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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 1 year

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What was up with Chris Thorndyke, anyway?

I think it’s safe to say that Chris Thorndyke is one of the most hated characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, which is... a bit odd, when you think about it. In a world of Ken Penders’s Daddy Issues Personified and Octopus Who Kills Children For Fun (the latter of which basically being a fandom sexyman), why is a twelve-year-old boy so polarizing?

It would be easy to chalk this up to the bad 4kidz dub, but I don’t quite think that’s it. A lot of the complaints I’ve heard can go to “he got the main character slot in Sonic’s show” or “I just don’t like the human characters,” which are valid, but pale in comparison to basically all I’ve seen being: “He’s just annoying,” “I can’t fucking stand him,” etc. That’s basically all I hear, and when asking why, it usually boils down to two things: 1) his extreme attachment to Sonic and 2) his status as a rich white american only child basically puts any and all of his problems at “first world problems” at best. Those also seem like valid reasons, right?

Thing is, while on the surface it seems like this kid has no issues, as a kid with a, how you say, rough childhood, something stuck with me when I watched the show for the first time. I remember sitting through episode after episode, wondering, When does Chris stop being sympathetic and start being annoying? Since, you know, that’s his reputation.

It didn’t happen.

And it slowly became apparent to me that a lot of the things that made Chris “annoying” and “obsessive”... were just obvious symptoms of a traumatized kid.

Join me for my thesis presentation: Chris’s “annoying” traits are not a writing flaw, but an intentional character flaw brought about by severe neglect, which is resolved through his character arc, and why the fandom reaction to him is so furious.

Note: Throughout this meta, we will only be looking over the Japanese version of Sonic X, as it’s the original script and 4kidz did not translate it accurately. So if you see some lines you don’t remember being said, those are from the English subtitles/direct translation.

Once again, it is possible (also likely, we’ll discuss that a bit) that the kidification and cuts to Sonic X did a number on Chris’s likability, but for most of the meta we’ll be discussing his Japanese characterization with only a few references to cut scenes or lines in the dub.

Part I: First Impressions

On the surface, Chris seems like not just a normal kid, but a very privileged one. He goes to regular school with regular friends, but also goes home to a mansion and millions of dollars. His parents dote on him, his grandfather has fun with him, the two servants treat him like their own kid. He should have no problems, right?

Except, honestly, the issues become apparent in Episode One.

You may be saying here, “What do you mean, episode one? The second episode is when Chris gets all his characterization and exposition.”

Except we get all this visually in the final scene of the episode. (I PROMISE the whole essay won’t be this analytic over small scenes but this is important.)

Before Chris rescues Sonic, kickstarting his part in the plot, we see him hear Sonic fall, peer out the window, and then run out to get him.

Firstly, the shots of his room. His room is huge– and we’ll come back to that detail later, so keep it in mind– but it’s also dark. Which tracks ofc, it’s nighttime and the kid’s asleep, but there’s also a lit desk light, which we see when Chris goes to the window. This together gives the audience the visual impression that Chris is in the dark, with the light only coming when he opens that window and sees Sonic.

Let’s get into the bigness of the house here, as Chris runs out of the room. In every shot we see him running, it’s emphasized how small he is. No, not only how small he is, but how empty the rest of the house is.

First the shot in the hall. There’s minimal lighting from a few wall lamps, the rest of the hallway is incredibly dark. Chris is shorter than the height of the lamps on the wall, his positioning keeps him small in the frame despite him running closer. He’s also centered in the hall, and when you look to the walls you can see several doors, implying several rooms, but only Chris is in the hall.

Then the stairwell– once again incredibly dark, but we see more of the grandiose nature of the house. A painting taller than Chris, a Grandfather Clock maybe twice his height. He also runs down the stairs with the railing up to his shoulder. It’s all finely detailed, which of course reflects the Thorndyke luxury they live in. But it’s still dark, and Chris is still so small.

A shot of him running across the floor. It’s shot from above, and we see that the tiles on the floor are bigger than his whole body. This shot is even darker than the rest, only a few lights reflecting on the ground. The above-shot also shows a ceiling fan in front of us, which makes it look bigger than it is, also dwarfing Chris in the shot.

There’s a shot after that of Chris running to the pool– it is actually near-impossible to see him here, but if you look he runs off the back porch. Once again the world is huge, everything around him is huge, and everything is dark, except the pools. The pools where Sonic is, not that he knows that yet.

The pool still remains brightly lit as Chris dives in and saves Sonic. The first shot we see is him diving in, and then grabbing onto Sonic’s wrist. This is repeated multiple times later in the show as they reach for each other’s hands. It’s not only the first time we see this kid make contact with someone in the show, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time we see Sonic. In the first bit of the episode he’s only hitting robots, in the second bit he’s fleeing from everyone who comes near him. This first contact thus subconsciously establishes itself in the audience’s minds as important for both of them.

We finally see Chris clearly after he pulls Sonic out, where the two of them are lit by the pool’s light. Despite the long shadows coming off of them, they are both fully visible and sitting amongst the lit tiles, meaning Chris is now in the light.

This opening scene also establishes something important about Chris as well, and that’s that he’s... not a rich asshole. This kid woke up in the middle of the night, and for all intents and purposes saw nothing in the pool– he saw the ripples stilling, but that could’ve been anything. Could’ve been a frog. Could’ve been a bird taking off into the air. Could’ve been a bird shitting. But Chris still investigates anyway and immediately dives in, presumably once he sees something still in there. As he dives in, he also reaches for Sonic instantly, meaning it wasn’t just pure curiosity that drove him forward, but a deep desire to help whatever was in there. Likely he saw it moving and leapt in to save it without a second thought.

It’s established in the next episode that Chris knew full well he was not allowed to do this and it probably wouldn’t be safe; he’s not allowed to go outside at night or swim in the adult pool. Not to mention he’s also probably still half-asleep and wearing pajamas. Without hesitation he jumps in anyway because there’s something that needs his help. When he pulls Sonic out, he can clearly see this is a weird fucked-up thing he doesn’t recognize, but without even reacting to that fact he just asks if he’s okay. He only starts showing his surprise when Sonic begins talking. Even then there’s no screaming, he just introduces himself politely and then. Takes Sonic inside.

The next episode opens already in the next morning, and with Sonic still there we can assume Chris just hid him for the rest of the night without telling the other adults in the house. After Sonic mentioned people chasing him, Chris probably figured it wasn’t safe to tell anyone and took it upon his 12yo self to make sure this little guy didn’t get spotted.

Which, if it weren’t for Sonic’s impulsiveness, would’ve been incredibly easy.

The second episode opens with another panning shot of the huge mansion, with a voice overlay from Lindsey. The first thing we hear from Chris’s mother is that she’s sorry, but she won’t come home til “next week.” But she’ll send him a ton of gifts, so it’s okay!

Our next interesting shot is as she continues talking, and we see a ton of family photos tacked onto the wall. This immediately gives the impression of, of course, a family that really loves each other. It then immediately pans to Chris, alone on the balcony, talking minimally into a phone.

Chris then has another character beat of apologizing for diving in the pool. It seems like if he hadn’t mentioned it, nobody would’ve known, but he does anyway because he’s just like. A good little kid. Either that or it’s anything to keep his mom on the line longer.

Another thing to note is that Tanaka briefly enters during this scene, but doesn’t even look at Chris as he drops his food off and leaves.

When she hangs up, we hear a little kissing noise, and then Chris kisses the phone receiver and rubs the back of his head. His expression doesn’t seem embarrassed, though, especially as he didn’t notice Sonic staring at him until the next shot. He looks perhaps relieved, a soft kind of happy, perhaps at the compliment she gave him immediately before her abrupt goodbye.

Sonic then asks why Chris referred to him as a cat; he doesn’t seem upset, just a little curious. Chris’s reaction is interesting here– the first thing he does is ask if Sonic is mad at him, and then immediately launch into an explanation.

After Sonic seems calm, Chris then curiously asks Sonic where he learned to talk. They’re interrupted by the phone ringing, and Chris seems incredibly confused that it rung. He answers almost robotically, and immediately grows excited upon hearing it’s his dad, though his voice still indicates surprise. You can really hear it in the line delivery of his og actress, Sanae Kobayashi.

Chris continues smiling blankly as his Dad talks about how his mom told him that a cat got into the estate and maybe he should update security. Chris swiftly assures him that it’s okay, and then says, “But more importantly, you’re very busy, aren’t you?”

