#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

So, in the course of translating a whole bunch of secondary materials (guidebooks, cards), I was able to discern the following:

Tycoon is a fairly new country. Alexander Highwind was the third king. Which would make Lenna the fourth ruler once she takes the throne.

Alex’s predecessor, the second king, likely wasn’t related to him. There are no relationship/kinship markers whatsoever used between them; in comparison, the books have been happy to expound on the relationship between Alexander and Lenna. Sometimes at length. Alexander probably married into the family. 

The second king embarked on a war of expansion 50 years before the game--Basic Knowledge says he was a warmonger and that Alex’s reaction to that was to rule in peace. The 50 year marker is given by a NPC in Carwen, which suggests to me that the war of expansion went at least that far.

Related: the extra material about the Dragon Knights’ Association and how war was one of several reasons why the sky dragon population crashed so hard. May do a whole post about this later.

The second king abdicates (禅譲) to Alex sometime after the war, given that Alex would have been a child at the time. The wording for this is extremely specific, given that there are other words for abdication that don’t include the linked translation, and pretty much states that the abdication was done willingly. My thinking is, the second king was allowed to retain power after his war of expansion, but he was unable to keep Carwen.

My thought is that because of the second king’s war of expansion, Tule and Lix might actually be under Tycoon governance, rather than their own. This is supported by the statement in Basic Knowledge that protection of the Wind Crystal is the king of Tycoon’s responsibility, and the Wind Crystal is placed far from Tycoon castle.

This actually presents a fascinating conundrum for Lenna’s background. Tycoon’s founding is very recent, comparatively, and the war of expansion is still part of living memory. She will come into the crown knowing that Tycoon was built in blood. How is that going to clash with her being as kind and generous as she is? I’ve really been enjoying touching upon it for fanfic fodder.

Anyway, just some thoughts about these things I’ve been translating. I may end up posting my current batch of translations on Christmas Day, even though I’m pretty sure no one would actually care. 

#final fantasy v #final fantasy 5 #ffv #ff5 #lenna charlotte tycoon #there are bits about the Highwind clan in the cards #I love all this extra data #the bibliography is on the AO3 translations post #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

When work is slow (usually when I’m waiting for someone to get back to me), I pull out my phone and see what’s on discord sometimes. Most times the connection is so bad that it’s 1x at 0 bars. Or a big X next to the absence-of-bars. Sometimes it connects but I can’t respond because I’m old and can’t thumbtype quickly, and then conversation moves on so quickly that I can’t follow up. It’s a pain and makes me want to ramble about FFV, but I’m kinda afraid to because I ship something a lot of people hate. Maybe I’ll take it all to Dreamwidth, where maybe 2 active people still follow me, but at least I won’t stumble into someone frothing at the mouth at how dare I ship fictional characters in a way they don’t like.

Anyway, it was an interesting discussion in that my experience with FFV was... I played the original game with fan translations. Then I used the game to brush up on my Japanese. When the PSX localization came out and people ragged on me for my IRC ident (I still have Faris there and am not letting it go ever), I kinda dropped things because the PSX localization was terrible. And yes the GBA localization is great, but it’s still a localization. Jokes got added where there were none. The localization was written to appeal to a Western culture and sentiments. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but...

Eh, I’m gonna put the rest behind a cut because I don’t want fights and arguments over opinions, especially because I am not going to share yours because my familiarity with the Japanese text is not going to gel well with English-only audiences. Also, being a lifelong anthropology nerd (and being part native Mexican), I’m a bit horrified by how Western (let’s be real, primarily US/UK) fandom insists they know better than non-Western fandoms. Your imperialism is showing, y’all.

Lenna’s often treated as boring and/or annoying by Western fandoms who aren’t aware of her background, how she shifts between formal and informal based on her temper, and focus on Faris because of course, Faris is cool and awesome and a lot of people have internalized misogyny and like to latch onto not-like-other-girls types. Someone on discord said Lenna was too passive, which I find bewildering because all the trouble she usually gets into is because she’s impulsive and barges forth and falls into it face-first. I love that about her.

Goddamn but I want to write up a defense for Lenna and how she drives much of the story, and why she too defies Japanese gender norms as a character who was originally designed as a tomboy.

