Hysterically convulses in "99% of all Queens were Queen-consorts, and the title itself, by default, usually means a consort. For this reason, female rulers (rare non-consort Queens who came to throne due to lack of male princes) typically named their husbands "Princes" and not "Kings", because the title king always implies a higher degree of power than a queen; therefore, it might be reasonable to assume, that in this fantasy setting, a Ruling Empress's husband might be called a king for this reason* *Foams at mouth because Ankama just forgot they mentioed Sufokia having a king and I'm trying to cope. badly*)

Also since I'm on this tangent already, YES, this means that Sadida rules of throne succession are:

1. extremely easy for outsiders to abuse (say what you will, but "the spouse inherits the throne" is a BADDD rule to combat conquest by foreign nations, there's a reason it was children or blood-relatives of the ruler, besides patriarchy/divine right of kings/whatever — the spouse is an outsider. All it takes is a princess, who is Wonderful at poisoning, being married off to a foreign nation and whoopsie-daisy, their country is now Her country, and therefore her Family's country),

2. it's unrealistic,

3. probably just bad writing for the sake of drama.

If you're curious why I know all this shit.......... I have a blorbo in a different fandom, and his entire thing is that he was married into a royal family and then tortured by his queen wife in a sort of gender-bent Henry VIII arrangement (except he was kept alive against his will and there was no divorce or church splits). God bless that blorbo for making me learn.

These Huppermages were repurposed from the movie concept art, btw.

I find it quite interesting, that Joris has the authority to be present here...

My personal theory/headcanon is that he is their mediator, and they just call him to their meetings so that, instead of yelling at each other and declaring wars, they can talk to him (and therefore, yell only at him and declare no wars).

Ugh, once again, I am not entirely fond of the English subs. First the translation error about the brotherhood of forgotten/tofu, and now they are making Joris say this spring chicken thing...

It doesn't fit his character and reads weird. Just leave it as "I'm not that young", like in the original. It's more fitting for Joris to speak in negative sentences ("I am not young") than in affirmative ones ("I am old") because he is not fond of stating direct facts about himself and his life... besides the fact that he's standing in front of multiple world leaders.

[kicks my legs cutely thinking about the fact that Joris, older than every king and queen in this place, and fully convinced of his excellence and wisdom and heroism, has been forced to bow down to them for his entire life despite hating at 90% of them for their political decision] I love his commitment to being the protagonist of an 18th century Russian novel about being doomed by the narrative.

Also, kinda wild. You'd think that during Ogrest's chaos they'd— actually I think everyone was too dead to hold meetings during that, nvm.

I wonder what they would do, if the maker of the eyes wouldn't reply. Just stand there? Or is this speech more of a formality — something he always says, in the lead-up to the meeting?

(I am once again reminding you, this blog is LITERALLY about overthinking crepinjurgen lore! Ankama gave no shit while writing this. I'm just doing this for fun.)

He's so unimpressed. Probably still trying to gauge what the fuck is going on.

THE LITTLE SMILE— he's trying to suppress it so hard in the first screenshot here. He's probably glad that Yugo seems to be in good spirits about what's happening, even if he himself is still quite worried.

His expression here is a beautiful mix of "PLEASE DON'T FUCK THIS UP" and "it is a canon event, I cannot intervene"

Literally, Joris's expressions at this moment should be analyzed frame by frame. You can feel the desperation. He now understands that there is a high possibility they are fucked. Because his bestie (who is always right) is an impulsive 20-something year old boy who knows nothing about politics or what people can do, and his mom is a god, and the leaders of the world aren't going to like whatever the fuck is going on, and he KNOWS what they might do, and what might happen, and oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck—

"Yugo :) perhaps you shuoild :) um. :) ease them into it. :).... :("

He's trying to keep smiling, so hard. It's crazy.

Joris has lived through the huppermage genocide. He knows people don't need that much of a reason to begin killing. He understands precisely just how fragile the position that Yugo and his people are in. He understands his own place in the pecking order, too — he isn't going to act like Yugo's friend if these people are watching.

And neither Yugo, not any other Eliatrope is able to understand this. There are cruelties in this world that they are fundamentally unable to grasp without having truly been seeped in it before.

Like, what is he even to do here, to make Yugo understand how bad the situation is. All he can do is stand there looking haunted, while receiving unprecedented amounts of psychic damage.

If I was Joris at this point, I would simply pull out a flask of whiskey and a cigarette. The political situation has now gone completely unfixable. There is no going back, now that she has said these two lines.

Someone native to the World of Twelve and old enough to understand politics would know how bad this sounds. But to her, these are good things. Of course they are, since she knows what is good and what isn't, and everyone in her world has always accepted those things as good.

Basically: the conflict between WoT and Eliatropes is that a nation of people from a world of teletubbies-level conflict, — with no bigotry or nations or poverty or hunger or theft or inequality, or ulterior motives, — has been added to a "game of thrones" type society with no explanation. And now they are all forced to try and understand one another.

If I was Joris at this moment, I would simply shoot myself in the temple with a gun. If things were bad before, they are horrible now. She is talking to world leaders as her children. It might have been alright even with Eliatropes, but these people aren't Eliatropes.

DO I EVEN NEED TO COMMENT ON HOW BAD THIS IS? IN A WORLD WHERE COLONIALISM, RACISM, SUBJUGATION, AND SLAVERY ARE REAL? IS SHE ON CRACK?

I would give anythign to see Joris's expressions as she's saying these things. I think he should be trembling. Staring vacantly into space.

To someone from a world of violence, a world with "no violence" seems like a world where violence is hidden, and enacted to stop them from voicing their disagreement with the status quo.

Tot has described this as a sort of conflict between the modern world approaches to society — and named China and America as examples of what he was inspired by, while writing Eliatrope.

I will not get into detail on my feelings on it (China is often extremely criticized in the west for things every country in the world does due to racism)

But this might point us towards the fact that the world of Eliatropes wasn't as free of conflict as the show portrays it to be, and it was, in fact, Just A Society, with all that entails. In which case, things get morally morally gray... might explain why, in the earlier drafts of the season, she was meant to be the main antagonist — and why it was decided against.

(Is that maybe why Qilby is so embittered — his experiences were silenced, and he was made to suck it up, only confiding in Shinonome? She does constantly shut up Yugo and Qilby, not letting them speak up about their grudges against each other to keep the peace— [I am quickly silenced by tangent police])

[iceflwers]

𝓴𝓮𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓲 “𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓲” 𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓪 !

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ THE BASICS !

— ❥ FULL NAME: Kelani Maile Halia.

— ❥ NICKNAMES: Lani (most commonly used), Keke, ipo, kaikamahine, Slugger, Halia, baby (by Luke only), Fiesty (by Luke only).

— ❥ DATE OF BIRTH: January 3rd, 2003 (Capricorn).

— ❥ BIRTHPLACE: Lansing, Michigan, United States.

— ❥ CURRENT RESIDENCE: Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

— ❥ SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Hawaiian, Spanish (not fluently), American Sign Language (not fluently).

— ❥ ORIENTATION: Biromantic, bisexual.

— ❥ GENDER IDENTITY: Cisgender female (she/her pronouns).

— ❥ OCCUPATION: Right winger for PWHL Minnesota.

— ❥ FACECLAIM: Auli’i Cravalho.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ PERSONALITY !

— ❥ HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor (brave, chivalrous, daring).

— ❥ MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE: ENTJ - The Commander (energetic, confident, stubborn).

— ❥ ENNEAGRAM TYPE: Type Three - The Achiever (charming, self-assured, authentic).

— ❥ MORAL ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good.

— ❥ LOVE LANGUAGES: Quality time for receiving, words of affirmation for giving.

— ❥ SKILLS: Hockey, speed skating, singing, calligraphy, sketching, switching quickly between languages, makeup, distance running.

— ❥ LIKES: Winning, going on runs, true crime podcasts, skating early in the morning when no one else is around, blasting music and dancing around her room, parties, cute dogs, hanging out with her friends and Luke, warm weather, oversized shirts.

— ❥ DISLIKES: Assholes, sudden changes, the people she loves getting hurt, wearing leather, being forced to dance at parties, tight hairstyles, coffee with a lot of sugar in it, backstabbing people.

— ❥ FEARS/PHOBIAS: Failure, snakes, being held down, wasps, never achieving her dreams, tight spaces.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ RELATIONSHIPS !

— ❥ FAMILY: Alana Halia (mother), Akoni Halia (father), Kai Halia (older brother).

— ❥ FRIENDS: Trevor Zegras, Brooke Bryant, Maggie Flaherty, Taylor Heise, Grace Zumwinkle, Liz Schepers.

— ❥ ACQUAINTANCES: Remainder of the PWHL Minnesota roster, Jack Hughes, Quinn Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jasper Bratt, John Marino.

— ❥ ROMANTIC INTERESTS: Mallory Keller (first crush), Zach Song (first boyfriend), Holly Collins (brief fling), Aimee Pryor (ex-girlfriend), Luke Hughes (current romantic interest).

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ FUN FACTS !

— ❥ Lani was born at almost exactly midnight, and as such her parents like to make jokes about her being a superstar and “their little star”.

— ❥ In addition to all of her hockey training throughout the years, Lani also has a little bit of training in figure skating, which allows to be quicker and more graceful on the ice than opponents and teammates without it. She’s tried to teach Luke some techniques more than once, but he has yet to master any of it.

— ❥ Lani is a big fan of older movie musicals, a love stemming from her mother and all the ones she watched with her as a child. One of her favorites is the old version of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, with Julie Andrews, and she loves to sing the song “Impossible” and dance around her room to cheer herself up.

— ❥ Her first pet was a little black corgi named Princess that the Halia family had had since before she was born. She died when Lani was nine, but ever since then she always wears a silver charm bracelet with a paw print charm to remember her.

— ❥ Lani is a big fan of anything grape-flavored - grape soda, grape candies, grape juice - but she doesn’t like the actual fruits themselves; she finds them too sour.

tagging @lovings4turn, @hiya-itsamber, & @theopenlocker !

─┈ ♡ copyright © 2024: you do not have permission to copy, translate, or repost my works, nor to use my oc ideas or plots.

[driedupeyeballs]

Hi! So! Remember Spider? Yeah? Did you know he’s… not my only… Yuu… OC…

Fox! Fox Peterson! What a dude! Uh! Yeah!

Yeah! So them and spider grew up together, and despite being pretty different in most things they’re practically inseparable. They met when they were both around 7-ish because they lived in the same neighborhood, eventually Fox moved to a different state but they kept in touch and never drifted apart. They got isekai’d into Twst on the same day once when Fox was visiting. Fox had come down to where spider lived because a band they both liked was playing a concert in the area, and the carriages came when they’d gotten split up before the show started. It took them a while to find each other in tw but once they did they made a promise that when they finally got out of tw, they’d see that band in concert someday

.

