#magicmetslogic

[fontasticcrablettes]

What is the list of nominations at so far for the shitty parents tournament?

So far we've got:

Bart (Phantasia)

Shizel (Eternia)

Kratos or Anna (Symphonia)

Mylene Wilder (Symphonia)

Virginia (Symphonia)

Dirk (Symphonia)

Will (Legendia)

Arnold Alcott (Legendia)

Solon (Legendia)

Duke Fabre or Suzanne Fabre (Abyss)

King Ingobert (Abyss)

Largo (Abyss)

Van Grants (Abyss)

Oliver or Pamela Tatlin (Abyss)

Aston and Kerri Lhant (Graces)

Garrett Oswell (Graces)

Derrick or Ellen Mathis (Xillia)

Jiao (Xillia)

Ludger (X2)

Victor (X2)

Bisley (X2)

Zenrus (Zestiria)

Zephry (Arise)

Stahn and Rutee (Destiny)

Gall (Hearts)

Hugo Gilchrist (Destiny)

Artorius (Berseria)

Melchior (Berseria

Eugene (Rebirth)

Brute Lualdi (DotNW)

Vincent Bridges (Tempest)

And there's one slot left. Who should fill it? I took Leia's parents off this list because while they have defined characterization, they're awesome and won't win anyway. I also removed Dorr, who has questionable morals but is an NPC parent of an NPC, so less relevant. I removed Hermes, because while he appears in side material, he doesn't appear in the actual game and there is nothing we know about his parenting in particular to get upset about.

Any of those could be added back in, or someone else. Emeraude? Cornell? Uncle Alba?

#magicmetslogic #tales of shitty parents

[daggeck]

(insert infinity sign here, i dont have it on my keyboard)

"I use to be afraid of showing who I was inside; more than a prisoner, a victim trapped in my own life"

-Calling by VAMPS

#vamps has become one of my fave bands tbh #their underworld album is banger after banger #anyway this line hits #dagger drawls #asks #magicmetslogic

[polwigle]

hello and welcome to another episode of Shi Has Strong Opinions on Niche Canon with Citable Sources, this time focusing on something that technically isn't canon one way or the other — my preferred fan-transliterated name for Raven's hometown in Tales of Vesperia, which is never referred to by name in any officially translated material.

anyway it's spelled Pharihyde and in this essay I will die on this hill

Context

In case you clicked the read-more with no stake in this game just because you want to see me being pedantic, let me recap the relevant facts of the argument:

Raven's backstory is never fully explained in the base game, but it was elaborated on in official side materials. The same story, titled 虚空の仮面 (Kokuu no Kamen, commonly translated as Empty Mask), was released in multiple formats: light novel[1], manga[2], and drama CD[3]. None of these have ever been officially translated, but fans have made their own attempts at each over the years.

The town in question here does not appear in the original game, due to having been obliterated during the prequel events. It's also never mentioned by name in the drama CD, leaving only two sources for a name: the light novel and the manga.

Officially, it is named ファリハイド (Farihaido).

The first translation the English-speaking fandom ever saw of any Kokuu no Kamen material was when one fan (whose identity was regrettably lost to time) took a stab at summarizing the light novels, not long after they were first published back in 2010. This fan transliterated the town's name as Pharihyde.

Tumblr user dokidokimaster was commissioned to finally translate the manga in 2015. In this translation, the town was spelled Farryheid.

By the time the manga was being translated, the web page that hosted the light novel summary had tragically gone down. Luckily, I was active enough in the fandom at the time to have had the link to the light novel bookmarked, so I was able to find an archive via the blessed Wayback Machine, but I can't fault dokidokimaster for the inconsistencies.

tl;dr of section: OG town name is ファリハイド; LN calls it Pharihyde; manga calls it Farryheid. Rest of essay is about why me preferring the name that came first isn't just me being a cranky fandom elder I swear

It's About The World It's In

In the world of Terca Lumireis, on the continent of Ilyccia, somewhere far from the capital city, Zaphias, there was once a town called... Farryheid? No, Pharihyde. The latter fits better with the precedents set by the official names around it, and I will literally break it down letter by differing letter to prove it!

