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randomnameless · 2 years

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Back to this post, because real life made me unable to reply in 5 days

While the controversy in itself was completely made up - as in the use of “literal” didn’t mean wonky google translate translation but a text that was closer to the characterisation from an old opus as opposed to the one from a more recent one - it tackled the usual, as I’d say it, the dub vs sub debate.

To put in perspective, I watched a dubbed episode of Dai’s Quest yesterday (the 2020 edition), and in the credits of the French Dub, we have some random french guy (or belgian guy?) credited as “author”.

Not, “author of the dubbed script” or as “translator” or “script written for the translated version”, nope, just “author”.

To me, this person is not the author of this episode, of the manga or even of the anime.

So why was this guy credited as “author”??

Once upon a time, when yellow subtitles were a thing made by fans to understand their anime (or even in some mangas with fanslation teams!) people were closer to a more litteral translation.

So of course we had the memetic “keikaku means plan” in translator notes, included in the subtitles, and it was a chore to read - but it was generally agreed that those yellow things were just here to help you understand what was being said, in the “closest in spirit” form to the original source material.

If you wanted something that was less clunky, the dub was here - but with the dub came the “liberties” associated with said dub.

By the “yellow subtitles” era, 4Kids was already dead, or shat upon universally (at least in France).

But there used to be an era where, someone thought it would be acceptable, or even adequate, to “dub” riceball as “donut” and even if the image wasn’t changed, Brook was still handling a triangle shaped donut with visible rice and nori - this thing existed. Why?

Was it because “riceballs” wasn’t acceptable to a “western” audience, or they wouldn’t understand it? Thus they brought the “donut” instead, because it would talk to the audience (TFW they didn’t “localise” it as croissant in the french dub) ?

We all (I) had our weeb phase, where we tried to say “Nii-san” and understood the difference between “-san” and “-sama”, even if some translation could translate it as “mister”. But the yellow subtitles kept those differences, and sometimes even wrote it as “san” and “sama”, so for people who only watched them, they understood that there is a polite form of adress in “-sama” that doesn’t really exist in english, even if one should try to “convey” this polite form of adress in the lines or words spoken.

Like, if a certain someone watched a lot of “yellow subbed” stuff, he wouldn’t have made up 10k words about toxic masculinity by misunderstanding the pronoun “ore”.

Yellow subtitles were made by people who loved the anime they were subbing, they were made by fans.

And those fans tried to be as close as possible to the source material, because they loved the source material and would not even want to add their own “interpretation” in their wonky subtitles, because wonky or not wonky, they loved the source material, not their own take on said source material (even if the line became blurred, like, say, fanon!Edel).

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Now, in a game, I understand how people don’t want to play the “keikaku means plan” subbed version, because those things are good to be called “fanslations”, but in a professional work? This just can’t work.

And this is where we have a problem.

Everyone said it in the notes under the OG post, but translation is a difficult job, and it isn’t just about “translating word to word” something, it has to make sure the “translated version” keeps the same meaning, or conveys the same thing. Take the spanish Usted/Ustedes, it is a polite/very formal form of adress, like the “vous” in French -

Take Bleach’s Rukia.

Her brother is a noble, one of the noblest nobles to ever noble out there. Byakuya is refered as “onii-sama” the first time they meet in the manga/anime, this is one of the highest (as i understand it?) form of polite adress one could give to their brother.

The french dub only dubbed it as “brother”, without keeping the “polite form” of adress.

Of course, calling Byakuya “my estimeed lord and brother” would feel clunky - but it would convey the message. Calling him “brother” with the random polite form of adress “vous” doesn’t quite cut it.

Still, you can say this is one of the goofs that came with 2000s era of dubbing, people tried but sometimes it failed. I supposed the main reasoning behind those “fails” was just to make a script that wouldn’t feel “odd” to anyone listening or hearing it.

But what about the intent? Or how it is important for Rukia to call her brother with this degree of politeness because she’s only an adopted member of his family and he his the noblest noble to ever noble out there? Kazé (the guys doing the dub) thought bringing this “less clunky” version to the audience was more important than conveying, through those words, Rukia’s deference towards her brother. Kazé might love Bleach, but they’re first and foremost a professional company tasked with bringing Bleach to a French audience, so no “keikaku means plan” nope.

They had to get rid of the clunky, and give a more “natural” vibe to their dubbed version of Bleach.

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Then, comes the WTF depicted in the article.

I claim far and wide how the lolcalisation for FE16 (please not the extra L to make lol) butchered certain characters I happen to care about, and ultimately muddled the already, hm, really really really subtle message the game tried to convey, burried under a pile of player pandering shit.

But, now that I think about it, it already started before but I pretended not to care because, uh, it wasn’t impacting me or it only happened for anime/games I didn’t care about, but Faulconer’s BA straight up replacing Kikuchi’s OST for DBZ in the US is, imo, completely WTF, like, to properly localise DBZ, Funanimation had to, back then, get rid of the japanese OST ? For “some reason”? What the actual fuck? Not even only using the instrumental versions, for the ones with japanese lyrics, nope, just newping them and swapping something else??

(1998-2003 (or 2001-2005) was also the 4Kids Era which might... explain things, but those explanations are flat)

Music and OSTs are inherent pieces of a work, you cannot claim to love the source material if you remove it’s bloodstream!

Still, those oddities were from the 4Kids era, and as I pointed out above, this era was - european wise - a disaster for localisation and dubs, which prompted fans to create their own “yellow subtitles”.

I suppose if mainstream animes, like Bleach or Naruto, were aired (??) in the US, they were aired post 4Kids era so no “OST switch”, meaning that, at least, they were closer to what Kazé was doing here. Give a “less clunky than fanslation teams” dub, but still keep the spirit of the substance of the source material.

But with FE16, and this thing @nilsh13 linked?

We’re back to 4Kids, or worse, evil!4Kids, not hiding their editorial changes under some “a western audience wouldn’t understand what is a rice ball, and they wouldn’t understand why people are singing in this foreign language”, but using their “creative license” to get away with most of their shit.

This is, in substance, the reason why I am always puzzled (and furious) each time a new blooper for the FE16 lolcalised script happens.

I understand some people don’t really like organised religions, okay. But why the frick altering the script, peppering “tyrants” here and “by the will of the goddess” instead of “if you have a good reason” there ? It’s minor, I understand, but when you have Ghetis in your team deriding the Church, let Ghetis use her rhetoric and manipulation threads to entice people to join her fight, the script isn’t supposed to be altered to make Ghetis look more convincing!

I, however, understand the feeling of professional localisers being disrespected if people prefer to play a “yellow subtitles” game, because their work is really important, and a good localisation will bring puns, convey meanings as close as possible to the non-intended audience.

Look at the Ace Attorney series for peak localisation, or even, as odd as it sounds, Pokémon! All those puns, Pokémon names, attacks etc... This is being creative, playing with language to “bring” the OG pun to a french/US audience, and it works!

I am very glad not to have bothered with Tales of Arise then, because I do not want to play Tommy’s take on the game, I want to play Tales of Arise, and make my own opinion/take on this game.

Tom isn’t asked to bring the “one true translation” to US audiences, he is asked to localise the game, that is to bring the game to, I suppose, US audiences (Bamco has an European branch who localised things without borrowing the version Bamco US made?).

Alrighty Tommy, but you are the one paid to bring the game to western audiences. Of course, if I could get someone’s else LP or translation for free, or as a bundle next to your take, I’d take it. But this alternative does not exist, and we are stuck with your take.

This is why, I reiterate, whoever managed to create and update the FE Datamine Website has all of my gratitude, and even beyond, because it makes it possible to see those different translations - for free - and notice what went wrong with the localisation process.

Good for you Tommy, your take on the game (dare i say fanfiction?) will forever exist, but if I was in his shoes, and my employer told me he has to redo that thing I did 6 years ago because it was shit, I’d cry and feel really bad, I wouldn’t be proud.

No Tommy, Tales of Arise didn’t sell because it was localised by Tommy Jimmy, it sell because it was from the Tales franchise, and because (i suppose) it is a good game people loved. “Your product” isn’t yours, only the localised script is yours, the nerve of calling a game you participated for 15% extra content “your game”

You’re not the author of the game.

As I said before, creative mind is something really wonderful when used in localisation, and can bring gems like the AA series or even Pokémon. But “creative autonomy”? What Autonomy are we talking about? Tommy was alone in a room, revamped the script added his tweaks, didn’t submit it to Bamco US or Bamco and gave it the developpers as the “localised” version? Is Tommy really trying to compete with, uh, the game he is supposed to localise to “demonstrate his insight and creative autonomy”?

See, again, the difference with fanslations, fans love the game they’re localising, Tommy “competes” against the game.

What the fuck “The Majority of major studio translations try to maintaing the overall tone of the world and personalities of individual characters”

Only a majority tries, or a minority won’t release their work if their “try” isn’t successful?? Or a minority don’t give a fuck??

What am I supposed to understand ??

Well, this article is oriented, but, say, if I wrote a text with a neutral organisation led by a religious dragon who hides her identity, I’d be upset if the American dub and marketing campaign butchered my game and said the neutral organisations isn’t neutral at all and rules over the continent -

Comes Kevin, and the alt-right controversies.

I am sorry to break it up to you, people who do not like memelord!Claude, people angry at Pat’n’pals lolcalising Rhea as Rhage because organised religions sus, or fanon!Edel, but you’re all alt-right gamers.

Reconquête!

Fates’s translation was a mess, yes, it happened 5 years ago, and yet, Treehouse didn’t get the memo because even if the localisation is less of a mess for FE16, meanings have been altered.

For flavour text and dialogues, yes, not for plot important points (I think?) but it’s still an alteration in the meaning that wasn’t made necessary with the need to convey a notion or a concept to western audiences.

Bar the alt-right thingJeanne O’secours

Yes, translation is an art, a science and a creative endeavor. I never stated the contrary. However, like all art, and science, it works within certain boundaries. Hate or Love the source material, the thing is the localiser has to bring it to his targeted audience, and will make some choices to do so, but the red thread to be followed, the thing that must be kept in mind is to bring “this game” to the audience, and not “a game I corrected to fit my opinions/take”.

American children* cannot understand what is a riceball ? Fine, 4Kids will use donuts instead.

American children* will not watch an anime if it has japanese singing? Fine, 4Kids will remove it and put the instrumental version.

American children* need a new OST, even for the instrumental pieces, because, uh, I can? Not fine, What the Fuck is happening with Funanimation.

American/Westerners* cannot read or even see the name Sukukaze because it’s too non-occidental for them? Treehouse will dub him “Kaze”. Why, don’t ask questions.

American players will play this game I advertise as being ruled by an oppressive Church, and how Ghetis will look for a kind successor and Pope Francis is always unhinged and screaming “’till her eyes explode”. No that’s a big no, and you’re not even trying to justify it by saying “American gamers need this version of the game else they will not understand or something”.

Tommy, Jenny and Kevin are not “altering” the script as a standard localisation process (swap the -sama by something else without making it clunky!) depicting their mastery of english language, nope. If they are complaining about the restraints to their ability to present “their take” on the game to an audience, they are already crossing the boudaries of “localisation”.

And I know, translating something always - always - mean inserting a part of yourself in your work, that’s why, if you really really really want to get the true source material, then start to learn the language.

However, I believe there’s still a middle ground between inserting “the translator’s takes” in the game, and the, idk, passive bias of the translator who tries to remain neutral - to bring the game, as close as possible, to a targeted audience (US, French, Spanish, etc etc).

Now, what happened with FE16? Was Pat and the team’s passive bias against organised religions too strong and it ended up in “do not kill unless the goddess tells you to”, even if this point is really important in FE16, and how, for all intentes and purpose, the Church of Seiros does not control Fodlan or has any relative influence in the 3 countries, even if someone says the contrary ?

But it wouldn’t explain the sheer difference in, even, the advertising of the game. NoA’s advertising claims the Church controls Fodlan, when the JP never said that, but even the NoE campaigns, in all languages (I think?) never wrote so in their official websites!!

What is NoA’s FE16? A take on the game, à la Tommy’s Tales of Arise? A 4Kids version of the game, tailored to american audiences? A failed localisation, like FE14?

The reason why I diss on the localisation for FE16 as loLcalisation is, mainly, because of the voice acting.

I understand for a dubbed game a JP!Bernie would sound super weird, and maybe some VAs wouldn’t want to try to mimick her.

But, as always, for Rhea? A kind and gentle person, seen as motherly, who becomes angry when people try to kill her, her family or her wards is... reduced to “lady with a temper you do not want to cross”? “Rhea just is”? “Rhea doesn’t emote”??

Why the frick Cherami Leigh received directions to voice Rhea-bot v.1 when the topic isn’t Sothis or Billy, or to voice Rhage when Rhea plays with her witch costume and gives sweets to people?

Even Edel, someone once said JP!Edel is the waifu bait, but under the bait you discover a red Emperor. NoA!Edel is a red emperor/serious person bait, and under the bait you get the waifu.

Why was this changed?

I don’t want to know, but this is why, I reiterate, I give many thanks to whoever updated the FE Datamine, and for whoever at IS who decided to bring Dual Audio back to the game.

I don’t want to hear Pat’s take on Rhea, I want to hear Rhea.

now, when is FEH going to be released with dual audio?

* if this sounds like I diss on US media because of their wonky localisation issues, never forget the French versions of popular animes, back in the time (90s!!), were heavily censored, made up scripts from scratch and had those goddamn french openings, completely out of this world.

Like, Fist of the North Star because meme’d so much here in Wonder France because the dub was completely made up, people didn’t follow the script at all which resulted in “Ken le Survivant” which isn’t, for all intents and purposes, a localised version of Fist of the North Star (the author even joked about it!).

Ditto for City Hunter - which became “Nicky Larson” - and the infamous “restaurants végétariens” to censor “brothels”, also with randoms mooks being shot exclaiming “Aïe bobo!” of “Oups je suis mort!” (”welp i’m dead!” <- the work of someone who cannot localise for shit)

And the ultimate, peak work of French localisation, the opening of DBZ (and, of course, the opening of DB)

#long post #lolcalisation issues #lolcalisation woes #I cannot translate for shit #a long time ago when studying ancient texts someone told me i wouldn't get the true meaning of those texts if I didn't learn the language #they were written in #so nope it's not latin nor ancient greek learn something else #this is partly a reason why i refused to continue those studies #I love localisation when they play with different registers like polite language old language etc etc #or the wordplays? Priceless #fanslations implied whoever read them wanted to be immersed in the work and lore and wouldn't mind a -sama here and there #something that cannot happen with a professional translation who brings the material for people who aren't fans but just want to play/watch #I really hope I didn't write too much shit tho #FE16 #Now I wonder did Tales of Crestoria crashed because the Western Market didn't love it since no Eng Dub?#I've seen somethings on Reddit here and there but #is the dub so important that people will literally refuse to play a game that isn't dubbed in their language?#laughs in french

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pearlplusau · 3 years

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Attack of the Multiverse!! (Pink Pearl edition)

“Presenting....a new writing series! Here’s the preview of the entire story! Enjoy and thanks for reading in advance!”

*que intense chase track

A pink pearl in her latest crystal gem form, was blindly running into the darkened beach, where everything was pitch black. She couldn’t see the water, she couldn't see the sand, heck, she couldn’t even see the giant temple that should be located somewhere in front of her without any light source!

She couldn’t remember how long she ran, but it was more than her physic could take. As she slowed down, she huffed and puffed, almost wheezing from all the running.

But her break was cut short when-

A sound of blast came from somewhere behind her, controlling whatever it touched as the torn objects such as floor boards, trash cans, and giant chunks of earth levitating around the enemy figure.

As Coral raced towards the temple, which was finally visible from the bright aura of the floating gem, another figure appeared, stretching out her ballerina leg and tripped the poor pink gem.

“Ooof-“ she exclaimed as she faceplanted into the sand.

As Coral lifted her head, she saw two figures, no wait…two identical figures!

The closest figure wore the outfit she had before the rebellion, her first ever pearl form, except it's all nastified, torned up and darkened, as if someone drenched her with the colour schemes of an arch villain. Instead of buns for her hair, two shaggy and messy side ponytails wildly danced under the blowing night wind. Under her eyes was a trail of dark ink, making her look more horrifying than she could ever imagine! (She’s abandoned pearl, but let’s go with Crazy)

The other figure looked like the first figure, except she was completely greyscaled. Her entire body radiated absolutely no colour, just the dreadful shades of black and white! Her hair, too, was in a complete mess, but in a mad scientist style, where her hair looked like it was electrocuted, but more neatly and less frizzy. Anger was radiated from her twitching eye and her frozen W pose, the twitching eye was glowing with power, as if it’s holding back the power with what’s happening next!

The two of them both bore a damaged right eye, but resembled no difference to each other, they even look like-

Coral gasped, “No way! You’re…me?” as she pointed to the two Pink pearls, getting more and more confused.

“That’s right!” Crazy Pearl spoke with a raspy voice and some crazy in her eyes. “And now that we finally got you, we’ll take our sweet time to DESTROY YOU!!”

The pearl brought out a wand from her gem, and it immediately extended and sprung into a deadly, pink, glowing rejuvenator. “Once you’re rejuvenated, you can join my little army, and we’ll destroy the worlds together! Mwahhahahhahahahaha!!”

Coral was only able to whimper out, “worlds?” as the crazy gem wasted no time and brought down her pink glowing scythe!

As Coral braced for rejuvenation, a pink ribbon lashed out and gripped on Crazy pearl’s arm. The scythe was frozen in place, but it was flung aside as Crazy was yanked out of her spot! As the ribbon retreated, another figure slowly came out of its hiding.

“You won’t be destroying anything once I’m done with you!” It’s the same voice as Coral herself, but more confident and sure. The figure had Coral’s face, her hair, her gift from Pink diamond. The more obvious significance was the green dress and the placement of the gem on her forehead. The gem in green shouted, “Earl! You take that freak while I take care of crazy here!”

As soon as she ordered, the sound of a gem retrieving their weapon echoed, “SHING!” with the sound of pistol fire not long after!

Bullets were shot, all flying towards freak pearl, but a metal trash can flew out of nowhere and acted as a shield against the attack.

Coral saw the shooter come out with angered expression, as if she was annoyed of the constant blockage of her attacks. The shooter looked almost exactly like freak pearl, the only difference was one of them is a bleached floating freak while the other wore a long sleeved silk shirt with a diamond shaped cut around her gem, bright pink shorts with huge pink splatters and spots all over her body. Her grey hair buns had little strays of hair at the end, with far less cracks on her face. Earl also had the same cracked eye, but she’s looking a lot less freaky than her counterpart.

As the two pearls fought as ballerinas, assassins and shooters simultaneously, the confident pearl grabbed on to Coral and ordered, “Come on! We need to get out of here! That ribbon wont hold her for long!!”

The said ribbon was wrapping up crazy pearl with a neat bow on top, however, she looked like she could break free any moment!

“Hurry!” Coral got up and they both went to help Earl. The confident pearl pointed to the levitating gem and ordered, “Use your lance and take her down!”

“What!?” Coral questioned in surprise, “isn’t that a bit too much?”

“Trust me, it's not!”

Coral summoned and gripped her lance, aimed at the freaky pearl and threw.

The weapon was barely slapped away with the metal trash can, but that little distraction was able to give Earl the chance to finally strike and take her down!

Earl leaped into the air and performed a 10/10 somersault, she gracefully kicked freak pearl as far as she could! “Smack!”

The knocked pearl made no sound, just the sound of her SPLASH landing into the dark ocean.

Coral immediately took the chance and demanded answers from the two, “Can someone explain what is going on!?”

She looked at Earl, who, instead of speaking, did hand gestures that were clearly sign language, but Coral didn’t get the chance to study them unfortunately…

Confident pink pearl translated, “She’s saying we don’t have much time! Come one, this way!” she pointed to the side of the crystal gem temple. “There's a portal there that should lead us straight to her!”

Coral demanded as they ran, “Her who?!?”

“Coral, do you believe in alternate universes?!” Confident pearl asked.

“I do now! Seeing all of you here! Being literally alternate versions of…ME!”

“Well actually, we’re all alternative versions of the OG Pink Pearl, The original! I’m from a diamond swap universe where White Diamond and Pink diamond swapped places, I’m one of original crystal gems, without White diamonds old pearl.” C!Pearl said as Earl nodded at the side.

Earl made more hand gestures to say something, pointing to herself along with more sign language. C!Pearl translated, “That’s Earl, she’s from another timeline where she… you know what, it’s a long story, all you need to know is that we can trust her!”

“But what about the two we just fought?” Coral demanded.

“Those two? I call them freaky and crazy! They’ve been after us ever since we started portal jumping! I’m not sure where they’re from, but I’m pretty sure Crazy is from an AU where SHE was abandoned in Pink diamond’s garden instead of Spinel! As for freak pearl, really not sure here. Maybe she’s an interpretation of how powerful she could get under a diamond’s complete influence and power?”

Coral gave another quick question, “How do we know who the original Pink pearl is if we’re all from different timelines?”

