Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Arx]

And they'd be less likely to make that mistake if it was written as Toho, too.

[Frumple]

... you would indeed be less likely to call pokemon pokemans if you spelled pokemon "Toho". It'd be rather impressive if you got pokemans out of that, actually. I'd like to know how, and what drugs you were taking :V

[DeKaFu]

Trying to write Japanese words in English letters is called romanization, and there's several systems for it. Most common being Hepburn. Wiki page for more than you ever wanted to know on the subject.
Basically, in Japanese there's more or less four different ways to write an O sound:

お (o)
おお (oo)
おう (ou)
おー (o with an extender)

The first is a shorter sound, while the latter three are longer and all pronounced pretty much the same (though show up in different words). As a result, many romanization systems lump the long o's together as "ō" or some variation, differentiating them from the shorter "o". Alternatively, you can stick closer to the Japanese spelling and use "ou" "oo" etc. which is also valid. Using "oh" instead is also valid, though I find it really annoying. Sometimes "ou" is written as a plain "o" but then you're losing a bit of information.

In the case of Touhou, it would be written in Japanese as とうほう (to-u-ho-u) so Touhou would be my preferred romanization, though "Tōhō" would technically be valid. You could use "Toho" and it would get the idea across but it would be kind of strange. That said, the Japanese film company "Toho" is actually spelled the same way as the game series, ignoring Kanji. Probably because they chose their official romanization when things were less standardized, I guess.


Edit: Just to further clarify, by "long o" and "short o" I don't mean what that typically means in English. They're all pronounced "oh" in Japanese. I'm talking about the length of the sound in the literal sense. Like "oh" versus "ohh". Vowel-sound-length is an important thing in Japanese. Get it wrong and you end up with a completely different word.

[Neonivek]

I wonder...

How do people talk to each other in real life?

I was thinking about how long winded RPGs often are with characters speaking in long drawn out paragraphs.

Yet is that as unnatural as I am thinking? Maybe natural dialog is just as long winded and odd.

[hops]

Neonivek that's the most internet sentence ever said in the history of internet.

As a wallflower I get the chance to observe people often and in real life, casual discussions often involve people taking turns speaking in long passages. This is because unlike on text you can't be talking while the other is also talking, and conversation happen in real time rather than thoughts being transmitted in bursts and being read.

In "small talks", people still take turn but with a shorter time. You don't see this in RPGs much because it's kind of inane.

In more special conditions, such as during a battle, obviously I can't use a "real life" example since I wasn't in the military, but from what I've seen and my gaming with real people, dialogs are short and curt and often time you're calling out enemies while also listening to your ally saying another thing. This looks incredibly awkward in text so you never see it, and instead have commanders talking for like 5 minutes while fighting 10 mooks.

[Yoink]

Real life conversation:
1: Person #1 makes observation
2: Person #2 makes relevant terrible pun
3: Everyone else groans
4: Other person makes additional pun
5: Puns continue, becoming steadily worse
6:
7: House burns down because food in oven was forgotten whilst making puns
8: Errybody homeless now

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It was one fiery climax.

[Yoink]

Should I use some of my savings to buy RimWorld this evening?
I get paid on Monday, so I can hopefully replace what I spend (and more) then.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, because Rimworld is a perpetually unfinished waste of time.

[hops]

DO YOU WISH TO ENGAGE IN COMBAT?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Cinder has suffered a psychotic break and gone berserk, attacking anything they come near.

[Comrade P.]

DO YOU WISH TO ENGAGE IN COMBAT?

Spoiler: Do I spy a reference to a certain animated show? (click to show/hide)

[Neonivek]

Hmmm I always forget this question...

Is there good fiction that deals with the moral issues on either (or both)
a) The creation of natural slaves
or
b) The treatment of natural slaves
or
c) What would happen to natural slaves who were somehow forced to live without masters... Without eliminating their status as natural slaves.

For this I shall define my term

Natural Slave: A person or species that not only has a natural inclination towards slavery, but whose happiness usually relies on servitude to the extent that they can never REALLY be "freed", at least not in accordance to their will.

An example of these are:
1) The House Elves in Harry Potter: They are a magical species that need a master to be happy (at least until freed). They usually prefer ill-treatment over being masterless.
-One of the books actually highlights this when Hermione frees a House Elf from an abusive master, only to find she is very unhappy because of it.
2) The Dogmen in Rifts: They see themselves as inferior to human beings and in fact prefer it that way, taking great pride in aiding the "pack" so to speak.

Both of these are natural slave species.

[Baffler]

The closest I can think of is District 9, but they're not really slaves so much as they are worker bees without a queen, and their situation is different from the examples you gave.

[Rolan7]

Sounds like the premise of But I'm A Cat Person, one of the few webcomics I still follow.

There are these mysterious immortal creatures called "beings" which are kinda like pokemon, but very rare.  One of each "kind" of animal.  They can talk and take human forms, but desperately need to serve a master.

The main characters are quite progressive (like the author) and find this skeevy as hell, but their attempts to give their Being freedom mostly just make him sad and insecure.  A large part of the comic is showing how different types of masters result in different personalities of Beings.  Many are quite willful, even silly, while others are calm and serious.  Sexual exploitation also comes up, though it isn't pictured.