I get why people latch onto Faris and project their own identities on her. Which... is half her problem, honestly. She never says she’s a man, she acts like one because 海ぞくで、女じゃあバカにされるからな (”because among pirates, women are [treated as] stupid/fools”). Her entire performance as a man hinges on social expectations of how men are supposed to act. She actually does say she’s a woman, in Japanese ( 女だからってバカにすんなよ! {”Don’t treat me like a fool because I’m a woman!”}), but it gets lost in translation for something flippant. Additionally, she comes from a long tradition of both East Asian women crossdressing as men to access male privilege, the Takarazuka Review, please compare Lady Oscar to Amano!Faris, and Mary Read and Anne Bonny, both of whom crossdressed. This is not to dump on anyone who wants to claim that Faris is ___, but... she’s a Japanese character, made for Japanese audiences as a commentary on Japanese gender roles (and this is a whole trope in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese fiction), and Western sensibilities don’t really apply.

Also, gender noncomforming women, nonbinary women, and butch women exist. I should know. I’m butch with a very, very tenuous grasp of gender identity in general*. Really wish people wouldn’t throw us under a bus for their trans-but-still-binary rep :/

Also, there was talk about Gilgamesh today in that discord chat and I really wished I could have popped up and said he’s a loving parody of samurai ideals--his bios in the Japanese texts point out that he seems to come from a land that prizes bushido, and that colors his interactions with the gang.

I really do want to talk more about FFV, but fandom is so much more vicious than it used to be and I keep expecting to be attacked every time.

Oh well.

* I had fits when I was younger over... maybe I was a trans man? but then I sat and had many, many long discussions with myself and how patriarchal society (rural Mexican Catholicism + 1980s Texas) made me think being a woman was so terrible and tried to shoehorn me into a role that didn’t fit. And then I discovered the internet and “butch lesbian” seemed to fit me perfectly.

#ajora talks ff5 #warning: I will talk about gender in a way that doesn't fit modern buzzwords and the insistence on binaries #I am a student of human cultures and have seen many variations of gender expressions that don't fit Western binaries #but a Japanese media cannot and should not be expected to conform to Western sensibilities #I am going to regret this immensely

[ajora]

I ended up sinking just enough gems into the multidraws to get enough pity tokens to get my fave :).

The line in the first screenshot seems like a direct response to Gilgamesh’s “ファリス！　恋でもして　ちったあ　女らしくなりな“ (”Faris! If you fall in love, you’ll become more lady-like!”)

#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

I really miss drawing and writing, but I’ve been absolutely hammered with work--boss now wants me to take on essentially 3 other jobs in addition to my usual job, which is busy enough. Also I’m a Mexican lizard living in a frozen hellscape and can’t handle this cold at all.

Not that I expect English fandom would be interested in my art, given the only other 5 fans I seem to be able to interact with who don’t hate my ship are Japanese. Maybe I’ll just post any future art on pixiv/privatter/god I forget what that other one is. Write all my fan comics in Japanese first. At least once I’m confident enough in my writing-to-Japanese skills.

#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

Faris’ LD just dropped in global DFFOO. As I’d been following Japanese twitter users and expecting this, I saved up. Skipped other characters whose kit I wanted just for her.

The game was kind to me and just dumped her new LD weapon in my lap on the first free draw. Guess I’m gonna sink those gems in Butz and Galuf when their LDs come to global, instead ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Some comments:

Love that the game leaned hard on Dancer class for her. Gels well with her acrobatics in WoFF

Gladius is ugly, I’m keeping the Air Knife look for her.

Her LD board’s passives tosses out framed debuffs instantly at start of battle and it’s wonderful.

Relatedly, heh, Lenna’s LD, Yoichi’s Bow, finally dropped in Japanese DFFOO last month and it’s every bit as powerful as I hoped for. She uses !Mix, which has always been my favorite skill in FFV. Can’t wait to be useless in Lufenia for the rest of the year just to save up for it.

* Also I love how vaguely threatening her “おやすみ” (goodnight) is when she uses Dragon Breath.

#ajora talks ff5 #ajora plays dffoo #ff5 #ffv

[ajora]

Augh! The site I was using for the Japanese text for FFV went down! There are webarchive snapshot, at least. So, for my own reference:

Index

W1: Opening to the Wind Shrine

W1: Torna Canal to Tycoon scene 1

W1: Walse Castle to the desert

W1: Gohn to World 2

W1: Lix and Tycoon side bits

W2: Galuf to that whole sky dragon scene

W2: Ghido to ExDeath’s Castle

W3: Tycoon to world collapse

W3: Kuza Castle to final boss

Ending (first half)

Ending if one of the characters dies. This looks like code is broken somewhere.