They have a lot of pets! Idk if I’ve mentioned this but Spider has a gray cat named Smoke in his homeland, and a tarantula named Willow that he has in tw and keeps in his dorm. Fox has three dogs and two cats in their homeland, the dogs are Solar (Golden Retriever), Cielo (German Shepard), and Wisp (Husky), and the cats are Sophie (Russian blue) and Howl (Himalayan)

Fox joined the fencing club at Royal sword academy as they’ve always had an interest in sword fighting and similar things, they have a small sword collection in their homeland.

Fox is trilingual, they speak English, Spanish, and Japanese. They speak a little bit of French but isn’t fluent

They befriended neige fairly quickly, as well as a few of my rsa OCs, namely Dove (twisted from prince Florian) and Elis (twisted from Alice.) Jasper (Jasmine) takes a liking to Fox fairly quickly, but Jasper has a tendency to take a liking to everybody and has gotten into some bullshit bcuz of it, so his vice housewarden is a bit (VERY) protective of who he hangs around with. Che’nya likes messing with Fox cuz he knows they’re too nice to bite back.

Speaking of that, generally Fox is too nice to bite back. They’re extremely logical, calm, and collected in any given situation, which is one of the reasons they work well with Spider, given that Spider has a very short temper and tends to blow a fuse at a lot of things, so Fox can always mediate. There are very few occasions where Fox would ever raise their voice, they always try to be a voice of reason in every situation.

Fox is an ENFJ, which is almost the complete opposite of Spider’s INTP. Also, in the subtlest of Nice moments I could possibly add, Fox’s birthday is exactly 69 days after Spider’s birthday.

I have a third Twst OC who isn’t a Yuu, but he’s an NRC student that spider and Fox befriend, making my main Twst OC trio. Also that oc’s birthday is 69 days BEFORE spider’s birthday (so his is April 7th). Can you tell I’m bad at coming up w birthdays 😔 anyway third little shit is Calliope Mavros (he/she/they), they’re twisted from the hydra from Hercules. Theyre Ignihyde’s sole jock

Floyd’s nickname for them is Garibaldi, which is this funky guy. He calls them any variation of it, but usually “Gari-chan” or “Lil’ Garibaldi.” Unlike Spider, Fox loves their Floyd-chosen name and actually has a little garibaldi plushie that they sewed because of it. Spider is jsut salty he didn’t get called a shark and is instead stuck as Little Koifishie lmao (also shoutout to person from discord server for coming up w Garibaldi for them I could not figure out a good Floyd name for them)

Rook had a hard time coming up with a nickname for Fox bcuz there’s rlly no gender nuetral anything in French so monsieur doesn’t have a neutral equivalent, he ended up just landing on maître des lames, which, if google translate isn’t failing me, is Master of blades.

Also their dynamic with Jade is very silly!!! I shall ramble about them for a moment. Spider works at mostro lounge so Fox and Calliope were chilling there one day, and it was one of Fox’s first times at NRC, and their first time at Octavinelle. Spider warned them to steer clear of the leech twins, but Fox is one of those ppl that can literally make friends with anyone so they often don’t heed such warnings. Spider had to go do some work and told Calliope to make sure Azul n the twins don’t rope Fox into anything. Fox is a bit gullible, but they’re still logical, so Calliope didn’t think it would be a massive deal for her to leave Fox unattended. It’s not like they’re a child. So Calliope went to grab some stuff from his dorm that they’d forgotten, leaving Fox alone. Didn’t take long for Floyd to sniff out the fresh meat, and Floyd was already messing with them from the bat. But Fox wasn’t getting annoyed by his attempts at getting under their skin, they were just doing their thing of being way entirely too nice. Now, Fox is also a big fan of mushrooms, and Floyd noticed the fact they were wearing mushroom earrings and he somehow verbally rolled his eyes, groaning abt how he didn’t need more mushroom lunatics in his life. As if summoned by some godly force, Jade materialized behind Floyd and complimented Fox’s earrings, to which the two began discussing mushrooms and Floyd immediately left the room, groaning as loud as he possibly could. And through the power of fungi and mostro discounts Jade managed to accidentally win over this idiot, then he ends up falling head first soon enough

Thanks for dealing with my rambling

[jikookerie]

Do you really think that jk is involved with jimin romantically....and not just a friend who knows his one band member or a good friend is secretly/closeted gay or bi..so he chose to always tease him by flirting with him??? Jk sometimes looks like that type of friend to me who knows jimin is interested in men... so he chose to always tease him and we all think by his teasing and flirting that they're a couple. Because If u just take jimin out of the picture and then notice jungkook...and only jungkook...he really looks just a normal straight dude...and he mostly behaves like this with jimin too when he doesn't give in.. in the flirting and teasing. Without jimin existing...jk doesn't even look like a guy who is interested in men romantically at all. When he even compliments other men...like when he did for joon's thighs... It never looks like he's interested in them..it always seems like he wants that type of body too. I remember his words when hobi wore a skirt...he said hobi was making him crazy bcz the skirt was too short...but the thing is...even when hobi was the one who was wearing it (a man)...he still chose the words "she" while saying it. "She is seducing me". When it's clearly hobi. This type of small things always and always shows something different about him..which suggests that he's straight but shy and interested romantically only in women. It's only just when jimin is around that it looks sometimes that he was flirting with him but even then mostly.. it looks normal too when he doesn't even acknowledge jm at all. So i think he's just a friend who knows a secret about a friend with whom he shares a very close friendship with and chooses to always tease him when he wants. Not a relationship.

Hello Anon,

You and I are both entitled to think differently. So to answer your question at the very beginning… Yes, I think it a high likelihood that is true BUT I leave room for uncertainty. Do I need to argue with random people trying to convince me otherwise? No. Keep thinking how you want.

However, I need to address two things in your ask.

1. You state “he still chose the words “she” while saying it…..this type of small things shows something different about him..which suggests that he’s straight.”

My counter is you are basing your whole argument on an English translation of his words. Did you know there is no gender specific pronouns in Korean? They don’t say she or he. They have words that they use for she or he but only when translating from English. JKs actual words in Korean do not say she. Just that he was being seduced… which was clearly meant in jest.

2. Your words are hurtful to the LGBTQ-IA community. Did you notice your use of the word “normal” before straight guy? Also, when you said “he looks normal too when he doesn’t acknowledge JM.” What’s normal? Do you get to decide that? Because everyone of the folks who are members of the LGBTQ-IA community are also normal. Don’t use that word to describe straight behavior. Just describe a person as straight or heterosexual. No need to add any qualifier to it.

One last thing…you trying to explain his behavior as teasing but only with JM is kinda the point. JM does appear to be special.

Jikookerie

[wrvtchedhearts]

ZAKIR SETHUPATHI - the poet

Stats --

FULL NAME: Zakir Aamir Sethupathi

AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 28 -- January 8th

OCCUPATION: rapper, translator, interpreter

ASSOCIATE OF DEAD HAND

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis-man, he/him

SEXUALITY: Bisexual, Biromantic

LANGUAGES:  mother tongue: Hindi, Urdu fluent: Arabic, Spanish, English, Russian, Punjabi, Gujarati conversational: Japanese, Cantonese learning: Portuguese, Mandarin, Bahasa Malay

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single ( crushing on Anchali )

FC: arpan kumar chandel aka King

Biography --

Zakir was sixteen when he moved from New Delhi to New York City hoping to find a richer more full-filling life there. He hoped to become a famous rapper. He grew up the oldest son of a Muslim and Hindu couple, with little prospect in life other than continue his father's business. His uncle - a friend of his father rather than his actual uncle - told him stories of America, of New York City, and the American Dream.

He got into crime because he needed funds and connections to gain his fame. He's known for making songs in which he fluently meshes languages and meanings together, rapping under the alias Baagee. However, a lot of his time is spent translating for Dead Hand or using his understanding of languages to decipher coded messages.

He's been releasing songs steadily during the past five years, and has been an official associate of Dead Hand for three years.

Timeline

Headcanons --

He's a polyglot; he speaks multiple languages and easily picks up new ones. Currently he's learning Portuguese, Mandarin & Bahasa Malay. He's however always interested in learning more.

He addresses anyone his age with either habibi/habibti ( ‘my dear’ or 'my love’ in Arabic ) or bhai/bhen ( 'brother’/'sister' in Hindi / Indic language ), and anyone older than him as auntie or uncle. Does this consistently and with respect.

Despite his mastery of languages, Zakir still has a distinct accent when speaking in Russian, English or Spanish.

He produces his own music.

He's a romantic, friendly and charming, and a little afraid of violence. Will always portray the role of a diplomat in a conflict.

Zakir was raised in a Muslim and Hindu household, though neither him nor his siblings got much of a choice which religion they wanted to follow. As a result he still follows a lot of rules from Islam and participates in all its religious days, including Ramadan.

He doesn't drink or smoke - though he on occasion uses the drugs available at El Anhelo, and has his way to say why those aren't as bad.

He has an augmentation in his eyes, installed just before he moved to the United States by a street engineer. Because it was a prototype, he's had to get it checked out several times. It essentially works as a video camera: he can zoom in, zoom out, rewind, slow down, and speed up. As well as choose to save certain moments to his phone to view later. Because his eyes are more sensitive now, he wears sunglasses or tinted glasses almost all the time.

wanted and established connection can be found here.

Slang --

Some slang Zakir might use and its meaning:

Yaar: friend/buddy/dude, addressing someone.

Arre yaar: addressing someone while expressing disappointment, surprise, or frustration.

Mashallah: 'God has willed it'

Inshallah: 'if God wills'

Wallah: 'I swear', said very often, presume Zakir never lies when he says this, as it's a sin.

Yallah/Chalo/Vamonos: Let's go!

Alhamdulillah: 'Praise to God'

Subhanallah: 'Glory to God'

Māśūqa: sweetheart, used for Anchali

Chai: Zakir never says tea

Jhakaas: Awesome!

Mast: excellent or fantastic

Bhai __ hai?: he uses this in restaurants mostly when he wants something quickly.

Theek hai: ok or it's okay

[maideninorange]

⭐️ for the To Be series 👀

Anything I want, you say? The To Be (One With the Garden) series of mine they are referring to is...a lot. It's intended to be very open-ended, with a lot of things never being outright stated, and if you read any given fic with a given assumption about Olimar's unfortunate situation, said fic(s) can easily be made more or less horrifying. Add in the fact that neither Olimar nor the Pikmin are always entirely what you'd call a very reliable narrator (no matter how much the former likes to think he is, for the most part), especially as time goes on, and well...things can get tricky, to put it mildly.

As a result, it can be kinda hard to talk about this series, because I don't want people to take my own reading as fact on too many things. It's more fun seeing what kind of interpretations people come to on their own, at least, in my opinion as the author of these four things.