Basically he already knows that this conversation will be less than a minute long, but he’s still smiling until his dad’s already hung up.

The rest of the scene plays out as Chris googles what hedgehogs eat, tries to feed Sonic cat food, and then rightfully freaks out when Sonic leaves to get a chili dog, considering he’s a fugitive. And while his face and mannerisms at the end of the scene does effectively display this worry, they really do hold on that shot for a while as he fades back into a sadder expression.

These scenes both serve as introductory scenes to Chris, and both visually and through dialogue, we have established:

Chris is constantly alone.

His world is dark until he finds Sonic.

He has a kind personality and doesn’t seem to be at all jaded or spoiled by his privileged upbringing.

His parents love him but are so absent that he doesn’t even bat an eye at the fact he won’t see his mom for a week. He is surprised when his Dad calls but immediately puts his work before his own well being.

He’s relatively calm, but only freaks out when he thinks Sonic might be mad at him, and when Sonic leaves.

I’d love to do a fucking scene-for-scene analysis of the entire show, but we’d be here for like twenty years so instead let’s uh. jump ahead a bit.

We slowly unravel Chris’s backstory and mental state throughout the first two seasons, in a slow way that I think is very effective and won’t be effective enough through this essay, but I’m gonna try my best.

Anyway, let’s jump ahead and cover his whole... thing.

Part II: The Backstory Scene that 4kidz Cut

The youngest we ever see Chris is in the season two penultimate episode. There’s a flashback to him as what seems to be a toddler, or just out of toddlerhood. This scene, right here, was cut in the English dub for... no real reason I can think of. In fact, it just makes Chris look less sympathetic.

The first shot we get is of Chris and his parents. Much like the Chris’s first scene, he is tiny, even tinier. But unlike that scene, everything is bright. It’s blinding, actually, as the doors are open and Chris’s parents stand in front of it. This is obviously from baby Chris’s perspective, representing his emotional state. With those doors open and his parents in front of him, he is covered in light. Covered.

His parents are quite formal in their parting words. “We’re leaving now,” his dad says. His mom then says, “I’m sorry, Chris. Make sure you behave until we return.”

Once again, I mentioned that this scene is from baby Chris’s perspective, so maybe they weren’t as formal when this actually happened. But that’s how it came across to Chris.

Sidenote, but honestly? Considering his age, this could very well be one of his earliest memories.

Little Chris says, “If I behave, will you come home right away?” While of course operating on little kid logic, this also reflects on how much he loves his family again, as all he wants is for his parents to be home with him.

His parents look at each other, confused on how to answer. They then give the worst answer– “Of course.” We see how happy this makes him, but it’s only a temporary happiness. They’ve just made a promise they cannot keep and they know it, and at baby Chris’s age, he will NOT understand that.

When they turn to leave, Chris’s face falls. They once again have a formal goodbye, and as they leave, the doors shut, and the light is gone, and he stands there for again a long time. I don’t think I need to explain what this symbolizes.

The next shot, we see Chris is reading a picture book by himself on the couch. Once again a small little guy in a big world; the book also seems to be The Little Matchgirl, which... oof. The story is about how a lonely orphan dreams about having a family as she slowly freezes to death, in case you weren’t aware. The two shots we see from the book are first of her freezing, and then of her looking in a window and imagining a family. As Chris reads this, he repeats that if he behaves, his parents will come home.

He then hears the door about to open and immediately leaps up and smiles widely.

It’s not his parents, it’s Ella, but she has presents from his parents!

Despite being a little kid who would normally be ecstatic at the prospect of new toys, Chris just looks numb as she speaks.

He takes no joy in the toy either, because his parents aren’t there with it.

So. I have worked at a daycare and as a babysitter for about... seven years now. Kids? They have separation anxiety. They will sob and scream and shout and kick and run if their mom is out of their sight. I recently babysat a kid who learned how to unlock the door so he could try and run after his parents which was terrifying for me tbh.

Chris’s reaction of just immediately falling into a numb depression isn’t something I saw in the kids I watched. At this age, they cry at the very least. Chris doesn’t even do that, he’s just staring. We get one voiceover at the end of this scene, as Chris just says, “It never came true.” Obviously referring to the promise– he behaved, and his parents still stayed away.

What impression does this give a kid that age? One of two things, if not both at once:

I am not behaving enough and I need to behave perfectly.

Mom and Dad don’t care enough to come home.

From knowing Lindsey and Nelson, we know this is not true. They’re busy, and they hope to show their love through gifts. But Chris’s love language is very much not gifts, it’s quality time. And he doesn’t. Get that.

From anyone.

Part III: Chris’s Abandonment Issues

As I’ve made it clear, Chris’s parents are never around. He doesn’t bat an eye at his mother saying she’ll be gone another week, and is surprised that his Dad even bothered to call. We saw all those family photos, but looking at them again, how many of them were taken at the same time, one of the few times his parents were home? How many is Chris standing stiffly, properly, instead of relaxing like a kid?

Another line from episode six really drives his home, one I think a lot of people miss.

Upon being told his parents are coming home, Chris remarks that it has been months since he’s seen them. Months.

Later in the episode, Chuck remarks on how it’s a miracle to see them both at the house at the same time. They laugh this off, and spend the rest of the episode anxiously waiting for Chris to get home because, yeah, they do care. When Chris gets home he immediately calls for them and gets tackle-hugged. As they do, he stiffens upon the physical contact, and looks awkward the whole time, like he’s not used to physical affection.

He’s then later surprised to hear his parents were worried he was late.

The next episode, Chris’s dad has already left by the next morning. When he hears his mom has unexpectedly left, he is upset, but not surprised; he immediately resigns himself to this and sighs before leaning back on the couch.

When he brings this up to his uncle, Sam immediately remarks that his sister is never home.

This is where Cream breaks, because she has seen Lindsey herself break down over not being there for Chris. Chris has not seen that. All he knows is that his mother was there and then was gone, despite their elaborate dinner plan, despite knowing he was bringing a guest to meet her.

Once again, he’s not surprised. Neither is Sam.

Similar with his Dad; in the previous episode, when they were worried, Nelson implies that he has a guard service making sure Chris doesn’t get abducted. They’re two seconds away from calling the US Military to find him. But they stop short of going after him, because they don’t want him to think they’re being overbearing.

We’ve firmly established this by now, okay? His parents are never home and haven’t been since he was, what? Three? Four, tops.

Nobody else was really there, either.

Ella and Tanaka seem to have done most of Chris’s raising. And while Ella and Tanaka are amazing, and definitely care a lot about Chris, it doesn’t change the fact that they are paid employees and Chris knows this. They’re paid to hang out with him. If they weren’t getting paid, Chris has no idea if they would even give a shit about him. Even with that, there’s not a ton of evidence they like. hung out with him outside of making sure he was alright. As mentioned, in the second episode Tanaka doesn’t even look at him as he delivers food. Not for lack of care, but probably because they’re busy as only two servants in a huge estate. This isn’t their kid, too, they’re under no obligation to raise him. Ella is the cook and Tanaka is the butler-bodyguard, they’re not childcare experts.

What about his grandpa? Sorry to break this to you but Chuck wasn’t around, either.

In episode 51, which we’re gonna keep coming back to as it’s the culmination of Chris’s arc, Chuck says this while reprimanding Nelson and Lindsey. He says, “I never blamed you for neglecting your household because you were too busy with work. That’s because I also did whatever I wanted and continued my research.”

Back to the second episode, when we first see Chuck, you notice on the second watch that Chris 1) doesn’t trust his grandpa enough to tell him that he’s hiding a fugitive in their house, 2) didn’t seem to expect him (or ANYONE) to walk in on them in the LIVING ROOM, 3) seems to not know a ton about his personality. He’s surprised when his grandpa closes the door on Sonic, and surprised that he’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie. It seems that instead of spending time with his grandson, Chuck spent most of his time in his shed tinkering with machines.

His uncle? Seems to visit on occasion, but has a government job. You know he’s never around, either.

So Chris is growing up in a huge house, which is serving to give him a constant reminder that nobody’s home. There are two servants going around working and sometimes saying hi to him, there’s a grandpa in the shed somewhere who might come in once or twice to watch TV, and there’s photos on the wall of parents who aren’t home. He’s like that for at least eight years.

