#i think it's more thematically consistent without the cape but also i want him to have smth from frostbite. so.

[saphushia]

i sat down intending to draw dcdp stuff and then spent like 2-3 hours scribbling older/king danny designs. woops lol

[tainbocuailnge]

Hey, sorry to send an ask without us knowing each other 😅

But I just saw you in the tags in the post about jrpg translations, saying that FF14 has better translations in other languages.

Can you talk more about that?😊

I played in English before and it was okay. I tried German too, but was a bit disappointed. So hearing you say that, I'm genuinely curious to hear more!

I've been replaying msq in german and wrapped up tsukuyomi just yesterday and it's insane the extent to which german is more thematically consistent and has stronger and more nuanced characterisation than english. i think the german script is more poetic too, despite english trying so much harder to sound flowery and important. I've been translating bits and pieces to my friends and I keep feeling like I'm presenting them with that botched jesus painting restoration because I just don't know how to convey how beautifully constructed some of these sentences are. the german translation team are genuinely very good writers.

as an example of what kind of differences we're dealing with here, and since it's what I finished most recently, in german from the start there's a lot more emphasis on how it was systematic mistreatment from the "good old" doma that lead yotsuyu to where she is, and that her cruelty is specifically retribution for the way doma has failed her (as opposed to english trying to frame it as in large part to satisfy her personal sadistic impulses). gosetsu is repeatedly shown to be sympathetic towards her for this even while she's actively trying to hurt and kill him (as opposed to english having him be sarcastically dismissive of her), which makes it make way more sense that he'd take tsuyu in his care later even without the "also she reminds him of his dead daughter" bit (that they do still tack on at the end but doesn't feel like a handwave excuse as much because of aforementioned consistent sympathy).

in english hien has several lines showing he's hostile to and wary of tsuyu and waiting for the right opportunity to kill her, but in german hien brings up killing tsuyu one (1) time and when gosetsu argues for her right to live hien agrees, and the difficulty in keeping her around is not his personal dislike but that it's hard to guarantee her safety when the doman people will want violent retribution in turn (in clear parallel to lyse trying to keep fordola from getting lynched without a fair trial). because german hien is not constantly talking about how he wishes he could just kill yotsuyu for her crimes, it doesn't read as pathetically incompetent of him to let her sneak out of the mansion multiple times because he was treating her as harmless citizen of doma instead of an enemy of the state (because german in general emphasises a lot that she SHOULD have had a place in doma), and her backstory is taken seriously as part of his motivation to create a better doma that she perhaps could've had a peaceful life in

there are many cases like this where german displays a nuance that english doesn't, and from very early on. in english arr cid ran away from the empire out of moral disagreements, in german it's clear that he also holds a complicated resentment over losing his father to project meteor and then his replacement father figure gaius to a similar mad search for power, something that in english doesn't come up until all the way in shadowbringers with bozja. in english castrum meridianum livia says she's going to kill you because gaius is hers, in german she's mad at you because you killed her friend mr cape westwind and is going to kill you before you can take gaius from her too.

in german heavensward thordan sounds much more convinced of his principles. when you defeat him in english he's horrified of how you could possibly overcome the amount of faith he's powered by, in german he's horrified that the future of ishgard will be thrown into chaos in the name of your pursuit of truth. gaius sounds more convinced of the ideals he spouts too, and it feels more plausible that he has people willing to die for him and his ideals. in german the similarities between nidhogg and estinien are clearer, and when nidhogg possesses him he insidiously frames it as an act of kindness.

in german, many random moments of misogyny in the english script outright don't exist. matoya doesn't make fun of alphinaud for looking like a girl. alphinaud isn't dismissive of alisaie in binding coils. most of the lines in english that insult or dismiss yotsuyu as an evil whore don't exist in german, and lines that weren't about her at all in english turn out to express sympathy towards her in german. in english hydaelyn had minfilia fuse with her by force, in german it was minfilia's idea. in english i was bothered by lyse being made head of the resistance because she sounds so unsure of what to do and think right until the end, in german she's full of conviction and clarity of purpose. I'm sincerely convinced the english team hates women.