So hm...What to talk about, what to talk about...Do I point out that one bit where I fucked up how much oxygen is in the Earth's atmosphere that's been driving me a little crazy? It's 21% not 70%...Wait! This is probably going to be one of the only times I get to share some language factoids about the Pikminish language I've imagined the characters speaking that I have been writing with in mind! Check what I wrote in Discord convos... remove parts that are kinda spoilery to that huge knife twist in the "back half" I've been planning since the beginning...Place cut for my non-Pikmin followers and here!

Generally speaking, Pikminish outright lacks pronouns. Where pronouns would be in English is generally something most would understand in context. It is generally assumed that plural takes precedent, unless stated to be otherwise (so the word that would most closely resemble "I" and "you" when one must state the topic would most literally translate as "this one" and "that one"). Referring to a third person is referenced through hand gestures like pointing, or through the use of titles (like "Leader", that is ever present). The thing about the Pikmin, you see, is that referring to the group is taken to be the norm due to their odd eusocial structure (For those not familiar with it, eusociality refers to the sort of social structure things like ant nests and bee hives have, although the version in "To Be" is more a cliffnotes version). This is why the default pronoun for the Pikmin is "We" in these fics with "I" being emphasized, due to the fact that they find it unnatural to refers to themselves as individuals. There's, unfortunately, no real way to communicate this in English, but if you are familiar with languages like Japanese, it's kinda like that except Worse.

Adding onto this is the fact that the Pikmin, lacking a social concept of gender, naturally lack a language feature for gender. This is why they refer to Olimar with they/them pronouns, which is something I've mentioned before I think. However, something I haven't mentioned is that I tend to think of Hocotatian as a language with quite a few similarities to Pikminish, one feature of such being that it is similarly context based, although Hocotatian is more just average pronoun avoidant as opposed to outright lacking in pronouns. This is why Olimar never so much as remarks on it when he probably would've otherwise: gender in Hocotatian is typically conveyed through gendered nouns applied to people (think "salesman" or "actress"). As the situation he's found himself in is one in which use of nouns that would be gendered in Hocotatian are few and far between, it's not something he ever really has any opportunity to pick up on, and so it goes unremarked upon. Naturally, English, being a very pronoun heavy language, this kinda makes conveying that specific detail nigh-impossible outside of something like this. Curse you English, you broken broken language.

I like to imagine Pikminish as one of those languages where common words tend to translate to something flowery in another. Not bad for a language where sentences tend to be fast and words are stuffed with as much information as they can be! (Never know when predators might be on the prowl, after all.) This ties into the very musical way I like to imagine them talking, but you already know that, and this thingy is for things I can't convey in fic.

Word order is more than likely SOV in both Pikminish and Hocotatian. (Subject -> Object -> Verb order for those unaware). It's a very common order for words to flow in general out in the real word though, right next to SVO. I just thought this detail was interesting. (English is SVO, so this would've been impossible for me to convey). I like to imagine Pikminish as having pitch accent as well, due to a lack of varied sounds to create various different combinations of words with.

I would've killed to explain any of this in fic, but as you can kinda observe, Olimar is not a language nerd (and therefore would have no reason to take note of any of these things...Though I imagine his notes would've been very extensive if he was lol), and the Pikmin sure as hell aren't. So unfortunately, a lot of this had to go unexplained, even though I was writing these fics with that in mind.

Sorry if this isn't the most interesting director's commentary, but I really wanted to get this bit out there somewhere considering I couldn't write any exposition on it in naturally. But I had fun writing this out, so I hope that counts for something!

[fireliit]

LOGAN, THIRTY-ONE, CST; SHE/THEY. | if you’re hearing I MAKE MY OWN SUNSHINE by ALYSSA BONAGURA playing, you have to know SEONHO JONES (HE/HIM; CIS MAN) is near by! the TWENTY-SIX year old GIG WORKER (MULTIPLE JOBS) has been in denver for, like, ELEVEN YEARS. they’re known to be quite RESTLESS, but being BUOYANT seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble CHA EUNWOO. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those WARM HONEY EYES THAT ARE ALWAYS CRINKLING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF A SMILE, AN ELASTIC HEART THAT ENDURES AGAINST ALL ODDS, A VIBRATING ENERGIZER BUNNY THAT RUNS AROUND IN CIRCLES IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO MOVE FORWARD AND IS IN NEED OF REST vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the LAKERIDGE DISTRICT long enough!

Full profile under the cut! APPLICABLE TRIGGER WARNINGS: non-descriptive mentions of abandonment, death by brain aneurysm, degenerative cognitive illness, homelessness

STATS Birth Name: Seonho Ryu ( 류선호 ) Legal Name: Seonho Jones Occupation: Uber driver / Maintenance worker at Empower Field / miscellaneous contract/manual work, etc. (if any part-time jobs are available at specific places, please let me know!) Age: Twenty-six Date of Birth: February 28th, 1997 Ethnicity/Race: Korean Gender & Pronouns: Cis man | he/him Orientation: Bisexual Social Class: Lower class Languages: English (fluent), Korean (fluent) Height: 183 cm / 6’0" Tattoo(s): musical notes on his right ankle with ‘keep moving forward’ written next to it, an arrow heart on his chest with birthdates of his family inside, purple and burgundy forget-me-nots on his shoulderblades, korean idiom across his spine which translates roughly to "at the end of hardship comes happiness" (고생 끝에 낙이 온다) Piercing(s): ears (double lobe, double helix, snug, conch), left eyebrow Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri, USA Current Residence: Denver, Colorado, USA Parents: Mina Park-Jones (mother), Jalen Jones (step/adoptive father, deceased), Seongmin Ryu (biological father, absent) Siblings: Unnamed sister (younger sister, wc posted), Unnamed sister (younger sister, wc posted), Sam (younger gnc half sibling, age 17), Hana (younger half sister, age 14), and Melody (younger half sister, age 13) Traits: Buoyant, steadfast, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing, generous, escapist, humble, restless, stubborn MBTI: ENFP - The Campaigner Eanneatype: Type 2 - The Helper Moral Alignment: Neutral Good Temperament: Phlegmatic Intelligence Type: Musical / Intrapersonal Astrology: Pisces sun, Scorpio moon, Leo ascending Habits: Gesturing when speaking, pointing, wears mismatched socks, randomly bursts into song, nicotine addiction (vapes), in general poor self-care habits Hobbies: Listening to music, writing music, producing music, dancing, sending memes, playing musical instruments, scrapbooking, papercrafting Likes: Music, romantic comedies, socializing, sunflower seeds, humming, smiling, cuddling, tteokbokki, adult coloring books, thunderstorms, trying new things even if he’s bad at them Dislikes: Conflict, waking up early, traffic, most academic things, balancing a checkbook / anything financial-related, folding clothes, humidity, being overheated, wasting food, feeling like he’s not doing enough BIOGRAPHY

Seonho was born the eldest child to two immigrant parents, Seongmin Ryu and Mina Park, who moved to the United States of America from South Korea when Mina was pregnant with Seonho after she was disowned by her parents who disapproved of Seongmin. His biological father walked out on Seonho, his mother, and two of his younger siblings when he was five years old and Seonho has always believed that they were better off without him.

After being homeless and hopping between the streets and halfways houses after the abandonment, his mother remarried three years to Seonho’s stepfather, Jalen Jones, who would become the only Dad that Seonho acknowledged in his life. Jalen adopted the three eldest children upon his marriage to Mina and they all took on his last name. Three more children would enter the fold throughout the years.

Early on in his childhood, Seonho fell in love with music thanks to Jalen’s side-gig playing the saxophone in a jazz band. He would sing along to every Disney movie and musical and tried to groove to the beat. While he was initially clumsy on his feet, his mother fondly nicknaming him Bambi, he was determined to learn how to dance. He had a talented ear for music, picking up musical instruments and mastering them with an ease. His parents encouraged his passion as best they could, ensuring that they budgeted well enough to afford sending Seonho to his music lessons. While performing at the city market, he was scouted by a Korean entertainment agency at the age of thirteen.

However, he was still a trainee when he flew back home and prematurely ended his contract due to his stepfather dying suddenly of a ruptured brain aneurysm as a result of overworking. After losing their home to foreclosure, the fragmented family relocated to Denver, Colorado.

As the oldest child, he assumed a great deal of responsibility in the household. While he wanted to drop out of school, his mother insisted that he stay enrolled and graduate. He earned money any way that he could to help keep the household, mowing lawns during the summer and working manual labor in the evenings. Sometimes, he would resort to not-so-legal methods if need be.

His music became all the more dear to him, filling the gaping holes in his chest that were created from his dream continually slipping through his fingers. He could never catch a break after that.

A year before Seonho graduated from high school, his mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. After it came to the point that his mother could no longer properly take care of them or herself, she was admitted into a longterm care facility by order of the municipality. At that point, Seonho was eighteen and filed for guardianship of his siblings who had been sent to foster care, which he would eventually be granted after a months' long battle with the courts. He also became the conservator of his mother’s well-being.

It's been hard, yet Seonho kept going anyway. See, he’s a hopeful guy, despite everything, resilient at his core, and even if it meant that he had to work at least 80 hours a week and juggle too many bills and loans, he was going to do it with a smile. 

There have been hard days, of course. Days where he would visit his mother and she would call him by the name of a man best left forgotten. 

Seonho insists that he provide for his family and ensure that each of his siblings focus on their studies, graduate from school, and are afforded opportunities that he did not have.

Seonho often distracts himself by throwing himself into helping people as a by-product of measuring his self-worth by what he can do for other people (thanks, capitalism). This makes him a bit of a doormat, yet not a naïve, unaware one. He just has decided it’s not worth ruffling feathers, and he can’t take risks like he otherwise would out of fear of disrupting what little stability he has been able to achieve for his family.

[tsukiyadori]

When rare meets rare meets even more rare... ✨

I couldn't possibly say it now... that I, who gave out all that [love] advice, «can't» fall in love even if I wanted.... Yoimachi Hatori, Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata chapter 55

Me: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhh

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhh

I had some real strong hunches about her, but--------------------

oohhhhhhooooooooooooohohhhhhhhhhhhhhhdjsfhdfkjgkjdfgkfdjhg

It's actually official now!!!

So what do we have here?

Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata ("How to make a (Maiden) in Love" also known as I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl in Seven Sea's English localization) or OtoTsuku in short, is a tale about Hiura Mihate who is, in modern Western queer parlance, a gender non-conforming femme boy (even if the first take on the English translation botched it hard by disagreeing) in love with his male childhood friend Midou Kensuke who's loves fashion and cosmetics and is very much female attracted, but slowly discovering that his feminine type isn't exactly limited by sex and gender.

GNC (not used as a trap or mere cosplay joke) is super rare already. This series also goes out of its way to make it abundantly clear that this is no trans woman character plot (given the timing in which chapter 46 hits down the nails on it in more than clear words and chapter 45 was still right in the middle of another plotline, makes you almost suspect if the whole translation drama, which was also brought to attention to the author, caused that coming out prematurely into existence...)