GBA-specific text

Kinda tempted to ask a favor of that guy who ripped the WS games to see if he’s willing to rip the text out of the Japanese version of FFV.

#ajora talks ff5 #fic:dragondance #do I need to dust off my SFam rom again? I feel like I have to #I probably should anyway since this site didn't have any of the town npc text

[ajora]

More stuff to translate.

The cards are a gift, btw. Syldra’s history on the back of one is a delight.

#final fantasy v #final fantasy 5 #ffv #ff5 #I'm working on Alexander's bio from the kanzen guidebook and there's not much new but it's nice to see him anyway #Tycoon is a young country compared to the others--Alex is the 3rd king #collections #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

Translating for fic and...

[prison] [Cid blows wall] Cid: I give up. Gang: ?! Cid: Used the last of the blasting powder just to end up in another cell...? tohohoho... [actually translates to "boo hoo hoo", oh my god. up to this point he uses a lot of "の"s, which just sounds kinda whiny and self-recriminating] [Cid starts heading back to his cell] Cid: You! You just laughed! [party shakes heads] Cid: It's fine. I'm Cid. Lenna: Eeh! Cid? The one who made the Crystal power amplification devices? [all formality gone, she's just being a kind of plainspoken and sharp that isn't "like her", but at this point I honestly expect any Japanese players to be used to her dropping formality like this by now and it’s a major disappointment that her speech patterns just don’t translate that well to English] [Cid's gaze drops] Cid: ... Lenna: I'm sorry Cid: no, that's fine. It's all my fault, after all...

I really gotta write a defense of Lenna at some point.

#ajora talks ff5 #fic:dragondance

[ajora]

> Translate games for fic and to share tidbits inaccessible to fellow fans who don’t know Japanese > Translate materials such as cards and books relating to said games for the edification of fellow fans who don’t know Japanese > Hope eventually that enough translation work will improve my ability to talk to Japanese fandom, who don’t mind my ship > Wallow in a weird mix of delight over this one character English fandom tends to ignore and disappointment that not enough people realize how awesome she is and how she tends to barrel past princess' propriety for doing the right thing and falling into a degree of tactlessness that gets lost in translation.

Dear Lenna tries to be proper and polite, but get her worked up enough and she’ll drop it and I love her for it. 

#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

Loot! Pt 2.

The Kanzen set: Joukan volume has bios I can throw on the translation pile, and also offers explanations on the overall game system. Gekan volume goes more in-depth on the job system.

The Kouryaku book is a weird thing in that it’s... a workbook, basically. Comes with world map poster and a briefer on the story’s start, then blank fields on ability lists and monster details for the kid to fill out.

Premier book: Has some fantastic art donated by manga artists, bios I need to translate, and a run-down of the game up to Walse Tower from Butz’s point of view. Maybe I’ll translate that, too.

Scoop guide book: Has bios to translate, a briefer on the job and ability system, and I find it amusing always that some of the early books try to skirt the issue of Faris’ gender (”woman-like” and “beautiful leader of pirates”) to avoid spoilers and later books just outright say she’s a woman.

PSX guidebook: Has bios and more to translate. Uses stills from the FMVs for some illustrations. Has a walkthrough up to the last floor of the final dungeon.

Marukatsu Superfamicon magazine, vol 21: has a brief retelling of the opening I might translate. Also goes a little bit into the job system and monsters, and has a crossword puzzle. And has a few cute arts I haven’t seen before.

Bonus, from the SFam magazine:

#I collect 2 things: FF5 memorabilia and seashells #ffv #ff5 #collections #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

Loot!

My package from Japan finally came in after months in transit. This is just a bunch of things I bought over a couple of years but never had sent until now. Not shown: Books! Some of which I hadn’t seen on auction sites before or since.

Pewter Lenna was the prize I was angling for for years--when she came out, I couldn’t afford the... $400? price tag. But the cost became more affordable over the years and I got her for $60.

Technically I’m not as interested in Dissidia-related FFV stuff, but I do like pocket watches and Butz’s was cheap at about $15.

The little token things were for a promo for the GBA release in Japan. Haven’t seen it before or since.

The postcards are from a FFV GBA x Monthly Shounen Gangan Comics crossover. 

