06-07-2025, 11:39 PM
okay, its been a bit but we're back, baybee! between being a real person, i have had many thoughts and i've watched the CN translations for these last chapters a couple of times.
1) I wish to god they'd localize better. A lot of Caleb's dialogue in the original is several degrees different to what we're getting in english and I, for one, feel like we're getting screwed a little. While the stepbrother vs childhood friend definitely brings a different dynamic to the situation, the english team really could have done better translating the tension and i feel these last couple of chapters were the "worst" so far where some of the english just didn't compare.
2) MUCH more clear in the CN translation was Caleb's dynamic with the girlfriend, the back and forth pull of old affection and new betrayal. So much heart-attack inducing of talking over and through each other. Of all things, I was particularly enamored of the line in Chapter 7 (i think it was 7) where Caleb asks if the girlfriend is doing "this" deliberately so he can experience the same pain of loss that she did when he left. It was weirdly phrased in english and hard to parse, but sucker punched in the translation.
3) Caleb's mannerisms are /chef's kiss. He jerks his chin up when he tries to make a point and its so realistic i die a little each time he does it.
4a) I kind of thought Caleb would be the one for me even when I first started and honestly, I am patting myself on the back about it. He's so perfectly fucked up, I could not have designed him much better. The attraction of a villain-type is that the good guy wants to save the world and the bad guy just wants you, world be hanged. Caleb just doesn't care about much else. His entire goal is putting you in a flower garden at ground zero and that is so schmexy of him - I honestly don't find it problematic at all; i think i should definitely be the center of the backfire he's more than willing to set.
4b) To do with the localization, its clearer in the translation that Caleb's indifferent to the plight of others, there's really not even a nod to empathy. He outright states that those caught up in Ever's clutches either survive or don't and he's counting himself and the girlfriend in the survivor category.
5) There's a throwaway comment while we're in the med bay on the fleetship, where a nurse wonders if we're "... also getting sent to..." but it gets cut off. So there's some other facility or place we're as yet unfamiliar with where, no doubt, something heinous is going on.
6) Caleb all but confirms he drugged you with the 'cold medicine'. Suck it, whichever half of fandom thinks you took Nyquil.
7) I didn't catch this the first time I went through the translations, but the needle he gives you in the med bay isn't a pain medication, but Cybezin, the drug for those that have the control chip. In the translation (and I don't have the english to hand so I'll have to check again what was said right there) when you ask if you can be alone for awhile, he agrees, says to rest well and that (implied: resting) will 'help stabilize your emotions'. That's an odd way to phrase 'i hope you feel better after while' and since Caleb DID cover the girlfriend's eyes when he did the injection, its very likely that's what it was.
8a) I don't get yet what 'mood stabilizer' means in this context, both specifically to the girlfriend and more generally in the Fleet, other than maybe 'stop thinking and nod your head like a tranquilized animal'. Extrapolating outwards, I wonder if it has something to do with allowing a better - let's use partnership for the moment - with either protofields, protocores or Wanderer implantation. EVER has given out mass produced "personal flux stabilizers" to the general populace to wear like a pin, ostensibly to keep Metaflux from forming a field / keep a Wanderer from creating a field (still unclear myself which comes first) and now this stabilizer injection for those with "Toring" chips to keep a brainwave pattern either in a certain state or away from a certain state. They have to link together somehow, it would be so weird if it didn't.
8b) Its also very clear in the translation that Kevi's chip was "re-reading the Core" when he tried to feel his feelings for his sister. So are the 'control chips' actually the previously mentioned (in Sylus' arc) way for a Wanderer's consciousness to be implanted into a human? And if the chip is a second, alien personality and not just a literal control device, then having a stable emotional mindset might allow for the overwriting to be smoother with less jarring splits as the human personality tries to win out during emotional struggles.
9) the "Fountain of Atei" and the Fleet's return to the Deepspace Tunnel have to be connected. Not sure exactly how. Whatever Caleb has overseen during the lockdown weeks, which I assume is the rapid progression and then elimination of the unworthy in the experiments, has pushed the Fountain into its next charge-up and they are... taking it back to the Tunnel? He also states that the girlfriend will be safe-r when the Fleet leaves, implying that the Fleet has either the people or the object that is of most direct danger. For all I know, it's Caleb himself who's the most direct danger to her, although that seems like more of a tin foil theory since I think Caleb would eat a bullet without question if that was the case (assuming he was aware of the danger he represents and felt he couldn't control it).
10) I find it interesting that Caleb groups himself with "people of my kind". Evolvers? Those with complete aether cores? Something else?
11) I am torn on the chip thing. Really torn. I think he does have one, it would be really odd if he didn't. I also don't know that it has to activate that much or even at all. Caleb seems to be impressively good at defining for himself what his thought patterns need to be to obtain the results he wants. He appears to have completely bought into whatever deal he's got going on with EVER, he does not appear to be coerced and fighting to get out from under their thumb at all. He has been giving instruction and help to the girlfriend the entire way on how to survive in Skyhaven and in the Fleet and its not his fault she's not listening very well during some moments.
12) In the last confrontational chapter, Caleb's micro expressions are just so spot on, I have to applaud. Anger, frustration, that weird mix of annoyance and helplessness when she tells him something he doesn't want to hear because it means she's not understanding what he's saying.... most video games have the emotions implied through both context and dialogue but the character faces just couldn't be that mobile/were wooden in the cutscene. I have to wonder if LaDS is doing some motion capture stuff, because when the girlfriend says "I don't need you" and Caleb replies "You don't need me?", there about seven fast things flickering across his face and I believe all of them.