OH, and let’s talk about the friends argument which I’ve confusingly seen. He’s got two friends at school. His parents seem to recognize Danny’s name, so Danny might have been a longtime friend, or at least friend he talked about before. But Danny and Frances, being barely in any episodes, we can assume they also have their own lives and things going on and thus don’t, like, hang out with Chris after school a lot. He uses Danny as an excuse for being late in ep6, but the fact that nobody seemed to expect him to be late implies this is not a usual thing. And of course it is ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY not on the shoulders of these other 12yos to emotionally support another kid, but it’s not like they’re immediately moving into his house and giving him attention 24/7. They’re friends. Which is all they need to be. But for a neglected child like Chris, they’re just another part of his life that comes and goes. Him having two buddies at school that he shares a table with (thus probably just. friends by proximity) doesn’t negate the neglect.

Looking at the photos on the wall again, there’s one photo of Chris with some kind of sports team, probably baseball. Considering how bad Chris played in the baseball episode, he probably didn’t stay there long, and considering we never see anyone even resembling the kids in that pic, we can assume they didn’t stay long-lasting friends. The other photos, they’re dressed in suits, like they’re taking professional photos. Once again stilted, stiff.

But I hear y’all on twitter now. “Oh, boo-hoo, his parents weren’t around. He was still living fancy, it’s fine.”

So let’s talk about the effects of emotional neglect on the childhood psyche.

Part IV: Connie Read Actual Research Papers and Scholarly Articles For This Instead of Doing Actual Work

So, here’s something that’s been seen recurrently in neglected children: kids are psychologically dependent on parents or caregivers throughout their whole childhood and adolescence.

From New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research by the Committee on Child Maltreatment Research, “Children who have experienced abuse and neglect are therefor at increased risk for a number of problematic developmental, health, and mental health outcomes, including learning problems, problems relating to peers, externalizing symptoms [aggression or conduct disorder], and posttraumatic stress disorder. As adults, these children continue to show increased risk for psychiatric disorders, substance use, serious medical illnesses, and lower economic productivity.”

Let’s talk mainly about the mental health outcomes. Without a present caregiver, neglected children often fall behind on the abilities to regulate behavior or emotions. Several parts of the brain will end up altered due to early childhood neglect, including the stress response system, the emotion processing and regulation system, the learning and memory system, etc.

The stress response system is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortial axis, aka the HPA. The HPA is incredibly sensitive to early childhood experiences and an uncertain childhood can effect a lot of things, such as sleep patterns and hyperactivity. Abused children will often have higher spikes of cortisol, a high enough number of which can cause damage to the brain and premature aging.

The behavioral regulation is also most commonly affected in these victims; neglected children will often show “behavioral and emotional difficulties that are consistent with effects on the amygdala, such as internalizing problems, heightened anxiety, and emotional reactivity, and deficits in emotional processing.”

Other mental health issues are also seen; children with trauma experiences will show similar mental patterns as those with ADHD, and can have serious issues with inhibitory control– aka, controlling your impulses.

Then there’s the corpus callosum. (Insert SnapCube dub joke here.) The corpus callosum manages communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. Several studies have found that abused children have a much smaller corpus callosum than non-abused children, even those who are mentally ill; these effects are also more pronounced in boys than girls, which is relevant to our analysis of a 12yo anime boy from 2003. This means that their brain development will often be behind that of their peers, and it could take a while for them to mature.

That was long and boring Connie. Give us the tldr.

Okay don’t worry, the article got to that right about now. Children dealing with neglect will show several issues related to the interrupted development of these parts of their brain, including:

Extreme Deficits in Executive Functioning

Difficulty in regulating attention: As a note on this, 18.6% of abused and neglected teens are diagnosed with ADHD. Compared to 5% of other children. That’s like three times the amount!

And, most interestingly, the behavioral outcomes:

Difficulty forming trusting attachments to caregivers

Both Disorganized and Insecure Attachment Issues, usually getting severe Attachment Disorders

Reactive Attachment Disorder: Inhibited or emotionally withdrawn behavior, rarely seeking or responding to comfort

Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder: Basically the opposite; it’s marked by a pattern of overly familiar behavior with strangers.

Emotion Regulation: infants learn how to deal with distress via their parents– how their caregivers handle stress, how they take care of problems and slowly introduce the ability to deal with them. Without that, abused and neglected children will often fail to develop effective strategies for regulating emotions. This will probably cause a lot of the following.

This also includes recognizing emotions in others. While abused children will identify anger quickly, neglected children tend to be worse than non-neglected children at identifying any facial expressions.

Their emotional issues can also cause them to feel isolated from their peers, as their peers do not understand them and do not act like them.

Anxiety

Depression– nearly a 3x chance compared to non-neglected kids

Dissociation

Conduct Disorder

PTSD

Physical issues include stunted growth and motor development, and lower health.

Note that these do not appear in all victims of neglect, these are just common symptoms.

Part V: Every “Annoying” Thing Chris Does is a Fucking Symptom

Difficulty forming attachments to Caregivers

In episode 43, Chris deals with a situation that’s obviously alien to him: his parents coming home to care about him.

His parents hear that he’s sick and drop everything to come home. This is clearly something that’s unusual, judging from both Chris’s and his grandpa’s reactions to it. Chris is confused and embarrassed, kinda numb and still, until his grandfather and father start arguing. Even then, he only reacts when they bring up Sonic.

He then yells that he hates his family and orders them to leave him alone. This doesn’t last long as they’re immediately attacked by more badniks, but it’s a beat they definitely put in there intentionally.

Also, he doesn’t seem to trust Chuck as an authority either. He really just sees him as an impulsive adrenaline junkie at best; in the cruise ship episode, Chuck is drunk the whole time and Chris doesn’t seem to care. It also says something that while Ella and Tanaka are present, he doesn’t trust them to tell them they might be finding an alien in the attic until they find out for themselves.

Difficulty Understanding Others’ Emotions

This one’s gonna be easy, as I talked about it earlier in the essay. When Sonic asks, “Was the cat supposed to be me?” Chris immediately assumes he’s upset and tries to placate him with an explanation. This happens throughout the show as well; let’s take Mr. Stewart for example, that man is obviously spying on him and inserting himself into his life and Chris thinks it’s maybe a little weird, not that much though. He also spends most of his time hanging out with Shadow standing there in complete obliviousness as to what Shadow is thinking or feeling. He doesn’t even seem to really register Shadow as a threat, instead throwing himself at him in hopes that he can convince him to help Sonic. In doing so, he also doesn’t think that Tanaka would at all be worried about him, and is surprised at their reunion that Tanaka was upset.

Aggression / Delinquincy

This was very underplayed, but in the Sonic Battle arc, we literally see him start to rebel. He tells Sonic that he’s sick of being the perfect rich kid, that he wants to be a problem on purpose sometimes. Sonic seems to completely understand that, as that’s a point Chris needs to reach. He has to realize he cannot be perfect and that’s okay.

[except that dialogue was all cut in the 4kidz version no im not bitter]

Only Chris explores his imperfection in a really bad way.

And now. Let’s get into the attachment.

And to do that, we need to get into...

Part VI: What Sonic Represents

This is a fascinating part of Chris’s psyche since I think it occurs both subconsciously and consciously, but when I drew attention to Sonic bringing the light back into Chris’s life? Yeah, that’s cause he did.

Everything changed only after Sonic arrived. Suddenly Chris’s parents are... visiting??? For once??? TOGETHER??? His grandfather wants to spend time with him! His friends at school are hanging out with him more and he’s even made new friends! And most importantly, he has the mobians around him constantly. He’s got constant attention from all of them, and while he quickly takes on the figure of the Responsible One, he’s still WITH PEOPLE. He’s gone from being alone all the time to surrounded by a rowdy-ass found family.

Most of all is Sonic. Chris seems to have attached himself mainly to Sonic, likely because in his mind Sonic represents the moment when everything changed. Of course, Sonic would probably have been the worst of the gang to get attached to, seeing as he runs off all the time. The first several episodes, even after they stop hiding from the public, Chris is noticeably upset whenever Sonic leaves. He only calms down after several, several episodes, after assurances from every character that this is just a thing Sonic does, he never sticks around anyway, don’t worry about it.

But still, he definitely attaches himself to this hedgehog for better or for worse.

And it gets worse.