“Simple,” C!Pearl said, “she’s the pinkpearl that followed the Canon timeline, where she got controlled by White Diamond and spent 6000 years as her mindless servant! Us, however, were created to avoid that specific timeline, so she’s the root of all Pink Pearl. The most important thing to do right now is to look for the first Pink Pearl!! She’s the only one that can help us get deal with our...situation right now.”

“How are we gonna get there with these two on our tail!??” Coral said as she notices more rubble floating behind her as well as a maniacal laugh echoing louder and louder!

“All we need is to get through that portal! Those two wont be able to catch up! Come one!”

The portal, swirling in pink and white star dust, finally became visible behind one of the temple palms. Within the right distance, all three pearls leaped into the portal as it closed behind them!

Shooooofwop!

End of part ???

Multiverse Pink pearl series! Next chapter coming in-

The two rogue pink pearls stopped their tracks when they found...no portal, nor any of the pearls they were fighting.

The two antagonists turned to the camera, made little chuckles and pointed at you, the reader. Crazy teased, “Look what we got here freak pearl, someone that thinks this ISNT an April Fool’s special.”

Freak pearl rotated her floating junk around her until they got to a trash can. She set the trash can on the sand and tapped three times.

Knock

There was a moment of silence and snoring, sounds like someone fell asleep.

Crazy summoned a speaker phone from her gem, placed it at the side of the can, and screamed, “HEY PEARLPLUSAU WRITER! ITS YOUR QUE!”

The writer groggily woke up rubbing his eyes, “Yawnnnn….”

He fell off into the sand.

“Heyyy there fellow readers, yes this IS an April fool’s special, a friend of mine was curious if i would write one of these and sure enough, once the idea got developed, i got straight to the writing process.”

“What was surprising is using us AU characters into his little joke writing, where are the credits you punk?!” Crazy asked in a rather annoyed tone.

"Oh that? ” The writer continued," Credits of the characters are below! You can see the images, as well as the title of the AUs. Some of the characters are linked back to the creators tumblr account, while other creators who dont have tumblr accounts are linked to original posts, like from Instagram!! ”

Freak pearl snapped her fingers for the writer’s attention and pointed to herself, asking for her origin.

“Oh freak pearl? I just thought it would be cool if there’s more than one antagonist for this special, so i kinda created you myself. The idea was, how dangerous can pinkpearl be with a diamond’s ability, and there you are! Telekinesis and mega white laser beams! Pretty cool huh?”

Freak pearl did not respond...well.

“Anyways,” the writer proceeded, “writing this was a pretty fun 1.5 hours of the time i have, not including reviewing and editing tho. If theres anyone out there that wishes to continue the story in their own way, be my guest. Just let me know so i can read it myself lol, im very interested in your take of the situation! “

April fools! And thanks for reading!

Characters (even though they’re not drawn)

Coral/Pink pearl from Pearlplusau - Original design by Tripixle!!

Crystal gem Pink pearl from Diamond swap au - Credit to @dreambigstars

Earl from WD steven au - AU character from @ask-whitepearl-and-steven

Crazy pearl (Despair pink pearl), Design from Shrimp.face (Link to their post)

Freak Pearl, no specific au named, nor from any creator. So i guess she’s my AU character?

A/N: Hope you guys had fun reading as much as i had fun writing it!

Also the real new chapter coming in probs two weeks from now.

Slightly unrelated, there might not be as much visuals as there was last chapter. The drawing pen is a bit busted.

Till then! Bye!

#suau #pinkpearl #Coral #WD!steven #Spinelpinkpearlswap #diamondswap #stevenuniverse #ohwait #iforgotsmth #april fools #happyapril1st

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maverick-werewolf · 3 years

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Werewolf Fact #60 - Werewolves Have Tails

Unbelievably, I never actually did a werewolf fact on this. But... Well, it disturbs me just how many random people on the internet I see making the utterly baseless assertion, as if they actually know, that “werewolves in folklore didn’t have tails.”

That is categorically untrue.

(Although plenty of things in Hollywood spurned tails on their werewolf designs for various reasons, Underworld remains the primary culprit for popularizing the concept of “my werewolf is too edgy and unwolfish to have a tail”)

Do werewolves in folklore have tails? The answer is so simple it can be shortened to just one word:

Yes.

Now, if you ask me, I think it looks totally ridiculous to have a werewolf with a wolf (or whatever modern designs pretend passes as something remotely wolfish; let’s face it, most werewolf designs, especially movie ones, have basically nothing in common with a wolf) head and/or digitigrade legs that doesn’t have a tail. Those need tails. But don’t get me started on werewolf designs.

I also personally think it’s much scarier for a werewolf to have a tail, and I don’t buy the arguments that they are “scarier without one,” because apparently startlingly bare werewolf butts sticking out like they’re begging to have a tail pinned on them are scary (?), and I’ll tell you why at the end of this post.

Before I get into the folklore meat of this, though, I will say that part of my personal stake in werewolf studies is to push for a less broad definition of the word “werewolf.” Personally, I don’t hold to many scholars’ ideas of calling every single person turning into a wolf a “werewolf,” and this applies doubly to things involving witchcraft.

Personally, I think a “werewolf” needs to fit a certain, meaningful criteria, instead of any old person or thing who has the ability to turn into a wolf.

To start off, I will open with the very simple statement that the overwhelming majority of werewolves in folklore turned into giant wolves. Yes, just wolves. Not wolves walking upright, not wolf-men, just wolves. And what do all wolves have? Tails. Case closed.

If that isn’t enough for you, though, there are many sources that detail exactly the how and why of werewolves having tails in folklore...

Firstly, there’s Henry Boguet in “Of the Metamorphosis of Men into Beasts,” from 1590 (my version was republished in A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture, edited and compiled by Charlotte F. Otten). On page 79 of this edition, Boguet marks a difference between werewolves and witches that have turned into wolves, repeating a common belief that, when witches turn into animals, they have “no tails.”

Notice that the witches do not have tails. The werewolves, however, do, and that is even specified as an identifying attribute.

Secondly, there’s the Malleus Maleficarum, specifically question X of part I, “Whether Witches can by some Glamour Change Men into Beasts.” I’m pulling this from Monatgue Summers’ translation.

They say that, “the devil can deceive the human fancy so that a man really seems to be an animal.” This specifically refers to deception. Thus, illusion. Not a true, physical change as we get with a werewolf.

Furthermore, however, they say that “when it says that no creature can be made by the power of the devil, this is manifestly true if Made is understood to mean Created. But if the word Made is taken to refer to natural production, it is certain that devils can make some imperfect creatures.”

“Imperfect,” in this instance, generally thought to refer to “tailless,” along with a few other legends, such as a witch in animal form still bearing human eyes. Again, witches.

Bear in mind that the Malleus Maleficarum was written and compiled during a time period in which werewolves were considered a form of witchcraft, although not equal to it. One could become a werewolf via a curse, without directly practicing that witchcraft. Long story short, werewolves and witches were NOT the same thing.

This also came from a time period when werewolves were considered negative (obviously), unlike in earlier time periods, and much more like today.

Moving on, we also have Albert the Great in his book On Animals, as cited by Montague Summers, who says that devils can indeed make animals: “they can, with God’s permission, make imperfect animals.” Again on the imperfection.

There is one scholar who disputes this very, very briefly in his writing, and that is actually one of my prime sources: Montague Summers. In his book The Werewolf, he remarks, “many–but not all– authorities hold that the werewolf has no tail.” Like, dude, what? We just established that they do.

Something to remember about Summers is that firstly, he truly believed in werewolves as a form of witchcraft. To him, werewolves are more closely connected with those aforementioned witches (that I think werewolves need to be separated from). Secondly, when he makes this sweeping statement, he provides absolutely no sources whatsoever and doesn’t really make any kind of argument to back up or to defend that idea. I’m calling his BS on that one.

Thirdly, we have an overwhelming number of other sources on werewolves being depicted with tails as opposed to without. We have imagery from various time periods (as appeared in my post on werewolf appearances; there are a few more images here), in which they are virtually always depicted with tails or mid-transformation into the form of a wolf, which would have a tail. One of the only depictions we have of a tailless werewolf is the wolf-man woodcut of the one eating the baby, which is in itself a rare sight, as werewolves weren’t generally “wolf-men” very often in folklore. And, frankly, I think somebody misnamed that woodcut, because I’ve never seen any sourcing on it and I don’t even know if it’s supposed to depict a werewolf in the first place.

Descriptions of werewolves in folklore frequently refer to tails, or else refer to the werewolf as simply a “wolf” and thus lead us to assume they must have a tail, or such a radical difference would’ve been noticed by the narrator (Niceros’s tale, Bisclavret, Melion, the curse of Lykaon, Chinese legends, and many more).

There are doubtless many more citations/discussions/arguments on this, but I think you get the picture.

Werewolves have tails. And not some funky little cut-off rat tail or some stub sticking out from their spine - a wolf tail.

And you know one reason why werewolves have tails? Because, ages ago, people didn’t see a terrifying werewolf and immediately go “omg puppy uwu must pet good boi” or “werewolves are so corny lol.”

Because, ages ago, the concept of a human turning into something so inhuman was terrifying. Unfortunately, everyone today has reframed like 90% of everything into “that is bad and corny” if it’s remotely fantasy. Regardless, the idea of a human turning into something with a tail - a tail being a markedly inhuman trait - was extremely scary and startling. A werewolf with a tail will always appear much less human than a werewolf without one, and that is something that brings them closer to being terrifying beasts as opposed to just hairy dudes.

So yes, sure it’s an aesthetic choice of the creator, but werewolves in folklore had tails, whether anyone likes it or not. And if they are anything beyond a wolf-man, they’re simply going to look better with tails, and if you ask me, that’s also something that will be the case whether anyone likes it or not. You hear me, Blizzard?

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#werewolf #werewolves #werewolf wednesday #werewolfwednesday #lycanthrope #lycanthropy #lycanthropes #folklore #random werewolf fact #werewolf fact #werewolf facts #tails #worgen #underworld #world of warcraft #wolves #wolf

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aer-in-wanderland · 3 years

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hello! i see you're often dissatisfied with the official translations for tale of the nine tailed. i also always want to know exactly what the characters are saying and it saddens me to see changes in the translations. are there any translations of lee yeon/nam ji ah dialogue that you thought were particularly inaccurate? how would you render them?

Hello! I’m afraid you may have opened Pandora’s box with this one haha

First off, most (if not all) of the subs you’re seeing going around aren’t official translations but rather fansubs. Because fansubs go up as fast as possible there’s no time for review or editing, and this often means they leave a lot to be desired. As someone who has done a good amount of professional translation, I tend to put a lot of thought into ensuring that not only the content, but also the context and tone of my translations are accurate. It’s an art, not a science.

To answer your question, though, there are a few Yeon/Ji Ah interactions I can think of where the subs particularly bugged me.

The first is from EP05, when Ji Ah presses Yeon to tell her how Ah Eum died.

Yeon tells her, ‘It has nothing to do with you’ (or even more neutrally, ‘it’s unrelated to you’ but that’s an uncommon phrasing in English). The sub here was, ‘It’s none of your business,’ which is another way you could translate that, but it’s both less literal and also more callous than I felt Yeon was being here.

In response, Ji Ah insists she knows it does (have something to do with her). Yeon’s response was subbed, ‘At times, it’s better to be in the dark. So live your life as the clueless person you have been.’ This is taking a lot of license and not in a good way. I would have translated Yeon’s response as follows:

Yeon: At times...there are times when knowing something becomes poison. Please just keep living as you are now, not knowing.

First off, to my thinking there’s a big difference between ‘being in the dark’ and ‘knowledge can be poison,’ which is actually what he says. Second, he says absolutely nothing to the effect of ‘clueless person.’ He does literally say ‘not knowing anything,’ but I would have left out the ‘anything’ because it changes the tone of the sentence. It’s technically correct from a one-to-one translation standpoint, but ultimately wrong in terms of communicating what he means and how he means it. Finally, while he doesn’t literally say ‘please,’ what he does say (‘살아주라’) is the imperative form of the verb (to live) + ‘ju-da’ grammar pattern, which holds the implication that she is doing it for his sake.

The sub here really bugged me because it made it sound like Yeon was condescending to Ji Ah, saying that she should just keep on being ignorant, when in fact he was asking her very plaintively to trust him and accept not knowing. Overall, I thought it misrepresented his character in an unflattering light so it stuck with me.

Another example of a sub that bothered me is from EP12, when Ji Ah’s parents ask Yeon what he likes about Ji Ah and Yeon tells them being with her comforts him (paraphrasing). The translation of Ji Ah’s line that followed that was a bit problematic for me. The sub here read, ‘But Yeon made me realize...that we’re supposed to live in the shadows...of the people we rely on. I wanted to be that kind of person too.’ I would have translated this as:

Ji Ah: But I met Lee Yeon and came to understand: people live their lives in the shadow of someone they can depend upon. I have to become that type of person too.

You can see there’s not too much difference (other than the ‘supposed to’ and the ‘wanted to’ - not sure where they got that) and that’s because the main issue here is actually cultural. In English, if we say you’re living in someone’s shadow it’s a negative thing, but Ji Ah is actually making a reference to traditional Korean wedding vows, in which the groom pledged to become a tree and the bride his shadow. That’s obviously a carry-over from a more antiquated time in gender relations, but the image of the tree remains that of something that provides shelter from the elements. So, to live in someone’s shadow in this case actually means to live being protected and cared for by them. This is in direct contrast to her telling Yeon in EP06 not to be too good to her for fear that she’d come to depend on him. It shows character growth. And Ji Ah is saying that she also wants to be that someone for Yeon.

Since there’s no way to explain that context in the subs, though, I might have taken some creative license and changed ‘shadow’ to ‘shelter’ or something to that effect. It would be more of a departure from the literal, but somewhat closer to the intended meaning.

Another exchange that I felt could have been translated better was from the night scene on the beach in EP13 when Ji Ah asks Yeon if he remembers the first time he met her.

Yeon: Of course I remember. I spent my life working to catch others, but you were the first person who chased after me so ferociously saying they were going to catch me.

Ji Ah: At that time I should have just confessed ferociously. If I had, the time we could have spent being happy not knowing anything would've been just a little bit longer.

I don’t remember exactly what the sub said, only that it left out the word ‘ferocious,’ which they both used. I thought it was a very Ji Ah thing to say - that she should have confessed ferociously instead of chasing him ferociously, and you can see Yeon look at her when she says it.

Another thing that dropped out at times was the humour. One recurring joke they use plays off the word for ‘bastard,’ which translates literally as ‘baby dog’ or ‘child of a dog’ (kae-saekki). Putting ‘kae’ (dog) in front of anything turns it into a curse word actually. [Edit: It’s also used as an intensifier in modern slang similar to how the f-word is used in English]. As you might imagine, this gets a lot of mileage in relation to Rang, our resident 600-year old baby fox. So in EP03 when Yeon and Rang fight on the island, Yeon makes this joke:

Yeon: They say you’re supposed to raise wild children* with a firm hand (literally: hit them as you raise them), but I couldn’t do that, so I ended up raising a baby fox into a bastard (baby dog), didn’t I?

Rang: And who was the jerk who kicked that baby (saekki) to the curb? You treat me like a stray dog any chance you get.

Yeon: My little brother, I’ll have to gift you a muzzle this Christmas.

Because the dog jokes dropped out ‘muzzle’ became ‘mouthguard,’ which is less funny and also makes no sense out of context. [*Edit: Also, thinking about it again, I still would have used ‘muzzle’ since that implies that Yeon means to protect the world from Rang whereas ‘mouthguard’ is more about protecting Rang.]

[*Edit: the word used here is 호로자식, which many Koreans understand to mean something like a barbarian child, but the true origin, as it turns out, is a parentless child. It’s also used predominantly by grandpas/old men hehe]

Another funny moment came when Ji Ah asks Yeon for his phone number in EP04:

Yeon: Nice. Your character is very consistent.

Ji Ah: I get that a lot.

There’s no good way to translate Ji Ah’s line, but she literally says ‘I hear that curse (yok) a lot,’ implying that people say this to her and mean it as an insult/in a ‘goddamn you’ sort of way...to which Yeon nods as if to say, ‘makes perfect sense.’ haha

Finally, there were times when the subs were just straight-up wrong. When Yeon is telling Ji Ah about how he met Ah Eum in EP05, he says she was so cute he hit her once and then sent her on her way. Ji Ah prompts him saying, ‘And then?’ To which Yeon responds that she went down the mountain in tears but then returned to chase after him with her bow in tow. The subtitle said something like ‘she left and returned within the day,’ and I honestly can only assume whoever was translating it wasn’t sure what was said and just wrote something likely based on context because it’s such a loose estimation.

Sorry this is so long. It’s nowhere near an exhaustive list, but hopefully it gives you an idea of some of the things that catch my attention when I watch the subbed version. If there are specific scenes you’d like to see me translate, feel free to send me another ask. =)

#ask #tale of the nine tailed #korean language #korean translation #thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent haha #edited #totnt ask

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citoyenneangele · 4 years

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Les Mis in Bernese (Swiss Les Mis part 3)

The most interesting finding I had during my research at the library was a script of Les Mis in Bernese German (Bärndütsch), a Swiss German dialect, my native language kind of.

I found this extremely fascinating, to read a story that means so much to me, in particular a version of it that is very close to the original in many quotes, in my local language. It was without a doubt a very particular experience for me, enriching in many ways.

This script was written by Ueli Bichsel in the occasion of a open air theatre production in the Bernese old town in 2011.

Sadly it was pretty hard to find actual footage of the show after 9 years, since many of the things are no longer available on the internet after such a long time. This sadly also includes the photos that the theatre company uploaded.

Here is a partly reconstructed version of the website, that does include some aspects of it, like the introduction to the play and the cast, but sadly no photos :(

Here is one of the few pictures I found on the internet a few months ago, featuring probably Javert and Gavroche

youtube

here is a little exctact of the play featuring Valjean’s dispair, a fair in Montreuil, the Thenardiers, Cosette and the other 2 kids, possibly Fantine...

The way this video is arranged makes me suspect there would be a whole recording, to which I sadly don’t have access, but this video just focuses on the woman who plays the accordeon.

Besides that the only file I have access too is a a few scenes that were featured in a christian tv show which you can find here. It is a portrait of the woman who did the co-direction of the production. The portrait starts at about 5mins in. It features besides the portait of Nathalie Trachsel also some behind the scenes clips from the rehearsals, also some scenes from the actual play: Javert upon Valjean’s release, Valjean and the Bishop, Fantine dying, Javert confronting; then after a break The Amis shouting “to the barricades!” (in particular Combeferre, Feuilly, and Enjolras (the guy with the red cravat), them building the barricade, the first attack, Gavroche shooting the sergeant and Gavroche dying, Valjean releasing Javert.

Now let me tell you about the particularities of this play and its adaptional choices:

The language: as I already said, this is the first time I hear and read Les Mis in my native dialect. It is a very poetic form of it using many specific Bernese terms of vocabulary, that I would probably not use on everyday basis.

The script is specifically designed for the square in the old town where it was realised in 2011. Multiple references concerning the nearby streets are being made. Also the actual cathedral of Bern, giving the square its name, is being integrated, as the seat of the Bishop of Digne. I think they invested also some part of the introduction to the play by stating that all of this could also have happened right here, in these streets, which is a pretty powerful message.

The play includes multiple dreamlike sequences, that also explain multiple cast of Valjean. The first dream is kind of a nightmare that Valjean has during his first night after prison where he sleeps on the stone bench which resumes the ordeal he experienced since his conviction for stealing bread (featuring various Valjean-actors at different stages of his life). The next one is the one where everyone surrounds Fantine and wants money from her after her dismissal. Another dreamscene is the internal debate that Valjean experiences after learing about the “trial of the applethief”, where multiple actors represent the different voices in Valjean’s head (Madeleine’s self who doesn’t want to give up his freedom and doesn’t want to give his town up and do good there instead, even if this means breaking with the past, Fantine who insists that he has to save her daughter and thus can’t go in prison, the apple thief who doesn’t want to go to prison for life in his place, the Bishop who wants him to stay with the truth...). The last dreamscene is the near-death experience Marius has after the barricade which is very similar to the finale of the 2012 film which it predates, except that they are actually not singing the finale but the regular Do You Hear The People Sing in (standard) German.

Another particularity is the insert of Javert as some sort of narrator that comments basically the entire story from his point of view. This is particularly interesting because this Javert seems to me more omniscient than I expect actual Hugolian Javert to be. And since there is no story without a narrator, this play ends with Javert’s suicide.

Generally the book seems to have been an important source of information, many of the dialogues are directly taken from Hugo

The influence of the musical is there and reaches also to the point of the already anticipated inclusion of a song into the play. But there are some part of influences that also make me think of other versions, in particular some dialogue seems to be directly taken from 2000 Les Mis (conversation about the cause from Marius and Enjolras)

Marius is a Republican (and sadly partially rude to Gavroche)

Javert tries to hire Gavroche to spy on the Musain, and the latter takes the money, but later uses this against Javert

Gavroche kills the artillery sergeant and not Enjolras, and gets killed while rejoicing his success

preparation for the barricade is featured

In general I have to say that I enjoyed reading this very much as it was really a well done adaptation from how I can tell this. Very detailed.

