you've heard of faithful translations now get ready for unfaithful translations where i'm constantly cheating on the text i'm translating with another text that i find more interesting
Because in ancient China they grouped everything like snakes and insects into 虫 without it really meaning "insect" but rather a garbage can term for anything not mammal, bird, or fish. So this has carried on through many other words, such as 爬虫類.
That's why you can write octopus (たこ) as 蛸 with the 虫 radical.
Some more info: https://bestiary.japanesewithanime.com/animals/mushi
all pegasusknight links are NOJ originals. all serenesforest links are NOA localizations. the literal translations are mine. ‼️ may contain spoilers ‼️ ネタバレ注意 ‼️
as i learned with fe9, the localization team for tellius had a TON of their own ideas and put them to amazing use in these scripts. so i'm recording the ones i enjoyed! and there are UNTOLD micaiah and sothe shenanigans in part 1, i definitely didn't catch them all. let's get into it!!
chapter 4 clear: yune
pegasusknight + literal translation:
1 [サザ] まったく、世話のやける鳥だな。
2 [ミカヤ] …あ、…何か…聞こえる……
1 [sothe] good grief, that bird is a handful.
2 [micaiah] ...oh, i hear something...
serenesforest:
Sothe: “You and that bird. It’s…a little strange.”
Micaiah: “You’re just jealous. Wait, I hear something.”
a LOT of the additions in part 1 have to do with micaiah and sothe's relationship. there a lot of little comments added like these, where one or both of them express either their attachment for the other or the other's attachment for them. most of these additions are humorous or even teasing in tone, which i think is such a lovely, sympathetic detail!
in this case, it's interesting that the localizers both changed the focus and tenor of sothe's comment ("that bird" > "you and that bird" + "handful" > "a little strange") AND added micaiah's retort to match. i absolutely love this little interaction.
chapter 4 clear: nailah and rafiel
pegasusknight + literal translation:
1 [ラフィエル] そして…あなたたちに出逢い、
2 何より嬉しい知らせを得ることができました。
3 父上と…弟妹たちが生きている…の…だと。
4 ……女神に…感謝いたします……
5 感謝… っ…
6 [ニケ] ラフィエル、やたらに泣くな。
7 身体にさわるぞ。
8 [ラフィエル] …っみませ… っ…
1 [rafiel] and then...we met all of you,
2 and i received the happiest news.
3 that my father...and my little siblings...are alive.
4 ...i give thanks...to the goddess...
5 ...i give thanks...sniff...
6 [nailah] rafiel, don't cry so excessively.
7 it's bad for your health.
8 [rafiel] ...my apologies...sniff...
serenesforest:
Rafiel: “Your news brings such joy! Father…Reyson…Leanne… My beloved family… My thanks to thee, O goddess… Ah…”
Nailah: “Rafiel… You talk too much. Control yourself. You, beorc… What’s the best route to Gallia?”
i'm obsessed with rafi and nailah. we've got two concurrent changes here: the change to nailah's dialogue and the removal of rafiel's response. i think it's really interesting that the localizers changed the substance of lines 6-7 here without changing the tone or underlying meaning. "don't cry so excessively" becomes "you talk too much," where only the action has changed (cry > talk). the essence of the remark is exactly the same: stop making so much noise. and then "it's bad for your health" becomes "control yourself," where again, the essential meaning is the same: don't let your body act without you. nailah clearly values strong presence of self, so in my opinion, these remarks are meant to be read as chastising but not demeaning. she is caring for rafiel in the best way she knows how, which is, trying to help him be "stronger" (more like her!). she isn't unsympathetic, she's just assertive. removing rafiel's response also conveys that same feeling, that she sort of talks right past it because we need to get down to business.
chapter 4 clear: ike
pegasusknight + literal translation:
1 [ミカヤ] クリミア解放を果たした英雄、 アイク将軍…
2 その人が率いる
3 グレイル傭兵団……
1 [micaiah] the hero of the crimean liberation, general ike...
