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nyxshadowhawk · 10 months

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I Read The Silmarillion So You Don't Have To, Part Three

Please read parts one and two first: https://nyxshadowhawk.tumblr.com/post/726120109073104896/i-read-the-silmarillion-so-you-dont-have-to-part https://nyxshadowhawk.tumblr.com/post/726261927846772736/i-read-the-silmarillion-so-you-dont-have-to-part

Chapter 4: Of Thingol and Melian In which Elwë/Thingol gets horny and abandons his quest, and behold, a language is born.

I said that Melian would be important, but that’s because the book said so. Unlike with Olorin, I don’t actually know anything about her in advance. So, now we’re going to find out what her role in the story is! Melian is a Maia and she lives in Lórien, where she is best known for her singing. The whole world stops to listen to her sing. Before dawn, she comes to the “Hither Lands” (Middle-earth?) to teach the birds to sing.

While the Elves are traveling, Elwë, the leader of the third group of Elves (the Teleri) is scouting by himself. He hears the voice of Melian and is entranced. He finds her in a forest glade, and as soon as he touches her, she traps him there. He stays in the glade while time moves on around him. His brother Olwë takes over the kingship of the Teleri, and Elwë never sees Valinor again. He and Melian are quite productive, though, and end up becoming the ancestors of an entire race of elves, called the Sindar, “Grey Elves” or “Twilight Elves.” Sindar are “grey” because they are neither Light Elves who saw the trees of Valinor, nor “dark elves” who chose not to go to Valinor. Elwë Singollo became known as Thingol, which still means “Greymantle,” but in Sindarin. Thingol and Melian became King and Queen of the Sindar.

To elaborate on the significance of this: “Elvish” is probably the best-known of Tolkien’s conlangs, but there’s actually two completely different Elvish languages. One is Quenya, the language spoken by those Elves in Middle-earth who are descended from the “High Elves” or Light Elves of Valinor, and the other is Sindarin, the language spoken by the Sindar. When you think of “Elvish,” you are probably thinking of Sindarin, because it’s the most common Elven language in Middle-earth. The Elves of Mirkwood are descended from yet another subgroup of Teleri Elves, called Nandor (no, not that Nandor), who split off from Olwë’s group and went off on their own to live in the forests. They have their own language, Silvan Elvish, but Thranduil definitely spoke Sindarin, and his name is in Sindarin. So, the Sindar are kind of a big deal.

Thingol and Melian by Elena Kukanova

Chapter 5: Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië In which the Elves settle into their new home.

The Vanyar and Noldor finally reach the westernmost coast of Middle-earth, and are confronted with the ocean that they have to cross to reach Aman (the continent where Valinor is). Ulmo comes and talks to the Elves, playing his shell pipes for them, and they lose their fear of the ocean. Ulmo drags up an island from the ocean, and brings it into the bay as if it were a ship, and all the Elves climb on it to sail it to the other side of the ocean. (Part of the island was broken off and remained in the bay, becoming the Isle of Balar.)

The Teleri arrived too late. They missed the island-boat, Elwë abandoned them for Melian, and now they’re stuck in East Beriand. They name Elwë’s brother Olwë as their king, and they learn about water and music from the Maiar Ossë and Uinen. Everything’s fine for a while, but the Noldor in Valinor missed the Teleri, and asked Ulmo to go and get them. Most of the Teleri are willing to uproot themselves again and continue on to Valinor, but Ossë (the Maia of waves) is sad to see them go, and persuades a few to stay so that they can continue to sing for him. The ones that stay become the Falathrim, the first mariners. Had enough subdivisions of Elves yet?

No you haven’t, because there’s another one — the friends and family of Elwë who are still wondering what the hell happened to him. They still want to go to Valinor, but Ulmo doesn’t wait for them to find Elwë, so they’re left behind. They call themselves Eglath, the Forsaken People, and live in the forests yearning for a place that they will never see. Elwë does eventually find them, though, and he looks so glorious and beautiful with his silver hair and his unusually tall stature that they almost mistake him for a Maia. So, they’re okay now. Presumably they become Sindar.

Ossë chases after the other Teleri. When they hear his voice, the Teleri beg Ulmo to lock the island in place in the Bay of Eldamar. Ulmo doesn’t mind doing this, because he didn’t think it was a good idea for the Elves to leave Middle-earth in the first place. The island becomes Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle. So, after all of that, the Teleri still don’t make it to Valinor (because they just love the sea too much, I guess). The Valar aren’t happy about this, and Finwë (the leader of the Noldor) grieves to hear that not only are the Teleri not coming, but Elwë got lost somewhere along the way. The Teleri are happy, though (and literally within sight of Aman so if only they had a boat or something…). The important thing is that this is why they speak a different language from everyone else. Like I said before, language is what drives the worldbuilding, as opposed to narrative or character or anything else. In Tolkien’s defense, this is definitely how real-life ethnic groups form (not islands magically moving and stopping, but groups breaking off from each other during migration) so he’s doing a great job on that front.

Eventually, the Teleri do make it to shore. Elves are like moths in that they’re constantly drawn towards the light of Valinor. So they change their minds, and ask Ulmo to bring them to shore. Ulmo tells Ossë to teach them how to build boats, and Ossë does, though very reluctantly. As a parting gift, he gives them swans to pull their boats. (My immediate thought was that this is a reference to the Tuatha Dé Danann in Celtic mythology, but I might be misremembering it, because I can’t find any proof of that. Moving on.) The Teleri come to live on the shores of Aman, within reach of Valinor, but closer to the sea because they like the water so much. The Noldor give them lots of jewels, which they scatter across the beaches, and they build themselves palaces out of pearl in their city of Alqualondë.