I am gonna keep a copy of this script. So if you have questions or would have to see something more in detail, just ask ;)

Click on read more to see the detailed summary.

Before the actual script several interesting documents are included

So the very first page is a letter that the director wrote to one of the actors in the play (he plays Le Noir, a elderly revolutionary, who gets a few lines of one of the unnamed workers of the Faubourg that Hugo quotes). He makes an excuse that it took so long, but they had to edit some things because there were not enough male actors for all the roles, so they had to change a few male roles into female roles, and they are also considering where someone may take over multiple roles.

Then we have a list of all the roles with the respective actors who played them. Some roles are still open, and marked with a question mark, as this list was made before the rehearsals actually took place

Next up we have a plan of the rehearsals, with days and hours and everything... interestingly enough they took place at a location that I personally know, so that is very meaningful for me.

Then follows the actual script. The title is Les Misérables - fate, death and love. The translation is by Ueli Bichel, last edited by Marlise Oberli-Schoch, in 2010.

Prologue

Valjean enters from one of the side streads, is poorly clothed, unshaved, lies on a stone bench and sleeps.

Valjean has a nightmare. so there is a scene within the scene. Which explains the quantity of Valjeans that are employed. Like the Madeleine's self, they appear to the actual Valjean actor in the dreams. In this particular dream sequence Valjean is sentenced to 5 years galleys. While both Valjean and his sister Jeanne beg for mercy (because he tried to work but that was not enough to feed all 8 of them, and parents are dead and so on...) the judge has none of this because the LAW.

Valjean2 is sentenced to more prison and other... corrective measures

Valjean 3 and 4 are sentenced to more prison and other unhuman treatment. Javert appears and lets the prisoners to be chained together. They go away

Javert has a monologue about Valjean. Basically he knows that we will say that this sentence is inhuman and that arresting people like JVJ causes more misery since he is the breadwinner of his family etc. But the law is clear and shall not be questioned. He is not in the position to judge the law, and he is also not responsible for the existence of criminals. His duty is it to find out about crimes and to fight them and to deliver criminals to their rightful punishment. He also gives Valjean his passport and tells him what he has to do and what happens if he breaks is parole...and then Javert speaks to the public and talks about how Valjean cried after his first conviction, and how he now doesn't show any feelings anymore. Wonders what happened to his soul.

A woman called Delacroix wakes Valjean up and asks him what he is doing here, why he sleeps on a stone bench and why he is not going to a inn. He says he was rejected everywhere. She gives him a tip and indicates... the actual cathedral that is on that square in Bern where the theatre takes place.

Image/Act 1

Valjean knocks at the cathedral door. First Magloire with Baptistine, then the Bishop come out. While the women are scared the Bishop approaches Valjean without fear and calmly. greets him with a blessing. Valjean tells him who he is and that he has nowhere to stay, that they didn't let him in even in the prison and so on.... Bishop invites him. JVJ continues to talk about his yellow passport. and is surprised that he wants to take him in ... more conversation of this kind. Bishop says it is not his home, it is the home of jesus, that the door ask not how the one is called who comes in, that is asks if one has hunger or thirst.... Says Valjean come sfrom a place where lots of sad things exists, a place full of hatred and anger against the peple, you have the right to mercy. When you go from here with a benevolence, and thoughts of freedom, a penitent sinner and a peaceful man, then you are worth more than anyone of us. Lets him sleep there.[

Magloire has a panic attack because the silver is missing and what else terrible could have happened. The gendarmes bring the arrested Valjean back.The entire conversation about how the bishop exonerates Valjean, by saying he gave him the silver and why didn't he take the candlesticks... And tells him to become a honest man, that he no longer belongs to evil...Javert as narrator again comments the whole scenery and does not believe that Valjean can become a good person in such a short time. Because once a prisoner, always a prisoner.

almost to prove Javert's judgement the next scene is Petit Gervais, but with a girl called Odette, Valjean tears his ticket

Image/Act 2

there is some kind of fair with music and dancing and market, and all kinds of shows. Javert is there, Thenardier is in his inn, Mme T. is there too... Thenardier boasts about how he, sergeant Thenardier, saved a General in Waterloo with lots of overdramatic details People in the audience have mixed feelings about his narration. While someone is totally impressed, someone else has heard other things about this "ghoul". The Thenardiers have first names (Justin and Rose) They have a discussion about their newest visitor and how they can rip him off the best. Make some remarks about his job as a innkeeper that remind me distantly of Master of the house in the musical. Javert has a conversation with Mme T. about Cosette. Then a conversation about Javert, who is new in town. and once they know where he wants to go (the police prefecture) they suddenly ask lower prizes.

So apparently the Thenardiers are in the same place here as Javert, and thus probably also Fantine and Valjean..

Javert arrives at the police. there is a captain Bovet, who is currently ridiculously eating a sandwich and is not bothered by Javert's arrival until he says who he is, i.e. the new police inspector, and he keep telling him that he is not behaving the way he is supposed to according to the official instructions. He wants to see the mayor immediately. On the way, Javert has a conversation with Bovet about how much more clean it is here and how much less crimes there will be here than in Paris. Bovet says that is due to the glass manufacture that the life in Montreuil has never been better. He asks him if he wants to see it. He says, first the mayor. Whom does the factory belong to? To the mayor. He first worked as worker, but after the bankruptcy of the former owner he bought the entire factory six years ago. Javert thinks then it is even better if they first go and see the mayor, when he seems to be the driving force in this town. Bovet says, yes, but also that he is kinda extraordinary, eccentric, well very shy. He lives like an eremit, retired and alone. He even did not want to be elected, he had rejected to be mayor at first. The people think he is abit crazy, but Bovet thinks he is sympathetic and yet he has a bit of pity for him because he is so lonely. A very short, very formal visit at Madeleine's house, where for some reason a soldier is watching, and asking the mayor to come. The scene concludes with Javert-narrator wondering from where he knows this man, finds it weird that this man does not show any interest in the prefect of police (excuse me what are you now, Javert, prefect, inspector, officer? I have lost the overview in this play), wonders if he has something to hide, himself, his face, his voice, a movement, his language....

a woman called Ducret approaches Madeleine, and tells her about one of the girls at the factory, that she has not spoken to ehr yet, but everything indicates that she has a child. Madeleine asks if she is a whore. He only does not want that his workers are captured by moral disintegration. Ducret then suggests to dismiss her. Madeleine trust upon her judgement, and says in this case she shall give her 50 francs and send her away. Ducret has a conversation with Fantine which starts with innocent smalltalk and ends with her being dismissed.

basically Fantine is in a state of powerlessness and everyone wants money from her and threatens her. (The Thenardiers, the landlord the renter of furniture, the letter writer...) Fantine breaks down.

a woman called Françoise who offers haircuts, wigs and teeth, buys Fantine's hair.

Whores in front of the Thenardier's inn and apparently Mme T. is there too, singing (apparently not being a whore). and Javert and Bovet are there too, about how they are being more and more... Two guys called Rambone and Savioni are harassing Fantine who looks worse than the other whores, and Fantine defends herself tries to kick one of them in the eggs ^^ When Javert comes the men disappear...

Javert arrests Fantine and as a narrator he makes a comment in which he says very clearly what he thinks about her (I am not gonna repeat that here though), but basically she is very criminal and is treating good and honorful citizens of this town badly and this can not be tolerated. She breaks down and asks him for mercy because Cosette, you know, but of course Javert doesn't care. So she breaks down and coughs even more...

Madeleine intervenes, Fantine attacks Madeleine, who only wants Javert to release her, but Fantine thinks Madeleine is responsable for all her misery and spits at him. Madeleine says he know what happened, the men are at fault and should be punished, not she. But she insulted the mayor. But the mayor says that this is his business and not the justice's. The whole Javert-Valjean argument about Law and who has what competences Fantine is free. Madeleine wants to pay her debts and bring her daughter back and make that she can live a worthy life again. Fantine faints, and Valjean says to the soldiers to bring her to the hospital

Fauchelevent's incident with the cart. Involves various inhabitants of the town called Toutou, Zidane, Josephine, Fabienne, and Rahel Javert is there too, and in the end of the chapter he is sure that Madeleine has to be 24601

Fantine is deadly ill, Madeleine wants to bring Cosette before she dies

Javert demands to be dismissed, featuring detailed description by Javert on the points where he thought to have recognized Valjean (and reading this script in its entirety makes me realise mistakes that they didn't. For instance here he still stole from a boy (i.e. Petit Gervais and not Odette). Equally detailed description of the apple thief, and who recognized him as Valjean. Mention about the trial the next day. Madeleine says he can leave. Javert insists to be dismissed. Madeleine says, rather than dismissed he'd need to be promoted, he appreciates him as the dutifuly man of honor that he is. Javert has another monologue that how each time when he arrested someone and mercilessly judged him, he told himself "help me god that you will never stumble", And now he stumbled and needs to accuse himelf. It is about justice, the law asks for an example. Valjean just says we'll see.

dreamlike sequence. Features different actors that represent the different voices in Valjean's head.

Bishop: tells him to go his way. And stand to his identity, to lie would be very wrong, he promised to do no wrong anymore.

Apple thief: blames him for making him his substitute, the one who needs to suffer in his place

Madeleine's self: is relieved that Javert is no longer going after him. Valjean no longer exists. This was god's will. God wants me to do more good here, to be an example for others, everything else is destiny. And for that I need to stay the mayor who gives food to the ppor and makes that the orphans get good education. He shall break the candlesticks as he shall break with the past. He shall forget about the bishop. And also this apple thief is a criminal, he shall be in prison.

Fantine: asks when she will finally see Cosette, he owes her a lot for all the injustice she has suffered because of him. She doesn't think the apple thief wil be a better person but he will be an example for her child. He shall save Cosette who is suffering because she is mistreated by the Thenardiers

Valjean wakes up and tells Arnaud to leave for Arras.

Image/Act 3

again no trial scene, just a summary of a very angry Javert who wants to go after Valjean NOW, as he humiliated him

Fantine dying. Javert confronting Valjean and making respectless remarks to both Valjean and Fantine. Valjean in turn accuses Javert of having killed Fantine. Valjean attacks Javert with a chair so that he can pay his last respect to the dead Fantine. Then says to Javert that now he is at his command. Javert makes another extremely unnecessary stupid comment. Valjean approaches Javert and stretches out his hands, as Javert wands to bond them, he knocks Javert down and escapes

Valjean sees Cosette and wants to help her carry the bucket of water home to ther mother. Cosette says she has no mother, thinks she never had one, that she brought her and never picked her up again. Valjean asks if she lives alone. She says, almost, Monsieur and Madame are only beating her. Realizes she is Cosette, says he wants to stay in the inn for the night, she shall show her the way. They talk about the two other children, Popine and Zelma, who never have to work and have beautiful dolls, and always are allowed to play, while she has to work all day and is not allowed to play as the two other kids don't let her. Only sometimes she is allowed to play, when she is done. But she has nothing to play with. She once played with one of the dolls but then Madam beat her. But she has a small sabre of tin with which she dissects leaves and rainworms

Usual Thenardier-inn conversations, in particular the one about the missing bread, the lost money, that Valjean miraculously finds, Valjean buying the work she'd have to do, (socks), he buys her a doll in a nearby shop, the whole negotiation about Cosette, including Thenardier insisting to see a passport. Valjean saying he doesn't have any, it is not required here. If he takes Cosette with him they won't know his name or his address, they will break down all the bridges behind them . However he has the letter of Fantine. They leave quickly.

Here the Thenardiers don't go after him, they just regret that they didn't make more money

another Javert-narrator monologue, about the dangerous criminal that escaped him and that now also has an innocent girl in his hands. He searched with 36 men and 6 dogs but he is like disappeared from this world. He felt so bad wehn he told the police minister about this development. But the latter did not seem to be that interested, talked about social misery, about shortcomings in the health system. Told him about the beggars, the neglected, from the small criminals who kill another man for bread, about big criminals who in hordes rob reputable citizens, he shall not chase a phantom. But our dear Javert is obsessed with said phantom and doesn't want him to escape. He wants to follow his trace until he has him on (no, not under) the guillotine. He is coming to Paris, not for the miserables, for whom he does not care that much, but for Valjean!

Image/Act 4

Gavroche singing a song about Paris in the time text, yet missing

a coin falls on the square (no idea from where), an entire bunch of poor children and teenagers fight upon it. Gavroche, the most streetwise/smart/crafty of them takes it, and escapes, the other children behind him, he gets caught by Javert, the other children disappear Javert treats him badly and takes the money away from him. When he asks Gavroche for his name, he asks Javert back, but he doesn't seem to be interested in reavealing his identity. But then Gavroche tells him his name, because he told him that there are many like him. And he insists that he, gavroche is unique. So basically Javert recruits Gavroche to spy on the Café Musain "because there are things happening that are of big significance for the state and the city", and Gavroche says yes, because he gave him money. Javert wants to know who is there, what they speak about and what they intend to do.

The students and workers in the Café Musain discuss the situation and Javert spies on them. The people is agitated, one fears that there will be a revolution, a uprising of the miserables Grantaire (who is absent in an older version of the script) declares that he only wants to drink and forget about life, a stupid invention without purpose. Bahorel and Joly have a conversation about Bahorel's lover Feuilly talks about Roman Gods (apparently we now have a Jehan Feuilly or is that a Feuilly Prouvaire or whatever?) Grantaire has a monologue about what they consume in different cities, and harrasses the waitress. Courfeyrac doesn't want any kings anymore and does not like the charter, thinks she belongs to the fire. Enjolras comes in with Marius, presents the latter as a friend of his who want to join them. Marius is a republican and declares that he wants to fight for the republic with all his force, however he hopes it won't get that far that he'll need to give is life. But he prefers to do so rather than life under a tyran (suspicously similar to 2000 dialogue if you ask me) They sing the Marseillaise until Louison tells them to stop, because she does not want the police to shut down her pub. Yes, apparently she now is an innkeeper too.

Outside the café: chaingang. Valjean with Cosette watching. The conversation between the two that ends with Cosette saying "If one of them would cross my way, I think I would die... Dad, what are galleys?" Valjean wants to leave. Marius sees her and wants to follow her, but loses her in the crowd. Goes after Gavroche instead and handles him pretty rudely (Sorry Marius, but this is not how you do it). Basically he tells him to find an angel. Gavroche then is just like "but does this angel have white wings?" Marius instead gives him a detailed description of Cosette and her goldbrown hair and white dress, and how velvet her look is and how silky smooth her lips ar and everything...

They are back to the Musain Combeferre says all the workers have to swear that they go to the streets at the first alarm and fight Feuilly says he can be sure, they fight. But the students have to pave the way. We workers fight, and even if there are as many enemies, we'll fight Feuilly says they are 300 already (oukei, now I am really impressed) Bahorel is convinced that in 14 days they will be as strong as the government i.e. 25000 Bossuet declares he doesn't go to bed, he makes cartridges. Feuilly wants to fight. now. Enjolras says first they need to have weapons Courfeyrac insists that the soldiers do have weapons. Le Noir has the "either for the people or against the people speech" that is more or less an exact translation of the speech that one of the revolutionaries in the Faubourg has in the preparations chapter. Gavroche comes, announces Lamarque's death Combeferre: what? Lamarque? The courageous freedomfighter, our advocate? Now we have resist on our own! Away with the government! Feuilly: we overturn the government! To the barricades! Enjolras: it is about us! now its about everything! at his funeral - to the barricade!

Valjean and Cosette in the garden. They are considering to move again. Cosette: we are changing houses like we are changing names. Valjean is like "I know that must be weird for you, but one day you will understand". Valjean goes inside. Marius is with Cosette (Gavroche led him here, for money), lots of poetic blablabla, and <3<3<3, and you know, Marius shows her handkerchief and ask if it is hers, she says yes. In the end Valjean calls her. Says he keeps the handkerchief as a pledge

The "Thenardier Gang" (yes that is how they are called nowadays) sets out to rob Valjean's house. Eponine tries everything that they don't. In the end she succeeds.. Claquesous blames not only her but also the sight of 2 fighting sparrows and a black cat during the day. Cosette tells Marius they are leaving for England and probably won't come back. Cosette says Marius he should follow them, but Marius says he has no money. He says e won't come tomorrow, only the day after, and also he dies if she leaves. Marius says they have to renounce on each other for 1 day, but maybe they'll win life. Marius tells her the address. or more precisely he graves it into the wall, says he lives with Courfeyrac. when he is gone, Valjean decides they need to leave immediately, he has seen people that don't please him and Paris is bubbling, they have no choice...

Image/Act 5 (named the revolution)

So basically Lamarque's funeral has already happened. And many of the poor have paid him their last respects. Then the subversive slogans suddenly caused the troops of the king to attack people. People are kinda angry and meet up in front of the Musain. Courfeyrac finds a group of workers who come from the funeral, but luckily have not been among those who were attacked by the dragoons (ah, they are not called dragons, good to know :)), but are very angry, Courfeyrac tells them to go inside they can use people like them. Bossuet speaks with a worker from another group, who has a grazing shot in the arm, but doesn't care, they discuss about their weapons Feuilly asks a working woman what she wants. She says: to fight. Show them up there that they push back against that. Feuilly approves. Another worker has no weapon but would fight if he had one. Bossuet tells him he should provide himself one. Worker sets out to pillage a armorer. Everyone in the crowd shares rumors about what happened, and the Thenardier and Claquesous are awaiting happy times. And Babet also. Extraordinary mention to Combeferre declaring this is the best day of his life. They start building a barricade and undercover Javert has made his appearance.

Eponine tells Marius Cosette has left, apparently without leaving a sign. Marius is heartbroken and wants to die on the barricade at any cost. Which again upsets Eponine because she loves him

Inside Musain. Enjolras wants to know what is happening. Courfeyrac says the rumors are very contradictory and it is hard to tell what is truth and what is a lie. Lots of army, people is building barricades everywhere. Barricade is growing and more people are there. Gavroche comes over the barricade. Asks a worker who has the command. One who's called Enjolras. He wants to know if he is a general. Worker says no, the generals are on the other side. We are only brothers. Gavroche says Enjolras he wants to volunteer. Wants to send him to the ambulance. But Gavroche wants a gun. But Enjolras wants to arm first the men, then the women and only then the children. Gavroche leaves and comes back. Tells Courfeyrac and Enjolras there is a problem and draws their attention on Javert, and tells them how he offered him money to spy on them. For some reason he now knows his name. They arrest Javert and by binding him on the post at the entrance they want to show a warning to anyone who dares to betray them

they are awaiting the 1st attack Combeferre sees someone approaching. Enjolras says don't shoot, we know who it is. Bossuet says it's Gavroche. Gavroche wants his gun. who's there- french revolution. The whole Mabeuf thing except that they really present him as an ancient assemblyman who was "at the convent" (which is here not meant the place where nuns are, but the convention, which is apparently called convent in german for some reason). Javert gets another weird narrator-monologue where he denounces the stupidity of the students who throw their lives away and those of the workers because they always think you can change the world all of a sudden. And how they don't have a chance as badly equipped as they are against so many more well trained soldiers. That has to end badly. Either they die in the hail of bullets or "they are beheaded on the guillotine" (ok apparently this Javert has a guillotine obsession but doesn't know how such a thing works ) Javert goes back into the scenery where Joly reminds him that he will be next... The whole first attack plus Marius wants to blow the barricade up, and thus saves it, and asks for the leader, and Enjolras says its Marius. But all Marius wants is to be alone for a moment

Eponine dies and Marius discovers that Cosette still is in Paris

they sing and women bring food, they reprepare the weapons, basically drink with me mode I guess... Marius writes his letter to Cosette and asks Gavroche to bring it. Gavroche doesn't want to miss the next attack and thinks he shall wait... Marius insists that he has to leave now, that they won't attack until tomorrow. And then it will be too late to go because all the streets are closed. Gavroche goes.

It is night and they are trying to rest. One starts to sing the "Song of the Revolution (Musical)" and then the others join in. Combeferre and Gavroche come back. Gavroche has a bag of cartridges with him. Gavroche asks what is going on with them. Here no one sleeps anymore. The whole army of Paris is around etc. (basically what Enjolras says in the book divided between Gavroche and Combeferre) The whole we'll stay and build the barricade higher, conversation, and the uniform conversation, except it is reduced to the essential and Combeferre doesn't get to say anything, it is all Enjolras, in between Marius asks Gavroche who told him to come back. He says he delivered the letter "to the gatekeeper" Valjean comes with the 5th uniform, the 5 leave. Enjolras cares for Javert. Javert recognizes Valjean and says he's gonna have it easy now. Gavroche announces their arrival. A cannon is being heard, like it being rolled there. Cannon attack. 2 people die. Enjolras says this was a grapeshot, and that they needs to stop this cannon, i.e. that it needs to be "fireworker"'s turn. Gavroche says he takes that over. Before anyone can prevent him from doing so, he is up on the barricade and shooting. he hit his target, and is all excited and rejoicing about how he "blew out his lamp", that he evidently forgot that he is standying on a freaking barricade. This causes him to be also shot, of course, and he falls down dead right into the arms of Combeferre.