Part VII: Even More Trauma

First we gotta talk about the end of Season One.

At the beginning of the arc, Chris is noticeably... incredibly depressed. He’s also disassociating hardcore. He’s constantly staring into nothing, his face upset, but as soon as someone snaps him back to reality, he forces a smile on his face, acting happy despite going through a ton of negative emotions at once. Almost like he’s trying to behave perfectly.

Chris realizes throughout the episode the attachment he’s gotten to the mobians, and especially Sonic, but even then he still does his best to help them. He steals a chaos emerald and runs off to Eggman in order to get them home, because it will make them happy! Nevermind if it doesn’t make Chris happy. He’s never worried about that anyway.

Of course this backfires and Eggman kidnaps him, and then Chris has to go through the serious trauma of. Well. Being strapped to a wall, forced to watch helplessly as Sonic fucking dies.

And he’s blaming himself for it too.

MAJOR shoutout to Kobayashi’s acting in this scene, holy crap. But he just screams, and then... BREAKS THROUGH METAL?? And GRABS the Chaos Emeralds despite them ELECTRIC SHOCKING HIM???

And then of course we get this incredibly subtle dialogue.

"I will not let you have it. I will not let anyone have it. They’re only mine. Only me. Sonic... Sonic, you’re staying with me forever.”

Immediately after this, Chris almost fucking dies, and is only saved by Super Sonic. When he sees Super Sonic, he reacts by... begging. He drops down, clinging to Sonic and screaming and crying that he is nothing without Sonic.

Chris literally yells that he can’t do anything without Sonic, because that’s how he felt before Sonic. He could not do anything to get anyone to care about him, it only happened when Sonic arrived. So that’s how he sees himself: useless, worthless.

Sonic of course stays, but then dips for six months. When he gets back, a fucking god attacks Chris’s neighborhood, destroying his city. He gets sent away for a month, but that’s interrupted by Sonic being declared a fugitive from the government. Then Chris ends up with Shadow. He gets kidnapped by the goth clone of his emotional support hedgehog. He bonds with the goth clone. He gets the shit beaten out of him begging the goth clone to help save the world. It works, and Shadow runs off to save the planet. And then DIES.

You can tell how traumatized Chris is by this in the next episode. He’s disassociating again, staring at nothing, and eventually asks his uncle if he thinks they can actually live in the same world.

Which is followed by...

Part VIII: The Season Two Finale

We get the rather worrying scene of Chris having to write an essay for his school about his ideal future. Literally all he can think of is that he wants to stay with Sonic forever. He has no other ideals for the future. Just being attached to Sonic.

Only to go downstairs and find out that Sonic HAS to leave. They ALL have to leave. Their dimensions are caving in on themselves and they need to separate.

So he enters the Denial stage of grief.

He seems... dazed. Like he’s in a trance, as he argues that Sonic can’t leave, that all he wants to do is be with Sonic, that he can’t be apart from Sonic because he’s only been able to do things since Sonic got here. This was the first time he’s had agency in his life and he places it all on Sonic.

He decides that it must be Eggman’s fault and literally tracks him down. When he finds out that it’s not Eggman’s fault, he is distraught, and what’s interesting to me is that Eggman seems to get it. He just tells his robots to let him go. Let him be alone. Let him accept it.

Chris then falls back into the depression/disassociation during the entire farewell. He doesn’t emote, he just stares ahead. Something they cut in the English version is that while Chris is politely saying goodbye, throughout the whole scene you can hear his inner monologue screaming. Crying not to let them leave.

So he doesn’t.

The penultimate episode of Season Two is the culmination of Chris’s arc and they do it so beautifully.

Sonic knows Chris is going through a breakdown, and he lets him figure it out for himself. He lets him run off with him, he lets him make the decisions about where they go. Chris starts to realize this but says nothing. They see his tearful parents on TV begging him to come home and he... groans and leaves.

The episode also subtley shows Chris doing things himself. Climbing up the mountain, picking their roads. Sonic is slowly trying to let Chris know he has his own agency. That he is his own person.

They get to the campsite that meant a lot to Chris in his childhood, one of the only times that his parents hung out with him, and he breaks. Asks Sonic why he doesn’t hate him. Why he hangs out with him. If he only hangs out with him out of obligation.

And he comes to the conclusion himself that no, he can’t keep Sonic here. He can’t keep Sonic away from his world just because he has attachment issues. It was what he knew was right in Season One but couldn’t get himself to understand no matter how hard he tried. But now he gets it. And now he can let Sonic go.

The episode is soooo good, sooo fucking good. And then in the season finale, when we see the aftermath of that, when Sonic takes him on one last run and... he sees Sonic crying? Realizes that Sonic does love him and still lets him go? It’s impactful. It’s emotional.

Then when his parents come get him and he just smiles? Because he realizes they did come for him? That if Sonic can love him without obligation, maybe other people do too?

Chris’s severe attachment issues and trauma from being neglected culminated in this episode, and he made a bad choice. And then he made the right one. And that’s so good.

Part IX: Some Season Three Notes

Chris’s inclusion in the third season was... weird. It felt like they didn’t want to animate his adult model so they shoved him into a child body and made an excuse for it. But honestly, after traveling there, you can kinda... tell how much Chris has grown.

He was trying to get back to Sonic, but not because he needed him, but because they were friends. He and his friends wanted to see their friends again. He only went alone because he had a sense Sonic was in danger. And even in the twelve-year-old body, he’s an adult now and he acts like it. His only real emotional issue is that he is upset he can’t fight as well in his kid body, but then he figures out he can be useful with his inventions and finds a place with Tails. He’s basically parenting the rest of them for the rest of the season, telling Cosmo that her impulsiveness reminds him of his younger self. He offers to give up a way to return home because he knows the Metarex problem is bigger than himself.

At the end, when Eggman offers him a way home, you can tell they expected him to freak out about it. They’re shocked when he just says thank you, cries, and leaves immediately. They clearly not only will miss him, but they expected him to freak out like he did at the age of twelve. But he’s not twelve anymore. He’s spent the last six years surrounded by people who love him, healing from his trauma, and becoming his own person. So now he isn’t unhealthily attached to Sonic, and he can say goodbye if he has to. That growth, so subtly in the background of the season, really impressed me.

Part X: Fandom Reaction

On June 24 2022, I posted this meme to both twitter and tumblr.

On tumblr I got no pushback and a few agreements. On twitter I got a tidal wave of discourse, which tells you a lot about the two sites but regardless, this is the first time I get to ratio my commenters cause as of today, it has 23.4k likes and only 161 replies and 156 quote tweets. So that’s barely over 300 people (TOPS, considering several replies were positive) arguing against 23,400. So I may not be the only one thinking this!

But even still, with this being my most viral post atm, I got so many people bitching about Chris still. Even after all these years, he’s despised for being so annoying. And what is it? Is it really the fact that he got main charactered over Sonic? Really, I thought that was a plus of the show, that Sonic was a static figure that influenced what was around him. It doesn’t work for every Sonic property, but it did for this one. Was it just a hatred for humans in the franchise? Probably not, everyone loved Helen and the recent movies.

I really do think a vast majority of it is his realistic reaction to the trauma of neglect. “Ugly” trauma symptoms, like attachment issues, impulsive destructive behavior, aggressiveness, and selfishness, they are not looked upon kindly. Just look at how TikTok picks and chooses cute parts of mental illnesses and calls the rest “toxic.” And yes, sometimes mental illness can cause you to be toxic! And sometimes you’re just mentally ill! Sometimes you just have bad days and bad decisions and horrible mental states, and sometimes, life gets better. Sometimes life gets better and you begin to heal, and that’s what Chris’s arc was about, about him slowly gaining his own agency and starting to heal from his abandonment trauma. And he does this through the help of others. But with him having several moments where he reverts, several moments where his healing is non-linear, viewers see it as an annoying personality trait, not a trauma symptom he is trying to overcome. And one that he does. I cannot emphasize enough that he does overcome this and that the narrative specifically focuses on it. I’ve seen so many people say it was a writing flaw, that they never criticized Chris for his attachment to Sonic... it’s the focus of two season finales, what are you talking about? I think at that point, it’s just you.

Just think about why you find him annoying. You do not have to like Chris as a character but please recognize that his arc is a realistic portrayal of a neglected child and that’s why he is the way he is.