The Ships of the Teleri Drawn by Swans, by Ted Nasmith

There’s three cities in total: Valmar, the city of the Valar, Tirion, the city of the Noldor, and Alqualondë, the coastal city of the Teleri. The Noldor built Tirion on top of a hill called Túna (I know it means something in Quenya, but there’s no way I’m taking that seriously). They love Telperion, the White Tree, so Yavanna gives them one of its seedlings, which becomes another white tree that looks just like a smaller version of Telperion, except that it doesn’t glow. In Sindarin, the little tree is called Galathilion.

The Noldor like to learn things, discover things, and make things. They were trained by Aulë himself, so they’re experts in all kinds of craftsmanship. Their masons discovered precious stones hidden in the earth, which they learned to cut. Noldor have an insatiable love of learning, and whenever they find something new, they make up a new word for it in their language (Quenya). The dark side of a love of learning is that one might not know where to stop, i.e. “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” and “these were things mortals were not meant to know.” The Vanyar live directly with Manwë, which makes them both the coolest Elves and the least interesting because nothing about them is known to anyone else. The Noldor, however, still remember Middle-earth — dark, quiet, and full of stars. The grass is always greener, I guess.

We know next to nothing about the Vanyar because they stayed in Valinor, but the Noldor eventually came back, so we know their whole genealogy. As boring as that sounds, I do have to describe the whole thing here, because it is important: The King of the Noldor is Finwë as we’ve said before, and he has three sons: Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin. Fingolfin and Finarfin have the same mother, a Vanyar elf called Indis. Fëanor’s mother, however, is another Noldor elf called Míriel Serindë. Of the three sons, Fëanor is the smartest, Fingolfin is the strongest, and Finarfin is the wisest and the most beautiful. He eventually befriends the Teleri and marries one of Olwë’s daughters.

Finarfin, Fingolfin, and Feanor by _star热爱生活呀巴扎嘿

Fëanor has seven sons: Maedhros the tall, Maglor the singer, Celegorm the fair, Caranthir the dark, Curufin the crafty, and the twins Amrod and Amras. Fingolfin has two sons and one daughter: Fingon and Turgon are the sons, and Aredhel the White is the daughter. Finarfin has four sons: Finrod the Faithful, who eventually gains the epithet “Felagund, Lord of Caves” (really interested to hear that story), Orodreth, Angrod, and Aegnor. He also has a daughter — Galadriel. (Yes! Finally a character you know! Well, apart from Olorin, that is…) She is known for her golden hair, so shiny that it is if the light of the golden tree, Laurelin, shines within it.

That’s all the genealogy we need to know for now. Again, Tolkien gets points for authenticity here — a significant portion of real historical epics are long lists of everyone’s names and who they’re related to and who their kids are, which is of great interest to historians, but not very exciting if you’re primarily interested in a cool story about people killing each other. You know what, even if Amazon did get the rights to The Silmarillion for Rings of Power, they would probably have the same trouble adapting it that people usually have when they try to adapt epics like The Iliad or Beowulf: Epics just aren’t structured like conventional narratives. Even if there is a story, it usually plays second fiddle to all these historical details and other infodumps. Don’t get me wrong, epics are more than capable of being emotionally impactful, and I was pleasantly surprised by the Iliad and Odyssey more than once. But they don’t follow the same kind of five-act story structure that novels and films typically do. The narrative is interspersed with records of events and people, since an oral tradition needs to be able to preserve cultural history in addition to telling a good story, and the result is more like a series of significant events rather than an actual plot with a tidy ending. The cultural history is very important to the people whose history it is, and the people who study it, but when you have a complex cultural history of people who don’t actually exist, then the only people who are going to be interested are people who are already invested in Tolkien and his world. Basically, you can (sort of, barely) get away with infodumping if you’re intentionally following the conventions of an obsolete literary genre, and people already care about your worldbuilding.

If LotR is the story of the One Ring and the things that happen around it, then The Silmarillion is the story of this family, and the things that happen around or because of them. So, you’re going to want to keep track of them:

House of Finwe by @cy-lindric

Chapter 6: Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor In which we meet our… uh… protagonist?

You can tell just by the title that this is when everything goes to hell, right? It was too good to last. Although the Elves lived in bliss in Valinor for however many centuries, if someone didn’t fuck everything up, we wouldn’t have a story. That someone is Fëanor, who is the nearest thing this story has to a protagonist.

Fëanor by Insant

He was born in Valinor. His original name (or patronymic name) is Curufinwë, but his mother called him Fëanor (FAY-ah-nr), which means “spirit of fire.” Míriel, Fëanor’s mother, all but died in childbirth. After he was born, she refused to bear any more children, because all of her life-force and that of any future children had gone into Fëanor. Giving birth to him was like being burned away by fire, to the point where Míriel basically didn’t have any will to live… except that elves don’t die. So, Finwë went to Manwë for help, and Manwë allowed Míriel to go live in the beautiful gardens of Lórien with Irmo, the god of dreams. Once she got there, she basically died; her body went to sleep, but her spirit passed on to the Halls of Mandos.

Finwë was very sad at having lost his wife, but dedicated as much love and attention to his son as possible. Fëanor quickly proved himself to be one of those gifted kids who are naturally good at everything. He excelled in craftsmanship, figured out a way to make gems bigger and brighter by infusing them with starlight, and invented lenses. He didn’t invent writing — that was an elf called Rúmil, shortly before he was born — but he did improve upon it to produce the Elven alphabet that Elves still use today. And that was all while he was practically still a teenager!