Enjolras says to all that the last one alive shall shoot the spy. Valjean asks Enjolras if he can crush this man's skull with his own hands, and since no one has objectsions he lets him. Final attack is announced by both Marius and horns. (yes another Hernani flashback for Autumn ) . Everyone goes to the barricade Valjean and Javert alone. Valjean frees Javert with the mention of the promise he made to the bishop of Digne to never do anything unjust. And killing him because he did his duty as a policman here today, or because he followed him his entire life would be wrong. And if he against the expectance should make it out of here alive he can find him in Rue de l'homme armé. Javert says he hates this kind of games, he shall rather kill him. Valjean tells him to leave. He shoots in the air and goes back to the others where he says he is done. Heavy shooting happens. One after the other the defendants of the barricade die. Valjean does stay at the background and doesn't shoot on the soldiers, yet he supports the defendants of the barricade. he realizes that Marius was hit and falls from the barricade. Valjean goes to him. And whereever he looks there are just dying or dead "revoluzzers" (yes, this is the word he uses in the script, not revolutionaries or something like that). During the very last attack on the barricade he carries Marius away from the barricade and can escape with him to the sewers. The soldiers pull the flags of the revolution out and plant the flag of the monarchy (whatever "the flag of the monarchy" may be)

Image/Act 6

We are in the sewers now. Barely conscious Valjean falls down on a sleeping Thenardier at the gate that leads out of the sewers who thinks he has made the great gain. and of course wants to steal from them. and comments this in a monologue this is observed by Javert. And of course now Thenardier is all about helping these people, if they aren't dead yet etc. Javert says him just to back off, calling him by his name. Thenardier insists to help, but he says he shall just leave. Valjean gets back his conscience and checks if Marius is still alive, wants to lift him up again, then sees Javert and lets him down again. But Javert just asked him if he needs help. Valjean says to Javert he hasn't given him the address , so that je can escape. Javert wants to know who that man is. And reminds Valjean what happened to those who were on the barricade. Valjean says he survives if he gets help quickly. He is a daredevil, an idealist, but a good person and he can do many good things yet for our country. Please let for once in your life reign mercy before law. Javert insists that he is dead Valjean says not yet. Insists that he needs to save Marius and then he says he'll come back They arrange a meeting at the same place at the same hour the next day.

Marius lies in the middle of the open square between Barricade and inn scenery. There is only the bed and Toussaint that cares ffor him and Cosette that is looking over him. Marius has a fever dream and is near death when they sees all the friends including Gavroche and eponing with the revolutionary flags and singing "The song of the barricade" climbing on the barricades. It is the german DYHTPS (Lied des Volkes), arranged kinda like the finale in the movie that came out notabene after this thing here. Basically Marius is convinced that they came to lead him to heaven, but in the end they get fainter again and in the end of the scene Marius is alive and awake and with cosette.

Javert derailed made by Javert-narrator which linguistically resembles the confusion of Javert Valjean comes in in the middle of that and says "here I am" Javert halfway awakens from his trance, makes a step towards Valjean, holds his pistol agains Valjean for 2 seconds, then he turns around makes two steps back and holds it against his head. Light goes out. Shot.

THE END.

#Swiss Les Mis #Les Mis uf Bärndütsch #Bärndütsch #Swiss theatre #les mis #les mis play #les mis script

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otogetranslations · 5 years

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Announcing of Dropping DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE;BLOOD

To sum things up:

Someone leaked the Diabolik Lovers Limited V Edition patch, posting it publicly despite all our warnings and requests. Thus we are following through with our original policy.

We’re stopping every projects related to Diabolik Lovers, including further support for Limited V Edition, and there won’t be a patch for More;Blood.

Collar x Malice Unlimited will still be released, but privately. After all, you guys will get the English version of it from Aksys for the switch next year!

I (the leader of otogetranslations) will still be helping other translators with their projects: Brothers Conflict, Hakuoki SSL. How the patch is gonna be distributed is up to their respective leaders (coquettishcat for Hakuoki SSL, and PassionandBrilliance for Brothers Conflict).

No more Black Wolves Saga. This project I (Reishiki) started by asking permission to use existing translation from orlandoblue @tumblr, Siberia (twitter.com/bakemeatz). The patch of Black Wolves Saga Bloody Nightmare is to be completed soon. But it’s no more.

Read on if you wanted to know what really happened:

As you all know, we released DIABOLIK LOVERS LIMITED V EDITION fan translation patch this August 16th, 2019 for homebrew enabled/hacked Playstation vita, and only for people that have proof or purchasing the game.

There are over 50 people who showed us the proof of purchasing the game and they received the patch for free. All we asked was for you to actually buy the game before you can play it with a hacked playstation vita.

Our 30-people team worked on the patch for 10 months. We only used outsource translation for 8/277 total scripts. Our in-house hacker did the romhacking process, our in-house proofreaders proofed the translation, our recruited translators worked on the translation. Everything was done by us and it’s our team effort. So we have the right to decide how we’re gonna distribute it.

However, on August 20th, 2019. Rojaaalice on reddit r/vitapiracy posted a thread, asking the patch to be given to them for free (without purchasing the game). A lot of people who frequent this subreddit accused us of being Gatekeepers, while all we’re doing is asking for proof of purchasing the game (not the patch, the patch is 100% free). Is buying the game you play wrong? Is asking for a proof of purchasing something you play gatekeeping, when we could have chosen to not share the patch at all in the first place?

I don’t think so.

But, this person, SilicaAndPina (https://twitter.com/SiliCart) is not happy with how we distribute our patch. He said that we should keep the vita hacking scene free, we can’t ask for people to buy anything to be able to get the PATCH that we worked on. He doesn’t play otome games in general, and he doesn’t even know what otome games is.

He started to trick me into giving the patch to him, by making a fake proof of purchase with a cloned gmail account. I noticed the proof was fake and didn’t give it to him. Then he got mad and sent this (WARNING: GORE IMAGE) to me. He stated that he will leak the patch eventually.

He attempted to acquire the patch once again with a different fake proof this time. I also noticed this and we trolled him by sending him a FAKE patch. We left the prologue in English and put ridiculous/crack fanfiction in other parts. He thought it was real and distributed it, declared he has won over us.

He thought he tricked us but no, we weren’t being tricked by his half-assed effort.

Today, August 22nd, there is someone from the DiaLover Fandom that received the real patch sent it over to him. I’m sorry to say that the patch would be leaked eventually, one way or another, because if someone really wants to leak it, they could buy the physical copy, take a photo with it and send it to us. Then they can sell the game to get the money back.

So, we lost.

But to the one that sent the patch to him, lost to the malice of this world, and not to him.

I had envisioned this would happen when I first started the project. So I’m not surprised. I had a small ray of hope this wouldn’t happen so soon, but I was wrong.

As we’ve stated before, we will cease every project translation related to DIABOLIK LOVERS.

No more patches of DIABOLIK LOVERS will be made from us, at least when I’m the leader of that project (as well as the leader of otogetranslations): Reishiki.

I’m proud to say our patch was enjoyed and praised by people that bought the game and received the patch.

I (Reishiki) will still be supporting other translators if they need it, but I won’t start any new project from now on (in which could be AMNESIA LATER/CROWD/WORLD, VARIABLE BARRICADE - these games I completed extracting the texts with our inhouse hacker’s help, and I planned to announce we would start one of these projects soon. But… I’m sorry to say that it’s no more. At least it won’t be made available to the public.)

Thank you everyone for your support.

These are our team members opinions:

JokerTrap-Ran: I think I just lost faith in the community as a whole again, coming back after 4 years. I hope you’re happy! This was really demoralising and I hope ya’ll had fun putting us down like that. I’m not one for drama and honestly I’d very much like to stay out of it considering the bad medicine bashing that happened on otome reddit about 3 years ago. I’ll continue releasing translations for blog’s followers but that’s it. I’m whimsical, and most of my followers know it. I pick things and I drop it all the same.

Khikari: For those who thinks that what we have committed is blasphemy and should be shut down for this, great, please take the time to learn Japanese yourself. Or learn to care about other people with emotions for once in you life. Demoralising people who were willing to work endless hours for free with just one condition sure is satisfying, isn’t it? It really hurt all of us. For those who genuinely cared and are saddened by this post, I am sorry and I wish the best for you all. I know that the few doesn’t represent all but this is a massive motivation killer, and I don’t need this drama in my life. From now on, private translations all the way! Also, Silica, attacking an idea is fine, but attacking people with malicious intent is stepping out of line. Enjoy being a rock specimen.

LoliChan195: I hope you are happy with what you have done! We only wanted to bring this out for people that had difficulties playing the game, and also help support Rejet by having more people buy their games. Its people like you that cause all these game companies to go bankrupt! (Also SiliCar, you sick fuck. Who sends pictures like that!? XD you’re probably just some edgy 12yr old XD Besides, who says WE WILL NOT FORGIVE XD what a dumbass! And is it that hard to search on google about the game? Why would we make it so it specifically needs to be the limited edition?!?! ) Seriously, the people who attacked us for putting the rule out are just as bad, like can’t you just wait and buy the game? Or even if u just pirate it, read online translations. Its not that hard!

Hermy: Nothing much to say, except, ya’ll could have totes pirated the game and played it along the translations available on the net. Welp, I hope you don’t dislike that idea too much because that’s what ya’ll gonna need to do if ya’ll wanna play the sequels.

PS: the MB translations available on the net are riddled with errors, but by all means have fun with them :)

Anon: Oh yes, silica? Perhaps you should just lead on with your true intentions next time instead of trying to honey your words and do some "re-con" for dots, yeah?

Marzi: I'm a bit numb to this situation at this point, but it is disheartening to know Silica was so intent on distributing our translations that he didn't stop even when we threatened to cease all translations. It wasn't like he was ever going to play the game - he just felt so personally offended by the fact that we were "gatekeeping" for some reason - which, in my opinion, is a bit of an immature reason to ruin a translation group. You can't argue that we're "unrightfully holding something when we don't have the intellectual rights," when you're bypassing all copyright laws as well in wanting to post it PUBLICALLY. But what's done is done - whoever manages to get a copy of this, I hope you enjoy it. Please know so much effort and passion went into these translations, and that we loved working on this project every bit of the way. If the game leaves you antsy for More Blood well LOL you know who prevented that from happening.

Sonic-nancy-fan: I never knew someone could have such an illogical mindset. Silica/PSSDude made the original base repatch program, and we used one that someone had edited and added to (which Silica was fine with). But, because he made the original one, that means he feels like HE can getekeep all uses of variations of it. This would be like saying people can’t use paper to make a paper airplane because the original creator of paper said no, or you can’t print manga because Gutenberg said no. Also, who in the world thinks they can take a moral high-ground by telling us to promote piracy? Patches are already a sort of grey area, so we were trying to take the most legal method available while still making a patch. I know in modern society, piracy is very common, but I can’t imagine your average person would call us in the wrong for trying to hinder piracy. God forbid we try to get people to buy Diabolik Lovers. I can’t say I’m shocked as I expected it to get leaked sometime. I’m just saddened at certain people’s general hate and unyielding desire to leak it. So, I don’t blame the community as a whole, nor do I feel any malice toward the community (we had a lot of people buy the game and get excited). I’m just mad at very specific spiteful people. Also, if I ever hear someone say “the scene” as much as Silica, I’m going to go nuts. It sounds like something the “cool guy” in an 80’s show would say.

#diabolik lovers #otogetranslations #announcement

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eirikrjs · 4 years

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Random tidbits

Just some stuff that keeps me up at night.

[Eirikr’s note: I will respond below each question in bold italics to keep things readable.]

1. Any chance that this could be an inspiration for Soul Hackers Satanael?

It’s a picture from a later edition of Johannes Lichtenberger’s “Prognosticatio in Latino”. You can check more of it here. The original 1488 edition has a much simpler version of this picture.

For some reason I thought that devil sitting on a person’s head or shoulders is a common medieval motif. But I didn’t really find much of that. Either I was wrong or my googling skills suck.

Probably not. I’ve always interpreted the Satanael art as him kind of emerging from the possessed Spooky’s head. Honestly, looking at it closer I’m not sure. But there is portrait art of Satanael and he otherwise is similar in bipedal form to Azazel and Shemyaza. If there’s a reference intended here it’s probably to an old anime or something.

2. I’ve been staring at Azazel’s mug and wondering, where does the image of devil as a red guy with a goatee comes from. Didn’t really find an answer (not counting Pan, but his goatee is usually much bushier than what I was looking for). Instead I found this. Apparently that’s Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of Church of Satan, author of Satanic Bible… playing a role in this half a century old short movie. Didn’t know he did that. In any case, that’s the best match I managed to find for SMT Azazel’s face.

Random thought: out of all devil-figures out there goatee seems to be most appropriate for Azazel because of the scapegoat association.

Similar depictions of Mephistopheles predate LaVey by a century or more. Is Mephistopheles the genesis of the modern red devil? Frankly, I don’t know but it’s a fair bet he’s part of the story. Azazel’s Dictionnaire Infernal illustration is also bearded and horned and is probably still the starting point for Kaneko’s version:

Still, I would not be surprised if he refined it via LaVey’s look.

3. Why does Ame no Murakumo sword occasionally (by itself and in Susano-o’s hands) looks in SMT like seven-branched sword’s long lost older extra-branched brother?

No clue! Maybe just because the seven-branched sword is suitably ancient or the branches somehow representative of Orochi (minus a branch). Again, maybe it appeared that way in an anime. That’s honestly kind of a disappointing answer because it often means copying careless execution but, from experience, never count it out.

4. Is SMT3 Kagutsuchi supposed to be on some level Ohr Ein Sof? He is an avatar of Great Will (or YHVH, don’t remember which) and his race and one of the skills are “infinite light” in Japanese, which is what “Ohr Ein Sof” translates to.

Hmm! I searched in Japanese for Kagutsuchi and Ein Sof together (カグツチアインソフ; honestly hard to track down the Japanese for Ein Sof) but there’s not much beyond a Persona browser game called Ein Sof. Ein Sof is mentioned once in the Kabbalah section of the Nocturne-related book SMT: Chaos Grimoire, describing it as 無限 / infinity. It’d be a slam dunk if it described it as infinite light. Coincidence or intended, I could go either way.

5. I just learned that Thor: Ragnarok originally had Odin as an amnesiac hobo, whose senile ramblings still contained recognizable… Odinness. Between that and SMT4 sidequest of similar premise I wonder, is there a mythological source for an amnesiac hobo Odin? Or is the answer as simple as “someone working on Thor: Ragnarok played or saw SMT4”?

The chances of an SMT4 sidequest affecting a movie like Ragnarok are infinitesimally small! While I’m unfamiliar with a completely amnesiac Odin, if there’s some point of origin it might just be a riff on his wanderer guise in the Poetic Edda and hero legends, there a ruse he would use to get the better of someone. ______________________________________________________________

Interesting set of questions! Though I feel my answers to a few are a bit insufficient.

#shin megami tensei #submission

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coolgreatwebsite · 4 years

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Cool Games I Finished In 2019 (In No Real Order)

We’re here. The end of the decade. 2019 was a weird, turbulent year for me. Despite my cross-country move already being a year behind me somehow, nothing’s really settled yet. Living situation is still weird, still separated from most of my belongings, I left my full-time QA job for a contractor position at a mobile game advertising company that may or may not convert into a full-time position... everything about what’s going on with me still just feels like I’m completely winging it, and while that’s not a position I’m really comfortable being in for such an extended amount of time, everything seems to be working out okay enough despite it. All this is probably why I spent most of my time playing the shit out of a handful of games rather than playing a bunch of different games this year! Needed some sort of stability. Also when I did manage to pull myself away from the timesink games and play something else, a lot of them ranged from “okay” to “real bad”. But I still managed to play just enough stuff that I liked to where I can put out yet another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2019.

Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (PC, 2005)

I haven’t bothered to do two thirds of the story quests yet and have barely touched any Episode 4 content so this game technically doesn’t count for this list, but if I left it off I would be neglecting to mention an extremely large portion of my video game playing time this year. I fell back into PSO preeeettty hard this year after the surprise announcement of Phantasy Star Online 2 finally coming to the US. Guess what: game still rules. It feels stiff to play and it’s obviously far less expansive than it seemed back in 2000, but the core of Phantasy Star Online is still as fun as it ever was and the aesthetics are still entirely my shit. I love everything about the way this game looks and sounds, I love stumbling on a weird new weapon, I love participating in the custom seasonal events the server I’m on runs, and I love how oddly relaxing the experience of playing this game and taking it all in is. I will probably continue to play Phantasy Star Online into 2020. I will probably still dip back into it after PSO2 US servers finally launch. If I know you and you want to join my Discord server for PSO get at me. PSO forever.

Cookie’s Bustle (PC, 1999)

You ever play a game that just speaks to you? Even through a language barrier? A game so incredibly out there and bizarre in the exact way you love that you can’t help but adore it despite barely understanding it? Holy moly did I ever find that game. I learned about Cookie’s Bustle through a news story last year about some rare games leaking from a Japanese collector’s stash. Didn’t manage to get it to run back then, but my off and on attempts to get it working finally paid off in March of this year and I’m so glad I kept trying. I knew nothing of this game other than it had a weird name and was about a bear doing sports, and it turned out to be a fully voice-acted and mostly unsubtitled adventure game starring Cookie Blair, a 5 year old girl from New Jersey who sees herself as a teddy bear and has traveled to Bombo World, an island nation once visited by aliens and currently in the middle of a civil war, to participate in the Bombo Sports Tournament. Dead level, I probably shouldn’t have been able to genuinely love Cookie’s Bustle as much as I did. The only context I had for what was happening and what I was supposed to do was provided by a 20-year-old Google translated walkthrough with broken images, the game’s slightly higher than usual reliance on English loan words, and 30-ish years of video games and anime allowing me to halfway pick up on a handful of Japanese words. However, Cookie’s Bustle is dripping with an undeniable and off-beat charm that genuinely transcends language. Even if you can’t understand the words and specifics, you can understand the basic plot, characterizations, and emotions they’re going for. Cookie’s Bustle manages to both be completely off-the-wall bizarre and feel totally genuine and heartfelt at the same time, a balance very few games manage to successfully hit but many of my favorites do. One could say that’s why it seems to have resonated with a decent amount of other people this year, too. Games rarely make me feel sad that they’re over. but when they do that’s how I know they’re one of the good ones. Seriously, go look up a longplay or stream of Cookie’s Bustle if you (understandably) don’t want to go through the hassle of setting it up and figuring out how to play it, it’s impossible not to love.

Devil May Cry 5 (PlayStation 4, 2019)

Here’s something crazy to think about: Devil May Cry 4 came out 11 years ago. Aside from being a potent reminder that time is moving too fast and we’re all going to die soon, that means that there hasn’t been a DMC for over a decade. Devil May Cry 5 does not bare this fact even a little bit. Not only did they pick up right where they left off and manage to make another Devil May Cry game without missing a beat, they made arguably the best Devil May Cry game. I mean I still like the story and single-character focus of DMC3 the best, but DMC5 is the best playing game in the series without a doubt. Nero finally feels like he has a complete and complex toolset, Dante is the most mechanically dense and fun to play he’s ever been, and they even added a new guy that’s... neat to play as, until you start trying to S-rank the harder difficulties. Then he’s kind of annoying to play as. But it’s still cool that they tried something totally different and mostly got it to work! They also did something very stupid that I love and used this game as an excuse to make literally every single piece of Devil May Cry media canon. Like, characters exclusively from the anime and the books show up and act like they’re someone you already know and love? And they go out of their way to explain the most esoteric lore shit possible?? And despite it all they still intentionally give DMC2 as short a shrift as they can??? It’s so dumb, it rules. It’s just one of the many things about the game that show that even with so long of a gap between entries, no love for the series was lost by the people that make it. I don’t think the suits at Capcom expected this game to hit as hard as it did though, because despite there being clear areas where the game could be expanded on with DLC there still hasn’t been anything announced. I hope they’re maybe saving it for some sort of DMC3-esque special edition, or maybe just already working on DMC6, because even after getting all S-ranks I still wanted to play more. The game’s just that damn good.

