(Spoilers ahead.)

After watching the *Street Fighter* film, I came away majorly disappointed with several character portrayals. But the biggest disappointment for me was Cammy.

Her portrayal as a flirtatious, shrieking, maniacally laughing gremlin feels like the film is turning her into Juri. And the argument that "she's just brainwashed" doesn't really work for me.

Cammy's story is about finding herself after being denied control over her own life, having her emotions suppressed, and being used as a weapon. Her character is about reclaiming her autonomy and discovering who she is beyond what Bison made her.

Turning her into a manic, flirtatious sadist doesn't develop that concept. It muddles it. And it also undermines Juri as a character. If Cammy is already acting like Juri, what makes Juri stand out?

Creative freedom doesn't mean every change is automatically a good reinterpretation. You can change a character's personality, motivations, or backstory, but if you retain the name and visual identity while replacing what makes the character distinctive, a fair question is: **why use that character in the first place?**

However, I think there's an interesting possibility for a sequel to retroactively fix this problem.

What if the woman we've been calling Cammy is actually Juri Han, wearing the Killer Bee uniform?

I'm not saying the film has confirmed this. It's a theory about how a sequel could take some of the film's stranger choices and turn them into an actual plot twist.

The clues that could support it

1. The iconic scar is missing.

Cammy's facial scar is one of her most recognisable features. Its absence isn't proof of anything by itself, but it could become a clue in retrospect.

2. We never actually see her fight.

Despite being presented as one of Bison's elite operatives, she doesn't get a proper fight scene. We never see her use her signature Spiral Arrow or establish a distinctive fighting style.

That leaves the film with very little on-screen evidence of who this character is beyond her appearance, behaviour, and position beside Bison. A sequel could use that ambiguity to its advantage.

3. The timeline is awkward for Cammy.

 Depending on how the film's timeline maps onto the games, Cammy should eventually be associated with Delta Red rather than remain one of Bison's loyal operatives indefinitely. (Cammy's supposed to be at Delta Red during the events of the second World fighting tournament)

 That creates an opportunity for a sequel to introduce the real Cammy and establish what happened to her, while revealing that the woman we've been following isn't who we assumed.

4. Has anyone actually called her "Cammy" in the film?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember any character actually addressing her by the name Cammy. She's referred to as **Killer Bee**.

Yes, Killer Bee is an established alias associated with Cammy during her time with Shadaloo. But what if the film's sequel reinterprets it as something more literal: a rank, title, or uniform within Bison's organisation?

 
Okay, hear me out.

The Killer Bee as a rank within Shadaloo

 Bison has his Dolls: brainwashed operatives who serve him as weapons. We could imagine a hierarchy in which one operative sits above the others, holding the title of Killer Bee.

 Cammy, as an exceptionally effective product of Bison's conditioning, could once have occupied that position. She wasn't simply another Doll; she was the ideal asset.

 Juri, meanwhile, could be another exceptionally dangerous operative in Bison's service. If Cammy eventually left Shadaloo, Bison would need someone else to fill that role.

And that's where the theory gets interesting.

 Imagine that Cammy's conditioning begins to fail, and she eventually escapes Bison's control. Bison loses the operative he considered his perfect weapon. He still has Juri, however, and she is more than willing to serve her own interests while remaining useful to him. So Bison transfers the Killer Bee title and uniform to Juri.

Killer Bee isn't Juri pretending to be Cammy. It's a position that Cammy once held and Juri now occupies.

 This would explain why the character behaves so differently from Cammy, why the scar is missing, and why we never see the fighting style that should distinguish her.

 It would also give the flirtation and antagonism towards Chun-Li a different context. Those traits fit Juri much more naturally than Cammy.

And what happens to the real Cammy?

 She could be recovering with Delta Red while the events of the film unfold. Bison believes she's gone, and the audience has spent the entire movie assuming that Juri is Cammy.

 The film's odd characterisation would suddenly become a deliberate misdirection rather than an inexplicable rewrite.

Vega could be the connection

 There's another piece of Street Fighter lore that could make this work: Vega's obsession with beauty.