because german doesn't go out of its way to sound like some kind of ancient wizard prophecy at every turn, several scenes which in english were confusing convey their information clearly in german (I'm particularly thinking about the minfilia anitower scene here). characters talk clearly and with a lot of personality that english fails to achieve because everyone has to speak faux old english. and because most characters talk like real people instead of ancient wizards in german it's extra cute that urianger does in fact talk like an ancient wizard.

as a more personal gripe, I have noticed several moments where the english script centers the warrior of light and their importance and struggles, while in german those scenes where about, like, the character the scene is about. german wol is still hydaelyn's favourite freak of nature and everyone loves them obviously, but as the example most fresh in my memory there's the scene in early post-stb where you visit fordola in her cell and she unwillingly looks into wol's past thanks to her fake echo. in english, she asks wol how they can bear all the suffering other people have put them through. in german, she asks how wol manages to stay sane when the echo makes you so deeply aware of the suffering of others. in the flashback of her past you see in that scene the german script also mentions that her face tattoo is an ala mhigan design, which makes it clearer than it was in english that she was specifically trying to rise the ranks of the imperial military as ala mhigan and makes her motivations more coherent - namely wanting to prove both the ala mhigans who hated her for being garlean and the garleans who hated her for being ala mhigan wrong by achieving success as both (and the power to lash out at both).

there have been very, very few moments where I actually thought the english script was better (shiva's trial lines and like, one line hien says at the steppe, that's it), and the vast majority of the time german is anywhere from about the same quality as english to just insanely better. the english script is so concerned with sounding cool and important that it becomes scared of letting characters be motivated by emotion. it's plagued by the kind of insincerity and insecurity that plagues so much of western media and leads to movie superheroes making fun of their own costumes. the english script will write one good line and then keep repeating that line ad nauseam and yet still fail to achieve the amount of internal thematic consistency the german script has, because english is relying on this handful of cool lines to carry its emotional core instead of actually letting the emotional core drive the characters. combined with the consistent pattern of dumbing down and/or vilifying female characters frankly I want to beat koji fox with hammers.

I'm actually very curious what about the german script disappointed you. the german voice acting is not good so if that's what turned you off I completely get it (I play with jp voices myself) but that's separate from the actual writing. these kind of things will ultimately always come down to personal preference so i won't judge but as you can tell from these several paragraphs i feel very strongly about the quality of the german script so I find it hard to imagine why you think that

[davidmann95]

Velvet's battle is a great choice, though I'll always have a special place in my heart for the fight against the Grimm Deathstalker and the Nevermore in Episode 8. That said, what do you think of the individual members of Team RWBY?

I decided to wait on this until I caught up on the series thus far, which I just finished doing the night before last in pretty much the only time in my life I’ve ever really properly binged anything other than comics, and…wow. I knew RWBY was a thing just as a matter of course from being on this site and Youtube, and from watching Death Battle, so I picked up some major beats by osmosis. But my main impression was that it was a charming pseudo-anime online thing of decent quality that unsurprisingly got heavier as it went along as such things tend to do, with extremely rad fights and music along the way; figured it’d be more than serviceable to watch while I was on the treadmill as a disposable distraction from the agony of propelling my wheezing, sweating, loathsome meat-scaffolding forward.

I did *not* expect it to eventually end up after growing pains a - while far from flawless - intensely engrossing story of all-consuming personal and generational pain and people who choose to love and do the right thing in defiance of that trauma and loss and hopelessness, where also occasionally a corgi gets fastball specialed at mechas. Though once it became clear that’s what it is, it pretty clearly sat at an intersection of a hell of a lot of my favorite things, especially when characters copped in-universe in both the main series and spinoff material that this is basically a superhero thing. My initial impressions re: the fights and music were on-point though.