Hypnospace Outlaw (PC, 2019)

I expected very little from Hypnospace Outlaw. I backed the game on Kickstarter solely because it looked cool and I thought a game about fake GeoCities was neat, and then I immediately forgot about it until it released. Admittedly my lack of expectations stemmed mostly from the fact that it’s kind of hard to set expectations for a game you never really thought too hard about, but even in the brief period of time where I considered it enough to give it money, I never expected it to be much more than a pretty-looking 101 Great GeoCities Jokez delivery vehicle. Boy was I wrong. I mean, it is incredibly good at that, but Hypnospace Outlaw is so much more than a funny period piece. The basic premise is that you’re in alternate universe 1999 and have just become a community moderator for an Internet service provider that allows people to connect to the Internet while they sleep. You’re tasked with browsing the game’s weird fake Internet and issuing demerits to users who violate the five basic Hypnospace rules, but it quickly evolves into something way bigger. Hypnospace Outlaw’s greatest strength is its exceptional ability at weaving together subtle world building, small and engaging character arcs, esoteric microjokes, and a genuine sense of mystery and discovery into an incredibly cohesive and engaging package. It’s as much a game about the people that use and run its weird fake Internet as it is about that weird fake Internet itself. And a lot of the problems both face echo the problems we face with our real world Internet today. When I was mapping out writing this article like a month or two ago I was prepared to go on about how at its core, Hypnospace Outlaw is an incredibly poignant story about how uncaring tech corporations actively harm their users and always have, but then a couple of days ago I read Colin Spacetwinks’ game of the year list and his #1 entry put most everything I would have said about that topic down in a way more eloquent and well-written way than I ever could have. And then I remembered that Friend Of The Site Heidi Kemps covered some of the same angle but from the perspective of the early Internet in an article earlier this year, again way better than I could have. So I highly recommend you read those when you’re done here. What I wanna bring up instead is just how effortlessly surprising and interconnected a lot of stuff in Hypnospace feels, using a mildly spoiler-ish late game example. Two of the first “zones” you’re allowed to moderate when you start Hypnospace Outlaw are Teentopia and Goodtime Valley, which are essentially alternate universe Yahooligans and a little slice of Hypnospace just for Boomers respectively. On Teentopia you’ll see a bunch of kids that are wild for Squisherz, Hypnospace’s alternate universe version of Pokémon, and over in Goodtime Valley you’ll see (much like there was back in real world 1999) a few pages made by religious fundamentalists convinced that everything the kids like these days is the work of Satan. This of course includes Squisherz, and you can find a page by one organization full of crackpot conspiracy theories with flimsy evidence that TOTALLY DEFINITELY backs up their claim. Squisherz contains a wolf, which the Bible warns about many times! This giraffe monster CLEARLY has a pentagram in its design!! And the eye of this snake-like Squisherz is the eye of Horus, an Egyptian occult symbol and NEED I REMIND YOU that Lucifer took the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden!!! It is very clear what this page is goofing on and throughout the course of the game it doesn’t get updated at all, so it’s very easy to laugh at it and forget about it. Very late into the game, you get an optional sidequest. Adrian Merchant, one of the CEOs of Merchantsoft, the company that created Hypnospace, was found out to have logged traffic indicating he was a frequent visitor of a website called Children of HORUS, and a call is put out to investigate what that even is. You can easily find the website, but it asks you for a password if you click the Enter button. Adrian Merchant is consistently portrayed throughout the game as a complete idiot, and the solution to this puzzle has you capitalize on that. Another early game objective ended up with you finding a list of cracked passwords, and one of those passwords happens to be for the instant messenger account of Adrian Merchant. If you can remember that he was even in that text file from forever ago, and then put two and two together that of COURSE that dumbass would use the same password for everything, you just punch in his messenger password and you’re granted access to the Children of HORUS page. It turns out that HORUS is an acronym that stands for Hiding Occult References in Utmost Secrecy, and the page itself is a basic leaderboard with a list of names and two numbered columns reading “Hidden” and “Found”. In that list of names you’ll find A. Merchant, along with the names of various other CEOs and celebrities you might have read about elsewhere in Hypnospace. One of the other names on this list is F. Kazuma, the CEO of Monarch, creators of Squisherz. The funny conspiracy theory website from the beginning of the game that you most likely forgot about was, about this one specific thing, correct. There was an eye of Horus hidden on the snake from Squisherz. Not as any sort of Satanic plot, mind you, but only as part of some weird millionaire dickwaving contest. This dumb tiny revelation is not called out by the game at all and nothing comes of it, it’s just there for you to notice if you’ve been paying enough attention. Hypnospace Outlaw is LITTERED with stuff like this. Weird small interconnected things you wouldn’t expect to be interconnected. Little dumb things you wouldn’t expect to have any sort of payoff but somehow do. And it’s also just as chock full of big things. Having all the pieces fall into place at once to where I was able to access Hypnospace’s equivalent of the dark web was the best sequence in a game this year for me, even beating out the outlandish shit in DMC5. Getting and solving the final case was a rush. Hypnospace Outlaw is full of incredible moments big and small. It’s genuinely engaging and affecting, which is so much more than I was expecting from a game that was pitched to me as “Funny GeoCities Cop”. It almost has no right being so good. But it is. Hell, even the music rules! I didnt even get into that! I don't have enough time or space to get into that now! The music is so goddamn good! I know I started these lists because I had no interest in ranking games, but every year I sort of jokingly-but-not-jokingly say “haha this game sure would be my number one if I did that!” for at least one game. It’s time to fully lean into it. I don’t gotta rank ‘em all, but I can pick a favorite. Hypnospace Outlaw is my favorite game of 2019 with a goddamn bullet.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Etrian Odyssey (Nintendo DS, 2007): Man, this series just started out good, huh? I dabbled with the first two games in college when I got a DS flashcart but never really dug in until EO4, and the first game is enjoyable in just about every way the modern ones are. Definitely more barebones and punishing though. Kero Blaster (PlayStation 4, 2017): This is a game by the creator of Cave Story that does not aim to be Cave Story, and that’s fine! A fun little shooter in its own right, though I do think the shooting in Cave Story felt a little better than it does here. Space Invaders Extreme (Nintendo DS, 2008): I played the shit out of this game in college thanks to that flashcart I mentioned before, but I never finished a playthrough in full until this year for some reason. Still way stylish and way fun! I need to get a copy of the second one... CROSSNIQ+ (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Incredibly chill puzzle game that can be as hard or easy as you want it to be. Almost uncanny in how well it emulates the style of late PS1/Dreamcast games. Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Mario Maker 2 is kind of weird for me. It’s a solid improvement in a lot of aspects, but a clear regression in a lot of others. Also the online multiplayer is the second least amount of fun I’ve had with a video game this year (Secret of Mana swooped in and stole the number one slot near the end). Still, I had a lot of fun with it and I’ll probably end up going back to it eventually. Katamari Damacy Reroll (Nintendo Switch, 2018): The original Katamari Damacy is still every bit as fun and charming as it was upon its original release. This port is weirdly based on the Japanese version with the English text inserted, which means no English voice acting and Wanda Wanda only plays in the multiplayer mode. The Joycon sticks also aren’t the greatest for doing charge rolls. But none of these faults detract too much from the game. Bring on We Love Katamari Reroll! Earth Defense Force 5 (PlayStation 4, 2018): Sandlot somehow keeps finding ways to make each new EDF bigger and explodier, and EDF5 is the biggest and explodiest yet. I think the mission design in 4.1 was more solid overall, but 5 feels the best to play and has the most fun tools. Also the dialogue is the most absurd its ever been, and the final boss goes for it way harder than the series ever has. Pokémon Shield (Nintendo Switch, 2019): This game is honestly just okay, but leaving it off would again be neglecting a game I put a ton of time into this year. Pokémon Sword is fun in the way most Pokémon games usually are, and extremely half-baked in basically every other aspect. I’m still having a good time putting together teams and finding shinies and doing The Pokémon Thing regardless.

And that’s 2019 (and this decade) in the bag! I don’t know where anything’s going from here, but I’m going to ride it out as best as I can! I hope you do too! As always, thank you so much for getting to the bottom of all these words. I’m hoping to be in a more stable place mid-2020, and then I want to get back to all the things I haven’t had time to do. I want to get back to streaming, I want to write more dumb articles like The Best Babies, I want to do it all! I hope I will be able to do it all. Until then!

#article #year wrapup

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pellicano-sanguino · 4 years

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The Long Carmilla Post 2 - Return of the Long Post about the Queen of Lesbian Vampires

When Tumblr tightened its policy about censoring nudity, they targeted a long post I'd made about Carmilla, since I showed photos of Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard with their bare breasts in it. I have now censored the post, edited it and added a little. Carmilla is my favourite vampire of all time, and I have a long history with her different incarnations, so I wanted to bring the Long Carmilla Post back.

When I first posted the Long Carmilla Post, I had just seen the movie made by the Carmilla webseries folks. The sudden fame of the webseries surprised me. I can't help but think, that there must be a lot of new Carmilla fans, who instantly think of Natasha Negovanlis when they hear that name. If this series had been around when I was a teen, damn, would I have loved it! I would have been obsessed with it. But it was not, and I can't really become as obsessed with it now as the new fans do. Because when I hear the name Carmilla, several different faces appear in my imagination. I have already been obsessed with Carmilla from a rather young age, and while I love the webseries and this movie, for me it's just one of Carmilla's newer incarnations, not her default form.

I don't want to sound like a hipster (”I liked Carmilla before the webseries made her cool!”), I just thought that as a lesbian vampire lover I should make a post about my favourite vampire, and the history I have with the character.

There are some images of blood under the cut.

When I was younger, there really wasn't any lesbian litterature around (well, there probably was but I didn't know what books to search). I had a habit of switching genders in the books I read, making everyone female so I could get the girl romances I craved for, but this always felt forced and not ”real.” I read lots of vampire stories, because I've always loved that genre, but it was very much dominated by stories of male vampires. When I read Dracula, it had a short introduction speech that talked about the history of modern vampire stories, and it mentioned Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

Tracking the novella down was a bit hard, considering that back then I didn't have internet and so could only read books that I found in the library and bookstores. Fortunately the translation of Carmilla was included in one horror anthology that our library had. I managed to get my hands on it, and this cover illustration was the first ”face” of Carmilla that I knew.

I can't really put a finger on why I became so obsessed with this story. It's not that great of a novella. A very basic old-timey vampire story about a monster who threatens the life of the protagonist, who is saved when the monster's true nature is revealed, after which it is hunted down and destroyed. And the lesbian subtext is very, very subtle. There was just something very mysterious and fascinating about Carmilla. She is still among the few vampires who actually frighten me. Though Le Fanu's story isn't very scary by modern standards, Laura's nightmare scenes somehow got under my skin. There's something very creepy in the way vampires in older stories used to steal blood from their victims while they were sleeping. The idea, that there exists a predator who instead of straight up attacking its prey, approaces it by a cover of flawless mimicry, is horrifying. You are being slowly eaten alive and you're not even aware of it happening, or that it's your charming friend doing it to you.

I started having dreams about Carmilla. The first ones were nightmares, but even if they were scary, they didn't make me anxious, just excited. I was scared of Carmilla, but I wanted to see her, I wanted to hear her voice. It was as if I had fallen under her spell, much like Laura, but unlike Laura, I was aware of her true nature. I knew what she wanted, I knew that in my dreams, her kisses would lead to bites. But to a young lesbian who loved vampire stories, those kisses were worth losing a few drops of blood in the dream kingdom. She was one of ”my people.” She was not a genderswapped male hero, she was ”real.” She genuinely loved women and blood, and I loved her.

Halloween isn't really celebrated where I live, but one October a friend of mine decided that she'd hold a Halloween party (which became a yearly tradition for us for many years to come). She invited a group of her friends to watch horror movies at her house, and everyone should wear a costume. There was no competition what I would go as. I had a light blue dress that I decorated with blood stains, and over it I wore a dark gray cape, on which I had painted purple flower patterns to make it resemble the coat Carmilla wears on the cover illustration. It must be almost twenty years old, but I still have that cape.

Little Pellicano as Carmilla. I think I must have been 13 or 14 when this party was held.

Then I saw my first Carmilla movie. A Hammer film called Vampire Lovers.

This is a very silly movie. Very cheesy. But young Pellicano loved it. I can still quote many of the scenes from memory. The movie follows LeFanu's novella rather loosely, but I think it's one of the most faithful adaptations. It included the basic ”plot” that Carmilla uses to get close to her victims, has the nightmares (including Carmilla's monstrous cat form), keeps the plot point that she must form her new names anagrammically and makes her killer be a man who lost his daughter to the vampire. So far I think it's the only movie version that includes the scene where Carmilla sees the funeral procession of a girl she killed and loses it completely. I've always found that scene interesting, many claim that her fit of anxiety is caused by hearing the chanting (being unholy creature who's weak to christian things) but I think it's more than that. Either she has horrifying flashbacks to her own funerals (waking to vampirism and having to claw her way out of her own grave, that would scar me for sure) or she is genuinely sorry for killing the girl and terrified of having to face the truth that her love will always end in death.

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I want to interpret Carmilla as a vampire who really loves her victims, not as playthings but as real lovers. But she wasn't a reluctant vampire either, she embraced the monstrous side of herself. It was natural to her, and so it was inevitable that the women she loved would eventually die. Maybe she preferred to ignore this knowledge in the daytime, and when she was forced to see what her night time activities had resulted in, the fit of anxiety happened.

A bit off topic, but one scene from the novella that I've never seen make it into a movie, is when a wandering salesman offers his dentistry services to Carmilla, offering to file down her fangs, which sends Carmilla into a fit of rage. I don't know, I always thought that scene pretty funny. Poor guy, offering to de-fang a vampire and getting a HOW DARE YOU rant in response.

So, the next ”face” of Carmilla was obviously Ingrid Pitt. While this movie wasn't particularly explicit (all the sex happens off screen), the lesbian subtext was much less subtle, which pleased young Pellicano. And then there was the infamous bathing scene (would show pics, but gotta censor for Tumblr. You can easily find them by image googling.).

When I was younger, I suffered from being underweight for a long time (had always been a small girl). Seeing Ingrid Pitt's figure motivated me to try to gain weight. She was so beautifully soft and curved, not just her chest, but her shoulders and legs and everything just looked so smooth and nice, while I had thin, pointy, stick-like limbs with sharp edges and none of that lovely roundness. I know teens should not look at celebrities and actresses as body models, but I think having Ingrid Pitt's shape as body goal was healthy for me. I never reached that goal, of course, but I did eventually reach normal weight limits (50kg, the weight needed for blood donors).

That friend of mine, who hosted Halloween parties, watched the movie with me and knew that I was obsessed with Carmilla. One day she got me a fake gold necklace with a red plastic gem on it, shaped like a blood drop. I don't know where she got this trinket from, but it was similar to the pendant Carmilla wears in the movie, and even if it was just cheap junk, I treasured it. And totally wore it during the next Halloween party, going as Carmilla like I always did. I've lost the gold chain, but I still have the gem.

Also still have the VHS. I don't know why I've kept it, I have no VHS player anymore.

Before I move on from Ingrid Pitt, I’d like to mention a pet peeve of mine. Ingrid Pitt has done two vampire roles (three if Elisabeth Bathory from Countess Dracula is counted). The more famous role is obviously Carmilla, it’s probably her most famous role ever, period. Her other vampire role is Carla Lynde from House that Dripped Blood. Now, the thing that annoys me is that article writers tend to always mix these two up. Whenever they write something about Carmilla or female vampires in general, they always mention Ingrid Pitt’s role as Carmilla in Vampire Lovers, but they always use the same damn stupid promo photo that is from House that Dripped Blood. That’s lazy research! Do they just image google “Ingrid Pitt vampire” and fail to check if the photo they use is actually from the movie they’re talking about?! The roles don’t even look identical, Carmilla’s a brunette while Carla Lynde is blonde, Vampire Lovers is set in 1800s, House that Dripped Blood is set in 20th century. The worst one was when the museum in my home city had a vampire themed exhibition and even they used the wrong photo for Vampire Lovers. If a museum can’t get their facts straight, that’s just sad.

Here is an example of my pet peeve in action, an article about vampire movies, using the wrong fucking photo for Vampire Lovers. And yes, I know why they like using this particular photo (”höhöhöö boobs, I’m so mature”). But that just makes me more angry when they do it.

Hammer made a sequel to Vampire Lovers called Lust for a Vampire. It was... disappointing. It introduced a male love interest for Carmilla, which in my opinion was complete bullshit. If you want to make a story about a female vampire who falls in love with a human boy, by all means make it, but don't call it Carmilla, call it something else. That being said, there were a good amount of lesbian action going on as well (this time Carmilla plotted her way into an all girls' school...) and if there's one thing Hammer rarely fails at delivering, it's the bucketloads of unconvincing bright red fake blood. I skipped the icky het sex, but always enjoyed this scene:

Yeah, Yutte Stensgaard was the third ”face” of Carmilla. When I think of that name, this blood-covered, sleepy-looking vampire maiden is among the images that instantly pop into my mind.

The third Carmilla movie I saw was titled just Carmilla and starred Meg Tilly.

This was clearly a cheaper (maybe made for TV) adaptation. Meg Tilly didn't leave as big an impression as Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard did. But I do remember one line from the movie clearly. When Marie (the southerner ”Laura” of this version) asks about Carmilla's past, Carmilla brushes it aside by saying ”That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.” I adopted this phrase into use. Whenever people are unknowingly asking about a painful thing from my past that I don't want to talk about, I will say it to let them know that nothing good comes from digging old wounds that have already scarred. That was another lifetime. I'm much happier now.

I do remember that Meg Tilly's Carmilla was the movie with the ”awkward floaty blood drinking pose.”

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't look comfortable. Or functional.

Then the big day came – my family got a computer that could access internet. It was an awful piece of junk that could barely be used for writing emails and visiting messageboards. It wouldn't play videos, loading images took forever and big pictures often made it freeze. However, I had access to the internet now. The first word I ever googled was obviously ”carmilla.” Among the sites I found back then, was one about a German play, starring a woman called Ulrike Schneidewind.

The site had big, beautiful promo photos of the play. They took forever to load, but I returned to watch them often. There was something captivating in Ulrike Schneidewind's look for Carmilla. I'm not usually a fan of vampires with the white face+red lipstick+loads of mascara-look, but hers was beautiful, like a painting, like a creature that really wasn't human.

I don’t know if they used fake blood in the actual play or if it was only for these promo photos, but it looks incredibly pretty and surprisingly convincing.

I have no idea what this demon looking thing is supposed to be - Carmilla’s monstrous cat form maybe?

Ulrike Schneidewind became the next ”face” of Carmilla, even though I have never seen her act. All I've seen are these promo photos of the play (I have heard her speak. There's a couple minutes long news clip on Youtube about a vampire lifestyler event she attended). Supposedly there exists a VHS of the Carmilla play they performed on a Romanian tour, but they must have only made a handful of those, since I've never seen it on sale anywhere. I check the German eBay every now and then in faint hopes of finding a copy but I've come to accept that I'll probably never see this show. But still, Ulrike Schneidewind's look left an impression on my mind.

Around those times I started to draw comics in which my self-insert character shared a house with six vampire roommates (Carmilla, who owned the house, Brunhilda from Wake Not the Dead, Teresa from Last Lords of Gardonal, Ruthven, Dracula and Francis Varney) and an OC named Charity (Brunhilda's donor and girlfriend). I mostly pulled the designs for my vampires out of thin air, really (well, Dracula was as he was descrided in the novel, with fuzzy moustache and bushy eyebrows) but Carmilla's design was based on Ulrike Schneidewind's look, with blue veins shining through the white skin and lots of dark makeup and black hair.

Sad part is that it's been over ten years and my drawing skills have not improved at all. This is not ”art” this is doodles. But drawing these was super fun back then, so I shouldn't feel ashamed of them now, I think.

Besides these comics, I wrote some fanfics too. But I'm very glad I never put those anywhere public, because damn, they are embarrassing to read now. It's because my fanfics were actually serious business, full of drama and sturm und drang, and they turned out rather cheesy. Also full of, ahem, erotic content written by someone who had no personal experience on the subject yet. The comics on the other hand were just made for shits and giggles, and I think they've survived the test of time better (by which I mean, that I have actually shown my comics to other people, because occasionally I think I made a fun one, while I've never shown my fics to anyone and have already burned the worst ones.).

When the wonderland of internet was opened to me, I gained access to all the books in the world. I was no longer restricted by what our library and book stores had, I could buy stuff that wasn't published here. So obviously I got a copy of Kyle Marffin's Carmilla sequel. It's not a very good book. Quite silly, childish and badly written (men really shouldn't write about lesbians, they know nothing about them and enjoying an erotic scene becomes rather hard when you imagine some gross het dude writing it while drooling on his keyboard). But it was the first time I read a rather explicit lesbian sex scene, and that got me very excited, because finally all the subtext was thrown to garbage. Here it was, black on white, proof that Carmilla was into girls, not just their blood but their bodies as well. My late discovery of lesbian erotica may seem weird now, when anyone can gain access to mountains of lesbian smut in the internet, but back when I lived with my parents I never dared to look up smut on the home computer, in fear that they'd find out. Until I moved out, my only access to lesbian erotica was books, and Carmilla's Return was the first one I got.

Rant time: I might also add, that annoyingly enough I had been encountering explicit het sex scenes in books, movies and TV years before. And while I never intentionally searched naughty stuff on the net, I had bumped into het porn there accidentally as well. I wonder if heteros understand how freaking frustrating this kind of thing was. Their smut was all over the place, in every book, every film and all around the net, pretty much rubbed to my face, while MY stuff was so obscure I didn't even know where to look for it. And then they had the nerve to claim that we are ”flaunting it” and ”making it all about ourselves” whenever there was a gay sidecharacter somewhere. Grr. Grrr. Rant over.