It's also rare for being a series that doesn't go the queer is a suffering tragedy sob story-route, nor does it reside in an alternate universe bubble of homophobia simply doesn't exist. Internalized stereotypes of masculinity and later internalized homophobia is something Midou wrestles with from the get go and needs his time to fight against emotionally. Overall the series is still super compf by setting it into a safe place of local acceptance inside their school, friends and Midou's sisters. There is no origin source of an active oppressive force of discrimination. There is just the force of the implications of normalized expectations wreck. OtoTsuku deals with it by featuring a plethora of great little examples of how to weed out a lot of the worries you can have right off the bud. (The swimsuit discussion is quite great and elevates the obligatory beach episode trope of anime/manga into something super wholesome.)

The series even features a bi/pan-character Hayakawa Ayato who confesses to Hiura clearly stating that he knows about Hiura and that man or woman doesn't matter to him. Who recently (ch 54) even got a little comeback to the stage and is reintroduced as a subject of envy for Midou for all the things he can already do with such ease, where he himself is still all silently struggling with them, which also established Hayakawa as more than just a throwaway character to jumpstart Midou's self-realization.

There are also plenty of straight love woes surrounding them to avoid the "somehow everyone's queer in this world" trope that especially BL (which this technically counts to, although not quite in terms of your usual genre dynamics) so often suffers from. Classmates get to guest co-star their own chapters for romances and there's kouhai Ginjou Akechi established as a member of the regular cast who constantly confesses and gets dumped by his crush Yoimachi who's a classmate of Hiura's and Midou's.

And there is Yoimachi herself.

Who is all supportive and downright a fangirl of other people's romance. Who will dodge every discussion about her own type and romance ambitions with leading them on by ambiguously fawning over arts, sculptures, busts and mannequins. Who would dump Ginjou persistently and mercilessly. (But still not cut entirely clean by simply avoiding him or cutting down on interactions with him either.) Who is always open, upbeat and reliable.

Yoimachi who would also make a face like this:

Ch14: Isn't it just fine, to feel pathethic and terrible. Why don't you just do what gives you some peace of mind?

This is totally the expression of somebody who has been in the slumps herself. You know that sort of slump where you can't really talk to anyone. And in her case, she compensates by being a good listener to other people's worries.

This is also Yoimachi who would also try to come clean after all with Ginjou:

ch35: "No matter how much more you confess, I will absolutely not be able to answer it. So I recommend you stop it already."

This is such a roundabout phrasing. There is no mention of want or your usual "This is absolutely not going to happen with you". It's an "can't happen". With such a self-deprecating smile at that, she also just recommends him to stop. Not asking or demanding him to stop being a nuisance. His advances put her into discomfort, yet she doesn't blame him at all for it.

If that hint wasn't strong yet at the end of the same chapter

Yoimachi stares at her horoscope. "Only luck in love is a [full score] five stars, huh. ... even though... I don't need it..."

«I don't need it.»

Hits home? Hits super home. Also, that downright cocky "Can you see" poster quite gets me. Can you see? Can you?

The rest of the cast clearly can't:

ch55, Ginjou: "You know I've been wondering recently. Senpai isn't interested in humans and doesn't want to raise any hopes from me. Isn't that maybe because she had a drunken love in the past...?"

To ramble on with an absurd cheap ass romance plot line anyone thinks is idiocy, but then everyone also just goes

"But no wait. We can't rule it out either, can we..." along with a "mysterious aura" as an sfx.

OF COURSE, you're going to be an enigma. And the next best idea is to have something trauma-based if you're dodging this territory altogether.

Or Ginjou mulling over her fame of giving out love advice:

"But well, Yoimachi seems to be blessed with a lot of life experience. She looks so far ahead, you wouldn't think of her as a same fellow high school student."

No, no, no, no, all you do it look at things more sensibly or rationally and not be completely blinded by this dumpster emotion that makes no sense, that blinds your eyes, disables any unbiased observation skills or general brain circuits.

Or

Girl: "Your advice from the other day was really helpful. When I told that my boyfriend he was like 'She's so experienced with love, it's downright scary'!"

You see that and feel like wanting to smash something? Of course you can only have a valid, helpful opinion on the love topic if you have experienced it yourself. And vice versa, if you do have something worthwhile to say about it, you naturally must have had that experience yourself first hand. Because of course anything about love is not something you could actually study, by, let's say, listening to other people's love tales?

Which this Yoimachi certainly loves to do:

ch30: "Hey, hey, I want to hear about everyone's love stories! I loooove the love tales of other people!"

Yoimachi herself eventually has to vent her frustrations in a monologue tirade, while thinking she's on her own:

"Hum... Betrayed by a friend, two timing, three timing, associating with a man twice your age, a long distance relationship with somebody you know from the internet.... huh?

Isn't there way too much action in high school recently???

I somehow resolved all of them, so it went well, but...

Everyone, you're the way more love experienced ones, you know...

... I couldn't possibly say it now… that I, who gave out all that advice, «can't» fall in love even if I wanted…."

Oh I know those rants. When everyone else around is going absolutely nuts. And you can't find a good place to say a single thing, because that's just going to destroy somebody else's entire world view.

I absolutely adore that Yoimachi is such a fan of everything romance, as well as savy about it, despite knowing what the deal with herself is. End the conflation of aro/ace with prude and general repulsion already. Being interested in a sujet doesn't mean you have to had that experience or be interested in experiencing it yourself. You can like reading mystery and thriller fiction that wouldn't mean you'd want to be in the middle of a series murder case yourself, would you? (Though IRL I recently did get an answer of maybe you would actually. Facepalm.)

In any case

I'M THRILLED.

POSITIVELY TRILLED.

I was really liking the series already for dealing with a character born with stats or interests not quite in alignment of sex/gender expectations in such a nice way. About wanting to go against it not having to mean you're having to be the opposite gender (but still allowed to go through all the questioning of it) nor it being a feminist battle plotline. A series just being continuously fluff, cute and compfy while being fairly grounded at the same time. Adding this bit next to all the other themes - on an established secondary main cast character - is just such a nice addition in an assembly of rarely seen stuff. And getting it so quickly after I stumbled over Fudanshi Kazoku which came along with quite the great super surprise reveal - I'm almost feeling like I'm getting a bit too spoiled.

(And unlike Fudanshi Kazoku this series will probably hold out for a bit longer. I'm still half in denial that it just went and wrapped it all up right after that. q_q)

[dgalerab]

Same long winded anon - Oh damn sorry if I came across like I was seeking validation for the way I see and interact with BNHA fandom/the series in general, that wasn't my intention. I just really enjoy the way you interpret the characters and how you tend to depict them really closely to canon and wanted to open up a dialogue because I find your takes insightful!

I also tend to be pretty fed up with most of the common portrayals of the characters so I completely understand you yelling into the void about it.

You bring up such an interesting point about how these surface level characterizations that we find annoying being really good for people just entering the fandom. Hell, I've even seen fics were people write in the notes that they've never seen the anime or read the manga and their knowledge is entirely from reading fics about it. It's really cool how these base understandings of character makes them so accessible to literally anyone and promotes community in ways that wasn't originally possible just amongst people who enjoyed the original source material.

But that being said YEAH most of these headcanons and characterizations bastardize the original character pretty badly so if you enjoy the character in their canon state or don't vibe with a popular headcanon you are screwed. When people go into talking about these sorts of headcanons like they are the default state of the characters and like anyone who doesn't accept those takes are going against canon it can be really frustrating. I think that probably comes from the same place of the community of fandom tbh. Like when everyone sees a character one way, you feel alienated and it can be hard to find people to enjoy the fandom with when most people don't interpret it at all similarly to how you do.

Also the connection you made between these entry-level headcanons and traditional conservative expression of family dynamics, gender and sex is interesting to me. I feel like a lot of English speaking spaces are dominated by Americans, so it makes sense that these sorts of views that are fed to Americans from birth as the default state of humans (and not... you know... deeply interwoven with religious background lmaooo) are what the fandom at large are desiring to see in the characters. It makes me wonder if Japanese fan spaces have a large amount of Dadzawa or not. Horikoshi himself has clearly pushed the narrative of Aizawa being protective and genuinely caring for his charges as the series has gone on, but if you compare the translations in the subs to the dub, the English voice actor uses more parental/possessive language when Aizawa refers to 1-A (two good examples are if you compare the dialogue between the sub and dub during the scene where Endeavour asks Aizawa to be his sidekick and the scenes preluding when he self amputated his leg where he is being protected by Midoriya and Bakugou).

I'll stop rambling now thank you for indulging me haha. It's always nice to talk about BNHA with someone else in their 30s. I feel like part of this very problem we are talking about is because of how young a lot of the fandom is oop.

oh absolutely no worries you didn't come off as confrontational i just like... sometimes i'll be like "i HATE this hc i'm hitting it like a piñata this STUPID thing" and someone will be like oh interesting i like that trope bc of such and such. and i'm there with my bat covered in piñata pieces like oooooo yeah no i. this was a bit much.

oh definitely i think a lot of fandom characterizations are very american and yes also very young. and like. listen if i'm a teenager watching the shows for teenagers i think i would also be like oh yeah. an adult. and sort of project various adult roles i've experienced onto them without really analyzing the ages. so. i understand ultimately some of it is (not that) old man yells at cloud.

but it's also a common thing in fandom to have characters be flattened down and yeah, i think there's an alienation where you're like YES i want talk about the characters but not the easily shareable versions of them. WHO is gonna wade into the mud with me. i'm TRYING to be deranged here.