Part XI: Conclusion

I was gonna write a full-ass conclusion here but tumblr’s already trying to kill me over wordcount so uh. tl;dr Chris isn’t annoying he’s a traumatized child and this is something the narrative notices, examines, and resolves. What this means is that it’s not a writing problem, it’s a character flaw brought on by trauma that his character arc makes him heal from.

Leave him alone.

#chris thorndyke #sonic x #sonic meta #chris thorndyke meta #sth #mine #connie writes #connie goes ape

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notfreetoday · 7 months

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MPW: Segasaki & Yoh - Language Analysis Part 1

Subtitle Corrections: EP 1 || EP 2 || EP 3

My Personal Weatherman is a story about the relationship between Segasaki and Yoh, so rather than being introduced to the characters, we the audience are dropped right into the middle of their relationship, and the only way we learn about the characters as individuals is through the way they interact with each other, and how that contrasts with how they interact with the people around them.

The show does an incredible job of keeping the portrayal of their relationship consistent across the use of character design, wardrobe, lighting, cinematography, acting choice, directorial choices and of course language use. But not everyone who watches has equal access to that last one, so I try to be as detailed as possible in my subtitle corrections posts. I'm also a bit of a language nerd. Now, I want to get into their actual relationship, because I think there is a lot of information about how they feel towards each other that's just getting missed. Also I love them and this is how I spazz.

This post is the first of four in which I hope to show how the dynamic between Segasaki and Yoh is reflected in the way they speak - specifically, in the way they address each other, and the style shifting, or speech level shifts that they both demonstrate with each other, using scenes from Ep 1 - 3. I'll be using my own translations for this, some of which differ from the Eng subs. (Please bear with the nerdiness - I don't want to assume how much people know about Japanese)

Prefacing this by saying that this language analysis is made specifically in the context of Segasaki and Yoh's relationship. There is a power imbalance here both in terms of social hierarchy (senpai/kouhai, age gap, successful/non-successful) as well as self-image (self-confident/self-conscious). Now, most of the time we see this manifested linguistically as the party with more social power using casual language forms, whilst the one with less power remains polite or formal. However, there is much more to human interaction than that, as we see in MPW where both Segasaki and Yoh shift in and out of Speech Styles often, depending on what they want to say and accomplish, as well as their emotional state.

1) Quick & Dirty Guide To Speech Styles/Formality Levels

Formality/Politeness is a spectrum and is expressed mostly through grammar and tone (sorry for the shitty word doc screencap):

1) desu/masu = formal/polite. Standard go to with the anyone you meet. 2) Generally speaking, the longer the sentence/the more syllables you hear, the more polite the sentence 3) The less direct you can be, the more polite you will sound 4) Word contractions (tsuzukereba -> tsuzukerya) = informal + impolite (but not always rude) 5) Slurred end vowels (iranai -> iranee) = informal + mostly rude, but not always (you just sound uncouth) 6) Most words have "formal", "informal" or even "rude" variations 7) CONTEXT DETERMINES EVERYTHING Btw when I say "speaks roughly" or uses "rough speech", I mostly mean (4) + (5)

2) Speech Styles and Shifting Between Them

tl;dr Japanese Speech Styles function like the verbal equivalent of personal space - the more formal/polite the level, the bigger the circle of personal space you maintain. Shifts in speech styles indicate: 1) perceived changes in vertical and/or horizontal distance 2) the assumption of a position/role of the speaker in relation to the listener 3) changes in emotional state/the desire to convey emotion 4) the consideration of "polite company" In this post we will look at examples of the first one - Vertical and Horizontal Distance.

Speech Styles: The Long Version (English Speaker POV)

Consider the way you speak if you were to say, give an important presentation in front of potential clients, versus the way you'd speak to an acquaintance you ran into on the street vs the way you'd speak to your closest friends. Different situations call for different ways of speaking - you're more likely to speak in full sentences and pronounce your words clearly for the first situation, and say "yes" instead of "yep" or "uh huh". You're also more likely to be blunt/direct with your friends than you are with clients - "You know ILU but do not under any circumstances buy that ugly ass shirt".

These context-dependent changes in speech patterns are similar to the changes in speech styles/formality levels in Japanese. Think of speech styles as the verbal equivalent of personal space. The more formal/polite the level, the bigger the circle of personal space you maintain. Dropping a level when you shouldn't is the verbal equivalent of invading someone's personal space and can make people uncomfortable and sometimes even angry. In Japan, the baseline "distance" with the average person is the way you would speak as if you were giving a presentation. Dropping to casual/informal speech might be tolerated (just like how you can tolerate someone sitting close to you and asking some questions, but it's uncomfortable), especially if you guys are around the same age, but dropping to "what's up bitcheees" when you should be at "hey how're you doing" basically tells the other person "I don't have even the basic level of respect for you".

In the same vein, the closer you are to someone, the more welcome you are in their personal space, and thus the lower the level of formality/politeness you'll keep with them. You trust that even if you speak bluntly, they'll understand you aren't trying to insult them. When and to what extent you drop a level is usually negotiated between individuals (either directly or indirectly). Once a level of casualness is established, your friends are going to look at you funny if you suddenly get all formal with them. They might even come ask if anything's wrong, or if you're angry at them or why you sound "cold". These shifts in speech levels therefore mark more than just the vertical distance between two people (ie, differences in social hierachy), they mark the horizontal distance (ie, how close people of the same "in-group" are to each other) too.

Having said that, there are times when you will shift to a more formal tone even with your friends or family - for example, when you're hosting a game at a large party and want to explain the game rules to everyone, you might enunciate your words better or keep the jokes to the minimum in order to convey the information is clearly and efficiently as possible. Similarly, if you've been appointed the leader in a group project and need people to pay attention and listen, you might change your tone of voice to command attention. In other words, when you assume a particular position, the way you speak changes too.

Finally, the way you speak to your friends/family in the presence of others (or "polite company", as they used to say) might also change - you might have no qualms cursing up a storm with your best buddy at the bar, but you might do your best to avoid being too vulgar when you're in front of their parents or your boss/university professor.

3) Segasaki and Yoh: Vertical & Horizontal Distance

Segasaki and Yoh are part of the same "in-group" in that they are in a relationship, so the horizontal distance between them is very small and before sunny days it's a negative distance - this is shown in how both Segasaki and Yoh use informal speech with each other (they generally omit the desu/masu forms aka use plain forms, and both use the informal pronoun "俺/ore" for "I" with each other).

That said, there is also a hierarchy within that relationship (though their individual perceptions of that vertical distance differs) which stems not only from the nature of their living agreement, but also is likely to have carried over from their university days, when they shared a senior/junior relationship. Thus, generally speaking, Segasaki speaks quite roughly with Yoh whilst Yoh tends to use polite forms more often. Keep in mind however, that Japanese is a gendered language, and "rough speech" tends to be seen as a masculine speech pattern and can sometimes be normal between close male friends/family (otherwise, it is the verbal equivalent of getting up in someone's face and pushing them). The key here is that Yoh sticks to an informal, but more polite level than Segasaki does, and it is that difference that shows the power differential.

Horizontal Distance aka "We're Very Close"

Despite Yoh's very valid complaint that Segasaki takes "man-of-few-words" to the next level (itself a liberty you'd only take with someone close to you), Segasaki only drops to rude forms in Ep 1 once:

晩飯いらねぇ(banmeshi iranee) - slurred vowel [literally - "dinner, not needed"] Banmeshi is a more informal way of saying dinner (normal = yuu gohan). Despite the slurred vowel, this sentence is not dismissive nor rude - it's what you'd expect between close friends/family.

In Ep 2 we hear Segasaki speak a lot more roughly to Yoh, as below, and of course during the almost-argument. But though his words are rough his intonation is often soft and he's quite tender with his touch. So, we can see that Segasaki isn't being disrespectful per se - he's not speaking roughly because he sees Yoh as beneath him in the social hierarchy - rather, he's demonstrating intimacy, familiarity and possessiveness, all at once. In fact, the more possessive he feels of Yoh, the more he drops his levels. As mentioned earlier, you only do this with people in your "in-group", with whom you know will understand you aren't insulting them.

遅くなるからいらねぇっつっただろう (osokunaru kara iranee ttsutta darou) - slurred vowel, word contraction, informal end particle [I told you I wouldn't need it cause I'd be late right?] Though somewhat in keeping with Segaski's curtness, this is still a pretty harsh sounding line - but note how Yoh doesn't seem offended or intimidated in the slightest - he understands that Segasaki is tired after a long day, and in return Segasaki softens his tone when he next asks "What did you make?"

