Disappointed that, in spite of using a more accurate translation in Chapter 2 of Crisis Core, EC has switched over to the original English localization for Chapter 3—in spite of having Japanese audio, meaning you can literally hear that the lines exchanged between Genesis and Sephiroth are NOT WHAT THE SUBTITLES SAY if you have THE MOST BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF JAPANESE.
「いい だろう」 (ii darou) is not "come and try." It has never been "come and try." In context, it's literally "that's good" or "that would be nice."
Let me clarify this, once more: in Japanese, Genesis says "I'll be a hero too," and Sephiroth responds "That would be nice."
This fucked up no-homo English localization has utterly ruined Western fandom's perception of these two since the game first came out, and the continued refusal to fix it is one of the most infuriating things to deal with. It makes Genesis seem petty, bitter, self-absorbed; it makes Sephiroth seem arrogant, sanctimonious, like the kind of person who viciously belittles his closest friends.
That's not who either of them are, particularly not with each other. Genesis didn't want to surpass Sephiroth, he wanted to be his equal. And Sephiroth wanted that too! Sephiroth wanted an equal as much as Genesis wanted to be able to stand at his side! Sephiroth was as supportive as Genesis was determined, and both had too much respect for one another not to give these matches of theirs everything they had. Genesis would never accept a victory that wasn't genuine, and Sephiroth would never belittle him by offering such a thing.
They were playing. They were supporting each other. They were having fun working toward a mutual goal because they love each other.
It's been over 15 years and the update dropped during PRIDE MONTH and English localizers STILL HAVE NOT FUCKING FIXED IT.
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Every time I see something along the lines of "Megatron was a slave because he was oppressed and forced to work in the mines, forced labour is slavery and oppression is slavery so what happened to Megatron was obviously slavery" a question mark pops up in my head and it's so fucking funny because. Social studies. History. Basic literary analysis skills.
Like I'm gonna be assuming whoever's in the 'Megatron was a slave' camp is talking about idw1 and tfp b/c those are the only two continuities that have Megatron coming from an oppressed background in depth. If it's idw1 then how could anyone miss the obvious communism reference in Megatron Origin? (Guaranteed it's a loose, twisted, villifying, Western-lensed, not-very-good reference, but point is that it's OBVIOUS and unmistakably RECOGNIZABLE.) Workers' revolt ring a bell? It's the first issue in the collection volumes so even if people run out of patience without finishing anything they should have been able to at least get through that before, y'know, making unfounded claims about canon. And the stuff I'm talking about should've been evident in the first chapter. Were the miners upset because they were forced to work in the mines? No, they were upset because the government was closing the mines and laying them off and replacing them with automation; they were upset because soon there would be no mines left for them to work and then they would starve.
'Slavery is forced labour' yeah but uh that's only one facet of it. Forced labour because of livelihood: 'I have to work here b/c it's the only job that's available to me and I have no means of obtaining the skills/licence/opportunity for a different job or bettering my circumstances, if I quit I'll have no income/food/shelter and starve out on the streets' is fundamentally different from forced labour due to state institution of ownership over people: 'I have to work here because I am the private property of the facility owner and am forbidden by law to leave or quit.'
Does anyone like, not see the difference between the two scenarios? Only the latter would be slavery since it has the defining characteristics of 1. legalization of the ownership of people and 2. restriction of liberty. In concurrence. The first scenario's just describing what every fucking exploited worker/peasant/wage-earning lowclass commoner in the world looks like, it's called proletarianism. It's a completely different class category in a completely different social structure that's in no way interchangeable or confusable with slavery unless you want to say that communist revolutions were done by slaves and every wage worker in the industrial revolution was a slave. why not go back further while at it and serfdom can be slavery feudalism is slavery indentureship corvee conscription are all slavery lmao way to rewrite history.
For the people who's only read MTMTE and nothing else there's even a specific scene in there that says this 🔽
This is talking about Rewind. The text literally gives us what used to be the equivalent in Cybertronian society and it's clearly not Megatron's class. And why was Rewind's class equated to slaves? Because they were considered disposable tools, not sentient people. The Ambus Test helped them get rights by proving their sentience as people, which further proves that they don't keep sentient people as slaves.
If it's TFP then did anyone notice that Megatron started as a miner but met Optimus as a gladiator? If he was so absolutely forced to work in the mines as a slave then how was he allowed to leave?
This is how Covenant of Primus describes Megatron going to work in the mines. It's "the only opening available to him". It doesn't say that he's assigned a master at birth and was legally obligated to go work in that opening on pain of punishment. Just implies that he'd be out of a job and income and would probably starve if he didn't. There's still an illusion of choice, of free will.
The closest thing Aligned had to slavery was the Quintession occupation era but the Covenant also spent a whole section talking about how it started out as a mutually beneficial relationship with the Quintessions presenting themselves as the more advanced race and Cybertronians eagerly accepting them as 'masters' (honourific term, not literal) in a pseudo colonizer-who-civilized-the-indigenous-barbarians-and-used-them-for-cheap-labour dynamic which got more and more exploitational as time went on until the Cybertronians had enough and drove them off. But even during the peak of occupation the Quintessions were still careful to give Cybertron the pretense of sovereignty. It was the Quintessions who introduced them to the electoral system and inaugurated the office of the Prime in the first place. The illusion of free will and equality was always there, despite everyone knowing otherwise.