Fëanor marries an Elf called Nerdanel. His father-in law, Mahtan, learned metalworking and masonry directly at the feet of Aulë, so Fëanor learns a lot more about making things from Mahtan. Fëanor’s relationship with Nerdanel is summed up pretty well by this quote:

Nerdanel also was firm of will, but more patient than Fëanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them, and at first she restrained him when the fire of his heart grew too hot; but his later deeds grieved her, and they became estranged.

Yeah… that tells you everything you need to know about Fëanor. He’s one of those arrogant, hotheaded men who needs his wife to put a lid on him so that he’ll calm the fuck down before something blows up. And eventually, managing him becomes too much for her. I guess we’ll find out why.

Meanwhile, Finwë remarries. His new wife is a Vanya elf called Indis, a close relative of the High King Ingwë. Fëanor is not happy about his father remarrying, and mostly ignores his stepmother and half-brothers. The thing about familial strife amongst royalty is that it ends up affecting everyone else, too, usually in catastrophic ways. Looking back, the Elves wonder if everything might have been different if Finwë had just gotten over the death of his first wife and been content with having only one son, especially one as mighty as Fëanor. On the other hand, the world would also be lacking if Fingolfin and Finarfin hadn’t been born, so… this is one of those “what if we went back in time and killed Hitler” questions; history would have been so different if Finwë hadn’t remarried, it’s almost impossible to tell whether it would be for better or worse.

As Finarfin and Fingolfin grow up, Valinor’s heyday is already almost over. The thing about Sealed Evil in a Can is that it doesn’t stay sealed. Eventually, it gets out, and when it does, it’s like a volcano erupting. For once, though, it’s not because some idiot went and broke the seal on the can of evil — it’s because Melkor finished his sentence. The Valar decide that it’s time to put Melkor on trial again. Melkor’s envy and hatred are dialed up to eleven when he sees the Valar on their shining thrones and the Elves gathered at their feet like kittens. He also really likes the look of all the gemstones that the Noldor have dug up, and wants to steal them. But, he’s more cunning than to make his evil thoughts obvious. He really sucks up to the Valar during his trial, in the most cloying and pathetic way possible. He even promises to fix all the things that he broke (which, I’ll remind you, was everything).

Manwë buys it. I guess he just really wants to believe that there’s good in everybody? Or that everybody deserves a chance at redemption? Tolkien’s explanation for why Manwë pardons Melkor is that, just as pure evil cannot comprehend goodness or happiness or love, pure goodness cannot really comprehend evil, either. As far as Manwë is concerned, a sincere apology is all that’s needed, and why wouldn’t Melkor’s apology be sincere? After all, Melkor and Manwë were both Ainur created by Ilúvatar, so there must be good in him somewhere, right? The other Valar aren’t as easily fooled, though. Ulmo knows better than to trust Melkor, and Tulkas is just itching to punch him. But it’d be pretty hypocritical of them if they punished Melkor for rebellion and then turned right back around and disobeyed the orders of their king, so they don’t do anything.

Remember, Melkor blames the Elves for his initial downfall, because the Valar fought for their sake. And also because they’re happy-go-lucky little Elves in their little Elf world and everything is bright and shiny and so saccharine it makes your eyes bleed. So, Melkor responds by being even more saccharine and kissing up to the Elves as much as possible. “Oh, do you need help with anything? Can we be friends? Do you want to know everything about how the world was created?” The Vanyar aren’t interested, because who needs lore when you have trees? The Teleri don’t even interest Melkor because he sees them as weak and useless. But the Noldor, oh, the Noldor like making things and they like secret knowledge. They’re just the kind of people who would eagerly agree to a deal with the devil to learn all the secrets of the universe.

Melkor claims that Fëanor learned everything he knows at his knee, but as usual, he’s lying for clout. No one hates Melkor more than Fëanor. In fact, it was Fëanor who first called him “Morgoth” (“dark enemy”). Besides, Fëanor himself is just as arrogant, and insists on working alone. The only person he ever goes to for help is his wife.

#the silmarillion #silmarillion #jrr tolkien #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings #the lord of the rings #tolkien elves #feanor #silm #house of finwe #melkor #elwe singollo #thingol #valinor #elves #the silm #silm fanart

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kingdomheartist · 1 year

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in a way, tumblr feels like a quest or an adventure dont u think

like you just.. come across things. it could be an ancient relic (post from 2012), a kind wizard (like to charge, reblog to cast), a new threat (whatever 1 of 2 ads tumblr chooses to put on everyones dash for the week), a couple of conlangs from different races (blorbo), and even VOICEACTORS FOR THE CHARACTERS (pm. seymour)

#pmseymourva #what was in that blunt bro #my prefrontal cortex has turned into sparkling water

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fancyhats-and-fennelsbuds · 19 days

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Fav movie you've watched recently?