[financialsmatter]

Saturday Rant…Tragedy for Political Gain

If a tragedy cannot be exploited for political gain, leftists quickly lose interest. Huh? Such is the case with Anderson Aldrich allegedly walking into Club Q in Colorado Springs and opened fire, killing five and injuring 19 others. As to be expected – and without any detailed information – leftist journalists and activists immediately accused "MAGA" Republicans of inspiring the killings. And they cited pro-gun advocates and people opposed to drag queen performances for children as the culprits. Aldrich – adding bizarre to his already “non-Binary” disturbed state – has asked the court to use his preferred pronouns, They/Them.       LOL! You just can’t make this up. And with that in mind we’re turning over today’s rant to a familiar Financial$Matter reader, Scoob Martin. Ruh, Ro! Take it away Scoobie. This is a case that probably would have become a non-stop media circus for the next several months had the shooter been an actual conservative against the trans agenda.   And with gender ideology and conservative principles being mutually exclusive, it’s all but impossible for corporate journalists to place the blame on the right-wing.   As a result, the event will be buried much like the Waukesha Massacre perpetrated by BLM supporter Darrell Brooks…one year ago. Translation: they can't pin it on whitey as a hate crime. We already know this person is crazy because they committed a mass murder... So "it" stating that it is non gender binary (wtf ever that really means?) is just a reaffirmation of this fact...no? Maybe Biden will now classify all homosexuals as terrorists like he did for Maga supporters.  And then call it homocide. LMAO!    Political Gain   The sick part is how these stupid journalists are faced with a self-identified trans person being charged with mass murder and they’re jumping at the chance to dismiss his subjective gender. And then we also had the Walmart manager go berserk in Chesapeake, Virginia, killing at least six people and wounding several others before fatally shooting himself. I guess this means we’ll never know his/her real gender or pronouns. But he was the kind of guy you want to send Karen to when she insists upon seeing the manager…LOL! So, just in time for the holidays we’re seeing more people ‘snap’ and it makes me wonder how many others are feeling the stress and near ready to pop...? Black Friday may need a new name... And for those who legally carry guns, shopping at Walmart should remind you of the American Express slogan to “don’t leave home without it.” Thanks again, Scoob for that rousing rant. As always, if you – our Dear Readers – have a rant you’d like to share then send it to us. You never know whose life will be affected by it. And if you want to see some NSFW rants then go (HERE). Remember:  We’re Not Just About Finance. But we use finance to give you hope. P.S.  Don’t forget our Black Friday Special for our “…In Plain English Newsletter” at the ridiculously low annual price of $76.85 (normally $145) or monthly rate of $7.95 (normally $15) CLICK HERE. Be sure to use the code word Thanksgiving at the checkout in order to get the discount. ************************************ Sincerely, James Vincent The Reverend of Finance Copyright © 2022 It's Not Just About Finance, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Read the full article

[wirewitchviolet]

Just what is it with wiki editors and trans characters?

It’s still June, which means it’s still pride month, which means I’m still updating this blog more often than the usual maybe 3 times a year, and today I’d like to talk to you about some fictional characters who are trans and the weird wiki entries bending over backwards to deny it. And I’m not even playing this game on hard mode here, talking about like the cast of FF6 or something. I’m here to talk about a gal from Final Fight, and a guy from One Piece.

Oh and I guess I’m also talking about Poison. You all know Poison right? She’s pretty commonly referred to as the first trans woman in a video game, specifically Final Fight in 1989. And that little fun fact is... not an actual fact.

Prior to Final Fight, we had Ms. Pac-Man in 1982. While I hesitate to deadname even fictional characters, Ms. Pac-Man began life as Crazy Otto, and had a brief stint going by Super Pac-Man and a couple other monikers before going with just Ms. Pac-Man. I don’t see why she shouldn’t count.

Perhaps you think we shouldn’t count Ms. Pac-Man because to your reasoning, the origins of the game and the character re-design process behind don’t qualify as transitioning? OK then, the next example that comes immediately to mind is Luigi, from Super Mario Bros., in 1993. Who has had a remarkably consistent portrayal as being very very into feminine clothes, acting super girly while wearing them, and quite enjoying this. Doesn’t count because it’s all in supplementary material? No, it’s in multiple games too. Want to argue there was no in-game confirmation prior to the release of Final Fight? That’s really splitting hairs now, particularly when tie-in media got onboard this train quite early on. Perhaps you want to make the argument that Luigi is not trans, but is a cis man who likes to crossdress, perhaps as a sexual fetish? That is a weird argument to make about a character from a series of games aimed at young children but you do you.

How about Metroid, 1986? Samus canonically dresses like a man, uses masculine pronouns, and when that armor comes off we reveal a woman in a low cut leotard ready to start living it up. Who’s also canonically two meters tall, has super broad shoulders, had her biochemistry tweaked as a child... I think I wrote a whole separate post on this once. We still gonna play the “oh that’s all a disguise/misunderstanding” card on that one?

Well, Doki Doki Panic came out in 1987. Birdo (Catherine in Japan) is quite explicitly a trans woman. It’s right there in the manual, and ad campaigns, and really tastelessly referenced in many sources since. What possible justification could anyone use to argue she isn’t trans?

Well, let’s ask Wikipedia.

“ Since the character's North American introduction, Birdo's gender identity has been an issue of discussion and speculation. The Japanese manual for Doki Doki Panic, when translated into English, states her name to be Catherine and as a man who thinks of himself as female, adding that she likes to wear a bow and would rather be called "Cathy."  However, in the first edition manual for the North American release of Super Mario Bros. 2, Birdo is referred to by a text block that states "he thinks he is a girl" and would "rather be called 'Birdetta.'" In later printings, mention of Birdo being male was omitted. Mention of this fact is further not included in most later games featuring the character and seems to have been retconned to Birdo always being a female to begin with. In the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Birdo, called Catherine, is described similarly to the original manual, though wanting to be called "Cathy." In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it is said that Birdo is of "indeterminate gender." Birdo appears in the Wii Japan-only video game Captain Rainbow, which delves into Birdo's gender identity. It specifically depicts her being imprisoned for entering the women's bathroom, and the player is asked to locate proof of her femininity (her vibrator) to get her out. Birdo is often lauded as the first transgender video game character. The character was given a female voice actor in Super Mario Advance, a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2. The Spanish language website for Mario Smash Football while describing Birdo suggests that the character's gender is indeterminate. The European website for Mario Strikers Charged Football refers to Birdo as a male character.”

And later in the same article, we have this whole subsection:

“Gender identity

Birdo has been the subject of discussion relating to her gender identity and has been regarded as transgender. She has become a trans icon due to her gender identity. She has been credited as an early transgender character in video games. The manual excerpt from Super Mario Bros. 2 about Birdo's gender did not receive attention until some time after the game's release. Writer Lorenzo Fantoni suggested that this was because few people read the manual or because no one cared about Birdo's gender at the time. Fantoni also compared the Captain Rainbow scene to the later bathroom debates regarding trans people. Fantoni also suggests that Nintendo does not know what to do with Birdo and that changes to Birdo's character are made to match present-day morals. Author Sam Greer was critical of Birdo's portrayal, stating that her gender had become a "running joke" and was the "subject of much derision and stereotyping." Paste Magazine's Jennifer Unkle criticized Birdo as a caricatured trans person and as an example of Nintendo's poor handling of gender identity in general.

It is speculated by Wired's Chris Kohler that the gender issue was retconned to make her a cisgender female, while video game developer Jennifer Diane Reitz suggests that she may have undergone gender reassignment surgery. Writer Andrew Webster of The Escapist used the history of Birdo in the lead-in to his article, commenting on the changes Nintendo has made to hide Birdo's gender status.”

Weird efforts by wiki editors to try and establish some sort of “ambiguity” or “controversy” here highlighted in bold. Really though, ALL of this text can quite easily be boiled down to just “it used to be that every single mention of this character in any source of any kind felt compelled to include a gross transphobia-informed vulgar 'joke’ about her being trans, but more recently, in North American localizations, they don’t do that as often.”

I wasn’t planning to focus so heavily on Birdo, but wow what a fantastic example of the thinking at play here. Nobody’s trans unless you’re explicit about it. And by explicit about it we mean making gross jokes... and even then the character is only assumed to be trans when we hear that joke, if you go too long without making any, they revert to being cis.

Anyway I’m sure there’s plenty of other examples with other weird excuses not to count them that I’m forgetting. Was Faria out before Final Fight? It’s hard to pin old arcade releases down to a particular month.

How about Final Fight though? Poison isn’t even the first trans character in the game she appears in. Roxy pops in at the tail end of the first level, then again just before Poison, her palette swap. Believe it or not though, there are absolutely people out there who will insist that Poison is trans but Roxy isn’t. I have a lot of building up to do here but have a little tease from the dedicated Street Fighter wiki to get us going...

Before getting into why “it has been speculated” that Roxy is trans, let’s head over to regular wikipedia and see what they have to say about Poison’s “gender history” shall we?

“Originally conceived as a female thug in Final Fight and part of the game's antagonist group, Mad Gear, concerns during the game's development about reactions from North American audiences to fighting women led to the character being re-imagined as a "newhalf". However, that was not considered satisfactory and both Poison and her palette swap Roxy were replaced by the male characters "Billy" and "Sid" and have been for every subsequent North American port of the title on Nintendo consoles and handhelds. After the Final Fight series, she later appeared alongside wrestler Hugo, acting as his manager, with her schemes revolving around finding a tag team partner for him or developing their own wrestling organization. Poison first appeared as a playable character in Final Fight Revenge. She was also to appear in both Capcom Fighting All-Stars and Final Fight: Streetwise; however, the former was canceled and she was omitted from the latter as development progressed. Following those aborted attempts, she ended up appearing as a playable character on Street Fighter X Tekken. She was also added as a playable character to Ultra Street Fighter IV.

The character's potential status as a trans woman, consciously left ambiguous by the developers, has remained a topic of frequent debate by both fans and media alike.”

OK we’re going to be here a while, this is just the first section. Before even getting into the point I was going to make it’s super weird not to mention that she’s a playable character in Street Fighter V, how long ago was this last edited? Anyway, right off the bat, we have perhaps the most oft-repeated lie in video games. Which is even called out as such in the next section here... while repeating it again.

“Conception and history

Poison's first appearance in Final Fight featured her and a palette swap character named Roxy as recurring minor enemies for the player to fight. Named after the band by an unnamed female employee at Capcom, she was designed by Akira Yasuda to contrast against the bigger characters in the game and move about randomly and described as a "cool and rebellious woman". According to the book All About Capcom Head to Head Fighting Games and Final Fight director Akira Nishitani, the characters were originally planned to be cisgender women, but were changed to "newhalfs" (a Japanese slang term for trans women) after the game's release, due to the suggestion that "hitting women was considered rude" in America and the concern that feminist groups would sue. However, concept artwork included in the 2005 compilation Capcom Classics Collection of the pair specifically uses the kana for 'newhalf' (ニューハーフ), contradicting the statement the change occurred post-release. In 2007 Nishitani stated that he supposed the character "could be male", but added it was up to the viewer to decide. He later clarified in a discussion on Twitter that in his personal view Poison was a woman. Yasuda himself commented that as far as her gender, he considers her transgender in North American localizations, but cis in Japan.

A later appearance by Poison as a playable character in Final Fight Revenge, an American-produced 3D fighting game spinoff of Final Fight, portrayed the character in a highly feminine manner and had her romantically interested in Final Fight hero Cody. Commentary about her ending in the game in All About Capcom suggested that the character may have received sex reassignment surgery. The Final Fight-related character profiles featured in Capcom Classics Collection instead allude to her being a cross-dresser, while addressing Roxy as a "she" who dislikes Poison's cross-dressing.

Street Fighter IV's producer Yoshinori Ono, when asked in an interview about Poison's gender, stated: "Let's set the record straight: In North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual woman. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female." He later emphasized it again when asked about what female characters could be included in the game Street Fighter IV, stating that it would be too confusing to include her due to the region-specific gender. However, in a 2011 interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly at the Tokyo Game Show, he stated that Capcom "doesn't have a stance technically", and while they wouldn't give an official answer, felt it was up to the viewer to decide. He added that his intent was to please all fans and that the mystery behind her gender was the core of the character. During the same interview, a Capcom representative further added that they worked closely with GLAAD, an organization concerned with the portrayal of LGBT people in media, to ensure "anything that might be offensive has been very tailored to not be" for Poison's portrayal in Street Fighter X Tekken.”