3 and the greil mercenaries
2 whom he commands...
serenesforest:
Micaiah: “Right. Lord Ike, hero of the Crimean Liberation, leader of the Greil Mercenaries, and father of Sothe’s children…”
i CACKLED when i first saw this. obviously this comment is completely invented (i don't think this joke exists in japanese), and it goes so well with the localizers' micaiah, who does not check herself with sothe the way she does with everyone else. she's very smart, very polite, very serious--and also very quick on the draw!!
chapter 5 base
pegasusknight + literal translation
1 [ニケ] …そうか、また
2 砂漠へ向かうのだな？
3 [ミカヤ] はい。
4 [ラフィエル] ……女王よ…
5 [ニケ] うむ、わかっている。
1 [nailah] ...that's right, you're going back
2 to the desert, aren't you?
3 [micaiah] yes.
4 [rafiel] ……my queen...
5 [nailah] yes, i know.
serenesforest:
Nailah: So, you’re returning to the desert?
Micaiah: Yes, we must go back.
Rafiel: My dear…
Nailah: Yes, Rafiel, I know.
gah i love this one!! in the japanese, it's clear that rafiel and nailah are very close because rafiel is very honest with her and isn't afraid to speak directly to her or speak his mind--BUT he still uses formal, respectful, and deferential language, because she is the queen. her being the queen is a totally separate issue to his love for her. because this is very hard to replicate in english (no respectful or deferential registers!), the localizers decided to change rafi's diction ever so slightly while still keeping his polite, soft demeanor. so we get things like this wonderful, subtle "my dear" in place of "my queen" (or "your majesty," or similar). i especially love this considering he's the heron most forthcoming with their emotions! (can you imagine reyson calling anyone "my dear"???)
chapter 6 base
pegasusknight + literal translation:
1 [サザ] 受け取らないほうが
2 よかったか？
3 [ミカヤ] ううん……
4 そうじゃないんだけど。
5 ………………
6 [サザ] …………
1,2 [sothe] should i not have accepted it?
3 [micaiah] no……
4 that's not it.
5 ………………
6 [sothe] …………
serenesforest:
Sothe: You didn’t want me to take the money, did you?
Micaiah: It’s not that. It’s just… Oh, never mind.
Sothe: Oh, come on. What did I do this time? You’re not going to say? Great. In that case, let’s get out of here and go find the others.
translated literally, this is an absolute nothing of a conversation (two whole lines of silence!), and the localizers clearly knew it, because they gave both of them more to say. micaiah has a much clearer dismissal of sothe's concern, and sothe has this wonderful, petulant, entirely invented final line. i especially love the cheeky "you're not going to say?", which is both a comment on micaiah keeping secrets and on the localizers declining to judge her for it! chef kiss!
chapter 7 clear
pegasusknight + literal translation:
1 [イズカ] それでどうなのだ？
2 彼らに参加の意志はあるのか！？
3 [サザ] それは……本人たちに
4 聞いてみないことにはわからない。
5 首領格のトパックは気のいい奴だから…
6 こちらがそう望めば
7 手を貸してくれるだろうが。
1 [izuka] so, what will it be?
2 do they have what it takes to fight?!
3,4 [sothe] uh...we won't know unless you ask them.
5 but their leader, tormod, is a good guy, so
6 if we want them to help,
7 they probably will.
serenesforest:
Izuka: “Any such backlash can be extinguished with proper punishment. But laguz… They’re powerful! (And expendable…) Just what we need. By all means, invite them to join!”
Sothe: “They’re good friends. I’m sure they’ll agree to help if I ask (you mumbling creep).”
if you know japanese, i actually recommend you go and read this entire scene in japanese and then in english, because it's totally rearranged! we could talk for an hour about what's going on in this localization, but i especially wanted to point out these very funny asides by izuka and sothe. it's another instance of the localizers essentially waving their hands in your face and saying "hi!!! isn't this fun!!!" by making izuka's ulterior motives explicit (as far as dramatic irony goes), they open up the avenue for sothe's responding joke. sothe just thinks he's joking about how izuka is weird and untrustworthy, but WE (localizers and audience) know he's inadvertently referencing the plot of both games. these localizations really show you how translator omniscience can be put to so many different uses!
anyway, that's all i've got for now...stay tuned for the part 2 post, which will probably be shorter, since part 2 is quite short (and quite serious). as always, feel free to comment or message with questions! また次でね〜
[fire emblem support convo translation series] fe9 path of radiance: ike & reyson (b)
as always, i’m using pegasusknight as my source for the original japanese scripts and fireemblemwiki as my source for proper nouns, images, and other info. ‼️ may contain spoilers ‼️ ネタバレ注意 ‼️
7 [reyson] ...yes.