Hello hellooooooooooooooooo!!! Aaaaaa oh dear, you just opened my pandora's box👁️

Recently I happened to watch lots of 60's, 70's and 90's movies (I'm destined to ever cross paths with vintage memorabilia. and the more I discover. The more I crave.) but some that most made me perk up my eyes and ears (can eyes be perked?) are:

First movie! RATATAPLAN, Maurizio Nichetti, 1979

I discovered this gem very recently and unfortunately I haven’t even finished watching it (sigh sob sigh I got so little free time rightnow) Made on a very low budget and being the directorial debut for Maurizio Michetti, this film had a huge success when it arrived in Italian cinemas. The story follows slices of the life of the neo graduate engineer Colombo, who through tormentedly absurd comic gags, yet unquestionably full of small human injustices (and social), undeterred, he searches occupations to make ends meet. What made me fall with this story of 'little failures happening in the course of our daily life' -- besides the pure comic skits that come out from every corner while you least expect it (or when you expect it; but you laugh anyway because the consequences are usually an even greater disaster that the one expected) -- is the fact that the film it's almost a 'silent movie', or rather, follows the rules of the 'Mr Bean conlang" (yes, I now created a new term) with the help of of a very narrow Italian vocabulary and excerpts of other languages, all this surrounded by a varied brocade of onomatopoeic sounds "(…) making the dubbing of the film almost superfluous." {source | wikipedia|Italian}

(Also the movie's opening is so incredible , Engineer Columbo is the true shape of our contemporary hero because i say so, also it gives off strong middle seventies vibes

Second movie Miniseries! Orlando furioso, Luca Ronconi, 1975

Born on the wave of discreet success that arose from the homonymous theatrical version of Luca Ronconi (made after Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance epic poem Orlando Furioso), the script meant for the theatre was rewritten to accommodate a television production (divided in five episodes) alas by depriving the work of the original's immersivity that it gained by including the public during the action happening on the stage; while also letting mutiple simultaneous scenes happening in the same theatre's room so the public could personally choose the way to follow the storytelling happening in front of their eyes. {sources |cinemedioevo.net| Wikipedia| Italian} Some of the details that makes the television version so fascinating is that it was shot in multiple castles, basilicas and palaces'… interiors! (Palazzo Farnese, Terme di Caracalla, Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Teatro Farnese and Palazzo della Pilotta di Parma. {sources |Wikipedia|Italian}). Maintaining the use of scenography and manners of acting suited for the theatre world, the series creates a sort of epic fairytale dream time bubble, even through the use of machinery for the mobilization of carousel-like horses and mythical beasts (choosing purposely to let the viewer see the 'magic' that makes the beast fly or the horses roll run!). Extreme pantomime, actors flailing arms and bodies like opera singers. This extraordinaire work of art is for those who wish to spend some hours of dreamlike feverish visions of knights, magicians and bridesmaids in otherwordly costumes that seem to have come to life from medieval tapestries. I searched aimlessly for possible dubbed or subtitled versions in other languages than italian. I can only come back from my quest by humbly offering open handed the original.

Whenever you can or can't follow all this medieval Italian versify, I would give it a try just to have a peek into this extremely seventies-born madness! Here's an article that talks about the touring theatre version (Italian)

Now a bit of spam

Mechanical beasts! Mechanical beasts! Hippogriph and the Orca (killer whale) di Ebuda

Also in this house we stan my sister in Christ (literally) knight warrior Bradamante

#the lad talks #Orlando furioso #ludovico ariosto #Luca Ronconi #Orlando furioso miniseries #Ratataplan #Maurizio Nichetti #(also I discovered that Ronconi's miniseries isn't on the official national broadcasting's streaming platform- and that makes me very angry #(it only exists 'officially' on dvd)#whew. it took me a while to respond!#I feel so blessed by receiving questions regarding movies! Thank you thank you for this given possibility for freely infodumping!#miniseries

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niniralin · 7 months

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So, Aq̆q̆an is grammatically at a point where I can translate short texts now. Here's the king and the god: Šæcy ti res oeğom. Aæđumÿǰÿrum. Res đumÿ tulum. Lynnery dvi “wa hlu đumÿ vleriiqo tuʎæzwo” haad q̆ænzum. Lynnery res dvi “Mvu lynɢo Werunos dvi q̆ænzëča.” haad q̆ænzunžo. Pyl res lyŋë hlu ilkin vle lynɢo Werunos hlu. “Y mjaqo Werunos mvu uq̆torsëča!” Lynɢo Werunos ndÿma paj. “Taz tuʎæsča?” “Đumÿ tuʎæzwo.” “Hwaæz da ŋÿ” haad k̆tevqo lynɢo Werunos q̆ænzunžo. Res mbisury đumÿ kin da cusÿnunžo.

(as you can see, i eventually gave up and romanized /ɢ/ as <ɢ>.)

Tumblr does not seem to be the best at displaying diacritics but whatever. I'm.... honestly not sure how to develop it now. Maybe I'll pick up the conlangers lexipedia and go on a five-hour vocabulary generation quest. We'll see. I also have to do some more worldbuilding about the language, though that's tangential If anyone has a text they'd like to see translated to Aq̆q̆an, please send it my way!

#aq̆q̆an #conlang #conlanging

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canmom · 1 year

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The Witch Hunt/Umineko-Project's translation of Umineko is pretty much a sentence-by-sentence one. Individual sentences generally sound natural, but there's a 1:1 mapping between Japanese and English sentences, which lends the whole work a particular cadence. I think it probably makes it longer in general, since in Japanese you can drop a lot of elements of a sentence, which is less permissible in English.

