#how to make a robot voice

[forgetful-nerd]

You know what would be such good angst material?

These two meeting.

[steakout-05]

i made some cute little wip chibi sprites of some vocaloid, utauloid and fanloid characters :)

the characters from left to right, top to bottom are: hatsune miku rin and len kagamine teto kasane momone momo zatsune miku akita neru shiteyanyo nakao/larval rin

[linabirb]

seeing synthv lite and flt covers brings me so much joy.. like wow.. i can make cool stuff even with the free voicebanks.. even if they sound more robotic than the full ones..

[ro-botany]

was randomly thinking about your frederick accent post and realized he says ‘milord’ over ‘my lord’ whereas some characters in awakening do distinctively say ‘my’ instead

Your mind, fevrith... You know I gotta investigate this properly. The academia brainworms are too strong. I script dove for u.

While Freddy's got the high score by a country mile, there are a lot of other characters that say "milord" across the game; Phila, Raimi, Validar once, Olivia, Cynthia once, unnamed soldiers... Cherche and Aversa use both "milord" and "my lord" at different times.

There's a whopping 11 "milords" from characters who are explicitly Ylissean commoners; most from Donnel, some from his mom, another from a random villager. But Maribelle, the most pretentious Ylissean noble of the cast, says "milord" a whopping 15 times between her supports with Chrom and Frederick.

"My lord" seems a lot rarer overall. Say'ri doesn't get a lot of chances to address people by the title of lord, but both times she does it's "my lord"; and as before, Aversa once and Cherche at least once.

BUT that's just in the written scripts. Do the voice lines hold any insight?

Frederick doesn't pronounce the "i" in "milord" much, he says it more like "m'lord"...

...But so does Maribelle. :|

...And so does Aversa...

...And Cordelia.

I haven't looked through All the voice lines because they aren't labelled and I don't have most non-supportable characters handy, but the closest I can find for the other option is Say'ri's very clearly enunciated "my lady".

My best Watsonian guess is that "milord" is an Archaenean thing, since we see Archaenean characters from all kinds of backgrounds using it, but by ratio, very little usage from Valmese characters. Not much of an indicator of class or even nationality within the continent, though.

My best Doylist guess is that the localization team, voice directors, and voice actors just didn't really think about this one too hard.

But hey, even if we can't use this as fuel for Country Boy Fred headcanons, it's interesting to think about. :D

[urleoo]

Why do you hate autotune so much?

I don’t hate it i just think it’s lazy

[mspaint-flower]

Wait I'm shocked??? There are people who don't know about Nurse Robot Type T??? Dude they sound fucking amazing I thought they were popular??

honestly unless you live in japan yeah. she's so CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED???? like you can just compare the amount of songs people make with her on youtube compared to nico nico douga or blibli and also if you try to search for anything on tumblr it's so. so barren. like so embarassingly barren no one knows about this thing

also especially before they uploaded their okusuri nonde neyou video on youtube they had very few views on their channel compared to japanese/chinese sites so yeah. a lot of western fans found out about her through that song (including me)

[vulturvolanss]

ngl as an autistic person I look at how ppl treat alhaitham and go yeah none of you would like him if he wasn’t hot. and it makes me sad. like at this point I wish he was a little weird looking or something so that people would just. leave him alone. not subtle constantly making him a robot in aus or treating him like he’s violent or cruel or any sort of mean when that’s just patently not true. y’all see a guy that doesn’t bother masking and says things like “I want everyone to live the lives they want to live” and say he’s a bastard

[greyias]

Me trying to focus on editing this video for work on four hours of sleep

[vairiance]

Absolutely hate how every time American dubs have to dub an ethnic nonwhite character, regardless of whether or not the actor they hire is white or not, they're always directed to just do either a) the most bland American normal speaking voice they could muster, or b) Fake British Accent.

Idk maybe it's just me but if the ancient ancestor warrior of the Gerudo pronounces her own tribes name the same way that my middle school substitute teacher who thought Mexico was in India would, it's kind of an immersion breaker.

[theraphos]

everything about this coin dialogue is incredible actually

[weedle-testaburger]

i feel like dub watching again, as you do. in case it's a hole in your life you were missing, the persian dub of the robot wars reboot calls razer 'raysher' and behemoth 'be-hee-mot' (which is somehow closer to the real pronounciation of 'behemoth' than the one the uk series always uses for it, 'beer-moth')

[farolero-posting]

Write Your Own Path Forward - chapter 3

Chapter summary:

We catch up with the current state of the world. Someone is questioning the existence of ghosts, someone is fighting sleep and someone is trying to solve a mystery.