8 i've found if i fly up high enough,
9 i can get away from the negative energy, to an extent.
10 that's what i was doing just now--the currents are soothing.
11 a single battle won't kill me.
31,32 [reyson] ...well, the time i punched duke tanas,
33 he got a nosebleed,
34 and i got fractured knuckles.
35 [アイク] …………
35 [ike] …………
36 [リュシオン] …………
36 [reyson] …………
37 [アイク] 漢だな。
37 [ike] you don't like losing, huh.
38 [リュシオン] ああ、まあな。
38 [reyson] who does?
vocab, expressions, & grammar
侮辱（ぶじょく） = insult, affront, slight
ヒビが入る（はいる） = to crack, develop a fissure
漢（おとこ） = man among men, man's man
translation notes & questions
before we get into the actual words, i would like to draw everyone's attention to how much of this conversation is silence. there are so many ellipses! these two are practically having a staring contest!! every single time a new weird detail comes forward, they both pause to reevaluate what they're going to say and what they think of the other. these two have the kind of friendship where they could sit in the same room in silence for hours and someone would come in and say "what's the matter?" and they would be like "wym, we're having the time of our lives?"
15 「本当に、無理をさせてすまない」 - ike literally says, "truly, i'm sorry for forcing you" or otherwise making you force yourself or similar.
19 「あんた」 - here (and earlier), ike refers to reyson with a second-person pronoun, not by name or title. the pronoun he uses is a familiar version of one of the more neutral pronouns you could choose (though that's all heavily dependent on context). this could be considered a huge breach of propriety, but coming from ike, it's perfectly in character, since he makes a point of treating everyone equally. it also shows a measured amount of affection for reyson, especially in this line where ike admits he knows reyson well enough to know what will offend him.
19 「この類の気遣い」 - also in line 19, ike refers to his treatment of reyson as "this kind of consideration," where "consideration" (気遣い) can mean anything from concern by social contract to fear for your safety. because these few lines are basically humorous, i translated it as ike making a "fuss" over reyson.
22 「殴って黙らせている」 - reyson literally says he would have "made them shut up by punching them," which i think is funny. i didn't find a satisfactory way to capture that detail in the english.
37 「漢だな」 - this is (probably) humorous in tone, so i changed the english to make it closer to a joke. ike literally says, "you're quite the man, aren't you?", so this theme of manliness continues on from their c-support, where ike remarks that reyson is more manly than he first thought. i felt that the essence of this "quite the man" line is basically you have a lot of pride (thus why he hit tanas, refuses to be kept from fighting, etc.), so that's what i kept when i changed it.
38 「まあな」 - in response to ike's comment about being a man among men, reyson literally says, "yeah, i guess so," which in this context probably means, definitely, but proper princes show modesty. because i changed line 37, i also changed this line to match, but i kept the princes must show modesty essence of it.
[fire emblem support convo translation series] fe9 path of radiance: ike & reyson (c )
as i said in my last translation post, i just started playing fe10, so i'm cleaning up my leftover fe9 translations! as always, i’m using pegasusknight as my source for the original japanese scripts and fireemblemwiki as my source for proper nouns, images, and other info. ‼️ may contain spoilers ‼️ ネタバレ注意 ‼️
convo translation
1 [アイク] リュシオン。
1 [ike] reyson.
2 [リュシオン] アイクか。どうかしたのか？
2 [reyson] oh, ike. is something wrong?
3 [アイク] 様子を見に来ただけだ。
4 調子はどうだ？
3 [ike] no, i just came to see how you were doing.
4 are you well?
5 [リュシオン] 大丈夫だ。何も問題ない。
5 [reyson] yes, i'm fine. no issues.