Vertical Distance

It's easy to focus on Segasaki's use of rough, assertive langauge as an indicator of vertical distance, and I pointed out quite a few scenes in Ep 3 where he ends off what is essentially an order with assertive sentence-final particles. But focusing on this alone gives the mistaken impression that relationships with vertical distance go one way only - down - when in fact they are bidirectional. There is a mutual dependency between both parties, as we see clearly in MPW. Linguistically, this is portrayed through Yoh's choices to shift up a speech level.

Just like how Segasaki is introduced to the audience through his proposal direct, informal and very forceful speech style, the first interaction we see Yoh have with Segasaki is a proper, standard greeting:

おかえりなさい (okaerinasai) [Welcome back] Okaerinasai is the full, proper way to say this, but a more casual and common way to say this would simply be "okaeri". See Ep 3 for discussion on standard greetings.

When Yoh thinks about Segasaki in his head, he often uses rough speech the same way Segasaki does, including the rude pronouns "aitsu/koitsu (that guy/this guy)", and yet when he speaks directly to Segasaki, he maintains an informal but still polite/neutral speech style. He rarely shifts down to rude forms, barely coming close even when drunk and emotional, but he does often switch up to a more polite level. In the above example, Yoh uses the full standard greeting in response to Segasaki's unspoken request:

俺、帰ってるんだけど (ore, kaetterun dakedo) [I've already come back, you know] Ending with "dakedo" implies that speaker is going to follow up with something, usually a request or a question. In Japanese, this request/question is often left out, because the context given prior to "dakedo" is usually enough for the listener to fill in the gaps themselves. In this case, Segasaki might want a greeting or dinner, but at the very least, it's clear he wants Yoh's attention.

We know the standard greeting earlier was a style shift upwards because later in the episode, when Yoh says good night, he uses the casual version "oyasumi" instead of the full "oyasuminasai".

Even outside of standard phrases, Yoh's baseline is informal but not rude:

あ、いま準備する (Ah, ima junbi suru) - plain form [Ah, I'll prepare it now]

Probably the most telling is in Ep 3, when he's caught off guard whilst folding laundry.

あ、なに？ (Ah, nani?) - plain form [Oh! What?] He answers Segasaki naturally, with just a word, as opposed to a proper “Hai/Yes?”, which he’s done sometimes when he’s unsure of himself, or if he's addressed directly.

So, we've established that Yoh’s baseline with Segasaki is informal but not rude - he feels comfortable enough with Segasaki to default to casual speech, but he acknowledges the power differential between them by simultaneously accepting Segasaki's rough speech as well as not dropping to it himself. This also tells us that the shifts up to formal/polite speech are deliberate and mean something. In EP 2, the shift demonstrated his insecurity surrounding his jealousy and their lack of physical affection, whereas in EP 3, he does it as a way to convey his gratitude.

In the next part, we'll look at how both Segasaki and Yoh use speech style shifts to convey emotion as well as to assume a particular position. Hope you enjoyed this!

#my personal weatherman #taikan yohou #体感予報 #MPW language analysis #sociolinguistics #japanese language #mytranslations #MPW subtitle corrections #segasaki x yoh

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respectthepetty · 1 year

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Lost in Translation

I saw this image recently, and instead of hijacking that perfectly good post, I thought it best to write my own.

Because this a very real issue, even when watching a show or movie.

Mostly when it comes to watching queer media that already incorporates a coded language due to the topic.

Many people watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire in another language didn't realize the significance of the final scene between these two because they didn't understand French.

The entire movie, they used the formal form of you basically referring to each other as madam, but at the end, they use informal you, and it shows the intimacy that has developed between them. If you didn't understand French or romance languages, you probably missed it!

It happens often in Asian dramas as well because they use honorifics that don't get translated with the same significance.

These two in Ghost Host, Ghost House skipped over the traditional honorifics and instead opted for you and I. It was important because even when they were fighting, they still saw each other as equals.

This was a big moment in Semantic Error, but if you watched it with just the translation on one streaming platform

You would have missed the urgency of the scene because he finally showed respect for this person and the relationship they had developed.

And often, the translations of colloquialisms (slang or informal language) are literal so context is omitted.

I would pay $$$ for annotated subtitles (like from Viki, depending on the team, Idol Factory does a good job, and Lazy Subber, please come back!) because they explain the context we would miss in the literal translations.

In Thailand black bean is (derogatory) slang for gay sex, so asking if someone wants black beans is coded language.

When Knock asks his girlfriend if she is itchy in Together With Me, if the audience doesn't speak Thai, they understand the flow of the conversation as being logical since Knock's girlfriend just mentioned getting bit by mosquitoes and wanting to go inside. However, the show does a strange sequence that indicates this moment meant something...more.

Because asking if someone is itchy in Thai is asking if they are horny. Knock is asking his girlfriend if she is horny and if that's why she wants to go inside. That's missed in the translation.

This happened in Love Mechanics as well. Vee asks Mark if he wants him to come inside to watch a series. It seems innocent enough, but Mark's reaction is aggressively upset.

It's because this is equivalent to America's Netflix and Chill or Korea's Wanna Eat Ramen?. Vee is asking Mark if he would like to YouTube and Lube. Vee is asking Mark if he wants to have sex! That is missed in the translation.

Big Dragon had this issue with different translations on different streaming platforms in regards to this scene:

Some platforms translated Yai as saying "You're a pain in the ass, really" while others used "You're a pain in the ass, literally." It's a small change, but Mangkorn smiles afterwards because he gets what Yai is saying and is a literal pain in the ass. Yai had to visit a doctor after their first sexual encounter because Mangkorn was so rough it caused Yai pain...in his ass, and they just had sex again.

Language is a cultural tool, so although it incorporates a lot of implied knowledge, it's subtle. If the audience is missing the cultural context, an entire narrative can be easily missed.

This is also the case with intonation aka the rise in pitch when speaking or emphasis on a particular word - Why is this here? vs. Why is this here? - One is asking why this specific item is outside instead of another item, while the second asks why that specific item is outside instead of another location. If we don't know the language, it's hard to decipher when the intonation causes a change in meaning.

So the next time you are watching a series in another language and think the dialogue is lacking, understand it's probably because you don't speak the language. Sometimes the substance is lost in translation.

It's okay, but ask questions, do some research, and try to learn, so the next time someone asks if you want ramen, you can smile and say enthusiastically "YES!"

EDIT - Adding more links from others that show examples:

Extraordinary Attorney Woo - The cat's butler scene

My Engineer - Cool Kid Nickname

English in KinnPorsche as deception

#portrait of a lady on fire #ghost host ghost house #together with me #love mechanics #big dragon #semantic error #lost in translation #words mean things #language is a cultural tool #so sometimes we are missing context #translators are doing the Lord's work #but sometimes we need annotations #I want to know every language #and every cultural reference #I want to be in the know of inside jokes #I want to understand everything all at once and all the time

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luchia13 · 9 months

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I've been watching qsmp and it's amazing how much Spanish is coming back to me, I end up forgetting to put subtitles on and still usually know what's being said! I even know some basic words in Portuguese now too, like "fofo" and "obrigado" and "Richas bota o armadura". I'm having a ROUGH time with following French tho so thank fuck for the live translator.

It's awesome to watch actual adults communicate in multiple languages and work together and be friends and make such a cool riveting story!!!

#qsmp #I'm not gonna talk about it much but! is fun.#and I watched one of etoiles's museum tour streams and it AMAZING #I'm into it for story but god i was THINKING in Spanish a couple days ago #and that's exciting

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porcupine-girl · 2 days

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Guess what!

Remember how I said back here that I'm in the middle of a project to edit down Our Song episodes, fix the subtitles, and add annotations?

Well, I'm starting to post them! I've got Ep 1 up now and Ep 2 I need to adjust a few translations but then it's ready. Ep 3 and 4 I've got rough drafts of. The rest of the season (12 episodes in total) will take a while, since I haven't started editing them yet.

I also have help with translation now!! @artknifeandglue offered translation from Chinese in @fandomtrumpshate and will be doing song translations for me - since I'm mostly done with the first few episodes he'll just be doing some spot-checking of things I wasn't sure on, but beyond that he'll be doing full translations of many of the songs!

