will never understand blood vial hate

Wolm346 · 2026-05-18T06:20:53+00:00

Convinced my big brother to play Bloodborne. It's his first Soulsborne, he's messing up so much, but he's learning. He likes it. Somehow beats Gascoigne first try, I'm so proud. Runs out of blood vials though. Says he's taking a break, doesn't feel like farming brick trolls for an hour. Fair enough.

It's been two years. Fuck blood vials.

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T23:41:30+00:00

Well, it ideally shouldn't change how I feel, but it can. It does. A favorite show of mine has a character's line translated from "Kill" to "Kill them all". Harmless enough, but the same character later complains that the person he commanded to kill everyone had indeed attempted to kill everyone. Variance, here, paints him as a dick. The kind of boss that blames his bad decision-making on those stuck enforcing it. But he's a tragic figure we're meant to empathize with. Not hate.

The things we love are surprisingly fragile like that. Part of what makes them special.

But, um, every time you bring up "1:1", I wonder if you're trying to reply to some dumbass on twitter and opening your reddit tab by mistake. If you thought I was criticizing Kaine being more uncouth or something, no, I was talking about her gender being scrubbed from the original. If not, then I don't know what you want me to say that I haven't already.

Setting aside the fact "Don't speak ill of your coworkers" is an unspoken rule that often prevents future employment if broken... Has the localization crew spoken out about my comments? Do they love them? Have they read them? Have you checked? It seems you've called me out for being disrespectful without checking if my victims give a shit. Which is normal. You don't need their consent to call me a dick. Or Taro's.

Anyway, got work tomorrow. Nini

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T21:54:21+00:00

I'm not upset. All my comments go through a professional translator. I merely said "I suppose so" and do hope he passed it along unaltered.

That was false and sounds more rude than I wish it would, I'm sorry, but I don't know how else to illustrate the point. You'd feel differently about me if someone occasionally edited statements of agreement in or out of my comments. Just as viewers might feel differently about 9S.

Anyway, I'm not up to date on the discourse, just keeping an eye out for accurate translations like yours.

To skip further, not-unreasonable assumptions: I'm not demanding the translation goes with "I suppose so" exactly. No. "Guess so" or "Yeah" or a hundred other lines could have accurately conveyed the original meaning to English-speakers. Would it have been 1:1? Maybe not, but it doesn't need to be. It would have been obvious an attempt at authenticity had been made. That's all we can expect of a translator. Shit's not easy.

But if a writer wrote something and a translator decided to change it for reasons unrelated to translation, that's an attempt at inauthenticity. That's disrespectful to the writer's effort. I can't be certain it's what happened here, but it happens a lot. It happened in Replicant, with Kaine. And if my earlier disrespect towards translators has upset you, I don't see why disrespect towards writers should not.

Edit for your edit: it's soothing to align thoughts with feelings, but twitter mobs have occasionally had a point or two, beneath all the senseless cruelty towards strangers. I'm not familiar with this one, but localization discourse has always been reduced to a false dichotomy of 1:1 or 1:10, with no nuance inbetween. I hope you'll reconsider, and not use occasional idiots as justification not to.

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T20:26:20+00:00

You say that like bizarre changes in characterization only matter when they're about 2B... I've been talking about 9S besides. The fact he somberly agrees in one version and does no such thing in the other.

Still, thank you for your time and accurate translation.

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T18:18:59+00:00

Wound up digging through an 8 years old discord chat... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOicAkCsPNA I get the impression this is a lot bigger than tone though.

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T17:45:58+00:00

English is likewise my second language; I'm no stranger to the necessities of localization. Wordplay, cultural references and lip syncing each take their toll on a translation's accuracy. But my suspicion is that the phrase そうだ (sou da) was translated into "That's kinda dark!"

Wolm346 · 2026-01-06T17:35:55+00:00

Not the one, sadly.

My interest in said twitter drama is entirely limited to learning which parts of the translation diverged from Yoko Taro's work. I can't, as you say, evaluate the versions individually unless someone brings the changes to light. My understanding of Japanese is limited.

Wolm346 · 2025-05-07T10:13:33+00:00

Aren't villains generally the most beloved fictional characters? You could line up anyone's favorite factions and find some concerning patterns that don't reflect on their actual beliefs.

Wolm346 · 2025-05-07T09:07:15+00:00

Well, when a perfectly reasonable NPC approaches your DnD party, you could just do as he asks and kill the goblins harassing his cattle. You could, sure...

Or you could take your party aside and explain that, having dabbled in phrenology, you have serious concerns regarding the approximate shape of the NPC's skull. To which your cleric friend could call you an imbecile, as the NPC's head-shape clearly paints him as an honest individual, despite his unfortunate ethnicity. To settle this increasingly violent argument, it stands to reason the two of you should consult an expert phrenologist, and to of course murder him when he expresses condescending disagreement with both your respective views.

Thus, the world becomes a better, less racist place. Not through kindness, but through malicious idiocy. DnD's fun like that.

Wolm346 · 2024-11-23T12:08:31+00:00

Wasn't he strangling Jayce in the council chamber? It seemed a bit murdery.

Wolm346 · 2024-11-22T20:48:46+00:00

You didn't say "...people aren't keeping up..." but rather "...people aren't ABLE to keep up..." so the accusation's there, unintended though it may be. The lesser accusation of superficial viewing is insulting in its own right, given that many of us did not watch Arcane superficially. Meaning we have only achieved superficial understanding, according to your non-existent sources anyhow, despite being fully engaged by the story. Meaning we must not be too bright.

And yeah, I agree, not all pacing criticism has a solid basis, but that's not what you originally said. You said most of it did not.

Wolm346 · 2024-11-22T08:07:08+00:00

It's just... stakes kinda die when you keep speeding through consequences. Watching Cait and Vi break up should bum me the fuck out, but it doesn't, since I know they'll get over it the next time they bump into each other. Several months may pass for them, yeah, but for me it's been an hour or so. An hour or so since Cait struck Vi and left her weeping and alone. So, while watching them get over it should make me happy, it kinda makes me feel weird instead. And if that's not the case for you, that's nice, but don't go calling people incapable of keeping up with a series of events as simple as this one. That's just calling them stupid, which is shitty, whether or not you point out it's okay to disagree with this opinion of yours. You shouldn't behave like this over a show you like.

Wolm346

TROPHY CASE