#ITS WINNING TIIIIIIIIME

[yeetushaitus]

i will defend capcoms translation of aai2 to hell and back because ykw if it gets more eyes on this game then im all for it but theres just. ONE thing that gets me about the new translation dont know if i can explain this very well but whatever ill try

also HUGE HUGE spoilers for AAI2, PLEASE dont read if u havent played the full game

ok so. i was just listening to a steamer play the collection in the background and at the end of the 2nd convo w simeon in ch2 i heard this

and thn i backtracked and noticed that he kept calling knight by his first name

i was like "huh did he always do that? swear he called him by his last name in the fan translation" and turns out he does

the only reason i even remembered that was bc in the flashback convo in ch5 between knightley and simon, when simon calls him horace it REALLY stuck out because up until this point basically nobody has called knightley by his first name, not even his best friend

imo his own best friend calling him by his last name kind of foreshadows the emotional distance simon feels towards knightley and just. dude this was SO intentional

and in case youre wondering, simon calls knightley by his last name, 内藤(naitou), in the japanese version too until the goodbye part where he calls him マノスケ(manosuke)

usually manosuke is written out with kanji, but when he says it here its in katakana which is only used for loan words blah blah blah ok

if im wrong sue me but using katakana like this is either a sign of closeness, like how in japanese edgeworth calls kay ミクモくん(mikumo-kun) in katakana(also probabaly partly bc he doesnt speak formal japanese with like. anyone?? see this post) or emphasis like how capital letters are in english(obv its not a one to one comparison but whatever u get it)

my japanese isnt the best so. take this w a grain of salt BUT

basically. the use of katakana emphasizes his use of knightley's first name so this was TOTALLY an intentional thing(bc otherwise they wouldve just written it normally) that the localizers just i guess opted to ignore???? or maybe im just a crazy person whos watched like every lets play of this game ever and im reading too deep into it

tbf its a REALLY small detail in the grand scheme of things but with how carefully every detail that hints to simon's identity as the mastermind has been planted in this game, its kind of sad that a lot of players will miss out on this

ANYWAYS sorry it was 2am at the time of writing this and im so bad at explaining my feelings but. hopefully this made sense idk i dont write good but like im convinced this flashback and this line specifically is like at least half of the reason i love manosouta

[thebibliomancer]

Archaia’s Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance #4

The Quest for the Dual Glaive Part 4 of 4

The end of the first arc of the comic book prequel to the Netflix prequel!

In issue one, cool Young Ordon was sent on a quest to retrieve the legendary Dual Glaive to save the Stonewood from an Arathim swarm.

In issue two, he was reluctantly forced to accept Fara’s help after she kinda got him poisoned by an Arathim.

In issue three, Fara does all the cool things like persuading urLii the Storyteller to take them to the Glaive, bypassing all the traps, and saving Ordon when he gets caught. Ordon concedes that its good she came along.

The story picks back up with with Dual Glaive having been combined off-screen.

I get the symbolism, I do. I just don’t get why the Dual Glaive had to be in two parts if its never used separately. The test to retrieve it is set up for friendship but then its like ‘okay now one of you gets it.’

But even with the Glaive retrieved, there’s still the problem of getting back with it in time.

But Maudra Argot has an idea. But she’s coming.

Maudra Argot: “Where the Glaive goes, I go! It comes from Grottan Caves, after all, and as the Grottan clan maudra, all things within this domain are my business!”

urLii: “Except for urLii.”

Maudra Argot: “Except for urLii.”

They’re a good comedy duo too.

The shortcut back home is, as you might expect from the show, the Breath of Thra!

Well-known to the Grottan! Apparently less known to the other Gelfling.

Ordon, Fara, and Maudra Argot pop out of a tiny cave right on the periphery of Stone-in-the-Wood and find that the Arathim attack has already begun.

Gelfling are evacuating the village, things are on fire, there’s a few stabbed to death Arathim. All the classic signs of ‘barely in the nick of time.’

The dynamic duo and their cool old lady friend run into the Maudra’s Advisor who is running the evacuation. He tells Ordon that many of the Stonewood are still fighting and that another group has managed to get away to hide, including Ordon’s wife.

But Maudra Vala has been mortally wounded.

Fara gets to talk to her before Vala dies and she gets some deathbed affirmation.

Geez, poor Fara. Its a recipe for some survivor’s guilt.