Where do I begin? Besides shouting a string of profanity and mashing my keyboard while I read all that. Well first of all, I’m fairly certain every woman who has ever worked at Capcom has, in fact, had a name. Also can we have a look at that Final Fight Revenge ending that allegedly hints at her getting bottom surgery?

I don’t even want to diagram the thought process by which one would get from some stock tropey “I bet I could make him like me” to “clearly this alludes to her running off to get surgery performed after this.”

Anyway damn, I haven’t even gotten to the sections on “censorship” and “reception” here, but I don’t want to be here all night. So let’s just say there’s a bunch of quotes from various people about how she’s really hot, half of those add some “I hope that doesn’t make me gay” sort of comment, and we have a couple more rephrasings of the big lie. So... yeah let’s get into that properly.

So... game developers tend to be gross creeps who love dehumanizing jokes about women and queer people in general, “games journalism” has traditionally been the realm of clueless teens quoting each other in circles, paraphrasing press releases, and pasting anything that claims to be a translation of an interview with someone speaking Japanese, said interviews tend to involve flummoxed third party interpreters, and none of these people are particularly likely to know a single damn thing about trans people, let alone what various slurs and terms in languages they don’t speak really imply.

So, first off, there’s nothing at all “mysterious” or “left to the player’s imagination” about the Final Fight girls. They are a pair of trans women who when not busy being brawler enemies or getting folded into the Street Fighter franchise and rounded out are sex workers, specifically catering to the the plausible deniability crowd who can go “hey she totally looked like a hot cis girl when I picked her up” in regards to women they very much know are trans and haven’t had bottom surgery. It’s a pretty common fetish. There has never actually been any ambiguity or deviation on that. It’s spelled out plain as day right on their original designs. Which I have a scan of, right here!

There it is, plain as day. If you can read katakana, and you’re up on your Japanese sex work slang, there’s no ambiguity here. Same term all these developers keep tossing out in interviews. It ends up getting translated in all sorts of awkward ways because an interpreter is going to have to try and clean it up and simplify it, especially back when most of these quotes were pulled (the one from Ono is a bit more explicitly worded) and I’m guessing all the bits of “well in America she’d be considered a woman” stem from our language regarding trans women being a bit better generally, and/or a further weird crack because, well, America is kind of the country all the other country’s trans women come to when they want bottom surgery. Very few people in the world perform it, and we have a shocking percentage plus the best reviewed ones. Now you know.

The whole story about “making them trans in the U.S. to avoid being sued by feminists” is... just self-evidently BS? That’s like, a 10 year old on a playground’s understanding of “feminists” and the concept of a lawsuit. The closest thing to a source on it is a vague second or third hand anecdote passed along a decade after the fact from someone who thought one of them was blonde. Plus when you remove the later embellishment about neither of them being trans before being swapped out for random guys in the SNES release, it’s uh... pretty obviously all just a setup for a gross “trans women aren’t really women” joke. So let’s all stop spreading that around and get an adult to fix wikipedia.

All THAT said, back to the full text of the funniest thing I’ve ever read on a wiki:

“Trivia

Roxy is named after the English rock band Roxy Music. It has been speculated that Roxy is transgender like Poison not only due to the latter's gender history but also because of Roxy being referred to as a "newhalf" (Japanese term for a pre-op transgender person) in her original character concept art, but this has never been confirmed or denied.”

Yes, that’s right. According to the Street Fighter wiki, some people have this wacky theory that Roxy might be trans, just because the artist who first designed her wrote a giant note under the illustration stating “hey this is a trans woman!” And apparently this “has never been confirmed or denied” despite the citation note literally linking to her original concept art. Which, again, could not be more clear on this subject.

You can’t even ask, “what do designers have to do? Spell it out for you!?” because they ACTUALLY DID in this case.

But I’ve got one more for you all. The other day see, someone showed me a recent scan from the manga One Piece, with a very satisfied “well that should finally settle this.”

So... full disclosure here, I haven’t been up to date on what’s going on in One Piece for at least like a decade, and my effort to catch up on the context here ironically just involved me hastily trying to look up what that is with the horns between Luffy and Zoro. I’m not even sure what his name is. But I sure as hell know when I’m looking at some wiki editing weirdo trying to deny a character is trans when I see it.

Like all trans characters with wiki pages, we have a big subsection just labelled “Gender” which does some filibustering about “controversy” Japanese not using gendered third person pronouns (and conveniently ignoring the first person ones) and so on before begrudgingly hitting us with something like this:

“However, certain statements by characters in the manga have continued to create confusion and uncertainty regarding Yamato's gender, particularly regarding Yamato being referred to as Kaidou's son. Yamato has stated that she refers to herself as Kaidou's son due to her desire to adopt Oden's identity, saying "Oden was a man, wasn't he? So I chose to be a man too!"  Yamato has also been referred to as Kaidou's son by Kaidou himself as well as the Beasts Pirates; though their reasons for doing so still remain unclear, given their relationship with the real Oden and their reactions to Yamato claiming to be the legendary samurai. This has led to a significant portion of the fanbase believing that, in-universe, characters who know Yamato consider her to be male, and the official VIZ and Funimation translations have taken this approach, with Luffy and the Beasts Pirates referring to Yamato with masculine ("he/him") pronouns.”

I know, I know, us trans people are always itching to claim any character we can as a trans guy, but just because someone unambiguously says 'I am a man' and 'I am this guy's son' and that guy says 'yes, this is my son' and the official translation exclusively uses he/him pronouns, and when visiting the bathhouse he heads to the men's side and nobody bats an eye at that, well that doesn't really mean ANYTHING, necessarily!

For real though, wiki editors are out here admitting to going out of their way to misgender this guy and stubbornly shout that the official localization is wrong. There’s also some grasping at straws involving a trading card, but like... even if the guy writing the manga were to say “oh this character is actually a girl” that wouldn’t trump the fact that he... unambiguously says “I’m a guy, refer to me as a guy, everyone refers to me as a guy, I am living my life as a guy.” Like, that wins. The only way to argue this isn’t a trans character is if you want to go and say he was actually assigned male at birth and we should just ignore the gynecomastia that might have lead to thinking otherwise.

I don’t know what it is about people who edit wikis where they find it so damn hard to admit when a character is trans, but according to the standard they seem to have set, I guess I have to infer that no cis person has ever actually existed in any work of fiction, or indeed in real life! If they did we’d clearly be bombarded with crass jokes about them.

Also for real, for as often as people make [citation needed] jokes, nobody who edits wikipedia seems to know a primary source from a hole in the ground. People seem to just be searching for whatever they just typed, pasting the first hit, and praying nobody thinks to look at any of the footnotes. It is a MESS down there.

[iceflwers]

𝓫𝓮𝓷𝓳𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷 “𝓫𝓮𝓷” 𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓼𝓱𝓪𝔀 !

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ THE BASICS !

— ❥ FULL NAME: Benjamin Jeffrey Bradshaw.

— ❥ NICKNAMES: Ben (most commonly used), Benny, Benji, Bradley, Bradshaw, babe (by Matthew only), sweetheart (by Matthew only).

— ❥ DATE OF BIRTH: September 9th, 2002 (Virgo).

— ❥ BIRTHPLACE: Miami, Florida, United States.

— ❥ CURRENT RESIDENCE: Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada.

— ❥ SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Spanish (not fluently), German (not fluently), Swiss German (not fluently), Swedish (not fluently), American Sign Language (not fluently).

— ❥ ORIENTATION: Homoromantic, homosexual.

— ❥ GENDER IDENTITY: Cisgender male (he/him pronouns).

— ❥ OCCUPATION: Center for the Vancouver Canucks.

— ❥ FACECLAIM: Kit Connor.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ PERSONALITY !

— ❥ HOGWARTS HOUSE: Hufflepuff (loyal, hard-working, compassionate).

— ❥ MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE: INFP - The Mediator (empathetic, open-minded, self-isolating).

— ❥ ENNEAGRAM TYPE: Type Two - The Helper (warm-hearted, sincere, sentimental).

— ❥ MORAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good.

— ❥ LOVE LANGUAGES: Physical touch for receiving, quality time for giving.

— ❥ SKILLS: Hockey, skating, cooking, memorization, playing acoustic guitar, dancing.

— ❥ LIKES: Cozy sweaters, fantasy novels, lying on his bed listening to music in the dark, winning hockey games, spending time with his teammates and friends, warm and Sunny weather, petting cats, cuddling with Matthew, comedy movies, doing puzzles, skating on fresh ice.

— ❥ DISLIKES: Losing, thunderstorms, being ignored, talking to his parents, scratchy fabrics, people who mistreat public servants, rainy days, any kind of discrimination, fake people, bugs.

— ❥ FEARS/PHOBIAS: Being left alone again, being hated, drowning, snakes.

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ RELATIONSHIPS !

— ❥ FAMILY: Lydia Bradshaw (mother, estranged), David Bradshaw (father, estranged).

— ❥ FRIENDS: Elias Petterson, Joseph Woll, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, Luke Hughes, John Marino, Jack Hughes, Thatcher Demko.

— ❥ ACQUAINTANCES: Remainder of the Vancouver Canucks roster, Mitch Marner, Nico Hischier, Fraser Minten, Connor Dewar, William Nylander.

— ❥ ROMANTIC INTERESTS: Jackson Harlan (former crush), Charlie Brighton (first boyfriend), Sal Ahmad (brief fling), Brock Boeser (brief crush), Matthew Knies (current romantic interest).

˚✧ ₊˚ʚ FUN FACTS !

— ❥ While Ben would never classify himself as a bookworm - he doesn’t really have enough time to read a lot because of his career - he does like to read, and always makes it a mission to read three books during the off-season.

— ❥ Ben’s favorite form of physical affection is holding hands with someone, or even just linking pinkies with them - he loves having that feeling of connection and not being able to be separated from someone in public.

— ❥ He is, unsurprisingly, very popular with queer hockey fans. There are plenty of edits floating around on the Internet calling him a queer icon and highlighting moments during games and media that the creators think showcase that, and honestly, he kind of loves it.

— ❥ Ben is also a proud feminist, and a huge supporter of women in professional hockey. He attends all the PWHL games he can get to, often bringing Matty and Joey with him, and consistently posts in support of women in professional sports and praises women’s hockey teams in interviews when he can. (Quinn is a very proud captain for him because of this.)

— ❥ Despite mainly being a student athlete, he really liked his classes in college, especially the Creative Writing course he took - Matty always jokes that he’ll have to become an author after retiring from hockey.

tagging @lovings4turn, @hiya-itsamber, & @theopenlocker !