I'm hosting the videos on GDrive, because they'd probably get taken down from YouTube for copyright violation, and I also have copies of the annotations in docs in the same drive.

But! I am also posting the annotations - with links to the videos - on AO3!

So if you're actually interested, you can subscribe so you're notified when I post a new episode!

I'll post here, too, of course.

Below the cut I'm tagging everyone who expressed interest before - please let me know here if you'd like me to keep tagging you when I post future episodes (even if you're not tagged here, let me know if you want to be added!)

@json-derulo @poetry-protest-pornography @emmajanereading @percy-persephone @nuttysaladtree @thelima-aka-chickwriter @writergamermom @oneringtorulethem @trickybonmot @lovebird17 @erza155hasleftthebuilding

#our song #我们的歌 #da zhangwei #joker xue #liu yuning #wang sulong #chuina lisha #penny tai #george lam #hu xia #cpop

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aminifanartist · 8 months

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Hetalia Musicals

I have recently been watching the Hetalia musicals, I found recordings of the first 4, the third one (the new world) only had Chinese subtitles so, (with the help of Google translate), I made a very rough subtitle file for it which I thought I would post here just in case anyone is interested.

Here is the link for it, please don't re-post elsewhere, thanks

Edit:

I have also made a subtitle file for Hetalia the World is Wonderful and added it to the folder. Again it's very rough but you get the general idea of what's happening

#Hetalia #hetalia fandom #hetamyu #hetalia musical #subtitles

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triangle-strategy-notes · 5 months

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Cordelia Concept Art

Cordelia concept/reference art. Translation notes and image id below the cut.

Translation Notes

The word for "sash" on this page was literally "obi," the type of sash a woman would tie around a kimono. "Obi" is a valid English word, so I went back and forth between what to use, but since her dress isn't technically a kimono + the sash isn't tied in the style an obi usually would be, I decided to go with the more catch-all term.

"White as snow" was a word that literally just meant "white," but the first character and the word in general had some connotations with innocence/purity, so I added "as snow" to try and give that same connotation.

"Simple" as it refers to the fastener might have also meant "casual."

"Once upon a time" wasn't exactly the Japanese phrase for "Once upon a time," but it was fairly close. A more literal translation would be, "In the olden days, it just so happened that..."

"Girl of innocence" appears to literally be the word "witch". However, if you take the first character as a separate prefix to the second, it would mean something along the lines of "pure/genuine/true girl." I'm not really sure if that's how it works, but it seemed to make more sense than "witch," so that's what I ended up going with.

Image IDs

[id: Five images. The first two are the full pages of Cordelia's concept art in Japanese, the other three are translated versions of the text. On the first page, there is a colored and uncolored version of Cordelia's portrait. Underneath, there is an illustrator's note that reads, "Cordelia's overall tone is pale, so I thought it ended up being pretty difficult to choose a shading color. And actually, her initial facial features were much younger, but Mr. Ikushima redesigned her several times to give her the elegant look she has today. (Rina Yoshiura)". The second page is titled, "Morality's Sister (Healing Hands to Protect) Rough Draft". It has a small illustration/comic of a childhood Cordelia and Roland. It has the notes "Country A," "13 year old," and "girl of innocence." It then has a note that says, "I have to protect," with a large bracket beside it that contains the list, "small, dainty, gentle". There is also the word "pure" nearby. Underneath that is the illustration, titled, "Sister and Morality" with the subtitle "about 8 years ago". In the illustration Roland seems to be throwing a caterpillar-like bug aside. It's labeled, "Weird Bug Arm Bar Throw." Roland has some dialogue that reads, "I've for real gotta catch it!" Cordelia has some dialogue that reads, "huh?" Underneath them both, there's a note that reads, "Once upon a time, a warm fuzzy feeling made him think, 'I have to protect her!'" To the side there are several portraits of Cordelia, some full-body (one of which has a note about her braid being brought in front of her shoulder), and two that are labeled as "Bust portraits". One of the portraits shows Cordelia in a simple cloak with the fastener being labeled, "simple metal fastener." There's a top-down diagram of the metal she wears at her dress's neckline, labeled, "Decoration rough draft." On the second half of the page there is a portion labeled, "Working out the sister's hair ornament….." One version has a large flower on it. Next to it is a small portrait of Groma. A note reads, "Big flower, three strand braid. Doesn't she look like Grandma?" Another section is labeled, "Morality Facial Features and Morality's Sister WIP". There are several drawings of Cordelia's face, along with a full body rendition of an alternate design. She still wears the same sash as she does in canon, and nearby is the note, "For women. If they are wearing a dress, the sash should be wrapped like this." At the bottom of the page, there is another illustrator's note that reads, "She had this more child-like sort of look to her character during the drafting phase. But she ended up taking on a more serious role than I had originally expected, and the design was tweaked to fit. I recall she was a difficult character for us. (Yasuaki Arai)" /end id.]

#triangle strategy #triangle strategy artbook #ts artbook character ref sheets #cordelia glenbrook #roland glenbrook #that weird bug comic was one of the first things I translated! kinda fun coming back to it again #and this page was just fun in general #cordelia's such a cool character. I would play a whole game of just cordelia #sometimes I wonder how exactly she ended up being the character that she ended up being #bc it seemed like she was originally supposed to be younger + just serve as roland's main personal motivation for taking back whiteholm #but then someone must have looked at her and said okay but consider! we could have her try and stage a coup #and I want to give that writer a high five you know??????

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skamenglishsubs · 1 year

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Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 2, Episode 3

When Jan-Olof called August at the end of episode 2, he said August was supposed to be at the castle next Tuesday, which is when this episode ends. So we're probably picking up this episode in the weekend before that maybe?

Culture: August calls his not favourite step-dad to get some legal advice to prepare for being summoned by the Queen. But if you listen to the Swedish dialogue, Rickard keeps repeating a word - grovt - while listing the possible crimes. The subtitles struggle with this, and the word normally means coarse or thick or rough, but in the context of Swedish criminal law, it means grave, egregious, or worse than normal, and it means that if convicted, the punishment should be from the upper end of the scale.

Subtext: Wilhelm is trying some self-help for his anxiety, but it's not going too well. Baby steps!

Subtext: It's no coincidence that the "injured party" is in the image while August's step-dad mentions it, and that's of course the problem for August. If he confesses or gets dragged into court, he's got an uphill battle, fighting the royal court and their lawyers, which his step-dad might not be up for.

Subtext: Wilhelm demanded distance from his bodyguards, the Queen said she couldn't do that, but what do you know, apparently it wasn't impossible for them to back off a bit.

Subtext: This is somewhat of a theme for this episode, but also for the series as a whole. Wilhelm talked Simon into cheating to get into the rowing team, for purely selfish reasons, and because it's second nature to him. But he'll never get punished for cheating, it's always someone else who will. Simon knows what's up.

Lost in translation: My subtitles skipped this word completely, but isterband is a kind of pork sausage. I'm not a fan, so I completely understand Felice here!

Subtext: Despite Jan-Olof being set up as kind of a villain, opposing Wilhelm all the way, at the end of the day he is employed by the royal family, and Wilhelm does outrank him and can order him around.

Culture: I live in Hawaii, so imagine my surprise when I went to Sweden in 2019 and suddenly noticed tons of places selling poke bowls of all things, when no-one would have known what that even was a year earlier. Sweden has this funny ability to take a trend from zero to a hundred seemingly overnight, leading to over-establishment and people burning out on trends as quickly as they appeared.

Subtext: Simon knows that cheating doesn't work, so he has enlisted Rosh to help him out with his workout in preparation for the competition, while Wilhelm is having a lazy "room-service" dinner with Felice.

Subtext: To be fair to Simon, Wilhelm has been manipulating things in order to stay close to him, and not the other way around.

Subtext: I'm gonna headcanon things a bit about Marcus here, but this is my take on it: Since they went to the same school, I think Marcus knew who Simon was, knew that he had come out as gay, and has been secretly crushing on him since. Marcus is probably really in love with Simon, and so caught up in finally going out with his crush that he isn't exactly picking up on the fact that Simon isn't on the same level.

Subtext: Simon is wearing a purple hoodie which means he's thinking about Wilhelm according to our popular colour theory. And he's wondering why he can't fall in love with Marcus? It's a complete mystery!