Thankfully, Ordon has some affirmation of his own to give.

Ordon: “Fara... She was a valiant warrior, a compassionate leader, and a loving mother.”

Fara: “And now she’s gone... we couldn’t save her... I couldn’t save her.”

Ordon: “She died for our clan, to give them a chance. And she will rest well with Thra knowing she did her best. But our warriors, our village, they need a new light in these dark times. You are that light. When we win the battle, you will lead our clan. And I will follow.”

Accepting her new responsibility as Maudra, Fara takes up her mother’s sword.

So, when I read the first issue of this arc, I was wondering ‘wait why do we need the special legendary Dual Glaive to stop the Arathim? We have coolest guy Young Ordon’ but apparently the mashup monster version of the Ascendancy cannot be pierced by normal blades.

So after getting punked almost the entire previous issue, this looks like a job for Ordon and his sweet new sword.

The Ascendancy doesn’t think much of Ordon and sends some Arathim that would wear red if they wore shirts. Ordon makes short work of the Arathim, because he’s the coolest, but something weird happens.

The Dual Glaive absorbs goo from the wounded Arathim and they seem to crumble into dust.

The furious Ascendancy attacks Ordon and manages a few hits but Ordon makes short work of the final boss too, stabbing the Dual Glaive deep into the Ascendancy’s many-faced body.

Ordon: “You forget the power of the Stonewood clan! Like the stones we build upon, we are steadfast and strong. And we DO NOT YIELD!”

While the Dual Glaive absorbs the Ascendancy’s goo, Ordon tells the boss spider that the remaining Arathim army could do a lot of damage and even kill Ordon but not before Ordon kills the Ascendancy and not without suffering horrible losses as well.

The Ascendancy vows ‘Next time, Gadget! Next tiiiiiiiime!’ and defuses into various Arathim who scamper off.

So, that’s the Arathim Wars resolved!

Just leaves the fallout.

Ordon decides that the Dual Glaive and its power to drain the essence of living things is too dangerous for anyone to have.

... Not sure how he knows what the goo is. I wouldn’t think anyone would, yet.

Maudra Fara has the idea to give half to Maudra Argot to take back to the Caves of Grot and to shove the other half into the Crucible.

Ordon: “It will be put where none shall dare to look for it.”

*polite cough*

Maudra Fara offers to let Maudra Argot stay as long as she likes but she has her own maudra-ing to do. And she can’t leave urLii unattended for too long.

Maudra Vala’s sword is melted down in the Stonewood tradition and cast into a crown for Fara, in a really cool sequence.

And later, during the rebuilding, Ordon pulls Shoni aside and tells her what he learned from this whole adventure.

Ordon: “The Caves of Grot, the Dual Glaive... How without Fara, I may not have arrived home in time to save you. To save us all. And how even if I had, I would have failed if it weren’t for her help...”

Shoni: “A little help goes a long way, wouldn’t you say?”

Ordon: “It does. And I think, perhaps, we should see about adding another to our home to help us with our long life left ahead...”

And Shoni suggests the name Rian.

Shoni: “It’s an old Gelfling word that means ‘a little solution to a big problem.’”

Ordon: “That... sounds perfect.”

Awww!

Awwwwwwww!

So that was the Quest for the Dual Glaive!

I still think that this story happened too soon in the past for Rian to have never heard of the Dual Glaive. I could buy that he wouldn’t know where it was because Ordon didn’t want anyone to know that. You can still get a quest out of that.

Rian could have even taken the initiative like ‘this sword saved Stonewood’s bacon in the Arathim Wars and we need it again now!’

And I still don’t understand why the Dual Glaive does absorb essence, when the Scientist only accidentally discovered that the Dark Crystal could do it so why would the Heretic and Wanderer have intentionally created the Dual Glaive to do it?

Much more economically too! Scientist needs a lot more equipment to do it!

The Dual Glaive confuses me.

But the real treasure of a quest is the friends you made along the way.

I don’t really mind this comic arc’s focus on the Dual Glaive. Seeing these new sides to Ordon and Fara and meeting urLii is a much bigger draw for me!

Its nice, in a completionist way, to learn how Ordon came to jam a legendary sword into the sword graveyard. But having him grow into the idea of being a parent due to his quest is much nicer.

Since I completed the arc, I’m going to switch over to liveblogging the Shadows of the Dark Crystal YA novel for a bit. I’ve had it and its just been gathering dust.