I actually have quite a few thoughts on pretty much all the protagonists of note at this point (other than I suppose Oscar and Maria. Like them both though, and I do hope that nice boy’s brain somehow doesn’t dissolve into the blender of Ozpin’s subconscious), but I’ll just stick with the core four here as requested for now unless someone asks otherwise. Weiss is the simplest to get at the core of, I’d say: her arc is learning that fuck rich people, actually. She’s a seriously difficult character to get onboard for at first - especially if you’re watching those first episodes for the first time in 2019 - as the mean unconsciously racist rich girl who learns to be less mean and racist but still kinda mean. But after you’ve extensively seen the hideously toxic environment she grew up in, and fully understand her efforts to grow past the empty values it inculcated in her in favor of everything she was raised to think of herself as above, she becomes a hell of a figure to root for. Assuming RWBY is gonna go, say, a respectable 10 seasons given it was just renewed through 9, I could easily see the upcoming 7th be the climax of her arc with her return to Atlas and likely further reckoning with the consequences of her families’ actions beyond how they’ve hurt her personally.

Yang is also, in a certain abstract narrative sense, simple, in that she’s built around the very oldest trick in the book for characters whose main deal is ‘can punch better than absolutely anyone’: give them problems that cannot be solved by punching. Except in her case it’s less a material “well, this person is invulnerable to punching!” or “well, actually this other person can punch most best of all” issue blocking her path than “punching cannot solve depression, abandonment issues, questioning whether what she considers her purpose in life is one she’s truly pursuing for noble reasons or if she even has the resolve for it anymore after what’s happened to her, or PTSD”. Yet, while it may not be the kind that manifests in the form of punching people with a smirk and a bad pun anymore (much as she still definitely does that all the time) what ultimately drives her and defines her is still her strength: to move forward, to forgive, to let go, to do the right thing in spite of the risks. Which could easily come off as some unpleasant “you just have to get over your moping!” dismissal - there’s a bit with her dad that means it saddles riiiiight up to the edge of that - but there’s a weight to how her traumas remain a consistent factor in her life and have shaped her outlook even as her circumstances and day-to-day disposition improve that makes it feel thematically like it’s coming from a place of acknowledgment and endurance rather than denial, even if it’s not handled perfectly. Great to see her apparently recapturing some more of her joie de vivre based on the trailer for Volume 7, and how that’ll interact with how she’s grown should be interesting.

Blake is…tough, because you fundamentally cannot talk about Blake without getting into the Faunus, which is maybe the biggest aspect of RWBY that leaves it in the realm of Problematic Fave. It really, really wants to have something substantial to say about the proper response to racism, and every now and then it pumps out a “capitalism greases the wheels of systemic oppression and vice-versa” or “it’s perfectly reasonable for the oppressed to seek to fight back directly against their oppressors, and even the pacifist in the room can recognize that’s a defensible approach that deserves its place”. But then Abusive Boyfriend Magneto literally murders nuance in Vol. 5 episode 2, and it descends into some borderline “but what about black on black violence” respectability politics shit. It’s the classic X-Men setup - this persecuted race of often superpowered folks torn between pacifism and efforts to prove themselves to their oppressors, and those who think they should rise up and annihilate the flatscans - with most of the same pitfalls, but also we haven’t had over 50 years to get used to that just being how it works here, and it doesn’t have the excuse of having to expand as best it can on a metaphor that was originally devised before most of the people currently handling it were born. All of which would be rough enough, but given I watched this right as Jonathan Hickman’s been completely refining the entire X-Men paradigm outside that outdated binary, it especially grates. I’d love to be directed to any solid counterarguments - I’ve heard it might actually be an analogue, and a well-done one, for The Troubles, which I am one million percent unqualified to evaluate - especially since apparently one of the writers grew up in a mixed-race household, and at the end of the day I’m a white guy who may well be talking completely out his ass. But it sure comes off at a glance as some well-intentioned dudes stumbling through stuff that’s not their business, and that’s inextricable from Blake’s character when so much of her story is her navigating through that metaphor. Hopefully with new writers coming onboard this is something that can be navigated more insightfully in the future.