I bumped into some incarnations of Carmilla later too, but none left an impression on my mind like these early ones did. The worst Carmilla I ever saw was the main villain in Lesbian Vampire Killers. That movie is easily the worst vampire movie I have ever seen (maybe even the worst movie I've seen, period), it's an ”erotic horror comedy” that is neither sexy, scary or funny. It is nice that when they were thinking of a character to star in a movie about lesbian vampires, they chose Carmilla. But the movie is such utter garbage, I'd rather they'd left my favourite vampire out of it. Save your money and sanity - don't watch this movie. It's bad.

I feel like a lot of time people want to take Carmilla's name and make a whole new character with it (like Reimi Urara's character in Vampire Succession, who is named Carmilla but isn't even a vampire at all). These ”Carmilla in name only” kind of characters don't count, and frankly speaking I'm not that fond of them. I guess it is nice that people want to pay respect to the legendary vampire by naming a character after her, but my opinion still is that if you don't want to tell the story of a lesbian vampire, call your character something else. If you take away either of Carmilla's two passions; that of women or that of blood, the character loses her trademark characteristics and stops being ”real.” You don't make a Godzilla movie where the king of the monsters isn't allowed to have his trademark atomic breath, and you don't make a Carmilla who doesn't love women and blood.

Now that I have said that, you probably guess my opinion about the (*spoilers*) ending of the webseries's third season. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of humanizing Carmilla. So, I went to see the movie with rather low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. This movie is more Carmilla than all of the webseries's seasons together.

But let's speak about the webseries first. I was very positively surprised by it. One day I ended up googling Carmilla again (was probably looking for fanfics) and discovered this little gem. It had very little to do with Le Fanu's original, but what it decided to change was so good that I didn't care. And it had still lots of little nods to the novella. Carmilla's anagrammical names, the nightmares, they freaking included Laura's governesses De Lafontaine and Perrodon (I would totally watch a spin-off that just follows the adventures of Laf and Perry) and there's even a scene where Carmilla is watching over sleeping Laura, looking a bit similar to a famous illustration of the novella. Also, the theme song ”Love will have it's sacrifices”, is a direct quote, from a scene where Carmilla is describing to Laura the night when the curse of vampirism was passed on to her (of course, she doesn't out right say it, but the reader knows what she's talking about).

”--- I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here," she touched her breast, "and never was the same since."

"Were you near dying?"

"Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.---”

I'm not going to say the webseries doesn't have its flaws, a little lazy writing here and there, plot holes and inconsistent characters occasionally (I feel sorry for Danny. She just can't win.). But it was incredibly entertaining, it made me laugh and it made me care about what happens to everyone. And like probably a lot of the fans, I adored the fact that they didn't dance around the lesbian thing. When Laura understands that Carmilla's advances weren't blood-related, her reaction isn't any dumb ”But we're both girls, how can this be?!” Whoever understood to make Laura gay too was a genius. When she gets all flattered and blushing after learning that a beautiful girl finds her attractive, it's such a relatable feeling. It's the lesbian romance I so wanted as a teen! Not stories of a predatory lesbian seducing dumb clueless het girls to the dark side, but girls experiencing all the usual things female leads in romantic stories do, only with another girl as their love interest.

The first season of the webseries is my favourite. The second was pretty good, too. Third, in my opinion, a bit unnecessary (here I think you could see the writing starting to slip). Then came the movie.

They could have completely abandoned the vampire theme and proceeded with the heroes' further adventures. But they didn't and thank goodness for it. They return to draw inspiration from the original source; the novella. We have nightmares, and I admit they actually made me uneasy, reminding me of that creepy feel Laura's dream scenes gave me in the novella. The image of Carmilla laying down in a coffin filled with blood is also from the story. There's a scene where Carmilla is forced to reveal her vampiric nature, and it really reminds me of the scene where it happens in the book.

And they freaking quote it, probably being the first adaptation ever to use straight quotes from the book. ”Die together so they can live together”-speech isn't quite right word-to-word, I think, but still, it's an identifiable quote. I used to be able to quote the ”You are mine, you shall be mine”-speech in English, Swedish and German, but have now forgotten most versions (yeah, I read Carmilla in several languages when I was younger. I was freaking obsessed with the story). I still think it's the most memorable quote from the novella. Also, the book-reading scene with ”Girls are caterpillars who undergo several larval stages before becoming butterflies”-speech is also from the novella. I think the only famous quote missing in this movie is the ”I've never been in love and never shall unless it should be with you”-speech.

As a fan of the ”old” Carmilla I adore how they pay homage to the origin respectfully, while still making their very own story. Again, teenaged Pellicano would have been all over this stuff. But I had to make my lesbian vampire stories from other versions, and while those also have their flaws, I adore them just as much. I am just happy that Carmilla lives on, not forgotten and left in the shadow of the countless more famous male vampires (seriously, where the fuck are all the female vampires? Ones that are actually main characters in their story and pass the freaking vampiric Bechdel test?)

Carmilla lives on, indeed. She has made a new comeback in Netflix's Castlevania series. I watched the first season and liked it quite a bit. It was a bit too gorey for my personal taste, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker. I liked the art style and was interested to see where they take the story. When I heard rumours that the second season would have a character named Carmilla, my reaction was pretty much “Carmilla is part of the Castlevania franchise?! Why did no one tell me this before?!”

Of course I’m always eager to see new adaptations of my favourite vampire. So, I did some research to know which games she appears in, made some popcorn and sat down to watch some Let’s Play videos (I’m not a gamer and don’t own game consoles so the only way I get to experience videogames is through Let’s Plays in Youtube.). But I ended up rather disappointed. Carmilla in the Castlevania games is cartoonishly silly at best, downright insulting to the original at worst.

So, after seeing how poorly the games treated my favourite vampire, I looked forward to the second season of the Netflix series with mixed feelings. I was hopeful, thinking that they can't go anywhere but up from here. And I was pleasantly surprised. The character design made her a bit silly looking with eeeevil face and her body language is very femme fatale-ish (I don’t really see the appeal of the femme fatale trope, but then again, it’s usually written for male audience), but they didn't put her in an ugly, revealing costume and the camera focused on her face instead of her breasts.

It's disappointing that she isn't a lesbian in this one (she makes one joke that hints she might be into girls too, but because Dracula's war council is mostly one big sausage fest, we don't see her interact with other females much).

I am so, so happy that the makers of the show understood that Carmilla is not some boot-licking notice-me-senpai Dracula fangirl (an aspect of her I loathed in the games). The only reasons for a lesbian vampire to ally with a male one are if they have a common goal (such as defending themselves against vampire hunters) or if she has no other choice. Netflix Carmilla is the latter. Dracula is a powerful, dangerous monster, who is also very much insane and therefore unpredictable. When he summons Carmilla to join his senseless crusade against humankind, Carmilla can't afford to refuse and take the chance of the mad vampire king killing her for disobedience and making a warning example of her. She has to go to war she herself deems pointless (well, Godbrand had a point in his ”If vampires kill all the humans, what will the vampires eat?”-speech.). So she begins to plot to prevent the genocide (she actually wants humankind to keep existing as opposed to wiping them from the face of the Earth, remind me again why she is the one every fan hates while they love Dracula the Kill All Humans-madman? Oh right, she assaults one of the male fan favourite characters on screen and is therefore deemed much more evil than Dracula who slaughters countless innocent humans offscreen without mercy. Got it.).

I love that she uses cunning instead of seduction when putting her plot to gain freedom from Dracula's servitude in action. Admittedly, some of the scenes where she's manipulating Hector seem a bit seductive-ish, but are still nothing compared to the ”Oh great master let me lick the blood off your sword!”-bullshit from the games. Also, was I the only one who could see right through her mindgames? Every time she complimented some man, I was shaking my head ”Lady, even blind Reetta can see that you are full of shit.” So it really surprised me when Hector fell for it. How do you fall for such an obvious trap?

I like that Carmilla's reasons for her schemes are reasonable and based on common sense and war strategy rather than just being evil for the sake of being evil. That being said, the scene where she beats Hector felt unnecessary, the man was tied up and would have gone with her even without getting his ass handed to him, because he's a prisoner and has no choice. I understand that it's an important scene symbolically, tying back to the scene where the animal-loving Hector compares vampires to cats, to which Isaac points out that cats play cruelly with their prey. It's a turning point for Hector, who abandoned humanity and tried to find a new family among monsters only to realize that they are, well, monsters. What did you expect voting for Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party would bring to you? Anyway, I understand that the scene is important to the plot and character growth, but I can't help but feel that making Carmilla assault a fan favourite character so brutally was the writers way of making sure the audience hates her. I have a feeling that they want to be sure the audience hates her, because they have something disgusting in mind for her for the third season.

I already talked about this in my ”If you have to kill female vampires on screen, please don't make it look like a rape”-post. I am worried what they are going to do with Carmilla. She's obviously going to get killed, but I hope they allow her to go down with dignity. Lords of Shadows 2 already gave us a really disgusting, rapey killing scene (I’ve only seen one killing scene with an even clearer “lesbianism can be cured by rape”-theme, in Lesbian Vampire Killers where Carmilla is impaled by a dick-shaped sword), we do not need another. I don't want Hector or Isaac or Dracula impaling her body slowly and looking downward at her in disgust as she painfully dies. Yes, Dracula will be coming back, it's Castlevania after all. I'm also worried of the possibility that instead of killing her, they make Dracula force her back into his servitude, which would also be super gross.

I am happy that the character of Carmilla lives on, that new fans get to experience her with these new incarnations, but whenever a new Carmilla surfaces, I am also a bit worried at how they are going to handle her character this time. I will have to wait and see how the third season of Castlevania ends, until then it is useless to speculate.

#carmilla #vampire #vampire lovers #lust for a vampire #ingrid pitt #yutte stensgaard #ulrike schneidewind #natasha negovanlis #meg tilly

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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progress

i started trying to learn some chinese like idk in august. and i have never related more to a story i read once, of a 60-ish year old woman suddenly striving (and managing) to learn enough russian to read russian classics like war and peace in their native language.

because that’s how i feel... like i’m desperately trying to get to the point where i can read priest’s novels... because the translation is fine, and also sometimes impressive, but i know just enough to see all the details i’m missing, and

i actually am gonna have a physical copy of guardian and imperfections/defected goods and i feel like The Pressure to be able to read them at least basically

which. ahahahaha ;-; That is SUCH a lofty goal for the Near Future. Maybe long term, a very long term goal, but soon? Ahaaahaha ;-;

Anyway, i need to appreciate my progress. In about 3 months of studying, I have managed to go from knowing nothing but hello/thank you, to being able to read some subtitles, make out some long video titles/captions gist, to be able to look at a novel text and at least pinpoint moments of action taking place (which has been enough to at least look at an english translation, that says something like ‘shen wei’s right hand was kissed’ then look to the chinese version and find that line in text, so that i can word-for-word look up things with more precision). And these are things I should be very proud of myself for.

When I started studying French, the first language I took serious when trying to study - it took me 6 months to read most general texts and gleam the gist of the meaning. It took me 3 months to read the gist of titles/some captions/some summaries of nonfiction nature like instructional texts and news. And then it took me a year maybe to start being able to look at FICTIONAL things like novels or shows and start being able to follow the gist. With Japanese - it took me 1.5 YEARS to get to the point of being able to read the gist of titles/short captions/some small dialogues in manga.

Studying chinese for 3 months, i can now: follow short comical manga-based audios on youtube about 70-80% (I followed a lan wangji/wei wuxian short video audio), read very short fanartist comics (saw some guardian short comics and managed to follow them without looking anything up), can look at the chinese titles of videos on youtube and maybe 1/2 the time reasonably get the gist of what it means, i can look at chinese subtitles on the shows i’m watching and grasp maybe 50% of what i’m looking at. Mostly, again, the action oriented dialogue like ‘i said’ ‘he’s dead/what happened’ ‘what’s that’ ‘madam, help me please’ ‘10k years ago’ ‘brother/sister/etc can i’ ‘no need/worry’ ‘smile’ ‘the meaning is/so/therefore/but/however/still’... and clearly most of the more specific words I know that are adjectives or nouns, are catered toward the shows/stories I’m consuming - since ghost/demon/puppet/bright/smile/dead/murderer/chief/god/lord are the first kinds of nouns I started recognizing.

All of those achievements though... I should be grateful to have gotten to this place. In august, when I first looked at Guardian’s original text... the ONLY things I could understand were the numbers, and ‘hello/thank you/cat’. Now, even though I couldn’t read a chapter, I could skim through and find the names of people, and see if they’re doing something like speaking/smiling/looking/waiting, or if a ghost has appeared. Which is miles more than I could do three short months ago. And it is incredible to me, because it really is a lot of progress for me, in such a short time.

It really points out to me how starkly different japanese was to start learning. I think part of the huge difference, is chinese really is somewhat easier structurally for me to look at and parse through (and I get now why it’s rated Slightly easier to learn for native english speakers than japanese is), and I think part of it is because I’ve spent enough time studying languages now that I’m more efficient at it. It certainly appears I’m more efficient than I was in the past. My reading in japanese is... still pretty awful. I really... can only glance at maybe manga dialogues, or real short image captions, or real short physical comedy skits, and understand the gist. Anything more, and I quickly get lost. And I studied Japanese pretty consistently for 2ish years. Whereas with chinese, I am already at the point where I can look at a wall of text like an actual fictional novel (not comic, novel), and start parsing out at least some of what’s going on. Where I can watch a show and follow at least some of the main ideas without translation. I do think part of the difference also, is which words I tried learning first in what language - in Japanese I learned comedic words first, and everyday ‘go to school/work’ words, so for daily life comedy vlogs/slice of life simple manga I can follow some of the gist - but for more literary things I am completely lost. With chinese, I was watching shows from the get-go, so immediately action words/nouns that are repeated a lot, were the first words I started understanding. And I think learning action words helps a lot with following what is physically going on - which is something I did not focus on immediately in japanese. Now, in chinese, I’m focusing on a lot of literary words like ‘its just/its only a’, ‘but even/however’ etc kind of words, and adjectives, so I imagine over time those kinds of words will pop out to me easier as well.

I have learned how it is I tend to learn the fastest, although it’s not quite in line with the perfectly-rigid approach I wish I could manage instead:

- I need to start using the language immediately. - Not coddled. I need to use it. Get thrown into it. Throw myself into actual materials IN the language. The textbooks and readers with english are a crutch. I learn faster the more I dive straight into the actual language materials IN that language. - As usual, find a vocabulary guide and/or flashcard set with the most common words, use that as a place to start for vocabulary. With Chinese, that was the 1000-most-common-words-in-chinese-dramas memrise deck, some other anki decks i look at on occassion, and the words-by-most-common clozemaster chinese. - As usual, find a grammar guide, start CRAMMING through it. Inevitably, I am not going to understand the grammar until I see it working in the real language. But if I just make myself READ grammar points, then I’ll have a framework to understand the grammar I’ll see later being used. I’m currently working through https://www.chinese-grammar.org/ , which has been a very nice guide to just chug through. There are some other helpful guides - nanchinese is okay, but I HATE how slowly it progresses a user through the material. Again, I seem to do best when I’m just thrown into the deep end and FORCED to progress faster than I want to. Inevitably, I will always stop myself and keep covering the same basic material longer than I need to, if given the chance. So for myself, I really do need to just force myself to look at materials that look more difficult than I feel I am ready for. Again, future self: even if you feel you haven’t mastered the material, even if you haven’t memorized it yet, LITERALLY JUST PROGRESS as soon as you understand the gist of it. That’s it. Literally keep moving forward once you think you somewhat understand. - As usual (for non romanized alphabets), get a book/guide that covers the characters by most common, and start CRANKING THROUGH IT. Again, do NOT pause until you’ve memorized, just KEEP PROGRESSING once you feel you understand the basic gist, move forward. You will look over the same characters again and again later, there’s time to reread a whole book/guide later - the point is to get exposed to those characters and words, so that the next times you see them it’s reinforcing the learning instead of your first time. For this, there is a great book: Reading and Writing Chinese: Third Edition, HSK All Levels (2,349 Chinese Characters and 5,000+ Compounds). I got this one, which I like because as far as I can tell, it includes all the characters and words I’d need to learn for the HSK levels (which at least somewhat prepare you to have some command of the language/some ability to comprehend the language). So, this book prepares a learner decently by at least teaching things that are more likely to be commonly found in the language, and therefore going to pay off to learn overall. I also have been looking at this guide: http://www.mementoslangues.fr/Chinois/Sinogrammes/Table3000CaracteresChinois.pdf . It has 3000 chinese characters in order of frequency. Which, again, is useful in trying to learn what will be most applicable to understanding many things. When reading through it, I’m on the 50th character and pretty much knew all of them already in 3 months - which is good, and probably why I’ve felt what words/characters I’ve learned have paid off in understanding so much. If I had more time to read it, I might find I know a whole lot more. In the RaWC book, I’ve been highlighting the characters I know, and I’m still reading through the book, but maybe 300-500 I’ve highlighted so far cause I already knew them. For learning characters, any book/word guide that at least partially prioritizes for frequency, and for broadly what is going to be useful to comprehend that language, helps a lot to focus you on studying things that will improve basic understanding. I also found a book by Lingomastery, Chinese Most Common 1000 words - which I’m looking through too, when I get the time. Again - for me it’s not about looking things over until I’m perfect - it’s about looking once, understanding just basically, then as I see it over and over multiple times learning it fully. Because for me that is faster than slowly memorizing, because I’m a perfectionist and I often choose to move on much slower than I can actually learn. -Other things that have helped a ton: decent translators. The app PLECO is great, and can also translate some idioms. Google translate is nice because the app allows you to draw or speak the word instead of typing it so that if you don’t know the exact pinyin you can just draw the character you see. These three apps I found useful for translating chunks of sentences: https://fanyi.baidu.com/#zh/en/%E5%8F%AB%E5%89%8D%E8%BE%88 (I especially like how this one handles chunks of texts, and gives more precise footnotes of words/idioms at the bottom), https://translate.systran.net/translationTools/text?source=zh&target=en , https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary - The app Idiom is GREAT for looking at a chinese website/webnovel, and just translating word by word - it will give the character and pronounce it out loud. The translations are pretty freaking rough and sometimes not quite correct, but for super fast translating in-line on the same page while reading, it’s incredibly convenient. Likewise, the app BaiduTranslate allows you to just highlight text on your phone in any app, select ‘share’ select ‘baidutranslate’ app, and then it will translate the whole chunk of text - pinyin, audio, english, and some keywords/idioms more precisely translated in a footnote.These two apps, along with google-translate to draw in characters you can’t copy/paste, are good for super quick rough translations when working through a text/show. - Honestly, I think it has been helping as well that I’m watching so many chinese shows, and chinese youtube fan-made videos. I don’t personally think I do much with the audio to help myself learn, but I think it’s been helping me get better at looking up words (by pronouncing the tones closer to correct, and by drawing a character in the subtitles, and in youtube when there ARE english subs by looking from the english to chinese-hard-subs and matching some characters to specific words - it’s how i learned meaning/but/however/therefore). Even though I don’t notice significant improvement because of doing this, I do think it simply helps I’m interacting with chinese a lot. (And, of course, I love getting to the point in knowing a language, where you know JUST enough to be able to tell when the english subtitles CLEARLY DO NOT match what’s actually being said - that’s always fun). I do think that because I’m hearing chinese a lot, it’s easier for me to transfer my reading skills to listening skills - since I’m practicing both at once when I see the chinese subtitles, since I listen enough that they sound relatively familiar to what I think characters sound like in my head when reading (which, my internal voice still isn’t necessarily accurate, but it’s improving). This is significant, because I know in french I did NOT do this. So as a result, in french I could listen and would struggle significantly to match words to subtitles or text - I could read quite well but my listening lags behind. In chinese, I can reasonably follow along to audio with the text - they’re close enough in similarity to me that I don’t fear my listening comprehension is lagging as considerably as it does in french. Pretty much all the chinese words/phrases I am most sure I understand, are the ones I heard before reading. In french this was not the case, in part maybe because french has so many english cognates i could slide by in reading without necessarily learning the french pronunciations for a lot of words. Also - in chinese I generally plug new words into google translate or Pleco, both of those translators provide audio. I listen to the audio, because I want to make sure my tone is right. So for a majority of the words in chinese I learn, I listen to them several times at the beginning. I do think short term, so far it’s been paying off in listening comprehension a LOT with shows. And long term, I think if I continue doing this it will pay off in helping to keep my listening/reading comprehension a lot more balanced then it is in french. Which personally, I find hilarious, just because - when I started trying to learn chinese, I was literally ONLY concerned with reading comprehension. I didn’t care at all if I could pronounce or even knew what the words I was reading sounded like. But... to be fair, in chinese (thankfully!!!) many of the characters hint at their pronunciation based on how they look. So for chinese its often a matter of ‘okay this is gui/wei/shi/etc but which tone is it?’ Which I personally find... eons easier to come to terms with, then japanese characters, which often have multiple pronunciations, and those pronunciations rarely have to do with the appearance of the character. But with chinese, I see my favorite little ghostie radical, and know it might be pronounced gui or wei, and know it will probably have something to do with spirits. I see the speech radial and know it’ll probably have to do with speaking or communication or words. I see the ‘up’ radical and know it might be pronounced similar to ‘shang’. I deeply appreciate that in chinese the characters clearly have a logic - and though of course there are exceptions to those patterns, there are exceptions in many languages anyway, and for the most part those patterns are greatly useful.