'Ph' vs 'F'

Among officially transliterated locations and other "made-up" names in Tales of Vesperia, there are 3 that include 'ph' to represent an 'f' sound (Zaphias, Zopheir, Phaeroh). Only a single name uses an actual 'f' for that sound (Ghasfarost), and it also still has an 'h' as the second letter in the word.

Single vs. Double 'R'

After a ctrl+F pass through the entire list of location names in this game[4], not a single one contains the substring 'rr'. Only one R at a time in Terca Lumireis!

Vowel Choice and Lexical Stress

So, English has this neat little feature where some syllables in a word get more emphasis than others! And that plays heavily into this section, because 'i' and 'y' can sound identical when using 'y' as a vowel, but the existing place names stress them differently.

Now, as the Drama CD doesn't give us a spoken example of ファリハイド to work from (and Japanese doesn't do stress the way English does anyway), where the stress goes in either "Pharihyde" or "Farryheid" is technically unconfirmed... But my default reading is with primary stress on the first syllable, and secondary stress on the last (FAR-ee-hide).

In the precedent-setting place names, based on the English dub of the 360 version*, a lone 'i' is seen unstressed in at least 16 distinct names, including the ones I referenced in my intro scene-setting sentence (ZA-phi-as, TER-ca LU-mi-reis). To my knowledge, lone 'i' is never pronounced with stress in dialogue (and potentially appears only once, in the plot-irrelevant Niffel Lake).

In contrast, whenever 'y' is used as any kind of vowel, it always gets at least secondary stress, as in Hypionia (high-pee-O-nee-ah) and Rhybgaro (RIB-ga-ro). Thus, "Pharihyde" using an 'i' for the middle vowel and a 'y' for the last one lines up with established precedent.

Also, the double vowel 'ei' is consistently and exclusively used to represent an 'ay' sound, as in "day", not as in "hide"! Deidon Hold, Keiv Moc, and again Zopheir and Terca Lumireis — none of these 'ei's sound the way "Farryheid" wants you to pronounce it!

Silent 'e'

I did say I'd break down every different letter between "Pharihyde" and "Farryheid", but this last one's not for flavour, it's just to get the 'y' to act as the right kind of vowel sound. Just a normal feature of English pronunciation rules here (though not entirely without precedent: Halure, Relewiese, Laulyse). Sorry to go out with a whimper ^^;;

Conclusion

The base content of Tales of Vesperia sets up some implied rules about how its made-up-for-the-game words function. "Farryheid" may be a perfectly reasonable transliteration of ファリハイド in a vacuum, but "Pharihyde" follows the rules of the setting, literally to the letter!

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

*Footnote about the pronunciation thing: the new voice lines added in the Definitive Edition of the game pronounce some place names inconsistently. I can only assume that by the time they recorded the new lines, a decade after the original ones, they forgot how some pronunciations worked and didn't check their old work... :/

References

(bc it's not an essay without citations!)

[1] Light novel summary (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/20110806003312/http://www.fancomic.com:80/vesperia/resources/raven/emptymask.htm [2] Manga translation: https://dokidokimaster.tumblr.com/tagged/kokuu+no+kamen/chrono [3] Drama CD translation, for completion's sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEDJ_D4tyI [4] List of in-game place names: https://hyouta.com/vesperia/?version=pc&locale=eng&compare=2&section=locations

#tales of #tov #tales of vesperia #kokuu no kamen #epic length ramble #shout-out to magicmetslogic for suggesting i post this here #instead of just making a discord thread about it

[desfraisespartout]

Quick doodle for my favorite girls

@magicmetslogic thank.you for the inspiration

#birdmen #birdmen art #boop o meter #umino tsubame #irene griff #fiona (birdmen) #agent fairy #paws of greatness #desfraisespartout drawing

[hannyboop]

The bad art train continues @magicmetslogic

#raven vesperia #raven #tales of vesperia #tov #i am enjoying my bad art #my art #memes

[hungrydolphin91]

@magicmetslogic well since you asked so nicely ^^ I have to warn you though, it's mostly just a messy outline:

Tales of Vesperia and Evasive Language:

A while back I was feeling nostalgic and started watching an old stream archive of Vesperia Definitive Edition from back when that came out out, and I noticed how the three guys playing it for the first time didn’t always understand what was happening in a scene until halfway through it because the characters were speaking evasively. The more I noticed it, the more I realized just how often Vesperia in particular uses this type of language to add drama and depth to the story and characters, and even support the game’s themes of justice in regards to compliance versus disobedience. Specifically, that evasive language is used in this game to get around laws, for better or for worse, and even by characters that are otherwise lawful (looking at you, Flynn).