6 [アイク] …問題ないっていうには
7 説得力のない顔色だけどな。
6 [ike] ...you say that,
7 but your complexion begs to differ.
8 [reyson] ...the heron clan is bound to positive energy.
10 i will not claim to be immune
9 to the effects of the negative forces smothering these battlefields.
11,12,13 but i am not going to push myself until i collapse. so let me stay and fight--please.
14 [ike] so long as you're watching yourself,
15 you won't hear me complain...
16,17 but is there at least some, i don't know, some--special food, or something, anything at all--
18 that we could get for you?
19 [reyson] your concern is enough.
20,21,22 actually, i thought to try that, too, once upon a time...i hated my body's weakness.
23,24 one day i decided to try all manner of things tibarn liked to eat--meat, fish, alcohol...
31 [reyson] i wanted to be like tibarn.
32 strong body, powerful wings...
33 if i had that,
34 i wouldn't need to rely on anyone else to get to begnion
35 and get my revenge.
36 every night i begged the goddess for strength.
37 but she didn't listen.
45 [reyson] ...fair.
46 though at the time, despair ruled me,
48 and i seriously
47 did not care what it would cost.
49 but...i'm glad i'm alive.
50 i lived, and leanne came back to me.
51 [アイク] リュシオン…あんたは、
52 思った以上に男らしいな。
51,52 [ike] ...you know, you're more like me than i thought.
53 [リュシオン] 精神力だけなら、
54 他にひけはとらないつもりだ。
53,54 [reyson] if you mean to say i'm a mule-headed fool, you can keep it to yourself.
捨て身（すてみ） = acting out of desperation, putting one's life on the line
精神力（せいしんりょく） = emotional strength, force of will
引け（ひけ）を取る（とる） = to be outdone (by), inferior (to)
translation notes & questions
of course, reyson is such a star in this conversation--he is so precise and does not shy from saying nasty truths (reminds you of someone else ike likes...), although in fact he doesn't shy from saying positive things, either, where relevant. but i absolutely adore ike here, ike who obviously can be impetuous and stupid but is actually a really good listener. i adore these two!!!
13 「頼む」 - as i've said elsewhere, reyson talks like a prince: he's precise, direct, and manages a beautiful holier-than-thou tone in weaker or stronger doses depending (more or less) on how pissed off he is. in this convo we get a perfect blend of reyson the prince and reyson the rescuee, and this line, "please," shows it so well. this word means i beg of you and can be twisted in a thousand more formal, more deferent turns of phrase, but here reyson essentially shoots it point-blank at ike like a bullet. reyson makes it very hard for anyone to back down from him. (in other words, he can be somewhat reckless...)
26 「生死の境をさまよった」 - reyson literally says he "wandered the border of life and death" for ten days. this is cool as fuck, but not very snappy, especially considering the tone (and syntax) of the convo thus far.
30 「捨て身な行為だな」 - i love this line. i love this line. ike is using such charged language (捨て身 literally means throwing one's body away, as in, an act of self-harm, even an action tantamount to suicide), but he's using it to make an observation. he isn't judging or moralizing or even sympathizing, he's just noticing. the beautiful だな at the end of this awful sentence is like a bandaid on a wound. ike knows he isn't saying anything reyson doesn't already know himself. the point is not actually suicide or recklessness, it's recognition of the crime against serenes and what that did to him. okay, damn, i'm wearing a hole in this soapbox!! jeez!!
35 「ニンゲンたちに復讐」 - in the japanese, reyson explicitly says he wanted to "get revenge on humans," but i kept it as an implication in the english.
37 「叶わなかった」 - reyson literally says his "prayer didn't come true," where the syntax doesn't include the goddess. i felt this line would be more painful in english if i gave the goddess an active role, so i changed it to "she didn't listen."
43-44 「直接...すまんだろう」 - ike walks this thought through very thoroughly in the japanese. he literally says, "you probably wouldn't get away with doing something that would directly hurt an opponent." the implication of "get away with" is that reyson would suffer some outsized consequence, like death.
47 「命と引き換えに」 - in the japanese, reyson is explicit that he wouldn't have cared even if he had to "exchange [his] life" to get revenge. as is typical of me, i left this as an implication in the english.