On a purely personal basis however, Blake’s a standout in terms of relatability when her story comes down to a pretty universal shared horror: how to climb back from having fucked up. She tried really hard to do the right thing, was taken advantage of and led into doing things she eventually realized were wrong, was so shaken that she couldn’t tell who to trust, and then the situation spiraled out of control on every possible front just as things finally seemed to be stabilizing. The way a single mistake - enabled and exacerbated by an abusive past relationship in her case - expands into a self-loathing far beyond the bounds of anything she could possibly be responsible for is brutal and completely understandable, and seeing her start put her self-esteem back together with the help of those closest to her and the power of her original convictions is arguably the single strongest, most clearly conveyed individual character arc in the series. I’m very curious where it goes from here: Adam’s finish represents a logical climax and the setup for a happily-ever-after with Yang (or Sun if they end up going that way after all) for her to coast through the remainder of the series on, but the way emotional consequences have played out in the series thus far I doubt her demons are going to be put to bed that simply.

Finally there’s Ruby, and I am contractually obligated to note up front: she is clearly not a Superman analogue. There is precisely zero percent chance that she was conceived as such or was ever deliberately executed in such a way that mirroring him was kept in mind. Though she IS a super-powered idealist raised in the middle of nowhere with a significant deceased parent who wears a red cape, flies, gives inspiring rallying speeches, has black-ish but primary color-tinted hair, and has a mysterious birthright that involves being able to shoot lasers from her eyes, plus she has a dog who also essentially has superpowers, plus she tells someone they’re stronger than they think they are, plus Yang basically quotes a bit from Kingdom Come regarding her in Rest and Resolutions. But it probably goes a ways in explaining why she works so well for me.

There’s more to it than that of course, though it does bring up the closest way in which she relates to the superhero paradigm: she doesn’t go through an arc in quite the same way as the others, instead being an already solidly-defined character who is simply illustrated by how she interacts with the people and situations around her. She learns and grows and matures, but her most basic motivations and goals and outlook haven’t really changed since the day she enrolled at Beacon. She’s a good, caring person, a leader archetype who still has more than enough personality to spare to keep from falling into the genericism that can often plague that role. A big part of the key I believe is that she’s the audience surrogate in a profound way beyond the obvious touchstones of her frequent awkwardness and self-doubt: the reason she does this is because she was inspired by stories. She’s a fan, ultimately, but one who learned all the right lessons, whether recognizing from day one the way reality falls short of the tales she was raised on but still believing in the ideals they represent, or openly holding up Qrow as a role model while being willing to call him on his shit when push comes to shove. It’s a romantic, hopeful perspective that stands out sharply from even our other heroes even as it mirrors their struggles, but as of yet there’s little to suggest it comes from a place of naivete so much as a belief that it’s the only way to bear the pain of the world and continue to believe in it. Bit by bit it’s clear she’s heading for a breaking point, but all signs point to that being a matter of her ability to withstand what she’s been through, rather than any doubt that it’s necessary, and should that time come she’s inspired plenty who’ll be able to help her back onto her feet the way she has for so many others. So while I understand her speeches apparently grate on some, as far as I’m concerned keep them coming, they’re the beating caring heart of the series and often the sole respite in the eye in the storm.

[xavierfiles-blog]

Anatomy of an X-Team: The Template

There are a lot of models for how to assemble an ensemble cast.  Some of it is going to be dictated by the show’s concept and setting – Star Trek modeled its cast after the functions of a ship at sea (or space as the case may be): A captain, first officer, helm, security, medical, engineering. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is about a police precinct, so you’ve got a captain, sergeant, admin assistant, and a bunch of detectives. B99 is instructive here because you have a finite few jobs that need to be filled and an ambiguous pool of other characters. How many? How do you choose? The answer is going to lie in both the way you want the characters to interact with each other (group dynamic) and the types of stories that you want to tell.