I’m not talking about lying or deceptive language, but more of a roundabout, masked language. The characters in this game tell half-truths or speak about a subject without ever saying directly what they mean, but leave enough context for the others to figure it out. Sometimes the "others" refers to other characters, but it can also mean only the audience, creating drama and foreshadowing. For example, lines like Yuri’s ominous “He will get what he deserves” in Capua Torim after Cumore escapes or Judith promise “I will uphold the guild’s laws. But in my own way,” are not lies, but they’re certainly dodging the character’s true intentions– imagine if they had just said “I’m going to murder that guy” or “My reasons for destroying blastia are actually good, but society isn’t ready for that conversation yet.” These examples, though, are more like writing tools meant to be understood by only the audience to keep them curious rather than covertly communicating with another character. Most of the evasive language is used in a less meta context.

The characters most notable for using this language are Yuri and Judith as mentioned before, but also Flynn, Rita, and Raven. Conversations between these characters often require a lot of reading between the lines, like Yuri and Flynn’s early arguments and Yuri and Judith’s one-on-one nighttime chats. The game even seems to encourage the player to look closely at their lines by calling out their evasive personalities, like Estelle saying several times that “Yuri isn’t very good at expressing his feelings” or Judith claiming she’s “not very good at lying” when they actually are, just in a more coded way.

Sometimes they speak this way to protect a secret, like Judith’s reasons for destroying blastia

Judith doesn’t REALLY lie, she just dodges targeted subjects. In a way she’s even more suspicious than Raven, but I think maybe her charisma helps keep the party (minus Yuri, who knows her background) from suspecting her to be up to something

Other times they talk like this to conceal their own feelings, like Yuri, Rita, and sometimes Flynn. Eg. Yuri’s “Catch up to him? Easy for him to say” or Rita’s tsundere-isms to hide that she just wants to travel more/be with Estelle

And of course there’s Raven, hiding his assigned agenda with evasive language but usually doing such a poor job of it that every party member finds him suspicious as hell. Once he’s actually in the party he straight up lies convincingly rather than beating around the bush

(Though part of his successful deception may rely on him being SO suspicious that he couldn't ACTUALLY be as sus as he seems 😅)

But the most prominent example of evasive language being used to advance the themes of the story is the frequent fluctuation between following the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law, used as both constraints and loopholes, by parties under both the Empire and the Guilds. (Eg. Flynn's 'If I don't return you'll have to take my place' vs. Karol's 'everyone in the guild should be punished because technically we're all kinda responsible' etc.)

The streamers and I both were relishing that scene in Capua Nor where Yuri’s party agrees to break the law and sneak into Ragou’s manor in order to give Flynn’s unit the authority to enter under emergency protocol because all of this is established in evasive language-- no one is admitting to the plan verbally but it's established anyway via loopholes and coincidences. It’s definitely illegal by Imperial law, the Knights shouldn’t be collaborating with a known criminal in order to achieve their ends, but since their enemy (also under the Empire) has twisted the laws to suit him perfectly, they all have to bend the rules a little to enforce justice. This ties in marvelously with the themes of the game, that sometimes in order to stop corruption you have to resort to some underhanded methods yourself, yet also exemplifies how this corruption happens in the first place, with Ragou only being able to run his wicked schemes because he has the authority to go above the law.

The guilds actually operate under the same principles as the Empire, maybe even more so. A guild’s laws are its pride, as karol says, and this is shown to be true with how the Don was executed because “eye for an eye” is ingrained in guild law. But shortly after Brave Vesperia is formed, they’re already looking for loopholes to do things like take on more than one job. The scene at the Atherum employs more of that evasive language, this time with Rita deciding to deliver the clear ciel crystal for Estelle’s sake since the guild can’t take another job. 