Final Fantasy XIV's translation, now I've played through 2.x with JP voices turned on, is a lot looser. Not exactly as a localisation to modern English though - Koji Fox's approach is to adopt a kind of ren-faire English full of phrases like 'must needs' instead of 'must'/'needs to' or 'mine' instead of 'my', although this oldschool flavour gradually diminishes and becomes more like modern English as the game goes on. But also, the information in a cutscene is often significantly rearranged, so often you notice a short speech bubble in Japanese gets turned into a much longer one in English, and vice versa. e.g. the Japanese might just launch into it while the English has a brief greeting first. My Japanese listening isn't really good enough yet to pick up on a lot of specifics.

There is still a restriction in this 'mapping': I believe the total number of voiced lines, and probably dialogue boxes as a whole, likely has to be the same, since you can change the voices out.

Generally speaking the story is the same at the scene level (you learn the same information about the same characters and places at the same time, you do the same things for the same reasons) and since the cutscene animations don't change beyond lipflaps, fairly close on a cinematography level. The tone of the game is pretty staid early on, so it's usually possible to make rearrangements without affecting the emotional flow of the scene. I'll be curious to see how it changes in the later expansions.

One of the things that I've seen discussed in translation is how an original text that's full of idioms and figures of speech often gets translated in a way that is very plain and literal. So you have to be a little inventive if you want your new prose or dialogue to have some character. (This is, like absolutely everything, a matter of elaborate controversy in fansubbing, the 'keikaku means plan' - 'memesub' - 'jelly donuts' continuum.)

There are some differences of process too. The Witch Hunt were acknowledged in-game and given the blessing of Ryuukishi07, but like most fan translators and even official translators, they received each chapter of the work when it was complete in Japanese. Koji Fox is meanwhile part of the FFXIV writing team, creator of the dragon language conlang and generally a total lore nerd with access to behind the scenes information.

Sometimes Koji's team made fairly large changes to the story, like the tragic loss of horny Haurchefant, although it seems that was only early on, since I haven't really heard similar complaints about the localisation of the expansions.

Though that said, one thing that surprised me to learn is that the Dark Night quests - one of the most popular (if controversially so!) quest lines among English players - got some quite extreme rewrites. The basic thrust of the story is the same, but the characterisation of Fray is quite different, and there's some small changes that seem to just be edgy for edge's sake lol. In general it's also a good example of the sorts of idioms added by the FFXIV localisation.

It's a surprise to me, since I've gone around telling people that if they like the Dark Knight quest, they should look forward to the Steppe in Stormblood, and the whole of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, all of which were written by Natsuko Ishikawa. But it turns out the version of the story I got was pretty far from what Ishikawa wrote.

Anyway, I am writing all this in a pretty neutral way because I'm honestly not sure what is 'better'. I think Koji's weird dialogue actually adds a lot of fun character to FFXIV-in-English that a plainer translation wouldn't, but for a game like Umineko in a Japanese setting that hinges on points of language (particularly in the riddle), Witch Hunt's approach seems to work best - and moreover I get to learn a bit about Japan here and there without the barrier of entry of learning the entire language.

Especially in a visual novel which proceeds at a pace set by the player, I would much rather interrupt the story have a cultural note explaining, say, the Glico running man that I can follow up on and learn something, rather than see it swapped out for a local 'equivalent'. There's a dogma in translation that you should try to recreate the experience of reading the work in original language as much as possible, but that's not always exactly what I want. A work of fiction can be a window into a very distant context, and that could be more important than replicating a 'natural' flow as if it was an English work.

I think it's likely that whichever version of a work I encounter first has an outsized effect - the VA differences of Drakenier don't bother me much, but probably would feel more jarring if I'd played it with JP voices first. But it's mostly interesting to see the possibility space, since translation creative problem about choosing what's most important to preserve, when not everything can be.

For older works, it's common to make many different translations of the same work, and it's kind of a shame that a side effect of the rise of Crunchyroll is that original fansubs have now become much rarer than repackaging of official subs. Not that like... I really watch the same thing twice with different subs, usually there's an obvious answer to how to translate a line and there's only so much time in the world, but it's cool to get a taste of what translators are grappling with.

#translation #umineko #japanese language #i miss fall - she'd talk about this kind of thing a lot

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snowberry-crostata · 1 year

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Masterpost of Skyrim Stuff

This blog is a personal encyclopedia of headcanons about Skyrim, here is what's been shared so far:

Everything I've written: my stuff tag

Short stories, worldbuilding, and chapter updates: my writing tag

My main quest novelization: link to AO3

More specific tags below:

Skyrim's Civil War (civil war tag)

Better Reasons to Fight a Civil War

Languages (language tag)

Languages of the Skyrim

Character Accent Headcanons

Nordic Conlang: Story Starters and Endings

Nordic Conlangs: The Dragonborn Comes

Nordic Traditional Dress (clothing tag)

Part I: Overview

Part II: Common Garments

Part III: Shoes and Outerwear

Part IV: Jewelry and Accessories

Part V: Hairstyles and Cosmetics

Part VI: Regional Variations

Part VII: Regional Variations Continued

Geography (geography tag)

The White Plains

Midnight Sun and Polar Night

Other Posts

On the Appearance of Bosmer

The Clever Craft: Magic in Skyrim

#my stuff #masterpost

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possiblyaworldbuilder · 9 months

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hi again.

first of all, lovely work youre doing. i could never.

second of all, quest-related but also genuinely curious: why is the world youre building called yídràl? does it have any in-world or meta etymology?

Hii!! First of thank you for the compliment!!