The notebook is just that: a notebook. But it has one of my favorite game-related arts so of course I had to get it.

The real surprise here was the card album. I got it cheap and expected it to be empty or nearly so. Instead, I found a nearly completed collection with two hologram cards (!!!). I managed to fill in some of the gaps with cards I collected 20 years ago, but I’m still missing four or five cards. I’ll be trying for the rest when I have money again. So...next year.

I’ll post the books later, when I can get better photos.

#I collect 2 things: FF5 memorabilia and seashells #can't afford to branch out #ffv #ff5 #collections #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

FFV timeline

Working document only, and just here because I’m in a teleconference. I’ll come back to it when I can consult my books again. Please note that this is off of memory, with some help from the Japanese text and the translations I did of the books up to when I paused due to burnout. KY means Kali Yuga era, given in Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals. BG means before game. As this corresponds with the rise of Lonka, it may be considered the Lonkan calendar. I’ll post it to my site after my site gets a much-needed redesign.

-200 KY / 1000 years before game - Enuo’s rise and fall. Crystals and world splits in two to contain the Void

0 KY / 800 BG - Lonka rises (books)

100 KY / 700 BG - Ghido born

300 KY / 500 BG - Evil spirits sealed in a tree manifest as Exdeath. Resealed by Ghido.

500 KY / 300 BG - Lonka falls (books)

750 KY / 50 BG - Previous King of Tycoon’s war of expansion (books/NPC in Carwen)

770 KY / 30 BG - Exdeath unsealed. Struck World 2, later resealed on World 1. Dorgan stays in W1

783 KY / 17 BG - Stella dies; Dorgan takes Butz to travel with him (books)

785 KY / 15 BG - Sarisa lost at sea/Faris found by pirates

793 KY / 7 BG - Lenna’s mother dies (books)

795 KY / 5 BG - Faris meets Syldra (books)

797 KY / 3 BG - Dorgan dies of illness. Butz meets Boco shortly afterwards. 

800 KY - Game start

1000 KY / 200 years after game -  Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals

Unspecified:

Since ancient times - Humans and sky dragons learned to bond with each other and live together. Rise of the Dragon Knights Association in “recent centuries”, using sky dragons for military purposes. The Association dissolved later, likely after the previous King Tycoon’s war. (books)

Several hundred years ago - Syldra’s kind slaughtered by humans; survivors retreated to deeper waters and were never seen again until Syldra decided to hassle the Inland Seas. (books, Syldra’s 1992 trading card)

Previous King Tycoon willingly abdicates throne in favor of a “virtuous” successor, Alexander. (books)

Queen Karnak grants Cid his own facilities and exclusive services in exchange for his inventions. (books)

Mid’s mother leaves him when he was very young. His father died more recently due to mechanical failure of an invention he was working on.  (books)

#ffv #ff5 #fic:dragondance #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

Notes to self:

- Lenna, Faris holo cards ordered. They’re not in great shape, but they’re rare enough that I’ll take them both. - Art postcards: Farilenna embrace art, black ship art - FF Collections PSX-era games (4-6), FF Complete Works vol 2 with CD-Rom ordered

Still debating whether to get the magazines.

#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

dear internet: how to find fellow shippers of taboo ship?

fandom is so fragmented by social media, and social media is a terrifying echo chamber full of angry people besides, and I am so, so desperate for fellow farilenna shippers to talk to who won’t automatically hate me for my ship

#ffv #ff5 #final fantasy v #final fantasy 5 #faris scherwiz #lenna charlotte tycoon #I just want fandom friends to talk excitedly to #especially about Japanese text #I was in the FF fandom in the 90s and am thoroughly mystified by how the fandom landscape changed when I came back #ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

I like this discord I’m in. I’m sharing my Syldra-is-Faris’-dead-ex-boyfriend theories with supporting evidence from Japanese text and no one is treating me like as a horrible unclean person because of it.

Bless.

#ajora talks ff5

[ajora]

The puritanization of fandom is such a shame. It used to embrace the absolutely bizarre and weird and the Frollos of fandom were more off to the side grousing, or sending hate-mail singularly. People kind of had some gist of how to behave to other people before social media turned everything into an echo-chamber.

I came across this delight of a farilenna fic and noticed that the author’s blog was deleted and was so disappointed that they’ll never know how much I love the fic.

:(

Can we please stop treating people like shit for their tastes in fiction?

#farilenna #I weep for what has been lost #ajora talks ff5