Over the X-Men franchise’s long history, the size and membership of the rosters of the various teams has changed a lot. Sometimes a set of characters works very well, and others not. While there are a lot of contributing factors to whether a particular run is successful, the team roster is the foundation on which the stories that make up that run are built. They are the ingredients that the creative team uses to make their X-Men cake. I would argue that there is are seven necessary roles to be fulfilled in an X-Men (and X-Force, X-Factor, etc) team which give a creative team the tools they’ll need to tell solid X-Men stories.

I call these roles collectively as The Template – mostly because it seems to be the model that Marvel used in the 80s and 90s when expanding the X-Men franchise. They are: The Home Fires, The Team Leader, The Girlfriend, The Best Friend, The Heavy, The Innocent, and The Outsider. Together, they make up the essential structure of an X-Men team and allow the book to tell the types of stories we’ve come to associate with the franchise – stories of redeemed adversaries, outlandish adventures, and finding a family in a hostile world.

The Home Fires

This character usually stays at the team’s base of operations, working as a point of communication for the team as they go on their adventures. Professor X was probably the most notable example of this type of character, and while his role had a lot to do with holding the thematic “Dream of peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans” core of the books, that isn’t an essential part of the role. In fact, the function of this role is usually about technical and logistical support and spouting exposition for the benefit of both the team and the reader.  “Team, you have to go to the Canary Islands because there is a mutant in distress!” that sort of thing.

Often, this is an older character so in the team dynamic, they played a parental or mentorly role, dispensing wisdom along with moral guidance. This isn’t a requirement, though, and in some runs, this role is more like a dispatch operator.

Art by John Byrne, Terry Austin, Glynis Wein

The Team Leader

This character is the most classically heroic on the roster. The Boy Scout.  He (or sometimes she) does as it says on the tin – leads the team in the field, directing action in a fight, thinking strategically, always trying to do the right thing and the most good. The Team Leader is the team’s ethos in application, featuring in stories where that ethos is put to the test.

The Team Leader feels responsible for all the other members of the team and usually has a closer relationship to The Home Fires than the rest of the team, both because of the mentor\mentee dynamic and because the Team Leader’s feelings of responsibility for the team make him feel isolated. The Team Leader is often paired up with The Girlfriend and\or The Best Friend in order to alleviate that. Team Leaders without those relationships tend to come off as robotic, aloof, or off-putting which can cause a problem for the roster as the Team Leader is the face of the team to the readership.

Many times, The Team Leader is meant for the reader to project their aspirations onto. The Team Leader is who the reader feels they are (or who they could be) at their best.

Art by Andy Kubert, Matt Ryan, Joe Rosas

The Girlfriend

This character is most defined by their frequent emotional support and nurturing behavior. Like The Best Friend, The Girlfriend is often a supporting character in other character’s stories (with some famous exceptions), opening up isolated characters like Team Leaders or Outsiders or nurturing Best Friends or Innocents. This character is often female (the name comes from the most famous example: Jean Grey), but not always. As a matter of fact, Banshee often finds himself in this role.

The Girlfriend is often relegated to a supporting role, rarely getting the spotlight (with a few notable exceptions). And to be clear, not all romantic interest characters are The Girlfriend. Trish Tilby, for example, couldn’t claim this title. This is a role about supporting and nurturing the team, not just who a team member is dating.

Art by Stefano Caselli, Frank Martin

The Best Friend

This character is genial, charismatic, and typically lighthearted. But don’t be fooled, he’s ride or die and when the chips are down, he’s got your back.  This character is often a fan favorite.  Where most characters have their share of detractors, few fans can say an ill word against most Best Friend characters.  

Best Friends are usually featured in buddy-duo type stories, and give more isolated or closed-off characters a way to open up.  In many ways this character is the hetero-male counterpart to The Girlfriend, serving a similar function, but in a different context. Where the Girlfriend’s tone is soothing, The Best Friend is often more lighthearted.