Words: 2,095

Read chapter 1: On Tumblr / On AO3

(full chapter below the cut)

A robot can do any task given to it, with enough time and information at its disposal, and the Entity had plenty of both things. 

It wasn’t sure where to start this time, however. When it didn’t have a connection to rely on, there was no set course for where or what it should be focusing on. It had not been programmed with that possibility in mind. Or if it was, it couldn’t do it with ease

[I was also not programmed to be broken. I did this to myself], it remarked to itself, as it looked for lines that needed fixing.

[...] 

[Niko wouldn’t like me to say that…]

[The best I can do is fix myself, and that is all I can do.]

The World Machine’s attention was set in the Refuge. The center of this world. 

It worked at a slow pace, at first. The city was overwhelmingly big and detailed, and every corrupted element required a specific fix that would match the original content. It needed to find the specific corrupted bits, and reconstruct them into something that resembled what used to be in that place. It had an extensive database to pull from, which made the task arduous. Thankfully. usually some fragments of each element remained intact, and the surrounding information could give it the context needed to fill in the blanks,

There was a catwalk missing in the apartments to the south west of the city. Three poles on the ground level, by the computer repair shop. A set of stairs next to one of the schools. 

A robot guarding the path to the apartment buildings in one of the alleys between buildings. A robot standing in front of a drugstore. A robot lying next to one of the lanterns that had started leaking, depowered due to its missing parts. All of them required the same resources, and providing those was not a difficult task.

Would they notice the difference? The Entity hoped they didn’t. At the very least, every inch of them was created from what the World Machine had already stored, their parts could be copied and repurposed without issue.

It wondered if any ghost’s lingered inside those robots, too. 

.

.

Cedric walked inside his apartment, leaving the key next to the door, on a small table. 

“After all this time… We made it here.” He held the door as his siblings walked inside. 

Rue walked past the boy’s legs and climbed up to one of the free seats, curling up on it, while Prototype closed the door behind him and sat on the chair closest to the bookshelf. There were piles of blueprints in it, as well as a few books with clovers on the cover. Cedric took off his hat and left it on the hanger on the door, sighing in relief. His toolbox now weighed on him. He supposed he should drop it by the laboratories when he had more energy, but the only thing he currently looked forward to was getting some well deserved rest.

Tea would be nice as well. He turned his head towards the door, considering the idea.

“Cedric?”

“Yes, Rue?”

“You should sit down with us. You must be tired.” Rue leaned her head to her right, pointing towards the yellow sofa next to her. “Do you want to sleep or would you rather do something else first?”

The boy repressed a yawn, 

“I… think I would like some tea first.” He took off his goggles, blinking hard in an attempt to find strength. “I also… wanted to tell you about a conversation I had. At the office computer terminal.”

“It seems you tried it sooner than I anticipated,” Proto stated. “Did you succeed?”

“Yes, I did. I thought it wouldn’t work out at first, and I had to wait for quite some time, but I got a response.”

“Hold on, does this mean you managed to contact the World Machine?” Rue asked, perking up her ears. “That’s wonderful news. I’m quite impressed you managed to do it.”

“Thanks? According to my father, computers were its usual way of communicating, and that computer was used by Niko before, so I guessed this had a chance of working. These computers aren’t… powered by normal means, however.” —He yawned again—. “I’m just glad I managed to find a way around that issue.”

“And… how are they doing?” the fox inquired.

“I offered our help to the Entity. We didn’t speak for long, and I wasn’t asked to do anything else for the moment. They just said they needed to handle the remaining squares and focus on that. They did ask about you two, I said you were busy but willing to help too.”

“You can count on us for that.” Rue confirmed, while Proto nodded.

“We walked around the Refuge while you were working. We helped some of the evacuees from the cafe to get back to their apartments.” Proto walked to one of the shelves and inspected the contents. “It appears that the residents are adjusting quickly. The return of the sun has… increased the chances of this positive outcome, it is likely this state will continue, depending on a few other factors...” He grabbed a box with a faded label.

“We also saw a few people preparing to celebrate too. I guess it’s a relief to finally see the sun again. I sure like it myself.”

“M-hmmm” Cedric nodded along, his eyes tightly pressed as he did it. “This is good news, then.” He yawned. “I wish we could go watch that, but I’m… barely awake at the moment.” 

“Cedric, do you still want tea?” Proto’s head was directed at his brother, while his eye gazed at the door. “I can go to the communal space and make some. I assume you would like that.”

“I very much would, thank you. I should change my clothes while you go do that.”

The robot nodded, opening the door.

“I’m leaving too.” Rue leaped onto the floor, stepping out of the room.