It’s just interesting to me how quickly they’ve all started finding loopholes to their own rules even though creating their own guild outside of the Empire's laws was so important to them. What they’re doing isn’t wrong or underhanded, but it is illegal, and thus they resort to hypothetical suggestions and coincidences.

#tales of vesperia #someday I'll come back to this with better screenshots and evidence 😅 #im not sure this is even going anywhere as much as it is just observations on something i think is neat #but i think it could be at least tangentally related to the game's themes of justice and whether the law can effectively protect its people

[ormspryde]

I've always kinda liked soulmate AUs but I've never really wanted to write one until @magicmetslogic said something about Raven/Yeager soulmate AU and now I'm obsessed lol (okay look I've been sobbing over these gay babies for days now hush) (BUT THEY'RE SO SWEET)

So yeah, this is them. Yeager's about seven in this, and Raven's about five. (I write Raven as trans, so that's why he's in a dress) (also he's not a ghost that's a soulmate thing lol)

[ID: A digital drawing of two children, one blue and transparent, the other solid. Both are crouched on a forest floor together; the solid child is seen from the back, and he's dressed in a yellow shirt with green pants and his hair gathered in a tail with a bow in the back. The transparent child has pigtails and is wearing a dress - he has his face buried in his arms. /ID]

#digital art #art #tales of vesperia #fanart #raven vesperia #yeager vesperia #soulmates au #alternate universe #I'm sobbing over them I love them so much #they're such sweet bbs #queer

[magicmetslogic]

Oh, also

Growing Pains Sequel Fic Be Upon Ye!

So THIS fic is set after @skywardheroine and I's OTHER fic called Growing Pains, which was all about Raven and Karol addressing their familial feelings over the course of an action-packed, joke filled adventure through a monster cave system!

In THIS fic, however, they've since been established as a family and now they're enjoying their life together! They're finishing up a pirate adventure with patty together! They're having a great time!

And then Raven gets pneumonia. Yeah, sick-fic time.

Anyway, enjoy!

#tales of vesperia #Growing Pains: TOV #Raven (tov) #Karol Capel #Patty Fleur #Judith (tov) #Yuri Lowell #estellise sidos heurassein #rita mordio #sick fic #my fanfic #this one is fun ^^

[sevi007]

@magicmetslogic I plan to sit down tomorrow and sort through all the tutorials and playlists I have collected, and make them public. Will send you a link then ^^

#reply

[lowtarei]

@magicmetslogic asked:

Duke and alexei for the ask game! And maybe duke and flynn....and of course, some Raven, mayhaps with Estelle

OH BOY DO I HAVE LOTS OF HCS FOR THESE TWO!! [vespy spoilers ahead // Raven & Estelle here]

so personally, I don't think they'd ever crossed paths or otherwise had any connection before the war (with Alexei having spent pretty much his whole adult life climbing the ranks as a soldier, while Duke was effectively raised by Elucifur & even before that I imagine he had a very isolated early childhood on account of him being so different) but once the fighting kicked off, Alexei was the first member of the Imperial Knights to reach out to Duke, and the one who recruited him!

Elucifur had wanted to fight on the side of the humans from the very start of the conflict (as he strongly disagreed with those Entelexeia who wanted to solve the blastia problem once and for all by simply eliminating all humans) but while he had always been fascinated with & loved humans, he was also wise enough to know that most of them would only be frightened & mistrustful if they saw his true form (and while I hc he also had a 'krityan' form like Khroma, he wouldn't have been able to keep up the illusion while fighting, and imo his wasn't nearly as refined as hers); for this reason he & Duke fought independently of the human forces. However, it was impossible to completely avoid all contact, and in one of those battles they were spotted by Alexei (still a lowly captain at that point) who recognised Duke as 'human' and chased after before they could leave the area. Alexei encouraged Duke to join forces with the Imperial Knights (as they were drastically short on fighters strong enough to go up against Entelexeia; even at this point Alexei had an excellent eye for combat talent & he didn't especially care who his fighters were or where he came from as long as they were on the same side). 