1) I wish to god they'd localize better. A lot of Caleb's dialogue in the original is several degrees different to what we're getting in english and I, for one, feel like we're getting screwed a little. While the stepbrother vs childhood friend definitely brings a different dynamic to the situation, the english team really could have done better translating the tension and i feel these last couple of chapters were the "worst" so far where some of the english just didn't compare.
2) MUCH more clear in the CN translation was Caleb's dynamic with the girlfriend, the back and forth pull of old affection and new betrayal. So much heart-attack inducing of talking over and through each other. Of all things, I was particularly enamored of the line in Chapter 7 (i think it was 7) where Caleb asks if the girlfriend is doing "this" deliberately so he can experience the same pain of loss that she did when he left. It was weirdly phrased in english and hard to parse, but sucker punched in the translation.
3) Caleb's mannerisms are /chef's kiss. He jerks his chin up when he tries to make a point and its so realistic i die a little each time he does it.
4a) I kind of thought Caleb would be the one for me even when I first started and honestly, I am patting myself on the back about it. He's so perfectly fucked up, I could not have designed him much better. The attraction of a villain-type is that the good guy wants to save the world and the bad guy just wants you, world be hanged. Caleb just doesn't care about much else. His entire goal is putting you in a flower garden at ground zero and that is so schmexy of him - I honestly don't find it problematic at all; i think i should definitely be the center of the backfire he's more than willing to set.
4b) To do with the localization, its clearer in the translation that Caleb's indifferent to the plight of others, there's really not even a nod to empathy. He outright states that those caught up in Ever's clutches either survive or don't and he's counting himself and the girlfriend in the survivor category.
5) There's a throwaway comment while we're in the med bay on the fleetship, where a nurse wonders if we're "... also getting sent to..." but it gets cut off. So there's some other facility or place we're as yet unfamiliar with where, no doubt, something heinous is going on.
6) Caleb all but confirms he drugged you with the 'cold medicine'. Suck it, whichever half of fandom thinks you took Nyquil.
7) I didn't catch this the first time I went through the translations, but the needle he gives you in the med bay isn't a pain medication, but Cybezin, the drug for those that have the control chip. In the translation (and I don't have the english to hand so I'll have to check again what was said right there) when you ask if you can be alone for awhile, he agrees, says to rest well and that (implied: resting) will 'help stabilize your emotions'. That's an odd way to phrase 'i hope you feel better after while' and since Caleb DID cover the girlfriend's eyes when he did the injection, its very likely that's what it was.
8a) I don't get yet what 'mood stabilizer' means in this context, both specifically to the girlfriend and more generally in the Fleet, other than maybe 'stop thinking and nod your head like a tranquilized animal'. Extrapolating outwards, I wonder if it has something to do with allowing a better - let's use partnership for the moment - with either protofields, protocores or Wanderer implantation. EVER has given out mass produced "personal flux stabilizers" to the general populace to wear like a pin, ostensibly to keep Metaflux from forming a field / keep a Wanderer from creating a field (still unclear myself which comes first) and now this stabilizer injection for those with "Toring" chips to keep a brainwave pattern either in a certain state or away from a certain state. They have to link together somehow, it would be so weird if it didn't.
8b) Its also very clear in the translation that Kevi's chip was "re-reading the Core" when he tried to feel his feelings for his sister. So are the 'control chips' actually the previously mentioned (in Sylus' arc) way for a Wanderer's consciousness to be implanted into a human? And if the chip is a second, alien personality and not just a literal control device, then having a stable emotional mindset might allow for the overwriting to be smoother with less jarring splits as the human personality tries to win out during emotional struggles.
9) the "Fountain of Atei" and the Fleet's return to the Deepspace Tunnel have to be connected. Not sure exactly how. Whatever Caleb has overseen during the lockdown weeks, which I assume is the rapid progression and then elimination of the unworthy in the experiments, has pushed the Fountain into its next charge-up and they are... taking it back to the Tunnel? He also states that the girlfriend will be safe-r when the Fleet leaves, implying that the Fleet has either the people or the object that is of most direct danger. For all I know, it's Caleb himself who's the most direct danger to her, although that seems like more of a tin foil theory since I think Caleb would eat a bullet without question if that was the case (assuming he was aware of the danger he represents and felt he couldn't control it).
10) I find it interesting that Caleb groups himself with "people of my kind". Evolvers? Those with complete aether cores? Something else?
11) I am torn on the chip thing. Really torn. I think he does have one, it would be really odd if he didn't. I also don't know that it has to activate that much or even at all. Caleb seems to be impressively good at defining for himself what his thought patterns need to be to obtain the results he wants. He appears to have completely bought into whatever deal he's got going on with EVER, he does not appear to be coerced and fighting to get out from under their thumb at all. He has been giving instruction and help to the girlfriend the entire way on how to survive in Skyhaven and in the Fleet and its not his fault she's not listening very well during some moments.
12) In the last confrontational chapter, Caleb's micro expressions are just so spot on, I have to applaud. Anger, frustration, that weird mix of annoyance and helplessness when she tells him something he doesn't want to hear because it means she's not understanding what he's saying.... most video games have the emotions implied through both context and dialogue but the character faces just couldn't be that mobile/were wooden in the cutscene. I have to wonder if LaDS is doing some motion capture stuff, because when the girlfriend says "I don't need you" and Caleb replies "You don't need me?", there about seven fast things flickering across his face and I believe all of them.