Subtext: The only times Simon has reached out to Marcus has been when he's feeling hurt by Wilhelm. But right here he realizes that he actually likes Wilhelm more, which is why he ignores Marcus.

Subtext: Everyone has been encouraging Wilhelm to talk about his feelings, so this is a start, he's finally found a friend he can talk to. Ironically, he's trying to let go, just as Simon realizes he shouldn't move on.

Subtext: Ah, Nils, never change! Boris isn't like the other teachers and staff at school, he doesn't fit in with the upper classes, which is why he's got this nickname. For all his derision though, it doesn't stop Nils from seeing him.

Culture: Nils shows contempt for the concept with his air quotes, but hbtqi-certifiering is a real thing offered by RFSL, Sweden's oldest and largest gay rights organization. For a psychologist to have that certification, it just means they're equipped to deal with the unique mental health problems queer people face.

Subtext: In his own way, Boris actually does answer the question without answering it, hinting that Erik also had problems with the role of being the crown prince and the weight of that responsibility.

Subtext: He's not wrong, though. The more money and power and fame you have, the more people will want to get close to you and use you and potentially blackmail you and leech off of you. There is a legit reason for the secrecy and privacy among the upper class.

Blink and you miss it: He's talking about Erik while touching the watch he wears as a memory of him.

Subtext: This old question again, "Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" I'd say he's lying to himself here, it hurts right now, but he is better off for it.

Culture: The authors are four very well-known Swedish authors from the turn of the century, these books are classics, and every high school student in Sweden will have read some works by these authors, if not these specific books.

First up is Den Allvarsamma Leken by Hjalmar Söderberg, which is about a couple who met while young, couldn't get together, but stay in love over many years and relationships. Obvious parallels to Wilhelm and Simon's situation. This novel has been made into a movie several times, and the 2016 version was directed by none other than Pernilla August.

The second book is Kris by Karin Boye, and as the characters explain, it is an autobiographic novel about a lesbian love story hampered by tradition, because being gay in the 1930's wasn't exactly kosher.

The third book is Herr Arnes Penningar by literature Nobel prize laureate Selma Lagerlöf, which is about a murder-arson-robbery gone wrong. I certainly hope it's not meant to parallel our story! Selma used to be on the Swedish 20-krona bills introduced in the 90's, but design was replaced in 2015 to feature another author, Astrid Lindgren.

Edit: Thank you @emberc and @richtearex for finding out the title of the fourth book!

I can't make out the title of the fourth book, but the author is The fourth book is Getting Married by the internationally most well-known Swedish author and playwright August Strindberg. Many of his works are about challenging tradition and social rules, and he was seen as very controversial during his lifetime. The book is a collection of short stories about different kinds of marriage, including same-sex ones, which was extremely controversial when it was published in the 1880's. Again, obvious parallels to the show itself.

Subtext: If you haven't picked up the super duper obvious parallels between the novel and this story by now, I have completely failed in teaching you how to pick up subtext, and you are as completely clueless as Henry, who completely misses the point of the novel!

Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm really doesn't like speaking in public.

Subtext: Given how clueless Henry is, he's probably also completely missing the tension between Simon and Wilhelm, and he's that guy in a group project, always escaping responsibility. But him bailing to get coffee actually allows our boys to have a talk.

Subtext: Earlier, Simon chided Wilhelm for not being able to talk about his feelings, and now Wilhelm flips it and criticizes Simon for his lack of honesty.

Subtext: Simon starts reactively texting Marcus about meeting up to break up. But this time it's a reaction because he's slowly realizing he doesn't want to move on from Wilhelm. In the end though he changes his mind and doesn't send the text.

Subtext: Obviously, Sara is trying to sabotage the horse sale. Unfortunately for her, everyone else realizes what she's doing and is pretty much ignoring her.

Subtext: Simon did not fool the music teacher, she immediately realized that the song was actually about Wilhelm, but gives him suggestions on how to salvage it into a proper school song.

Subtext: Wilhelm's plan of replacing August backfires some more, Vincent is his usual douchy self, and Wilhelm realizes he can't control him like he could with August.

Subtext: First Brutus, now Judas. August really sees Vincent as the ultimate traitor.

Subtext: I think Marcus is getting an undeserved amount of shit in the fandom, because up until this point he's been nothing but good. He's actually getting his heart broken here by Simon, because he thought he really had a chance with him.

Subtext: Marcus says he is willing to wait for Simon to be ready for a relationship, which is the exact same thing Simon broke up with Wilhelm about, because he was not willing to wait for Wilhelm to be ready.

Subtext: He lied, like a liar. Wilhelm is 100% the reason Simon wants to call it off with Marcus at this point.

Subtext: But from this point on, I agree with the rest of you, this is manipulative behaviour from Marcus' side and not ok! He is clearly getting ahead of himself and wanting to salvage this relationship by any means, because in his head it's this beautiful thing that was meant to be.

Subtext: August is definitely sending some mixed signals here, he says he just wants to talk, so why is he lounging around half-naked waiting for her? However, it's also the case that Sara is the only person he can talk to about the sex tape at this point.

Subtext: Everyone has been telling Sara that August is the worst person in the world, using those exact words, and here he is saying it himself. But because he does that, Sara thinks he's self-aware enough to change and to redeem himself for what he did, which is why she's encouraging him to turn himself in.

Subtext: Except Sara felt like everyone hated her at Marieberg because she was bullied, which was absolutely not her fault, whereas August's situation is totally his own damn fault.

Subtext: I'm not sure exactly how to interpret this sequence, but I have some ideas. In season 1, we saw August being an extremely selfish lover with Felice, but here he's offering to go down on Sara for her sake, so that's a nice change. There's also a parallel to Wilhelm going down on Simon, making this a mirror to that scene. Or Sara is just nervous about having sex for the first time and not ready for oral sex?

Subtext: She lied, like a liar, clearly super happy about having had sex for the first time.

Subtext: Of course the horoscope matches her situation perfectly...

Subtext: ...it's just that the jealousy drama is not her own, it's Simon and Wilhelm's drama.

Subtext: Felice thinks she's talking about Rosseau, Sara is obviously talking about August. Or both.

Culture: I described the house system back in season 1, so it's nice to see it fleshed out a bit more in this season. The inter-house rivalry is strongly encouraged by the school, and here we see Sprucewood hyping themselves up before their Quidditch match against Slytherin indoor rowing match against Forest Ridge.

Subtext: Yeah, no, that kiss clearly crossed the line, it's not what Simon wanted. But Wilhelm saw it, thinking Simon lied about him and Marcus not being together, oh shit, oh no.

Subtext: Remember the talk about cheating and who gets the blame? Of course Vincent blames Simon for it, instead of Wilhelm, even though it's actually Wilhelm's fault Skogsbacken lost.

Subtext: So Simon quits the team, which means he's gonna get lower grades, getting unfairly punished yet again. And Wilhelm's plan for staying close to Simon backfired even more.

Blink and you miss it: Aww, Wilhelm keeps a small photo album labelled "Simon" on his phone, with a bunch of private photos of them.

Cinematography: If you listen carefully, the quality of the music changes noticeably in the cut, because the show does a diegetic switch between us hearing the music come out of Emo Wilhelm's earbuds, and it being a general soundtrack. It's also a very pretty montage of Angsty Teenager Being Angsty.

Culture: In season 1 there were only some distant shots of the royal castle, but this time we're getting a beautiful close-up of it. In real life, we're looking at Stora Sundby, which is Sweden's largest non-royal castle.

Subtext: You should all have read my previous piece laying out my thoughts on this entire plot, but note that the Queen only mentions Wilhelm quitting because he can't handle the pressure, she says nothing of the issues of being in a same-sex relationship or not having an heir, so she should at least get credit for that. Also note that this is specifically what Wilhelm's outburst in episode 1 was about.

Subtext: The show continues to paint the Queen in a good light, further separating her wishes from that of the nefarious System that forces her to do this.

Lost in translation: In Swedish, she doesn't say August is next in the line of succession, she says he's closest in the line of succession, which isn't the same thing, so the original is explaining this plot point slightly better than the subtitles.

Cinematography: This entire cursed scene is a mirror of the one in s1e4, which starts by Wilhelm asking Simon to hold him.

Cinematography: It's also physically mirrored, because Wilhelm and Felice are on the opposite bed on the opposite side in his bedroom.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 2

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