Duke had no desire to accept this offer at first (convinced that he was Too Different to ever work alongside humans) but Elucifur thought it was a splendid idea & encouraged him to at least try (as coordination between their forces could only benefit all of them, but also he just thought that Duke should make more friends lmao) so in the end Duke acquiesced. Of course, Duke lacked any kind of identification to prove he was who he claimed to be and the enlistment office couldn't just accept people on good faith (especially since no one had ever heard of him before & he definitely didn't look old enough), but Alexei once again stepped up and personally vouched for Duke, smoothing everything over and insisting that Duke be placed into his own unit. Alexei lacked the high social status of the officers who came from old nobility, but he was highly respected on the battlefield by now and his word counted for a lot; Duke definitely wasn't the only soldier to be given Alexei's blessing like this (actually i just had A Thought, that maybe Flynn's father was another of those war-time promotions & that was a factor in Alexei's later treatment towards Flynn.... but i digress). 

Unsurprisingly, Duke never fit in among the soldiers (tho tbf, didn't make much effort to try); Alexei was the only person who continued to solicit his company, and Duke found that he didn't mind their occasional conversations (as Alexei was one of the only humans he'd met who wasn't visibly bothered by his strange appearance & mannerisms, and who seemed willing to listen to him). They weren't quite friends, exactly, but Alexei definitely had some genuine captain-to-subordinate fondness for Duke and wanted to see him succeed, while Duke had tentatively come to trust him-- as an ally in battle, certainly, and perhaps verging on something deeper and more personal.

It was during the war years that Alexei picked up lots of little scraps of knowledge about Entelexeia & Apatheia & the Geraios Age from Duke (who stubbornly remained a loner despite Elucifur's constant prodding to Make Some Friends); it was never Duke's intention to teach Alexei these things but it also didn't occur to him to hide it, as he had no idea it wasn't common knowledge to most humans (after all, Elucifur & many other elder Entelexeia had been around during times when it was). At the time, Alexei wasn't making any Big Plans, but he knew important information when he heard it and he paid very close attention, absorbing as much of Duke's strange esoteric knowledge as he possibly could (...without appearing too suspiciously interested, as he didn't want to scare Duke off & lose his support as a soldier).

Alexei's observations played a major part in bringing word of Elucifur's true nature back to Emperor Krunos XIV, which in turn led to the imperial order to have Elucifur assassinated just after the war was won; Alexei was likely given this task personally after his rapid rise in rank during the war years, though he drastically underestimated the depth of Duke's devotion (& perhaps even hoped that if Elucifur was removed from the picture then Duke might stay on as a Champion of the Empire). Of course, Duke responded to the assassination by storming the palace, confronted and threatened the aging Emperor, and then disappeared into the wilderness with Dein Nomos. Afterwards, it was Alexei who made the call to scrub Duke's name from the war records (both his status as a 'hero' & that final treasonous confrontation)-- partly because Alexei saw the very real danger for a major panic if word got out that a single man could subdue the entire royal guard & threaten the emperor at swordpoint, and partly to eliminate any evidence that he had been the one who got Duke involved in the first place, but also out of lingering respect & because he knew he could take Duke at his word when Duke stated that he had no desire for any further contact with human society (so he wasn't likely to be a threat, certainly not worth the losses they would sustain if they tried to capture him).

The decade that passed since their last encounter saw Alexei's cynicism towards the system & his ambitions grow exponentially, until he came to believe that change for the better could only be achieved if he wiped out the old leadership entirely and seized power for himself; in the present, Alexei views Duke only as an obstacle to his success and has no compunctions about having him killed by the time he sets the trap at Baction. Duke on the other hand views Alexei only with contempt; he couldn't care less who takes control of the human governments & cities, but he does Very Strongly Oppose basically everything else Alexei is doing (murdering the few remaining Entelexeia to harvest Apatheia; reviving the Hermes Blastia projects & forcing a CotFM to overuse their powers & overstimulating the Aer Krene; raising Zaude; etc) so he arrives at Baction resolved to stop Alexei.

...and it was also Alexei's role in Elucifur's death that left Duke so thoroughly convinced that humans could truly never be trusted, and would never change their ways... a resolve that Yuri cracks, which in turn leaves Duke even more conflicted; he's been here before and he knows how this ends, but there's also something different about Yuri, and what if he's wrong...?