“We’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the apartment, disappearing from sight.

The common dining rooms were down the hall, as the pair walked, Rue resumed the conversation.

“So, what do you think?” asked the fox. “About… the World Machine.”

“I cannot say for sure. What the Entity does now is its own choice. But I cannot predict what choices it will make. Cedric’s input is likely to result favorably for all of us.” 

They opened the door to find a mostly empty room, aside from one resident sleeping with an empty cup next to them.

“I personally think that things may take some time to settle for them… This was… abrupt. I think we all still see some of the scars,” Rue spoke, standing on one of the stools. “It needs time to process some things, but I stay hopeful.”

Prototype filled a kettle with water and leaves, and left it on one of the burners. “How do you think the other regions are doing? I didn’t get to see the Glen, but Cedric said the islands were full of anomalies.” 

“I… just saw the city streets, I think I know even less than you. The squares were very aggressive and the city is supposed to be better equipped to handle them. I think… the Glen still needs to recover. Not just from the squares, but also some of the flooding issues, though that’s been an issue for a long time. Maybe I could visit soon. I want to see a few people over there.”

Prototype nodded, while he took out one of the trays, setting a saucer and a teacup on it. “Rue, I think I should visit the Barrens.”

“I think that’s a good idea, but what’s your reasoning?”

“We don’t know how the anomalies spread around that region, besides the one station I was at. I also suspect it may be needed.”

“Does it have to do with the World Machine?”

“Kind of. I think the head engineer has reasons to… question the nature of the world. We are not sure how the Entity will handle that sort of information. They’re tamed and seem more stable but this instance could create some instability it may not be ready to handle yet.” 

The kettle whistled, cuing Prototype to take it out of the burner and pour a cup.

“You could talk to it, you know.” Rue tilted her head to the side, winking. “We all should, actually. We’re all that we have. It will probably seek us as time goes by.”

“Maybe.”

.

.

Many strange things had happened during the last few hours, and being abruptly sent back on the lookout point next to her home didn’t help to solve any of Silver’s questions.

Her best guess was that she was moved somewhere as the squares took over, and this same action was then repeated to bring her back to a safer location in the Barrens. The mechanism for such a process to occur was unknown, however. Her only clue was that the messiah had suggested the involvement of a machine “remembering” her code. 

A World Machine, they called it.

Her thoughts on the matter were fuzzy at best. Her first hand experience suggested the actions of a being, one who took her from the squares, restored her damage, and then let her go. One of the suggested solutions to this motivation was that the deity who guided Niko was responsible for moving Silver from the dark room back to the lookout point, but Niko’s words seemed to imply that their god was not the one causing such changes, so it meant it had to be something —someone— else. The World Machine was a term she had to look further into, in order to figure out how it fit into this thread of events, so she added it to her pending tasks. 

But that wasn’t the only odd part about the last hours. There were other bits of information that seemed out of place. Niko had carried a journal with a clover on the cover, just like the ones his friend used to write. The journal, however, was written in an indecipherable language, and had glowing yellow phosphor, which was a rare material. The child had stated seeing a drawing of the room, and upon sharing it with her, she noticed it was from a top-down perspective. 

Just like the video feeds in the observation terminals inside the mines. She doubted she could access the area in its current state, and she was not eager to test her luck inside just yet. There were bigger matters to attend to, for the moment.

She had arrived just in time to see the Sun lit up at the top of the Tower once again. The sun beams poured all over the barren land around her, and her visual sensors took a few moments to adjust to the shift in lighting. The metallic sand shone in a stronger shade of blue, with a few small faint blue sparks of phosphor. The buildings ahead of her cast a shadow behind them. casting a sharp silhouette over the ground. 

She had memories of the time before the sun was gone, though she couldn’t reproduce those images to compare, and so this experience was completely new to her.

It felt good.

She had said that the sun wouldn't fix everything, and perhaps that wasn’t necessarily wrong, but she was willing to believe that its presence would make any future attempts at solving those problems easier. They had a reliable source of energy for batteries, and means to store the light that reached them. It was likely that people would try to move back to the area to resume work on it, and make the repairs that were needed long ago. Of course, this was a long journey and she first needed to report back to the Refuge about what was left of the Barrens. Silver was in a clear area, but she had to check around to be certain.

As she walked around the area, she noticed the presence of distant squares. Of course that problem would not be solved as easily.

And then she noticed how a cluster of them faded away, clearing the entrance to a tool storage facility. The anomaly had never behaved in such a way. 

What was behind this development? She needed to investigate it along with everything else.

But… that could wait. She had work to do first.

And a bright day to light up the mood.