50 「生きていたからこそ」 - reyson literally says he "was able to see leanne again precisely because" he survived his despair. obviously this is a nice sentiment, but as always, i prefer something snappier, so i simplified the syntax heavily while trying to keep the link between his survival and leanne's with "came back to me."
52 「思った以上に男らしい」 - ike literally says reyson is "more man-like" than he thought, probably since he just expressed wanting to care for his sister/a younger female person and that is seen as a very noble, manly trait in this game (even naesala gets a piece of it eventually!). but i think ike's point here is that reyson is actually much more like ike than ike thought (ike who this whole game is protecting mist when they have no other family left, etc...). so i decided to make that part explicit, and the implicit part becomes that ike (or fe9) considers protecting your lessers a manly act. (this also provides the groundwork for the joke in ll. 53-54!)
53 「精神力だけなら」 - reyson literally says, "if you're just referring to my force of willpower [then yes, i am manly in that way]." (this is an awesome function of the particle なら, which implies a corollary of if X then Y, and if not X, then Y is moot.) because this is funny in japanese, i tried turning it into a proper joke in english! in line 52 in the english, i have ike realizing that he and reyson are rather alike, so naturally reyson should respond to this particular claim, and because reyson is very kiss-the-royal-hand, he should probably be mean about it. so i turned "force of willpower" (basically neutral) into "mule-headed fool" (definitely an insult). what turns this into a joke (and stops it from being genuinely unkind, in my opinion) is that reyson is simultaneously calling ike a stubborn ass and recognizing ike's point that the two of them are similar. in other words, he is acknowledging that he, too, is a stubborn ass. the joke is completed in the next line...!
54 「他にひけはとらないつもりだ」 - as a follow-up to the previous line, reyson literally says, "i don't intend to be outdone by you in any other regard [than force of willpower]." this is a very common sentiment in anime ("i won't lose!!" "don't underestimate me!!" etc.), but i personally feel it sounds silly in english, so i tend to work around it. the base sentiment behind these kinds of lines is usually i'm just as good as you are, which we can do a lot with. so! to complete the joke that started in line 53, i took this feeling of you're not better than me and attached it to the "mule-headed fool" bit, giving us "you can keep it to yourself." in sum, this joke, the icing on the ice-cool reyson cake, means something along the lines of sure, we're both stubborn asses, but i'm still a prince so watch your tone in both japanese and english. (i hope!!!)
i'll be honest, i started translating this support so long ago i don't think i've even read the b- and a-supports since then, so no promises on when those'll get translated. but boy do i love this one!! what a sledgehammer of a c-support!!
[fire emblem support convo translation series] fe9 path of radiance: oscar & kieran (a)
and at long last, the grand finale to this support line, requested by @umuulan-na! (sorry for the delay ;u;) as always, i’m using pegasusknight as my source for the original japanese scripts and fireemblemwiki as my source for proper nouns, images, and other info. ‼️ may contain spoilers ‼️ ネタバレ注意 ‼️
convo translation
1 [ケビン] オスカー！！
1 [kieran] oscar!!
2 [オスカー] やあ、また騎士団に戻れって話か？
2 [oscar] wait, let me guess--"come back to the knighthood"?
3 [kieran] but of course!
4 i am a knight of crimea--
5 it's my greatest pride!
6 to perform glorious acts of valor on the battlefield,
7 capture the people's hearts with a triumphant return,
8 and win the commendation of my liege lord--
9 and then when i make my name as a knight
10 it spreads throughout the land, known by all,
11 and i might even be awarded my own fief.
12,13 and above all else, i can protect our beloved crimea and its denizens!!
17 [kieran] by any metric, it's leagues better than
15 disappearing in a crowd of outlaws and
16 throwing yourself into meaningless battles one day after another.
18 so why?
19 what are you seeing that i'm not!
21,22 [kieran] i know better than anyone how capable you are.
23 we're star-crossed rivals, after all.
24 if you just say you'll come back,
25,26 i'll give such a stunning recommendation they'll have no choice but to take you back!
27 [oscar] thanks.
28 but i'm really not coming back.
30 ...the jobs i've worked since
29 since becoming a mercenary
31 have been the saddest of my life.