Exodus is extremely clear in describing Cybertron as a birth-defined caste system with rigid hierarchy and little mobility. So that's exactly what it is. a caste system. Not a slave society. There's a reason they're different words, they're different concepts! I don't get why people would feel the need to replace one with the other, does slavery sound better? edgier? Is the purpose for making Megatron an ex-slave to have his backstory sound more tragic? to induce more sympathy? idc people are free to headcanon what they want but at least have the decency to refrain from framing it as canon and bashing other characters with it? Stuff like 'oh Optimus was so selfish/naive/entitled/stupid/insensitive/traitorous/opportunist/privileged to accept the prime title in front of Megatron the poor ex-slave' nevermind that Megatron had repeatedly expressed a desire for taking power through whatever cruel means necessary and was perfectly eager to become prime when he thought he was the one going to be chosen? Nevermind that the council offered up a chance for implementing all the social changes they wanted through legal means with the least amount of bloodshed and Megatron threw it all away b/c he didn't get to be in charge, by committing murder on the spot? Nevermind that 'Megatron the poor ex-slave' is a massive bigoted racist who looks down on Optimus' job and is disgusted by minicons and combiners and insecticons as well as being a devout believer of 'survival of the fittest and the rest don't deserve to live' -type social darwinism and a domestic terrorist happy to blow up factories full of his own caste members and places full of innocent people? Nevermind that Megatron and Optimus already had a deep rift between them because of Megatron betraying Optimus' trust by lying about his role in the bombings and Optimus already recognizing that their methods were never going to match up b/c of Megatron's disregard of innocent life and Megatron never really trusting Optimus anyway? As if making Megatron a slave somehow excuses all of that and pins all the blame on Optimus.
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Thinking about Izzy with hanahaki, coughing up flowers over Ed for like 25-30 years. Yeah it sucks but its not gonna kill him. Obviously keeps it a secret (From Ed at least, Fang and Ivan caught on but they don’t wanna get involved in All That so they keep it to themselves and help Izzy out when he gets bad spells. None of them mention it but Izzy is grateful, which makes it all the worse when they start palling around with the Revenge crew over Izzy :’Tc).
(Uh, readmore cause I didn’t expect this to get. Like. Huge. lmao)
Then Stede Fucking Bonnet comes along and things get worse as he watches Ed fall for Stede, even if he doesn’t really understand. Still, he manages. Gotta push through, Ed would expect nothing less.
And when Stede leaves and the Kraken happens Izzy goes through a good bit of hell. Ed is barely out the room after the toe incident before Izzy is hacking up so many flowers he thinks he might actually die this time. He doesn’t, though. Cleans himself up, puts his shaky legs to work. (And then Lucius finds out, doesn’t really matter who pulled him back on board, Izzy knows about it because none of them are subtle. He keeps the secret because. He’s really not sure. But Lucius is in the walls and he hears Izzy having a fit and now he knows. He wants to ask. Tries to, even, Izzy shuts him down and he’s not even angry when he does it. Just. Defeated. Lucius silently adds another thing to his ‘Things I’m Gonna Bitch At Blackbeard For Once He’s Not Crazy Anymore’ list.)
When Stede comes back its. Better. For a while. There’s a lot of hurt all around but everyone is alive and they’re (mostly) talking it through as a crew. Ed makes his apologies to the crew, even to Izzy. Stede makes his apologies as well. Izzy accepts that This Is His Life Now. Since Stede seems to actually want to learn now that he can’t just throw money at all his problems Izzy offers to actually teach him (instead of ‘teaching’ him like Ed does). He shows him the ropes (literally), gets him passable with a sword, keeps Ed focused when he’s teaching him navigation (not Izzy’s strong suit, he can manage if he needs to but Ed’s always been better at it). They actually find themselves getting along.
Izzy starts joining the crew during ‘story time’ (sometimes its stories, sometimes its other group activities, easier to just give it the one label). One night, after Stede finishes the story and everyone is heading to bed, he watches Stede and Ed head to their cabin. Sometimes they’ll ask him along for a night cap, not always though, and its. Fine. But. He watches them head off without him. The way they hold each other as they go, smiling, only eyes for each other.
He barely makes it to his room before he’s coughing up the most flowers he’s done since Ed fed him his toe. He, frustratedly, sets to work cleaning them up but. He actually stops to look at them. He stares. And stares and stares.
Two distinct types of flowers littler his floor. He tries to deny it but he understands immediately the implications. Fuck.