Just a little thing I’ve noticed, but also I find the characters/words are much easier for me to remember BECAUSE I have names of characters, story plotlines to relate them to. Because I’ve seen Shen Wei/Wei Wuxian, it’s easy for me to remember Shen Wei’s wei has a mountain on top and is a high tone, and wei’s doesn’t have the mountain and is a different one. Because I’ve seen the ghost character in so many plotlines, I can recognize when it’s spirit, or ghost, or puppet, or demon. Cat, wolf, dog, owl... they’re all easier for me to remember because I can think of specific sentences and situations where I’ve read/heard those words. If I was just reading them in a textbook, they would not be so vivid in my memory. In a way, it’s like the words I pinpoint in a story stick out in my head as these bright points, and then new things I learn connect outward from them like spiderwebs. I know daren from guardian is like a lord, so then when I see lord-god in Destiny and Love I know what to relate it to, when i see furen as madam i know how to relate it to what i already know. And so on and so forth.

While I think there is definitely a place for learning in a structured way (and god I wish I was like that), I think my mind personally learns the fastest when I approach things based on most useful then work outward, and when I cover things quickly and broadly at only an understanding level of basic-gist-grasped, and then just start throwing myself into challenging material. I really think my mind prefers to dive headfirst into challenging things - it appreciates a challenge, it wants to problem solve, and it seems to work harder and focus better when it’s in the middle of being challenged. Now, working through challenging material can be very draining - and it still is, even though my brain learns faster by doing it. But seeing the progress after just 3 months, clearly its worth it.

3 months ago, I looked at a wall of text and understood nothing but the calendar number dates. Now I can look and sometimes even follow whats going on! Now I can see chinese subtitles and follow some of the action! I looked ad Mo Dao Zu Shi the other day, and managed to read the first few paragraphs! I just looked at Zhen Hun today, and scanned through it to pinpoint a few scenes - some I managed to find and read in chinese, some I only managed to make out one line from. But ALL of that is still miles above what I could manage to do at the start. I’m personally... very excited. I have so much more that I want to be able to do in the language. But I’m extremely happy with how far I’ve managed to progress so far.

---

Literally... my goal had been... to be able to start getting through the guardian novel in chinese at least grasping the gist... in the end of November this year. HA.

That is... not a reasonable goal. If I can manage it, even just like small snippets of the novel... then I will be floored with myself. We’ll see.

#rant #I was just reflecting #I really... have gotten through a lot #I can't believe I only started this in August.

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scyllua · 5 years

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Regarding the latest chap.198, I must confess I've been most interested in keeping track of the numbering of the chapters rather than in the actual plot, in a sense. As author Noda narrates in 10-chapter arcs (the number of chapters compiled into a manga volume), I'm looking forward to chap.200 (which should be the last in the upcoming vol.20) in order to know how the story will unfold for a certain character. The current plotline, though, is centered on a flashback regarding Koito; taking a look back at previous volumes, you'll notice Noda has featured similar flashback episodes -doubling as background stories- in vol.15 and the upcoming vol.18, lasting 2-3 chapters and taking up the last part of said volumes. And coincidentally, these flashbacks had been related to 7th Division members. In any case, and following this pattern, it seems this flashback will probably end next chapter, leaving the remaining of chap.199 and then chap.200 as too short to reach a climax for the current arc. Unless, of course, Noda solves the current plot point very expeditiously (this is Golden Kamuy, after all: rocks can always fall in Hokkaido or a meteor can impact over Karafuto)... or extends it to cover more chapters, as I think it could be the case.

Regarding chap.198 as well, a common reaction I found among Japanese fans who commented about it in the net was... to state they'd read it, but would reread it more carefully at a later time. I assumed this meant nothing of crucial importance to the plot had taken place on it, as fan reactions for the past dozen of chapters or so, as you can imagine, have been very enthusiastic. (By the way, I'm referring to Japanese fans who are subscribed to or paid for the digital edition of the Young Jump magazine, and thus read it as soon as it becomes available to them, at Thursday midnight in Japan. They happen to be the first source of information about the latest GK chapter I can find in the net thanks to it.) When I read the chapter, though, I understood what they'd meant: while it isn't too plot-heavy, chap.198 does have a number of historical references that might take some more careful reading than the usual chaotic action-packed GK situation.

And speaking of Japanese fans, I think it's interesting that some of them recognized the Koito family residence in Hakodate as being based on Saigou Juudou's actual house. This politician and Imperial Japanese Navy admiral (he'd eventually advance into the highest ranking position in the Navy) was a brother of Saigou Takamori's who, as you should remember, was the famous historical person whose tomb in Kagoshima was shown in the previous chapter. While his actual residence is located in Meguro in Tokyo, Japanese fans recognized the Koito family's house interiors as being actually based on the reproduction of the premises as seen in the Meiji-mura Museum in Nagoya, prefecture of Aichi. Here's a Google image search for Saigou Juudou's residence, and you'll be able to find pictures of the interior of the house as it's conserved in the Meiji-mura Museum in this post. I should add Noda has been known to depict restored or preserved houses and buildings from the Meiji era as locations in Golden Kamuy, such as the hospital Nikadou is seen in in vol.15, the barber shop from the Barato Arc or Hijikata's hideout, apart from obviously Abashiri prison, now turned into a museum and a major tourist attraction in Hokkaido. I'm mentioning now the reference behind the Koito family's reference... because this is the first I remembered to note down so I could look it up later 〈(゜。゜)

My fan comments are in the rest of this post.

Just as the previous two flashbacks concerning members of the 7th Division (Tanigaki and Ogata's are now farther down the way: in vol.8 and 11 respectively), the current arc gives us more information about Koito's past and his family background. I'd say this flashback is also important because Noda is giving us some concrete dates -even if indirectly- for a character: Koito's older brother, Heinojou, died in the Battle of Yalu River on September 17th, 1894 (during the first Sino-Japanese War), on board the Matsushima ship. Naturally, it's possible to find historical dates for events such as battles in the Russian-Japanese War (or even older, such as those related to Hijikata prior to the Meiji Era), but Noda has never revealed specific dates or even ages for his characters. In chap.198, Koito mentions his brother was 13 years older than he at the time of his death, and as he was 8, Heinojou should have been around 21 then. This would also put Koito's birthday around 1886, and the current events shown in this chapter, around 1902 (as he's stated to be 16 then), two years prior to the beginning of the Russian-Japanese war. If Golden Kamuy does take place in the closing years of the Meiji Era, then Koito should be 24-26 in the manga, which is still the age fans have estimated for him since the very introduction of his character, as far as I remember. Some trivia: Koito Gyouichi, the actual 7th Division officer Koito seems to take his name from, was born in 1890. I must search for the exact date, but I seem to remember he died in 1953, having being appointed commander of the 7th Division during World War II (again, I must confirm this) and thus, being his last commander as well, as the whole Japanese army was dissolved following said war.

It also caught my attention that Heinojou's name contains one kanji character from their father's (平, hei), as it's still traditional in Japan, whereas Koito's follows the same naming pattern, a bit old-fashioned by today's standards, but rather common through the previous ages in Japan: a three-character name comprising a kanji + 之 (which could be rendered as the preposition "of", working as a possessive) + a kanji. Names to be found in GK that follow this pattern are, for instance:

Heinojou (平之丞)

Otonoshin (音之進)

Hyakunosuke (百之助)

...May I mention that finding the last kanji in Heinojou's name (平之丞) took me a while, as it seems to be not that common of a character used exclusively for names in current times. The reading of the kanji is "to help" (it seems to be an obsolete meaning, though), but the only Japanese word I found containing this kanji is 丞相 (joushou), which would be the translation in this language for the title given to the Chancellor in ancient China. Generally speaking, Heinojou's name has a dignified, yet somehow gentle ring to me, just as he seemed to have been. Little trivia: The last kanji from Ogata's given name, Hyakunosuke (助), is still a fairly common character to be found in male names in Japan, and has the meaning of "to help" or "someone who assists". Pretty much the same meaning of the seemingly outdated 丞, and since their on'yomi pronunciation are very close (丞 = jou, 助 = jo), it seems to me there could be a linguistical connection between the two characters. But that's as far as my very limited Japanese goes, I'm afraid.

Otonoshin's name is written 音之進, comprising the kanjis for "sound" or "noise", a character which works as the proposition "of", and "to advance", "to promote" or "to progress". I should Japanese fans tend to find Koito's given name rather endearing... and somewhat appropriate for him, because of the most common meaning of the first character. In many webcomics and doujinshi I've found, artists will sometimes depict Tsukishima respectfully calling Koito by his given name... but not the whole of it (as it's rather long for today's standards and also tends to sound old-fashioned... as a Meiji name should be, I suppose). Instead, Japanese fans have Tsukishima calling him "Oto-san", which probably has the double connotation of poking a bit of fun at the literal meaning of it being "Mr. Noise" and sounding a lot like "otousan" ( お父さん), the respectful way to refer to one's father. ...Speaking of Japanese fans, it also surprised me a little that Heinojou's appearance is the same many fanartists thought of Koito to depict him during his Imperial Academy years, with the exception of his fair complexion, of course.

I couldn't help notice either Koito's design followed something usually seen in shounen/seinen manga: he looks after his parents, having a particular feature from each. Since we hadn't been shown his father without his cap before, many fans had assumed Koito had gotten his eyebrows from him; while Heiji does have some Very Remarkable Eyebrows that could rival Tanigaki's, I wasn't expecting Koito to have gotten them from her mother actually.

...The room the Koitos receive Tsurumi in the above scene, by the way, is apparently one of the most best known in Saigou's house as it appears in Meiji-mura:

And regarding Tsurumi... I joked in a previous post about how he seemed to slip into everyone's flashbacks in this manga. At least, everyone from the 7th Division, and that'd include Sugimoto, who makes an appearance in both Tanigaki and Tsukishima's flashbacks. This chapter, however, has made me ponder about Tsurumi's presence being a constant in quite a number of characters' pasts and current stories. As every volume cover features an Ainu proverb translated in the official English version of the manga as "Nothing comes from heaven without purpose”, I interpret it as saying that everything and everyone has a purpose to fulfill in this life, and applied to the manga plot, I think it'd mean every event that unfolds in the story has a meaning to it: nothing is random or unimportant. That's why I also think we've been shown the regular cast has crossed paths with each other in the past, or are related in some way, even if they aren't aware of it (Partisans Wilk and Yulbars don't seem to have known who that mild-mannered photographer was in actuality, for example). In a previous post, I also referred to Hijikata as the Final Boss Apparent in the manga because, as Sugimoto is currently siding with Tsurumi, the old samurai stands as a common antagonist to the other two parties. And while I must admit I never paid too much attention to Tsurumi until now, his importance to so many characters' stories feels like a lurking shadow that's threatening to become something bigger. Just how much? Well, at the time I'd more than willing to give him the title of The Biggest Moth3rfuck3r Of This Manga just for the way his actions have shaped other characters or led to pivotal events in the plot... but it might still be too early to tell. We need to know what the immediate fate of a certain sniper wildcat will be first!

...but getting back to Tsurumi, I've seen other Japanese fans also speculating -just as me- the ones behind Koito's kidnapping in chap.198 are his own soldiers, or at least people close to him, because of the tsukisappu anpan he's given. Still a stretch of a speculation (and I must admit that I mainly suspect of Tsurumi because... I always suspect of him on principle in this manga), but it's also noteworthy that Noda uses food as such both a minor and a major narrative device. Quite a number of characters I can think of has a particular food that closely relates to them and their stories, and the detail has also served plot-wise: Tanigaki and the kanemochi, Sugimoto and the boshikaki, Ogata and the ankou nabe, Tsukishima and the igogusa, and now Koito and the tsukisappu. (Random comment: I'd say Asirpa and practically every single dish or food she's ever tried in the plot... but the citatap and the miso should be the ones we fans associate her with the most.)

Random Tourist Comment: Which I'll be adding here for no other reason than my own fannish excitement, I guess. Last year I visited Japan and traveled around Hokkaido; in fact, I first learned about Golden Kamuy because the manga was being heavily promoted in the Abashiri Museum Shop, the prison turned-museum being one of the locations I visited. I could also see a bit of Hakodate, and while it caught my attention this port city still has many preserved examples of building dating back to the Meiji Era (as it was one of the first places where foreigners settled down mostly for diplomatic reasons following the Meiji Restoration), including embassies and Christian Churches, we didn't stay long there. Instead of a quick tour of historical places, my sister asked the friend who was driving us around (the friend who actually drove us through Hokkaido) to take us to the site of Hijikata Toshizou's death since, as you may know, he fell during the Battle of Hakodate in 1869, the closing episode of the Boshin War. In fact, the whole of Hakodate was celebrating the figure of Hijikata when we visited the city because it was precisely the 150th anniversary of said battle. Or the beginning of said battle in any case, as it was actually a military campaign that would last from 1868 to 1869. In Golden Kamuy, it's implied Hijikata didn't die in that battle, but was somehow taken prisoner... for the next half a century almost.

...my other random tourist comment has to do with the namesake of the Matsushima ship. When I looked up information about it, I found out it was named after one of the famous Three Views of Japan, the Nihon Sankei (日本三景), the three most scenic sights in Japan as compiled in the 17th century. Matsushima is located in the Sendai coastline (prefecture of Miyagi), and while it was affected by the tsunami of 2011, it didn't sustain as much damage. The other two places, and the namesakes of the Matsushima's sister ships, are the Itsukushima temple in Hiroshima and the Amanohashidate sandbar in Kyoto. My sister did manage to visit all three during a previous visit to Japan; during mine, I could make it to Matsushima and Itsukushima. This last location, as a Sengoku BASARA fan, actually made me state that the place was just like shown in all of Mouri Motonari's stages throughout that videogame franchise... while you know it should actually be the other way round (the game stages are modeled after the temple).

#golden kamuy #fan talk

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dangerliesbeforeyou · 6 years

Photo

BTS RAPLINE TRIPTYCH PAINTING~

<- So Far Away -> Awakening <- Daydream ->

- - 23ish Hours later and it is complete! - -

Now starts a very long explanation (which I will try to keep as concise & understandable as possible but... well, you know me lol that probably won’t happen lol) as to what the rapline’s solo mixtapes and this triptych means to me...

I’ll start at the beginning, which isn’t the first piece I created (which was J-Hope’s painting), but actually the final piece I made; Suga’s.

Suga’s mixtape maybe spoke to me, personally, the most out of all of them; the roughness of the tracks, along with the raw and meaningful lyrics are some of the most emotionally charged tracks Bangtan have produced.

I named Suga’s piece ‘So Far Away’, which is the final track on the album, and one of my personal favourites. Not only is it Suran’s haunting vocals that add a really dream-like feel to the track, but the lyrics really give the concept of a ‘journey’ of self-love (which is a big overall theme of this triptych).

A sense of something in our pasts being so far away from who and where we are now, but also the idea that the place we want to go also seems so far away in the distance... It’s the beginning of a journey, and the beginnings of anything are always difficult.

The imagery to accompany this is more subtle than the others, since the imagery in the two music videos released during this album (Agust D (title) and Give It To Me) are less about this more ‘melancholic’ theme. So I went with the colour scheme of the music videos (darker greens, turquoises and blues, with bursts of yellow, orange and red as part of the flames and dramatic lighting). I also used the glimpse of a ladder we see in Agust D (ladders are steeped in lots of traditional symbology, and I also wanted something angular and red to contrast nicely with the green background, so I won’t go into too much about that).

And although the music videos are quite dark, I wanted to keep the light and clouds around the moon (which I’ll get to in a minute) bright. And although I feel like I could have made it a touch darker, I like the overall vibe of the piece, as it doesn’t feel too gloomy.

(Important thing to mention, I didn’t create this triptych to psychoanalyse everything in the Rapline’s mixtapes which may or may not relate to their mental health. This piece is a wholly personal piece, with using my own emotional responses to the mixtapes as a way to look at recovering and learning to love yourself...)

The oversized clothes (with a big focus on the folds of the clothing) was inspired by the Spanish Surrealist artist Remedios Varo, who I only discovered recently but immediately fell in love with her dream-like paintings. In particular, this piece was inspired by the first panel in her own triptych she painted between 1961-62.

This piece (called Toward the Tower) was another starting basis for background styles and colour-schemes, as well as the more stylised (but detailed) figures, clothing and buildings. The piece is Varo’s own commentary on life in a convent, and the ideas of entrapment and freedom (which are continued throughout the triptych). And although this differs greatly from my own triptych, I think the way in which Varo approached the artworks and theme are something I wanted to emulate in my own piece.

Now onto the moon iconography I included. Now, because I initially started with J-Hope, who I made into the Sun was more of an after thought, this idea only really came about because of that. But as soon as I made that choice, I realised how perfect it would be to have Suga be his seemingly ‘opposite’: the moon.

The moon gets its ‘power’ (so to speak) from the light of the sun, and the gravity that binds it to our planet and allows it to control tides and effect seasons (I think... Look, I don’t pretend to know everything about the moon, ok, I just think she’s beautiful and doing a great job...). So the idea behind this is that in fact to start a journey of self-love or recovery, we often have to look to others for advice and support. (This may be actually seeking out help from a professional, chatting to a friend or family member, or simply discussing your thoughts openly to a diary or something similar...). We need to make an effort to share our burden with ‘others’, even if it is difficult.

(I don’t pretend to know everything, or anything, about dealing with mental health, by the way. But I do know a bit about learning to love yourself, and dealing with moving on from a rough patch... Basically, I’m only speaking from my personal experiences so please don’t come for me....)

I think Yoongi, along with the Agust D mixtape, fit perfectly with the concept of the moon. A big part of this is the cycles of the moon, and the very nature of change and movement which that encompasses. I went with a full moon in the sky, as it usually indicates the end of the cycle (i.e. the end of your difficult past) and suggests the start of a new one (i.e. the start of a brighter future).

The flames are mainly a crossover from Rm’s piece, although fire is a big theme in Suga’s music videos (and personality in general). Though I will go more into the fire in Rm’s piece...

The final thing I want to talk about for Suga’s part is the lyrics I included on the ribbon. I decided instead of trying to wade through all the songs on each mixtape to find the perfect lyric, I’d instead take the lyrics from their more reason Trivia tracks on the Love Yourself: Answer album.

Suga’s, which is called Seesaw (and is my personal favourite, I might add), speaks of a kind of ‘seesaw’ battle that exists between himself and someone (or something?) else. I’ll admit, I haven’t looked into the reasoning or real meaning behind the song, but I was drawn to the lyrics: 니가 없는 이 시소 위를 걸어 니가 없던 처음의 그때처럼 (I’m walking on this seesaw without you just like the beginning when you weren’t here). I interpreted this as the ‘you’ representing the version of yourself that you want to be, versus the version of yourself that you are at that point in time... The precariousness of walking on a seesaw and trying to balance public personas and internal monologues is a very poignant theme, even to people like you or me. There’s also a sadness to the lyrics, the idea that the situation feels hopeless, like it was before. It’s a cycle, perhaps, of self-hatred (something we all get into now and again). And, just like on a seesaw, one step in the wrong direction and we can easily fall back into old ways and viewpoints of ourselves...

Primarily, Suga’s piece is a beginning. The beginning to one of the most difficult journeys we take in life; the journey to loving ourselves.

The next piece is actually not Rm, despite his being the central panel. Obviously, the colours and imagery are supposed to flow into each other in the order they are presented, but I decided half way through that it made more sense in terms of my message to have J-Hope’s be the actual ‘second panel’.

So, here is where I’ll talk about the very first piece of this triptych I created; J-Hope and ‘Daydream’.

The whole idea of creating a triptych for the rapline’s mixtapes came to me as soon as J-Hope had released Hope World. I love the stark contrast between each of the member’s styles, both musically and aesthetically, as well as the way that they all reflect an overall ‘bangtan’ feel.

And actually out of all the music videos, ‘Daydream’ is probably one of my favourites. The whole vibe, use of colour, editing style, and the way it works seamlessly with the song is basically perfection, and it fits with J-Hope’s personality and music style brilliantly as well. And although the album itself didn’t speak to me as much as the other two member’s had; it still really showcases the talent and diversity of J-Hope’s music ability.

Right, now to my artwork... So I was obviously inspired heavily by the Daydream music video, both in the aesthetics and symbolism (aka the fish). It also fits perfectly with the surrealist style I was going for. The overall brightness of the mv was perfect for the sense of ‘hope’ I was trying to portray in this piece.

So this was based on the very last panel of Varo’s triptych, which is called ‘The Escape’.

Much as the title suggests, the final panel is an escape up into the mountains. It suggests a climb away from dark storm clouds into the light. And my own interpretation in my piece was definitely based on this sense of freedom. But to fit with both J-Hope’s mixtape (aka the Blue Side outro track which deserved a full song!!!!!!), my own personal connections and also to fit with the aesthetics of Varo’s piece, I wanted to include the element of blue and the storm clouds.