32 so many people die off-stage--
33 people who wouldn't be saved by belonging to a nation.
34 who's going to help them
35 if not their fellow exiles?
36 and anyway, i don't need glory.
38 i just need to
37 protect my family.
43 [oscar] perish the thought.
44,45 there are plenty of things only knights can do.
46 we're still partners, you know--
47 even standing at different poles,
48 we envision the same new world.
49 [kieran] ...you really believe that, huh.
50 then, fine--fine!
51 but just you wait--until a new day dawns on our reborn crimea,
52,53 tales of my noble deeds will ring across the continent!
54 and no matter where you are, or what you are, or whose banner you're under,
55 you're going to fucking hear about them.
56 [oscar] i had better.
57,58 how else will i know my prayers are working?
vocab, expressions, & grammar
誇り（ほこり）に思う = to take pride in, pride oneself on
賞賛（しょうさん） = praise, commendation
凱旋（がいせん） = triumphant return
賜る（たまわる） = to be granted, honored with; to bestow, confer
武運（ぶうん） = fortune in battle, fate as a warrior
translation notes & questions
this was actually pretty tough to translate, mostly because both of them are speaking in big paragraphs. because of structural differences between english and japanese, big paragraphs need many more intermediary steps (in my experience) before you (i) can translate them smoothly. but once i got going, i found lots of places to be creative!!
29-30 「傭兵団に...するうちに」 - oscar literally says, since joining the mercenary band, he has "put the sadness of the people at the forefront of [his] vision". my translation puts him into the role of recipient (i.e., of the sadness), but in the original he's looking right at the sadness on purpose.
32 「誰にも...いる」 - oscar literally says, "there are many people who die without anyone knowing about it."
35 「野の人間」 - oscar refers to the mercenary band here as "wild humans." metaphorically, this means humans with no allegiance, but the use of 野 does in fact bring to mind the image of wilderness or even wild animals. but at least in english, you have to be very sensitive when applying the word "wild" to people, so i went with the metaphorical meaning and translated this as "exiles".
37 「傭兵団という私の家族」 - oscar literally says he wants to protect "the mercenary band who are my family", as in, he considers all the mercenaries his family. this is clunky in english, and i liked creating ambiguity between his actual family who are in the mercenaries vs. the mercenaries as a whole.
41-42 「なぜだ...気がする」 - i embellished here big-time. kieran literally says, "why...? i feel like i've lost to you yet again!" in my opinion, he didn't really need to say this again, so i made it into a contrast between oscar being angelic (l. 40 "halo", or literally "bright" in the japanese) and kieran feeling inferior or laughable.
46 「お互いがんばろう」 - oscar literally says, "let's try our hardest together", but with the sense of mutually trying their best, as if they're doing it equally to one another or even for one another.
48 「目指す...はずだ」 - oscar literally says, "the ideals we're aiming for aren't different."
55 「オレの活躍が伝わるようにな」 - kieran literally says he will accomplish his deeds "in such a way that they will be conveyed" to oscar. the sense of "conveyed" here is natural conveyance, like word of mouth or passing into legend.
56 「君ならきっとできる」 - oscar literally says, "you of all people will surely be able to do that" (in reference to l. 55).
57-58 「この大陸...祈ってるよ」 - this line is actually a call-and-response to kieran's line 52, where he references the "continent." oscar literally says, "somewhere on this continent, i'll be praying for your luck in battle," the implication being, he'll be praying that kieran both gets glory and does not die. i liked this second part a lot, since oscar is usually quite calm and we don't get the sense that he worries about anything. so i translated these lines very loosely to show that no matter what, oscar still wants to know kieran is safe. (very much brings back the "protecting family" idea from l. 37, where we can tell he isn't just referring to his brothers!)
whew--i'm happy i finally finished this! and i'm particularly proud of the lines where i went off-script rather a lot (ll. 31-32, 40-42, and 56-58). it's great to have the official NOA translation, which is pretty to the letter, so i can get silly with it!! :)
anyways, thanks again to umuulan-na for (loosely) requesting this support line. i actually just started playing fe10, so get ready for more soon...!!
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