Art by Larry Stroman, Al Milgrom, Glynis Oliver

The Heavy

Cape books are all about punching and astounding feats of strength and so they demand that there be one character to lift the heavy stuff, endure the unendurable, and to punch harder than anyone else can punch. Someone’s gotta carry that weight, and it’s usually The Heavy.

Because this character has very simple requirements, The Heavy also sees the widest variety in form and personality, from the gentle giant Colossus to the goofball Strong Guy, to the angry and revenge driven Warpath. The Heavy can also be the Team Leader as in the case of Captain Britain. If any character exemplifies how flexible The Template can be, it is The Heavy.

Art by Paul Smith, Bob Wiacek, Glynis Wein

The Innocent

If The Team Leader is the character that a reader is meant to aspire to be, The Innocent is the character the reader feels they are. The Innocent is meant to be a reader insert. This character is young and naive and emerging into adulthood with all the discoveries and pitfalls that entails. Sometimes The Innocent is a rescue, a victim given refuge or a stray orphan that the team has found (sometimes both!).

As well, this role gives the book the opportunity to plainly explain its themes as if it’s new information. The Innocent is a character who is constantly learning lessons, but ironically, is also the least flexible role in The Template – it takes a very long time for an Innocent to be allowed to grow into another role. X-Men stories often don’t use their regular Innocents, instead inventing brand new one-off characters to serve that role (for a lot of reasons).

However, The Innocent fits into the widest variety of stories, from the standard Marvel coming-of-age-super-powers-as-metaphor-for-entering-into-the-adult-world stuff, to supporting characters to remind Outsiders, Home Fires, and Team Leaders what they’re struggling for. They also play off of Heavies, Girlfriends, and Best Friends – letting them explain the team’s ethos and giving some lower stakes situations in which to play their own roles. Although many times The Innocent can be a cloying, cutesy, annoying tag-along, (or even a Mary Sue) The Innocent is critical in helping a book convey its central themes.

Art by Sam Keith

The Outsider

The Outsider is just that, an Outsider. He is a loner, a wild card. He is unfamiliar or even hostile to the group’s core values, the role is about revealing the themes of the story by way of contrast. The Outsider does something out of line which gives the Team Leader or Home Fires (or sometimes Best Friend or Girlfriend) a teachable moment. “Bishop, in the dark future you come from you might have killed suspected criminals, but that’s not how we do things here.” In this way, they share some purpose with Innocents.

But unlike Innocents, The Outsider is a more flexible position – a major part of their story is redemption and reconciliation into the group and that can only remain unfulfilled for so long before it either leads to conflict or fizzles out.  Rogue, for example, entered the team as an Outsider, but quickly integrated and transitioned into a Heavy, and even a Team Leader.  

Outsiders tend to be fan favorites – they’re often independent, roguish, and appeal to the id of the typically adolescent audience in a different way to Team Leader (superego) and Innocent (ego).

This role is often where an X-Men team is out of balance, either with too many because they’re often fan favorites and their loner streak gives some space for development into a solo series or too few instead relying on the antagonists to carry the weight of this role.

That’s the theory, anyway. It’s no panacea – no matter how closely the team roster adhered to The Template, it wouldn’t make The Draco a good idea. But I’d argue that the tightest, clearest, and most consistent runs on the various X-Men franchise books all had this team structure in common. And similarly, the roughest and most directionless runs are those that feature teams with vacancies in The Template or doubled-up on too many roles. Bear in mind, too, that this isn’t a rigid rule. These are tropes and can be as valuable when adhered to as when subverted.

Next time we’ll put the theory to the test by looking at some case studies where we’ll see how closely teams followed The Template, how those characters played off each other in their roles, and whether the stories told during that time were served by the team dynamic.

Anatomy of an X-Team: The Template was originally published on Xavier Files