The main reason behind this is to reflect the fact that even if someone appears happy on the outside, there’s always a chance something darker and melancholic... This doesn’t undermine or make the happiness you may see or feel any less real, it’s just important to acknowledge that hardships exist and are all a part of life... Going through tough times, having ‘scars’, shows that you have survived!

The lyrics I used from his Trivia: Just Dance reflect this idea too. They translate roughly as ‘my dreams that once had no answer, now become something we can relate to’... Also, the position of Hoseok’s head (which was partly just because I really like the reference image because he look beautiful to be quite honest), looking away as if towards the future, fits with this concept too.

I think I wanted this piece to mainly be the dream of recovery, the dream version of yourself... The bright sunshine in your life that you hope one day will be reality... Putting it and Suga’s either side of the Rm central piece helps it to reflect the idea of Past - Present - Future. Not necessarily in a chronological sense, but more the way in which they react and connect to eachother.

The final piece of the series is the central Rm panel, which is also the one with the most symbology.

I actually did this one as a part of a collab with other artists to celebrate Namjoon’s birthday (it had to the hashtag ‘infinitereasonstolovejoonie’ and it was the cutest thing ever!!!).

Ok so there’s a lot to breakdown with this piece, so I’m going to start first with the reference I used for Rm’s head. I knew I wanted to use something from the Joke music video, because I really loved the straitjacket look coupled with the extreme chiaroscuro used in the mv. Unfortunately, most of the reference images were really bad quality (since they were mostly just screencaps), as well as them being difficult to draw angels, making it all the more of a battle for me to draw... I like that I made him look down, purely because it both contrasts with Suga and J-Hope, and also in the way it suggests both defeat and hope. Defeat, in the way looking down is linked with shame, and hope in the idea that it could almost suggest that Rm is about to look up...

The background also links to these contrasting ideas. The dark blue and stormy clouds, mixed with the flashes of lightening help to create a sense of the phrase of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. This idea was mainly my own invention, since most of the references (including the music videos and Varo’s paintings) didn’t include lightning. The colourscheme was vaguely inspired by both the Joke music video as well as Varo’s central panel.

Titled as ‘Embroidering Earths Mantel’, it is probably the piece I took the least inspiration from out of the three. Varo’s piece shows the girls in the convent she had known to be trapped and forced to work, a hooded figure in darker clothes overseeing them... This sense of danger and being unable to escape was the main concept I took away from this... Another thing that I took from this was the use of the yellow in contrast to the dark and stormy sky (which I chose to do flames, which were taken from the Awakening music video).

Speaking of the Awakening mv, I decided to only really use the flames from the aesthetics, but still use the name as the title of the piece. ‘Awakening’, much like Rm’s looking down head, is evocative of moving from one state (being asleep/looking down) to another (being awake/looking up). It’s not awake, it’s not final or definitive. It’s a transitional period.

Put in the centre of Suga and J-Hope’s pieces, Rm’s represents the ‘present’. A time when you’re working through recovery, or where you’re beginning to learn to love yourself. It’s not an easy or particularly ‘happy’ time, and it often contains a lot of hardships and difficult to decisions.

I thought this fitted the best with Rm, who is the leader of BTS. He has to carry a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, which I represented literally in my piece with the 6 lightbulbs/microphones that drip onto his shoulders (this imagery was inspired by both the Do You music video, as well as the album cover). Another interpretation, and probably the one I was aiming to be more prominent, was the idea that although being a leader means he is responsible for a lot of the groups public image/etc, the other members aren’t a burden, but instead act as an anchor for his strength... You can almost see the ‘drips’ acting as puppet strings; the other members lifting him up when times get tough.

This links back to the idea of the moon I talked about in Suga’s piece. Although recovery and learning to love yourself, or whatever it is you’re dealing with, can’t be solved immediately just because you have a loving family or friends, having a person you trust to talk to can help you deal with things a lot easily then trying to go it alone... This is probably one of the most difficult things in dealing with mental health struggles, since most of us are really reluctant to ask for help in fear of being an annoyance to others... We always make excuses that our problems, whatever they may be, aren’t worthwhile discussing or talking about since everyone has their own problems and you don’t want to burden them even more...

(And although this is advice that I rarely take myself, I just want to say Your problems are not worthless, you are not a burden to others, and you deserve to be happy!)

The final part of Rm’s piece is the lyrics I chose from his Trivia: Love. 너 땜에 알았어 왜 사람과 사랑이 비슷한 소리가 나는지 ‘I found out because of you Why “person” (saram) and “love” (sarang) sound similar’. I chose this both because I wanted it to fit with a ‘reason to love joonie’ (i.e. his brilliant lyric writing skills), and also for the way it relates to my own experiences.

The ‘person’ in my case is less an actual singular being, and more the art community online and the k-pop fandom... So without going into details, the last few years haven’t been the easiest for me, so having the k-pop community to enjoy memes with, listen to and get excited about music with and to be artistically inspired by really helped me get through feeling lonely and down... And although I’ve (luckily) never had any horrific experiences, I know that a lot of people who like k-pop and are a part of community have (or are having them), and having k-pop around has helped them survive the most difficult situations...

I wanted this triptych to both a personal and universal piece, something people can relate to and understand (as well as be able to appreciate on a purely aesthetic level)....

I hope that everyone who has taken time to read this ridiculously long essay about this piece get’s this sense of inclusion, which is something I truly admire about BTS in particular...

Just remember, if you’re going through a difficult time, things really will get better! Recovery, Life, Self Love; it’s all a journey that there’s no guidebook to...

And to quote BTS’s ‘Young Forever’:

~~Dream : Hope : Keep Going : Keep Going~~

Thank you for reading!

[this piece is available on my redbubble btw]

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kanasmusings · 6 years

Text

[Translation] ROCK DOWN Unit CD Vol. 1 Drama Track 1

Here’s the translation for ROCK DOWN’s first drama track~! A cute detail about this track is that they included Ayumu’s birthday tweets in the track!

Credits to ryuukia for sharing with me her CD! ※ Again, as per her request, please don’t ask her for the files ^^

Track 1: [新しい日常] “A New Daily Routine”

※ Please don’t re-post the English translations without permission.

Under the cut, enjoy~

Track 1: [新しい日常] “A New Daily Routine”

(footsteps and then a window opening)

SHOU: Oh~ This is such a wonderful cherry blossom [tree].

SHOU: Such a magnificent view.

SHOU: This might be a good beginning to our recent move-in.

SHOU: (chuckles) It’s spring, huh~ And also-- (Shou stretches) we have wonderful weather today~

SHOU: A cherry blossom in full bloom under the clear skies…

SHOU: What a wonderful day to start a new way of life~

SHOU: This is where it will begin… My—no, ROCK DOWN’s new days.

***

(Haruto moving boxes around)

HARUTO: (sighs) At least, I’ve finished putting things in the bathroom and living room for now.

HARUTO: All that’s left is putting away these small decorations inside these boxes for later.

(Haruto arranges the boxes)

HARUTO: Alright, that’s done. Maybe I should put labels on them, too.

HARUTO: Hm? My pen’s not here. I’m sure it was in one of the small boxes but…

HARUTO: (Haruto continues to look) Now that you mention it, that box is not here… Where did it go?

HARUTO: Is it over here…? (Haruto rummages around) No? What about—(he continues to search) over here…?

HARUTO: Huh…?

(doorbell rings)

SHOU: (over the intercom) Haruto, are you there?

HARUTO: Hm? Shou?

(Haruto walks towards the door and opens it)

SHOU: Hello, good afternoon, Haruto. Are you doing well?

HARUTO: I’m doing great. I was just unpacking my luggage.

SHOU: Oh, what a coincidence~ I was doing the same, too.

HARUTO: I would figure. Since the truck this morning was carrying both our items.

SHOU: (chuckles) Well, I guess that’s true. About that, I was looking over the boxes and saw one of yours that got mixed in with mine.

SHOU: It’s this box. I saw the clean handwriting on it and I figured that it might be yours. Am I correct?

HARUTO: Ah, yes, that’s mine. So it got mixed in with yours, didn’t it? Thank you for bringing it. I was just in the middle of looking for it.

SHOU: My timing was good, wasn’t it~? Here you go. (Shou hands Haruto the box)

HARUTO: Thank you.

HARUTO: What about you? Are you progressing well [with the unpacking]?

SHOU: Yes, thanks to you~ I’ll be finished after I arrange some of the music scores in my room.

HARUTO: Heh~ How unexpected.

HARUTO: For some reason, you don’t give off the image of someone who’d unpack on his own.

SHOU: That’s because I’m elegant, is all. I don’t look like the type who’ll do manual labor?

HARUTO: Yes, do you get told that often?

SHOU: Unfortunately, yes.

SHOU: It seems like that image of me is pretty common.

SHOU: But in all honesty, as a performing musician, I’ve had the experience of performing from places to places including overseas so, I’m quite used to travelling.

SHOU: Plus, if I don’t have stamina then I won’t be able to do tours now, would I~?

HARUTO: Now that you mention it, that’s true. Ever since I met you, you’ve started to ask me to send you pictures of places whenever you go overseas.

SHOU: Yes, exactly~ You made it able for me to re-live Japan’s sceneries [when I was overseas]. (chuckles) How nostalgic, huh~?

HARUTO: Oh, that’s right. I think there’s some coffee and tea inside this box you brought.

HARUTO: How about drinking a cup as a breather since you’ve already started talking about nostalgic memories?

HARUTO: I mean, if you’re okay with instant coffee.

SHOU: (chuckles) It’s fine. You know it well, don’t you, Haruto? That my taste is positively common despite how I look~

SHOU: I quite like common things like instant noodles or anpan and milk from convenience stores.

HARUTO: In short, you’re someone who’s appearance doesn’t match his tastes, huh?

SHOU: Thank you for the compliment~ Then, I’ll gratefully accept yo— (loud crashing sounds interrupt Shou)

HARUTO/SHOU: Huh?

HARUTO: D-did you hear that just now…?

SHOU: That was quite an orchestra of sounds, wasn’t it?

SHOU: I thought that the dorms would be completely sound-proof.

HARUTO: Maybe they left the door open? It totally didn’t sound okay but… [do you think] it’s fine…?

SHOU: Oh, that’s right. Ruka and Gaku were supposed to be moving in today, too.

SHOU: That means the sound just now might have come from either one of their rooms, don’t you think?

SHOU: Haruto, have you met—

HARUTO: If they’re here then it would be our first meeting. We were supposed to all meet at the agency meeting tomorrow.

HARUTO: Well, it’s not gonna be funny if it was an accident so I’ll go check.

HARUTO: I’ll help them if needed after greeting them.

SHOU: Then, I’ll go with you. The tea party will have to wait~

HARUTO: Yeah.

***

RUKA: Ow, ow-- That hurt…

GAKU: Hey, hey, hey. I thought I heard a loud crash but… Are you okay, Ruu?

RUKA: Do I look okay to you? This! In this disastrous scene!?

RUKA: Ah…! (whines) My special collection…!

GAKU: You mean, your can collection?

GAKU: Now that this toppling incident has happened, don’t you think you should throw the others?

RUKA: Hey, now! Gakkun, isn’t that rude?! What the heck are you saying in front of my collection-chan?!

GAKU: “Collection-chan,” you say… (chuckles) Ah, sorry ‘bout that.

GAKU: When did you gather this many? You were collecting beer cans with unusual designs, right?

RUKA: Yep~! Isn’t it awesome? Lately, even convenience stores have started stocking on different brands~ Now, I have so many!

RUKA: I have limited edition ones, too, y’know~?

RUKA: See? (he shows Gaku some cans) Like this, or this! The spring Cherry blossom version!

RUKA: Isn’t it pretty~?

RUKA: (sighs with satisfaction) I remember the taste of drinking this while watching the cherry blossoms~

GAKU: Instead of focusing on the flowers, you were more focused on the beer, huh?

GAKU: Anyway, Ruu, how about reminiscing after cleaning up? Your inflammable garbage is scattered around in the hallway, too, you know?

(Haruto and Shou arrive)

HARUTO: Is everything alright? Some trash have scattered around the hallway a--

RUKA: AH! It’s not garbage or trash! That’s my important collection-chan!

HARUTO: Collection…chan…?

SHOU: I see. So, they’re valuable things, aren’t they?

RUKA: Eh…? Oh…!

GAKU: My, my.

SHOU: Good afternoon, Gaku, Ruka. We saw each other at the agency the other day, didn’t we?

SHOU: We heard a loud sound so we came to check. Is everything okay?

RUKA: (standing up) Shou-kun! You were moving in today, too~?

RUKA: Uwah~! You look so elegant as always~! It’s like roses are blooming behind you~!1

GAKU: I feel like I understand… yet at the same time, I don’t…

GAKU: Yo, Shou. Sorry for the sudden noises.

RUKA: It wasn’t planned, you know…?! The balancing was at fault! My collection-chan suddenly came down while I was arranging it, ‘kay?!

RUKA: I wish it had a barrier-free design.

HARUTO: Did you fall? Are you okay? Any injuries?

RUKA: Eh? Ah… Y-yeah, I’m fine! I managed to dodge at the last moment.

RUKA: My specialty on stage is balancing and keeping my ground, you see~?

GAKU: Liar. What are you trying to show off for? You were completely on your butt until a while ago.

RUKA: How about you keep quiet, Gakkun?

GAKU: Sure, sure.

GAKU: (to Haruto) Um, this is our first time meeting, right?

HARUTO: Yes, I’m one of ROCK DOWN’s members. I’m Kujikawa Haruto, 21 years old.

HARUTO: It’s nice to meet you.

GAKU: Yeah, nice to meet you.

GAKU: I’m Ooguro Gaku, 22 years old. Feel free to call me Ooguro, or Gaku, or Gakkun.

RUKA: Hi, hi~ Nice to meet you, too! I’m Nadumi Ruka.

RUKA: I’m Gakkun’s childhood friend so I’m 22 years old, too~! Nice to meet ya~

HARUTO: Yes, it is very nice to meet you. (Haruto bows)

GAKU/RUKA: (internally) He bowed a complete 90°…!

GAKU: E-er… Haruto-kun is—

HARUTO: Please, you can call me by name [without an honorific].

RUKA: Then, Haru-kun~

HARUTO: Oh, it’s a nickname. (in his usual stoic tone of voice) That makes me very happy.

GAKU/RUKA: A-ah…

RUKA: (to Gaku) H-he’s strangely honest, huh…?

RUKA: U-um… Are you a very formal person…?

HARUTO: I don’t think so. I think I’m pretty casual.

GAKU/RUKA: (internally) What part…?

GAKU: (clears throat) U-um… Well, at least we can understand that you’re a very “my pace” kind of guy.

RUKA: Y-yeah…~ You’re a “my pace warrior” An easy-going samurai, Kujikawa Haruto!

HARUTO: Samurai…? Samurai, was it?

SHOU: (chuckles) Samurai, huh? I feel like it’s quite accurate with your serious and unwavering personality.

SHOU: He might not look it but, he’s quite the talkative type. He’ll talk a lot once he gets used to you~

SHOU: I wish you’d get along well with him.

HARUTO: Yes, I think of myself as quite the friendly type.

GAKU: His looks and lines totally don’t match~

RUKA: (laughs) I like you, you’re interesting~! Haru-kun, you’ve got great character~!

RUKA: I like you~! Once again, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Haru-kun~

HARUTO: Yes, the pleasure’s all mine. So, about this garbage—

RUKA: I told you, it’s my collection-chan!

GAKU: No, no~ Looking at it, you can’t really argue, Ruu.

GAKU: Look at this one. (Gaku picks up a can) It’s so worn out that it’s obviously just trash.

RUKA: AAAHHH!! That was one of my favorites…! It’s the Black Cat one…! For real…?!

SHOU: By the way, I was trying not to ask but… This is a collection?

HARUTO: This is a beer can, isn’t it?

RUKA: Yeah~ If they have an unusual design, I collect them~!

RUKA: Though, I made a rule that it would only be cans that I bought and drank out of! Overtime, I gathered this much but—Now, they’re…!

RUKA: (cries)

HARUTO: My condolences.

GAKU: It feels depressing hearing Haruto say that.

***

AYUMU: (sighs) So peaceful…

AYUMU: (he munches on something)

AYUMU: What a blissful time.

REIJI: Oh~ Isn’t that Ayumu? What a coincidence~ What are you doing all alone here?

AYUMU: Ugh…!

REIJI: You… I went out of my way to call out to you so what do you mean by “ugh”, huh?!

AYUMU: My bad. This is a totally unwanted chance meeting.

REIJI: You’re as frank as ever, you bastard.

AYUMU: Thank you for your praise.

AYUMU: And what about you, Amaha Reiji-san? Aren’t you a busy person?

AYUMU: Please don’t bother yourself with a bastard like me. Feel free to leave if you want to.

AYUMU: If we do meet again somewhere, please ignore me.

REIJI: You… Well, never mind. Today’s a special day.

(Reiji hands Ayumu something)

REIJI: Here, have this.

AYUMU: Th-this is…! The legendary daifuku that’s being sold at BStar! Only ten are sold each day…!

REIJI: You want it, right~? You love Japanese sweets, don’t you~?

AYUMU: Grr…! Did you come all the way here just to brag?!

REIJI: Just how bad of an image do I have in that head of yours?

REIJI: Here, I’ll give it to you.

AYUMU: Eh…?

REIJI: Birthday present. Congratulations, Ayumu-kun~

AYUMU: Ah… Amaha, you…

AYUMU: I thought you were just a flashy, overconfident, and overbearing guy but…

AYUMU: I re-evaluated my thoughts of you by 1mm. By the way, the current level of my feelings is -2km before it reaches [Normal].

REIJI: Isn’t that still too far away even for normal?!

AYUMU: Well… if you’re going to offer then… I’ll accept it…

AYUMU: That is because today is my birthday! I have the right to accept birthday presents.

AYUMU: Plus, it’s not good to let food go to waste. That’s right, isn’t it?

REIJI: Yeah, yeah, you’re absolutely correct. I get it.

REIJI: Well, just accept it after you’re done citing your reasons [on why you should accept it]. But if you don’t need it then I’ll—

AYUMU: I’ll take it! I’ll gladly accept it!

AYUMU: Thank you very much!

REIJI: (chuckles) Ayumu, you… You really love Japanese sweets, huh~

***

AYUMU: (sighs) Eating taiyaki and daifuku under the cherry blossom trees is definitely something special.

REIJI: (chuckles) I was surprised when you brought out another taiyaki after finishing one. And then you went ahead and ate the daifuku, too.

REIJI: You sure can eat a lot of sweet stuff, huh?

AYUMU: I can’t help it. I had filming since this morning and I only managed to get a break a little while ago.

REIJI: Well, thanks for your hard work.

REIJI: Anyway, don’t just start saying “ugh” as a reflex when meeting with someone.

REIJI: I told you that during a T.V. recording, too, didn’t I?

AYUMU: It was unconscious. Now that you mention it… You’re right.

AYUMU: Sorry, I guess it was an involuntary reflex or a natural phenomenon something.

REIJI: (chuckles) Involuntary reflex and natural phenomenon, huh…

REIJI: Guess I’ll have to get used to it. Soon enough, I’ll be seeing you every day even if I don’t want to.

AYUMU: Hm?

REIJI: Hm?

AYUMU: Hm?

REIJI: Hm?

AYUMU: What… did you just say…?

REIJI: What…?

REIJI: The part where I said, “I’ll be seeing you every day even if I don’t want to…?”

AYUMU: Hah?!

REIJI: Eh… wai— Don’t tell me… You didn’t… hear anything about it… or…?

AYUMU: What are you… talking about…?

REIJI: The VAZZROCK Project… You’re participating in that, right…?

AYUMU: Hm? Oh, that. I remember arranging it so with my manager.

AYUMU: It’s different from other projects I’ve been in so it’s going to be a step-up for my career—

REIJI: RIGHT! I see…! A-ah, you sure think ahead, huh.

REIJI: I don’t really think there’s a problem with that but…

AYUMU: What is it that you really want to say?

REIJI: The 12 members of the project will be divided into two units with 6 members each and… You know that much, right?

REIJI: One is VAZZY and their leader is Takaaki. Then, the unit that you’re part of is ROCK DOWN, lead by the world-famous violinist, Shou.

AYUMU: Of course, I know that. But, that info’s not officially announced yet…

AYUMU: You sure do know a lot about it, huh?

REIJI: Of course I would. I’m a member, too, after all.

AYUMU: I see. Then that would explain how you know— Hm?

REIJI: (scoffs) That’s how it is~

AYUMU: (gasps) Y-you…! You’re a member…?

REIJI: Yep, that’s right.

AYUMU: Don’t tell me… Your unit is…

REIJI: The same as yours, ROCK DOWN.

REIJI: I’ll be in your care, Ayumu-kun~

AYUMU: A-ah…

==END==

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#rock down #vazzrock #vazzrock translations #my translations #tsukipro #drama cd #queued post #i find it absolutely cute that they included Ayumu's birthday tweets in this drama track~!!#shou's way of speaking is so elegant that i find it so enjoyable to translate XD

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