─┈ ♡ copyright © 2024: you do not have permission to copy, translate, or repost my works, nor to use my oc ideas or plots.

[summonerruoste]

Ranking Fire emblem Three Houses characters according to their English translation accuracy

So yeah, I’ve been translating this game for a while now and this is my conclusion. Also this in an easy accession point to all my translations. Just click the character’s name to see the translations of your chosen character.

A tier

Includes most of the characters, majority of them from Golden Deer’s which is interesting. There is also Dimitri and Dedue who are accurate until the time skip.

B tier

Majority of these characters that speak in keigo 敬語, the most formal way of speech in Japan. Some characters like Flayn and Rhea the translation comes through while characters like Hubert lack a certain edge without the refined speech. Sothis also speaks in an ancient way, referring to Byleth with an old way to say you onushi  御主 and referring to her self with washi  儂 which is an old way to refer to oneself also Hanneman uses it.

C tier

People in this category have small changes made to them. 

Claude actually uses sensei  先生  (teacher, instructor) or as is translated to professor just like everyone else when speaking to Byleth but with a slight change of tone, which is why I see no problem with them changing it to more playful ’’teach’’. Also after time-skip he uses the word kyoudai  兄弟 (sibling, sibling-in-law, mate or a friend) to refer to Byleth. I find it has the same vibes when yakuza can use brother to refer to their close clan mates, thus I think it’s a reference to Claude’s culture somehow.

Ferdinand actually is more of an aggressor between him and Hubert’s support link. Hubert says he doesn’t mind eating lunch with him and Byleth and Ferdinand is the one making things difficult thus he should stay silent. After time skip Ferdinand doesn’t shout dramatically ‘’no...!’’ when he learns his father is dead, but just says to himself ‘’could it be...?’’

Caspar’s lines are changed when interacting with Petra. During the introduction to the Black Eagles Caspar says something likes to  ’’I can take Byleth on bare handed’’, to which Petra asks ‘’Bare handed? You want Professor strip their gloves off?’’ To which Caspar states it was just a metaphor for combat.

Ingrid’s interaction with Sylvain during their C support have been changed.

Edelgard’s changes are subtle are only amplified after time skip. The small changes of her wording make her seem more cold and dismissive than she originally was.

Male Byleth interaction with Sylvain is changed. More could have been changed as I played in English with Japanese voices, but this one stuck up.

Multiple time skip Dimitri’s conversations have been altered. In Japanese he shows much more clear signs of paranoia and seeing things that don’t exist, speaking to Byleth after their first meeting as if they are just one of his hallucinations.

Dedue’s line when sacrificing himself for Dimitri is altered. He says ‘’I will always stay by your side, even with the distance of death separating us.’’ while in the translation he just says how Dimitri will be a good king, which is much more inpersonal.

Balthus and Byleth’s C support is altered. Where Balthus gratefully accepts Byleth’s offer to protect him and Balthus says ‘’Don’t mind me sticking to your side then.’’ in the translation he is made much more casual about it, removing the vulnerability of the conversation.

Miklain’s conversation with Sylvain is changed. This is actually the first time gendered language is used as an insult which made me suspicious.

Death knight’s English translation is much more dramatic than in the original. He is a quiet menacing and speaks rarely which leaves on impression of power.

D tier 

The queer context removed gang! Here is supports between Annette and Mercedes, Leonie and Lysithea, and Edelgard and Dorothea.

E tier

These characters change a lot between the original and the translation.

Bernadetta is much more stuttering and less panic talk in the original. Also in her and Felix’s C suppport Felix notes feeling her emit sakki  殺気 (bloodlust) when escaping from him. 

Felix is much more caring in Japanese, more blunt and not actually vicious. I’m planning on translating his and Ingrid’s B support which also shows this.

Edelgard’s time skip changes can be summarized with her support with Hubert. She emotes much more and shows great care for him and actually laughs with him.

So Randolf in the original speaks of doing things for his family while in the English side it’s changed to doing it for honor? Really now? You don’t want to empathize with the enemy English translation? And an NPC. Really?

So Hapi and Yuri, have an altered comments for when Jeralt dies. Yuri also doesn’t call Byleth a friend but anta あんた a more casual version of anata 貴方 which is usually translated to dear, darling, honey or something close to that.

Manuela 

So she gets a a tier of her own for her altered B support with Cyril.  The original support made me disgusted of her and happy there is no A support between them. Click her name if you want to read it, but beware of the problematic elements related to alcohol and hints of grooming.

F tier

So here lay Cyril, Petra and Sylvain. The characters that I have most to say about translation vice. So these character’s are completely different between the translation and the original. I can only think of the reason for Cyril and Petra’s change in speech style coming from translator's internalized racism. 

Cyril has no accent and actually speaks very politely, on many occasions using desu/masu です/ ます   which is polite speech below keigo but above casual speech. Closest I can refer to how he would speak in English would be Dedue. He also speaks about tolerating his work rather than enjoying it. He also speaks less about Rhea and more about himself as individual, how he is extremely loyal, and how he enjoys when people can depend on him and how Tomas was one of those people that weren’t racist against him and how he feels conflicted with his own feelings and stance of the church, but resolves himself to listening Rhea as he feels in debt to her.

Petra speaks in a very clear Japanese with sometimes a little odd word order and only stumbles in metaphoric speech usually taking it literally. She is a good representation of how learning another language works, and once being told something is a metaphor she asks what it means as she will later start using said phrases. Instead in the translation she speaks like illiterate which is kind of reminiscence how Gonta from Danganronpa V3 was translated. 

(Somehow these characters are always people of color, I sure wonder why~)

Here is translated Petra and Cyril’s C support for evidence.

And then there is Sylvain... What have they done to you my boy. Translation reduces him to comic relief while he has a lot of trauma with the abuse from Miklain, to a possible sexual assault or some other trauma concerning a lot of women, as he speaks of women as ants who surround him or how he fears and hates them. All this tells that his flirty demeanor is but a defense mechanism and a self-destructive one at that. It reflects real life of how it’s common for those sexually abused to become hypersexual as a result to try to cope with their trauma’s lack of consent, ( but this is just how interpret it.) All these conversations of Sylvain's trauma are cut and can be found translated by me in Sylvain and Mercedes support chain.

[bruce-wayne-lovebot]

Crack Baby • Druig x Eternal!Reader

Summary: “Crack baby, you don’t know what you want, but you know that you had it once and you know that you want it back.” ~ Crack Baby by Mitski

An empath and a mind controller walk into a budding civilization.

Word Count: 3 346

TW: Body Horror Elements (Reader has powers like Mr Fantastic/Elongated Man/Elastigirl.), Nausea, mentions of Religions (Hellenism & Christianity), mentions of back/chest pain

Ships: Druig x Reader, Past Thena x Reader

AN: Reader is the inspiration for Aphrodite in this, therefore I mention Aphrodite as a god hoping to make it more gender-neutral. French to English Translations are at the bottom of the post under the second header.

Aphrodite, a god who was the perfect mix of the most beautiful things humanity could imagine. The story claims they were born from seafoam, belonging to no one. While Eternals in your team had gods named after them that suit them well, you were beyond shocked with who you were given. That all of society saw you as the peak of perfection with an unloving heart.

~~~

2023 AD

You were currently walking away from your job, after a long day of hard work. It was a shorter day than compared to those in office jobs, but being an Arborist meant quite a bit of time during your day was spent climbing trees. You would never complain about your job.

You got into your car and sat in the driver’s seat, stretching out before putting your key in the ignition and starting your car. Your work was silent, it was mainly just you alone staring down at the world from treetops. That type of isolation could also be terrifying. You thought it was beautiful. In your opinion, all humanity has strived for with the advancement of technology was only helpful for healthcare. Seeing this view from a screen would only damage the worth of the moment, not strengthen it. You enjoyed how humanity had grown, and you weren’t necessarily upset about how technology had grown, you and your friends were the ones to spark the idea of innovation in others’ heads.

It wasn’t that people bothered you, or that you particularly enjoyed being alone; you always found yourself able to sympathize with others. It’s probably one of the most sought-after traits but you couldn’t stand it.

You put your car in reverse, driving out of a forested area. You had moved away from most of your old friends, only being a few states away from one of them, Phastos. He has invited you over before, you felt his concern over the phone but were always able to reassure him nothing was wrong. You didn’t have the same powers as Ajax, but years after learning everyone’s emotions, you learnt what reaction every response in the book would get. Maybe it wasn’t something nice to admit to, but it was a side effect to your powers.

You turned the radio on, it was a sad song you couldn’t remember the name of. It felt like songs these days were getting sadder and sadder. You never were able to feel emotions through recordings, which most of the time was a blessing but other times felt empty. You’ve seen people’s home videotapes before, families smiling and laughing. You craved to have something like that.

The music was interrupted by your ringtone, it was Head Like A Hole by Nine Inch Nails. In your “new life” you would have said it’s something you heard in high school. On the dashboard of your car popped up a photo of Phastos. It was of you and him on his wedding day, you two were pushed close together in a hug.

You pressed the answer button, waiting for him to speak first.

« llo, Bonjour Y/N. » He started, he seemed apprehensive and sad. Not to mention, he rarely spoke to you in French, since the two of you had moved to America, you only spoke to each other in English. You originally went to the Mediterranean and helped care for the land in France until it was founded.

Of course, it was the city of romance when founded by the god of love themself. The French was something nice to hear but tied with his emotions you could be feeling, it only meant trouble.

« Un instant, s’il vous plait. » You pulled your car over to the side of the road, you never had fits of blacking out using your powers, but you occasionally would have what humans called meltdowns.

You placed your hands on opposite sides of the steering wheel, leaning forward as if to crack your back. The noise never came, your back stretching past the human limit. You picked up this habit in moments of stress after reading some comic book where someone with the same powers as you cried, unable to hold themselves together physically. It scared the living shit out of you.

Holding on like this, you had a way to tether yourself down, hoping to remain as close to human-like as possible. You needed to look good, according to humanity; your whole thing was beauty.

« Y/N? » The man on the other side of the phone asked, concern now being the dominant emotion he was feeling. Underneath that, you could sense anger, not from Phastos but someone else on the other side of the phone.

« Oui? » Your breath sounded wheezy, despite the fact your body was able to expand to give you as much air as needed.

« Je pense que tu devrais venir me voir. »

A deep sigh. « Non. J'ai besoin de savoir maintenant. »

Tension. It rolled down your back, you could feel your nerves send out a pulse before part of your back lost feeling. You have understood some things about anatomy, like the nerves aggravated now were the ones sending information to the rest of your body. You didn’t dare to move but did try to pull your elongated limbs back to their human proportions.

« Ajax est mort. »

You didn’t say anything. You couldn’t. Your body stayed corrupted in an unusual form. There wasn’t a singular part of your brain that was working correctly.

Ajax was always more than a leader, she was like your mother. The only words you could think of were curse words. Luckily, it didn’t seem like Phastos wanted an answer.

« Si je commence à conduire maintenant je serai là dans quelques heures » You say, after what could have been at least five minutes of complete silence.