#Tales of Vesperia #Duke Pantarei #Alexei Dinoia #Elucifur #Entelexeia #character analysis #backstory hc #ask meme #replies #Yuri Lowell #Emperor Krunos XIV #Imperial Knights (ToV) #-ahaha sorry this got LONG

[just-an-old-blog]

The Tales of Rarepair Exchange is totally to blame for all the Velvet/Estelle brainworms I got that lead into this beast.

Title: One Step Forward

Author: Tis I the Velvet menace and fellow Vesperia writer Magicmetslogic beta read

Fandom: Vesperia/Berseria…that technically takes places in Ray’s setting but that ain’t relevant

Ships/Characters: Velvet/Estelle, Raven, Flynn, Phi shows up for 3 minutes

Chapters/Word count: 16,764 over 6/6 chapters *banshee screech*

Rating: T

Warnings/Content Tags: Starts off pretty light but the later chapters touch up on both characters’ trauma through (brief scene) self-harm, panic attacks, nightmares, and allusions to torture. Basically heavy spoilers for Vesperia so if you know what went down in Act 2 then you’ll probably know what to expect. As for Berseria, the spoilers are more vague aside from the prologue.

Summary/Commentary: A fun little crossover ship that turned into a deep dive…Estelle is paired up with none other than the Lord of Calamity and lighthearted shenanigans end up turning into actual trauma bonding.

**Link:**

One Step Forward

#fanfic #tales of berseria #tales of vesperia #WHY IS IT 16K?! #talesfemslashsummer2022 #angst #hurt/comfort #with some humor at least #velvet crowe #estellise sidos heurassein #crossover pairings #Kranke’s Crossover Shenanigans

[fontasticcrablettes]

@magicmetslogic replied to your post “I don't know if anyone else is still on Neopets in...”:

Luke, are you playing neopets on the regular?

....​and what if I am?

#magicmetslogic

[living-and-awaken]

That's the spirit! @magicmetslogic

#boop

[desfraisespartout]

Let's imagine that Damuron did not survive...

And that for a moment that replicas/clones are possible in the world of Tales of Vesperia.

...

The heart blastia project is a bust. Alexei knew that the success rate very low, but he had clung to the hopes that maybe, maybe he would pull through. That he could bring back at least one person from the massacre at Mount Temza.

But he failed. Miserably.

He's ready to throw everything into the fire in a fit of rage. Only then, does he recall a peculiar reading he had stumbled upon during his research on the Hermes's blastia. Something about creation and replication. At first, he had dismissed the book, relegating such theories to lunacy. But now... given his current state of mind... he'd try anything.

Anything.

According to the text, he only needed to a set of data about the original, parts to mimic a body, and a core. The heart blastia would do.

Against all odds, he succeeds. The replica of Damuron lives. But something seems amiss. The man doesn't have any recollection of his self.

...

All in all, an idea came to my mind about possible comparison between Emperor Belos and Hunter's relationship (The Owl House) vs Alexei and Raven/Schwann's. But also, reminded myself of replicas and fomicri from Tales of the Abyss.

Something that would drive Alexei mad is that Schwann would developp a Raven persona, or show signs of, each time. Schwann/Raven would inevitably betray Alexei each time.

I wouldn't put it past Alexei to outright murder Schwann and work with another replica. Each time, tweaking the data set a little more. To make sure he stays obedient. To make sure he never betrays. Schwann ends up being a pale immitation of Damuron.

Or Alexei tempering with Schwann's memory/recollection of certain events.

Anywho, I had to share what I have in mind before I forget. That and the fact that I probably won't have the time to write a fic about it. But Alexei does seem like a nice character to study. And I like how @magicmetslogic portrays him. So, if you see this, I hope this sparks some ideas.

#tales of vesperia #tales of #spoilers #damuron automais #raven (tov) #schwann oltorain #alexei dinoa

[hannyboop]

Enjoy a grumpy necromancer @magicmetslogic I blame you

#tales of the abyss #jade curtiss #tota #i hope everyone finds it as funny as I do #i lost my mind at work after this #my art #unfortunately

[polwigle]

:D!!!! Might I know which pet name you would use for me for the pet name personality quiz thing, shi? ^^

hm.... Honey! :D

#magicmetslogic #i diagnose you with honey #ask Shi