I’m gonna be honest I don’t exactly know anymore how I came up with the name. It is however not the first name I had for it. The original name used to be Edra which is just the Dutch word for Earth in reverse lol. But at some point I thought that was maybe a little generic and I was in the first stages of making my first version of Tsekàn which was at that point basically a relex of a weird Dutch-English combo with some shitty ideas of my own added to it. One of the sounds I had back then tho which is like a good identifier of my conlang is /jiː/. I have just always liked how it sounded and so I decided I wanted that in the name.

I just remembered how I came up with the second part actually! Sorta. So back to Edra for that, I kinda shelved that name and since there are two worlds I needed a name for the second one too. I just kinda took Edra and changed it a little to get a name I liked. This is Hedràr! I wanted the names to have some shirt if similarity so I had Yídràr at first which I later changed to Yídràl to make it a little bit more different.

The names don’t have any actual meaning in the language yet but I might. I did like the idea of the worlds having actual names tho instead of a word like Earth but I’m not sure if I’ll keep that yet.

Anyways long explenation! Hope this is an interesting enough answer but regardless it was a good reason for me to ramble some more heheh. Thank you for the question and congrats on another quest completed!

Havéja!!

#yídràl #worldbuilding #my world #naming

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othernaut · 11 months

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So, I just got through the worst quest in ESO. For posterity, I'd like to note down precisely what made this mission an unendurable crime:

There is this particular type of in medias res that fantasy fiction does uniquely, wherein they batter you right from sentence one with half a dozen in-universe terms and chunks of conlang without explaining shit about shit. "The Asarmani Rayah have occupied the Pinnacle of Light! They're stringing waygold from the Sky Icon! We need to do something before the Pact of Celestrid succumbs to the Nullicar!" Managing this in an MMO where I've already spent 200 hours unraveling lore is an accomplishment in awful.

The NPCs you deal with through this quest are all their own, special breed of thoroughly insufferable.

There's one that follows you around.

He's a cringing coward who barks frequent voice lines about how he's sure you can handle yourself.

He's a sex pest.

Everyone of the main NPCs is a sex pest, actually.

The guy that follows you is just the only one who sex-pests in your direction.

Because you have this trio of personalities accompanying you throughout your journey, you are never the most important character in your own fucking quest.

One of them literally asks you to put an amulet on her desk for her.

It's two steps away.

There is no magical bullshit preventing her from doing this, she just has no respect for you.

The antagonist faction leaders all have names like The Magus and The Champion.

Of course, you aren't told shit about them and have no idea of their importance or threat.

The final boss spams adds and screenfilling knockdown bullshit.

There's literally typos in enemy names.

This entire quest was an advertisement for a DLC.

I have precisely no desire to buy this DLC and interact with these fucklings and their sex-ventures ever again.

#eso #mmo #my soul hurts #there wasn't even any loot

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the-rat-plays-games · 2 years

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wolvden systems and self-imposed rules:

now that i have two full hunting teams, i’m only going to be taking in wolves from explore if they’re special or really attract my eye.

from today on, enclave pups that are adopted will be raise-and-chased. only explore in the mountains and closest region, unless needed for quests or for events. further restrictions will be placed on scouting once some plot related things happen, which will most likely happen after coigreach. the yvar/svera pair children will be folded into the pack once a certain plot event happens in my lore (which will take place when Yvar dies as my lead wolf).

each wolf, once obtained, may have up to two RMAs applied to it, or one event marking/regular marking applicator.

wolves may not breed until they are of at least 3 years of age and have 300+ stats. the number of required stats will change in the future as more generations are bred.

pups who are eligible and bred in the pack (ie, not chased-at-adulthood enclave pups) must be trained daily.

pups obtained from the enclave will not be named. if a wolf in a hunting party is injured 3 times in their lifetime, they will be retired and made a pupsitter. a pupsitter of applicable personality will be rotated into the hunting team. if there are none, the wolf will be kept around for tutoring purposes only. wolves who are not hunting, scouting, or pupsitting may not breed, even if they are in pair bonds. upon the deaths of both Yvar (my actual on-site lead wolf) and Hazrohi (the lead wolf of this lore group), the replacement lead will be decided by a little “contest” system i am still working with the fine details of. the highest-statted wolf from each hunting team will participate, as will the highest-statted of Hazrohi’s children at the time of both deaths occurring. i cannot rechase a wolf. each wolf must be given a name from my conlang proto-lang, and be given a snippet of lore at bare minimum, as well as at least one piece of decor if supplies allow.

#wolvden #wolvden lore #pet sim #pet sim lore #sim lore

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fierceawakening · 2 years

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Seriously though I want to say how much I appreciate people supporting me in my quest to learn weird conlang.

I was hyperlexic as a kid and adults thought it was super cool but kids made fun of me if I made it too obvious. It was acceptable to be a bookworm but… less so to do things like read the dictionary.

So while I’m super excited that one of my gifts is proving very useful to do a cool thing, part of me feels more nervous than I let on to share it or talk too much about it.

It really means a lot to me that you guys are being so nice to me about something kids used to bully me about. It makes the scared wee Fiercelet still living in my brain feel a lot better about being “so weird.”

Seriously, thank you so much.

(And please let me know if I need to tag something for those who don’t want to see it. I try to either tag or at least put the word “Phyrexia*” in every post so people can filter it out if they’d like, but I am not perfect (heh).)

#fierce learns phyrexian #why i love my friends

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imperial-nuisance-rudje · 1 year

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Please spill on Tailchaser's Song when you get a chance, you were the one to get me into Digger and I trust your Animals In Societies opinions INNATELY for this 🙏🦎🧙‍♂️

With the caveat that it's been a bit since I've reread it and I can't find my copy, Tailchaser's Song is a book about feral cat societies that is also partially inspired by Lord of the Rings (it really shows when they enter the cat queen's court).