~~~

People loved you or at least, in the start they did. You were the god of love long before you were some self-absorbed god who had better things to do than show up.

It started early on, you were able to change your features ever slightly, always fitting whatever beauty standard the people held. In your mind, it was always slightly horrific. You later would ponder if angels in the bible were inspired by you. A figure that’s supposed to be human, but something is wrong. A hand reaching out to help only to be slapped away.

Beauty was added to love by word of mouth from humanity.

~~~

Phastos’ house was beautiful. It wasn’t as grand as something you would buy for yourself, but beautiful nonetheless.

Being Aphrodite meant that the concept of you that was created so many years ago, no matter how incorrect it was, is still being worshiped. You couldn’t help but feel happy when a particularly good love song came on the radio. The genre didn’t matter, the fact that people were just so in love they needed to sing about it was enough.

Sersi was the first to greet you, encasing you in a tight hug. Phastos was next, whispering support in your ear before he pulled away. Ikaris didn’t offer a hug to you, he just stood back, watching. He looked stern as if he was upset to see you. There was anger radiating off of him, but perhaps that was just how he held grief. You wouldn’t say anything, you two haven’t talked in centuries, and it wasn’t like you two left while fond of each other. You have marked allegiances with both Druig and Thena. Your alliance with Thena was well known, history had muddled and twisted it over the years but the same concept of the war and love god making a team was very prominent. You and Druig weren’t talked about, but the fact you supported him taking control of everyone’s mind was the nail in the coffin. Ikaris wouldn’t super warm, and that had to be okay.

“So…” You start, rubbing a hand over your face. “We’re getting the band back together. Who’s next?”

~~~

???? BC

You never enjoyed being cooped up, emotions coming to you left, right and centre. You longed to go out for walks but never did it alone. You liked your powers but they weren’t the best for taking out deviants alone. You would normally take Thena out, neither of you felt the need to make small talk. It was silent and nice.

This time, she was busy, so you had to find someone else to go for a walk with. Ikaris was your second hope, although you always felt like there was an emotion in him you couldn’t put a word to, but he was a happy man. A bit love-sick, but happy. Kingo would also be nice to bring along, he always managed to make you laugh, perhaps you were selfish but you didn’t like feeling negative emotions at such a strong level. You enjoyed moments where you could be selfish and not have to help others feel better.

On your way to look for Ikaris, you ran across Druig instead. You never hung out with him while not amid battle, but today could change that.

“Druig!” You called out, catching the man's (and other people in the square)’s attention.

He seemed surprised by your outburst, stopping still in his tracks, waiting for you to join him.

He was happy.

It was peaceful, the deviants weren’t at bay but the people were safe, and that’s all that truly mattered.

You jogged up to him, slight embarrassment sitting in your chest. You should have waited before catching his attention.

“I wanted to have a walk around the grounds, would you care to join me?” You had clasped your hands together, walking as if you were royalty.

“Sounds dangerous. Wouldn’t you rather go with your girlfriend?” Druig joked, causing you to roll your eyes in return.

“Thena is busy with Ajax, and I didn’t want to be the one to interrupt them.”

“Second choice.” Druig feigns emotional hurt which deep down, you can feel a twinge of. As long as you can remember it has been there, not just in him but in the rest of your team. In Thena it was like the ambers of a forest fire, you think the worst is over, and the flames are diminished until it sparks again. You, Druig, Ikaris, and the others; it was hidden, like a well you needed to drop a stone into to see how far it went. Those emotions weren’t as painful to feel with things like happiness or love were piled on top of them.

Druig stood beside you offering an arm outwards. “Lead the way.”

~~~

The Amazon rainforest was beautiful. It was the home of everything you’ve been working on for thousands of years.

You made the executive decision that you didn’t want to be there when everyone told Druig, seeing Gilgamesh’s reaction hurt you.

You had ended up getting a shared building with Kingo and Kuran. You thought that would be fine unless they were still doing the vlog as you were trying to sleep. You didn’t mind being in the video, you were a fan of Kingo’s movies and he was a close friend. Why not document moments of your friendship?

While your team was in what you were guessing was either a church or town hall, you had spent time climbing a tree. Most branches were above the average human reach, you knew there was no need to be self conscious but you didn’t want to show off your powers.

Eventually you found your way up, staring down at everyone. It was silent, watching everyone go on with their lives. It was a moment where you could forget everything that happened.

That was until the doors to the hall-church opened in a rush. Whoever it was seemed upset, and wasn’t immediately followed after.

You rolled your eyes but made no effort to go and check in on them. Of course, someone was getting upset. Not only was your team going through something terrible, but you all fought even at the best of times.

Someone you’ve never seen before was at the bottom of the tree, staring back up at you. It frightened you but when you tried to get an emotional read, you got nothing. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the first time you haven’t gotten readings from anyone.

~~~

You had tried to stay as close to Thena as possible. You held one of her hands in yours, you tried to maintain that as much as possible but there were occasions where you needed both hands or Ajak saying you needed to use your powers for things that were directed towards humanity.

Things were silent between your team for a while, and in the streets below there was non-stop fighting.

You stopped leaving your room, occasionally getting visits from Ajak. She would ask you how you were feeling, offer comfort and then leave after you wouldn’t talk.

You felt terrible, Thena was struggling yet you had people checking in on you? You eventually closed your door off. The emotions were eating through the walls of your room, infecting you. You worried you were gaining the same madness Thena had. Perhaps isolation was the last thing you needed but the farther away you were, the less you felt the war that was raging inside the city walls.

It was what you would have guessed to have been two weeks since you last saw anyone. Of course, you had no windows so your estimation of time was most likely terribly wrong.

There was a knock at your door that you wished you were able to ignore but you wouldn’t do that to anyone. You opened the door slightly, seeing Druig standing in his formal wear.

“Y/N. How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” You said, taking a deep breath and realizing that you could only feel your and Druig’s emotions. “Better. How’s Thena?”

He gave you a look that let you know she was doing no better. “That’s why I was sent to come to get you, Ajak wants you to wear your formal wear.”

You nod and raise a finger to him before closing the door in his face.

Your formal wear was a light pink, it wasn’t as pigmented as other Eternal’s but you thought it suit you just fine.

Upon dawning your outfit you open the door again, seeing Druig waiting patiently for you.

“Are you ready to go, my liege?” He offers you an outstretched arm, which you gladly accept.

“Always.” You force a smile and begin walking with him, trying to avoid the heavy weight of feeling like you’re walking someone’s certain doom.

~~~

“My liege?” The person at the bottom of the tree asks, looking up towards you.

You stay in place but crane your neck down, confused by why they would be calling you that.

You move to climb down the tree, deciding to just stretch until your feet touch the ground and then reshape yourself once you reach the ground.

“Kuran, did you get that?” Kingo asks, turning to face the camera. “We’ve got to see powers up close but now Y/N’s showing off.”

You smiled into the camera lens. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, right?” You joke, gaining an approving grin from the men.

Kingo flings an arm over your shoulders, one you could push away if you wanted to. Kuran moves so he’s walking backwards, facing the two of you.

“Y/N and I have known each other for a long time, this is our first time catching up in ten thousand years. They haven’t aged a bit.”

“I’m not surprised a charmer like you became an actor.” You smile. “I hope this movie means I get to go to the Oscars.”

“You can come along, maybe you can win the best supporting actor role.”

“Of course. I could never steal your spotlight.”

Your joking is cut short by Druig walking up to your group. “May I talk with Y/N?” He says, looking to you for the answer.

Kuran turns the camera down, now facing the ground.

You look to Kingo and place a hand over his, making brief eye contact. “Yeah, Druig. We can talk.”

Kingo straightens himself out and steps towards Kuran, talking about something you couldn’t hear.

“Where would you like to go?” Druig asks, waiting until the two of you were a few steps away from everyone else before asking.

You shrug lightly. “Are we anywhere near the river?” You’d love to visit it and dip your feet in, but you would rather stay as close to your team as possible.

Druig nods, pointing to the left. “How are you feeling?” He asks, looking at you before walking ahead.

You don’t answer right away, unsure how to answer. “I’m tired.” It was the easier answer for you to say. You wouldn’t spend time digging within your own brain, if Druig would prefer a different answer he would have to search for one himself. “I’ve known for a bit, a couple of hours. How are you feeling?”

He had a smile on his face, but you were picking up on his underlying emotions. He was upset, obviously but you weren’t going to bring them up unless he did.

“I just wanted to say, I’m grateful for you. I know you don’t talk about your emotions much, but you mean a lot to me.” You reach out for Druig’s hand, which he interlocks with yours.

He gently pulls you closer, looking in your eyes. He places one hand on your cheek, his hand resting on your cheekbone. “Dear, Y/N.” He says, a smile on his face. He leans in and places a small kiss on your forehead.

It was so sweet and his anger was removed from your senses. The term ‘home’ never worked for you Eternals, you always would have to pack up and move eventually. Times when you are with your team are the closest you could ever get.

It was almost like you and him were made to be together, he was the only one able to calm your powers. You occasionally found yourself thinking of Thena, you struggled being near her sometimes, not because of who she was but the anguish that rolled over her in waves. She was just in a situation like yours, chosen by the gods to carry a power bigger than those around you. That wasn’t fully true, but you two certainly had powers that would weigh on you mentally.

You pull away first after a moment, continuing to walk towards the river. “I wish this wasn’t what brought us back together.” A pause. “I was going to say maybe a wedding would bring us back together, but not many of us went to Phastos’ wedding.”

“You know,” Druig starts, lightly bumping you with his shoulder. “I started the Aphrodite thing.” If you wanted to reminisce that’s what he would do. “I don’t know if you remember, but you always had a knack for setting people up. I think that’s why Ikaris and Sersi didn’t work.”

You smiled at his joke, trying not to laugh. “That’s fuc- you can’t say that.”

That made him look proud of himself.

“If we didn’t split up, who knows how the world would have formed.” He answers, indirectly saying he doesn’t have the same wish for the team staying together like you did.

The bottom of your shoes was met with a change of texture, the dirt of the forest turning into sand. You kicked them off, walking to the edge of the water and sticking your hand and feet in. You swayed your hand back and forth, creating small ripples in the water that quickly died down.

Druig remained on the shore, leaning against a tree.

In your heart you wanted to make a joke about his behaviour, but decided to keep the calm atmosphere. “It’s peaceful here.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay, Y/N.”

French to English translations:

“Hello, Good morning Y/N”

“One second please”

“Yes?”

“I think you should come visit me.”

“I need to know now.”

“Ajax is dead.”

“If I start driving now, I’ll be there in a few hours.”