Still, Izzy is nothing if not the worlds most repressed trooper. He sticks it out. Or. Tries to. Its hard because Stede and Ed keep asking after him and seeking him out and talking and touching him and. Its just camaraderie he knows but. It makes him want. And he knows he can’t have that. He wouldn’t have a damn botanical garden in his chest if he could. Its starting to take its toll on him though. He can tell its getting bad because Stede and Ed are starting to worry about him. They don’t say it in so many words but he can see it in their eyes. Ed is more hesitant to go on raids, makes up some excuse about his knee playing up more than usual, but Izzy knows it because he can see how his hands shake even when at rest and he’s thinking about him slipping up in a fight. Stede’s plying him with herbal teas and feeding him several small meals throughout the day, he’s noticed Izzy can’t stomach much anymore, how he’s getting weaker by the day because of it.
He leaves after Lucius catches him having another fit. A bad one. He says he’s going to get the captains but Izzy begs him not to. ‘Not yet,’ he lies, ‘I’ll tell them myself but. Just. Give me some time.’ Lucius begrudgingly agrees, gives him two days. ‘And if you haven’t told them by then I’m going to do it myself and you can thank me later.’ Izzy leaves that night.
He shouldn’t be surprised, when he finds Calico Jack in some seedy bar at the nearest port he can reach, though he is. ‘Thought you were dead.’ He finds himself relieved he’s not, its nice to have a familiar face around if he’s gonna die here. (He knows he’s dying. Not immediately, he’s got more fight in him than that, but. Its coming on the horizon and he knows it. Like he knows a storm eventually follows a red dawn.)
Jack eyes him, calculating, never as drunk as he pretends to be. Izzy doesn’t know what he sees but he breaks into his usual grin and says, ‘Nah, still got - what is it - four? Four lives left. Take more than some crazy bird’s cursed cannon ball to take down Calico Jack, babydoll.’ If it were anybody else, Izzy would be bristling at the nickname, but he’s long since resigned himself to being called things like that from Jack. Jack loses his easy grin though and adds ‘You look a bit like death fuckin warmed over though, fuck happened to you?’ There’s genuine care in his tone and it reminds Izzy so much of Ed and Stede and, thank fuck Jack seems to notice because Izzy’s slapping a hand over his mouth and Jack is taking his arm and they barely make it to the shitty little room Jack’s occupying before the petals start spilling out. Jack holds him through the fit, its nice. Izzy almost regrets when its over because Jack sets him down on the bed and steps back, fixes him with a look he’s too exhausted to decipher. ‘Fuck.’ He says, eventually. ‘Think we’re gonna need a drink for this.’ The alcohol burns his tender throat but he knows Jack is gonna get him to talk anyway and its easier with the rum so he drinks. And he talks.
Jack doesn’t call him an idiot but its strongly implied. Izzy doesn’t know what he expects him to do, its not as if he chose this. He doesn’t call him an idiot though, instead he. Takes care of him? Its odd, he knows Jack isn’t as callous and heartless as he pretends to be, knows he’s actually got pretty good bedside manners in fact (There’d been a time before all the legend and everything after when they were all sailing together, they’d lost their medic during a raid and Jack stepped up. He was no doctor but he knew enough to keep everyone from dying til they go someone new. He also had a child and Izzy knew, for all that he was regularly absent from their life, he wasn’t an absent father. He knew how to care for people.), but it surprises him nonetheless to have it turned towards him. Like it matters to him that Izzy is as comfortable as he can be, given the circumstances.
Izzy manages to be up and around most days but they’re growing fewer. Lacking much better to do (he’s never been good at sitting idle) he follows Jack around when he can manage to get out of bed. On days where he can’t Jack still goes out, Izzy wonders why, he mostly just drinks and fucks around, its hardly as if he can’t do that here with Izzy. He supposes he must not make for very good company, sorry state he’s in. Still.
He’s more than a bit annoyed that it takes him hacking up even more flowers after Jack leaves one morning, with a ‘Be back sometime this evening Babydoll, I got something for you,’ to realize. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he rasps, staring down at the mound of three distinct types of petals. He’s so tired. He’ll clean it up later, promises himself he’ll be up before Jack gets back to clean them up.
He dreams of warm hands, fond smiles, soft touches, and tender voices and wakes coughing up more and more flowers. He can’t breathe. Tears sting his eyes, from the pain in his throat and his lungs, at the thought of being alone at the end like this. He spares a brief thought towards how Jack will react, coming back this evening to find him gone. Wonders how Stede would react. Edward. Still more flowers.
The door bursts open and Izzy doesn’t have the air or the energy to startle. Jack. Jack is there and he looks panicked. And there’s Stede behind him. And Edward. Somehow Izzy finds the air to let out a hysterical little laugh, it comes out more of a gasp. Must have died already, he thinks, how else could they all be here, as though his thoughts summoned them.
‘Izzy!’ He’s not sure which of them is calling him, his vision is starting to go spotty and his ears are ringing. Maybe none of them, maybe its a trick of his desperate, dying mind. There’s hands on him, warm and soft and. Instinct tells him to fight, he can’t see who’s touching him, he knows he needs to fight but. He’s so tired. He can’t see but he feels his eyes slip shut.
‘Izzy, I love you.’
Nothing.
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