It follows the titular Tailchaser as he goes off on a quest to find a cat buddy who vanished when her humans moved, and ends with him helping avert the apocalypse because of earlier kindness. This is a less sudden turn than I make it seem, the book does a good job setting up for cat satan appearing, but I want to emphasize that for all that this book starts in modern-when-written suburbia as processed through the lens of Narrator Is A Housecat it does take a turn for fantasy and the small fantasy elements earlier on are not red herrings.

There's some quirks due to when it was written (it was the author's first published book, iirc) and if conlanging or a scene with discussion between cats of cat perspective of neutering pets is offputting for an animal novel I would be more reluctant to recommend it (the former is more constant, the latter is just one scene plus some implications nearer the end). There is also a lot of animal violence/death (as is typical for these things tbh), Tailchaser gets drunk off his ass on catnip once, and one of the side characters (Eatbugs, I think his name is) is written as having pretty severe kitty dementia and I don't remember enough of the writing to say how it was handled.

#delcat177 #tailchaser's song

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fusionbolts · 1 year

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headcanon; yo I honestly forgot I had this banner. Anyway, we're going to review the Isshu language headcanons, because bitches will make up a whole gd conlang instead of doing replies or fixing their busted-ass blog. We're doing this in two parts: first, pronunciation and grammar rules, and second, phrases and words. This will likely be a masterpost that I update if I ever decide to invent even more phrases in the future. So without further ado, let's get on with the show.

Pronunciation

Firstly: Isshu does have its own alphabet, as seen in the Abyssal Ruins. We're not gonna fuck around with that here because it's inconvenient, and also I lost the font I used to have that let me type with those symbols. lmao.

The rules as written here can be considered a guide for transliteration of the language with the Modern (Unown?) Alphabet. Most letters do map more or less directly to the modern equivalent, with a few exceptions:

K is used for hard-C sounds, so Cat becomes Kat.

C is used for soft-C and S sounds, such as in Certainty. Sat becomes Cat.

S exclusively represents the "sh" sound, so Shop becomes Sop.

The "ch" sound is not used; any instances of "ch" are replaced with an "sh" sound. Check becomes Sheck, which is spelled Sek.

A and O are both pronounced with their short vowel sound at the beginning and end of a word, and their long sound when used elsewhere (as in Act, Object, Cake, Tow.)

E and I are both pronounced with their long vowel sounds at the beginning of the world, and their short sound when used elsewhere (as in Each, Ice, Met, Knit)

U takes the place of the long "oo" sound, such as in you, so "too" becomes "tu", "new" becomes "nu"

Q is used exclusively for the "kw" sound as in queen, quest, or quirk (spelled qen, qact, and qirk)

Y is used in place of short u sound, "uh", but is still pronnounced with the actual y-sound, making it "yuh." "undue" would be yndu, "yun-doo", and "unite" would be something like "yunet".

X is always used as a "ks" sound, as in "extreme", so "socks" would become "cox," (yes, yes, laugh it up), and pronounced more like "soaks".

Grammar Rules

To make a word plural, add -i to the end, the same way you would use "s". Metaphysical concepts and certain natural phenomenon are typically always plural.

"RES" (resh) means fire, while "RESI" (reshi) means flames. "ZEKI" (zek-ee), meaning lightning, is always plural.

Adding an "-a" to the end of a word denotes ownership, with the object that is owned being the word to which the "a" is added. This is also an extremely common practice for names and locations.

"ARMONI," is the origin of the word "harmony". "ARMONIA," more or less means "of harmony."

"EN" (een) is a particle USUALLY equivalent to "the" or sometimes "that", denoting a Specific Thing, however, it serves other uses. There is no particle equivalent to "a" as it would be used to refer to something non-specific. Instead, the plural version of the item is used.

"Give me a pencil," meaning "give me any pencil," would be translated as "give me pencils," while "give me that/the pencil," meaning "give me the specific pencil" would translate as-is, using "en".

“NOS” (nosh) is a particle meaning “and,” or “along with”.

Adding -N to a trait is similar, but instead refers to a person or object in possession of a trait (e.g., to be blonde vs to be a blonde; to have honor vs to be honorable), and acts as a title. Metaphysical traits typically end in -I, but physical traits do not, so in the case of the latter, the suffix to make it a noun is "-AN" This almost literally means "in possession of." Another, albeit slightly rarer form of this is "-IX," meaning "made of".

"DEVI" (deh-vee) is a word meaning light, honor, warmth (in personality), etc. "DEVIN" refers to an honorable person. "REMI" (rem-ee) means protection, guidance, or guardianship; "REMIN" literally translates as guardian or guide, but also means monarch or leader.

Likewise, to turn an adjective or concept into a verb, use "-R" or "-IR".

"KONI" (con-ee) means movement or energy. "KONIR" (con-ear) means to spread or move.

Isshu has many words with double meanings, where objects are often named for the trait or action they are associated with. This means that a lot of non-proper nouns, primarily those referring to objects, end in -ir, -in/-an, or-ix. The “en” particle is used in front of nouns to distinguish as such.

For example: “SIR” (sheer) is a word meaning “ascend or go up.” SIR also refers to a spire, tower, or other Tall Construction. So to say “climb the tower,” you would say “sir en sir.”

Isshu does not have a past or future tense, only present. To indicate that something already happened, or that something will happen, a person would add an indicator of time.

For example, "I moved," would be translated as something like "I [am moving] before now."

Double letters (such as in pass, commit) are not used, so "Isshu" is actually spelled "ISYU"

Pronouns

Pronouns become a bit tricky. First person is fairly self explanatory, and similar enough to in English:

I becomes U (oo). Me becomes UN (oon), which literally means “the self,” and myself, “UNA,” (oon-uh) literally meaning “of the self”. UNA is also used in place of “I am.”

Because ownership is denoted on the object, there is no equivalent to “mine” or “my”. To say “that [specific object] is mine,” you would say, “UNA ENA,” which literally translates that is of myself. To say that you are performing an action, put the verb before “una” — so “I am moving” is “KONIR UNA,” literally “moving of myself”.

There is no plural “you,” in Isshu. Commands (just like in English) can be issued without the need to address a specific person (again, “grab me the pencil” would be a command issued to a general group of people, or if speaking only to one person, there is no need to identify who the command is for.) A statement would be made in the same way, without specifying to whom it is addressing. The “you all” is implied, so saying something like “you are all doing a good job,” you would instead say something like, “[to be doing] a good job,” with the adjective having an -a appended to indicate that it is a trait of the verb. So it would translate literally as, “a good job of [doing]”.

Singular “you,” much like in English, is really only used when you need to specify a particular person to whom you are speaking. (e.g., as you would in the phrase “You and I”.) The word for singular you is “VO”. To say “you and I,” you would say “UNA NOS VOA,” literally “myself and yourself.”

Finally, third person pronouns, which are, in fact, just nouns. All pronouns are derived from titles. To contextualize: a person would introduce themselves with a title at the beginning of their name, which would also express what pronouns to refer to them as. To put it another way, imagine the title of “doctor” was also your pronouns.

To refer to someone in the same way you would use “they” or “she,” simply use the singular noun version of the title (so if it would end in -i, remove the -i). If you are saying that the person is doing something, “she does,” or “she is doing,” append -a to the title and place it after the verb, much like you would with the first person pronouns. Adverbs are added after the verb, before the noun, so the order of “she is doing a good job,” would be translated literally as, “a good job of doing of she.” (Actually, in this case, the “doing” would probably be considered unnecessary, so it would probably be “good job of she”.)

So, without further ado: Isshu pronouns, instead of gendered, are based on the pokemon type a person is associated with (read: the type of their partner pokemon, should they have one.) This means that young children are all referred to by the same pronouns until they find their partner pokemon. The types, as recognized in Isshu, are found here.

The following are considered “regular” pronouns:

ASIN (ah-shin), associated with normal and fighting types. This is also the pronoun used by young children and those without partner pokemon. Pronoun version: ASIN, ASINA. TERIN (teer-in), associated with rock and ground types. Pronoun version: TER, TERA. UNDIN (oon-din), associated with water types. Pronoun versions: UND, UNDA. ICIN (eye-sin), associated with ice types. Pronoun versions: ICIR, ICA. RESIN (resh-in), associated with fire types. Pronoun versions: RES, RESA. YUSIN (yoosh-in), associated with flying and electric types. Pronoun versions: YUS, YUSA. VIRIN (ve-rin), associated with grass, bug, and most poison types. Pronoun versions: VIR, VIRA.

Finally, the following two are “special” pronouns:

AMU-SIN (amoo shin), used exclusively by Aura Users, Psychics, and Shadow Walkers. Using it if you were not among these groups was considered extremely disrespectful. Pronoun versions: MUS (moosh), MUSA (moosha). REMIN (rem-in) was a pronoun reserved exclusively for the monarch and legendary heroes. To refer to yourself with this title without being formally recognized as such was considered immensely egotistical, if not outright insulting. Pronoun versions: REM, REMA.

Dictionary

Finally, we’re here. A complete list of all the words as established thus far.

ADI, ADIN, ADA: Willpower, of strong will. AMUS, AMUSIN: Supernatural or otherworldly. One of Isshu’s pokemon types; referred mainly to psychic, dark, and ghost type pokemon. ANDI, ANDA: An abundance or great number. ARMONI: Harmony (musically). “Harmonia,” as a name, was derived from this word. ASIN: Simple, honest, as it appears. DEVI, DEVIN: Noble, honorable, bright. Think “white knight”. FERUN: Worked metal, typically steal FERI, FERIR: Refined or honed FERIX: Sword ICIR: Freezing, frozen, to freeze; ice. ICIRYUS: Blizzard. Literally “freezing storm.” KONI, KONIR: Motion, moving. KIRI, KIR: A written piece of music, a symphony; seals. “Kir” refers to the action of writing them. KYURI: Stark, cold, empty. LUC, LUCI: Light, glow REM: Dragon; guardian REMI: Divinity REMIR: To protect REMIN: Monarch, guardian, leader RES, RESI: Fire, flames SIR: to ascend or climb; spire or tower SIN, SINI: the truth, objective truth UNDIR: To descend or dive; water. UNDELI: Waves, movement in water. UNDEYUS: A tsunami or hurricane UNOVI: Unity, togetherness, oneness. UNOVA, UNOVAN: United; an unbreakable bond. VIR: To live; life, the state of being alive VIRI: Nature, flora and fauna YUS, YUSI: Storm(s). ZEKI: Electricity ZEKYUSI: Thunderstorm

#in the pages of history { headcanon. }#INHALES DEEPLY #if you see any mistakes no you fucking don't #''abby are you ok'' NO. NO I AM FUCKING NOT

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