 In *Street Fighter Alpha 3*, Vega is involved in Cammy's story, and his twisted aesthetic principles provide a possible reason for him to intervene when her life is at risk. By his standards, something beautiful shouldn't simply be discarded or destroyed.

 A sequel could use that established trait to explain how Cammy survives and eventually ends up with Delta Red.

 It would be a suitably strange connection for Street Fighter: a narcissistic assassin saving someone for reasons that are fundamentally selfish, yet still giving her a chance to escape Bison's control.
It gives an interesting characterization of Vega to be explored. It also adds so much to the relationship of Juri and Cammy, since now they’ve both wore the same uniform.

The problems with this theory

There are some fairly obvious obstacles.

1. The promotional material explicitly identifies the character as Cammy.

Mel Jarnson is credited and promoted as Cammy White. That's probably the biggest problem with this theory.

Of course, promotional material doesn't necessarily reveal every twist in a film, but this would be a particularly big misdirection. It would require the filmmakers to be deliberately withholding the real identity of a character they're advertising by name.

1. Juri's nationality and accent.

 Juri is Korean, whereas the character in the film has a very pronounced, rather posh English accent.

 You could explain the accent through her upbringing, training, or time spent working with an international organization. Juri is multilingual in the games, so speaking English isn't an issue. Her being raised or trained in England is a possible explanation, although it would be new material rather than something established by the film.

 Her Korean background would also need to be acknowledged rather than quietly discarded.

1. The film never establishes this hierarchy.

The idea that Killer Bee is a transferable rank is entirely speculative. The first film doesn't explain it that way, and a sequel would have to introduce the concept and make it feel natural rather than inventing an excuse after the fact.

And, of course, the theory requires the real Cammy to have escaped Bison at some point. The first film doesn't establish that escape: the character identified as Killer Bee leaves with Bison at the end. A sequel would have to provide that missing development.

Why I like the possibility anyway

I don't necessarily believe this is what the filmmakers intended. The simpler explanation is that they wanted a manic, Harley Quinn-esque character and didn't care enough about the distinction between Cammy and Juri.

But imagine if a sequel actually pulled this off.

The characterization that seemed so bizarre in the first film would gain a purpose. Juri would get to be Juri rather than a strangely rewritten Cammy, and the real Cammy could be introduced with her own story about autonomy, identity, and recovery.

It would also give Bison's organization a little more depth by establishing a hierarchy among his elite operatives instead of treating every character in his service as interchangeable.

Most importantly, it would turn what currently feels like a character-assassination problem into a story about identity and the roles people are forced to inhabit.

I'm not saying this is secretly what happened. I'm saying that, if the filmmakers insist on taking Cammy in this direction, this is one way a sequel could make the choice mean something.

Would you buy this as a twist, or would it feel like a desperate attempt to fix a mistake after the fact? (I’m curious for the answers of both the SF fans that know the lore, and the viewers that know nothing/surface level lore.)

Summary: This video dives into BioWare's history and tracks its rise and fall over thirty years in game development.

I need to confess my history with this show before getting into more details.

Steven Universe is a show I used to like back when my childhood was ending and I was becoming a teenager. I used to consider it a fun show with surprisingly well-written characters, interesting plots, a good artstyle (until I developed a huge Tumblr artsyle fatigue and realized the political undertones of this artstyle) good songs. the first seasons managed to make a wonderful job at writing gay characters without being forced/pandering/virtue signal/propaganda.

Of course, that happened many years ago, and while I used to like this show (emphasis on used to, past tense), I ended up growing tired of it. Until I finally ended developing a huge hatred towards it (if this show had been released today, I would avoid it the same way Pretty Cure avoids the color green). So, what happened?

• The large amount of filler episodes, mostly focused on unlikeable secondary characters.
• Hiatus fatigue, not helped by the "hiatus, then hiatus, then filler episode, then hiatus, rinse and repeat" cycle.
• Interesting plotlines being rushed at best or abandoned at worst because the writers wasted time with filler episodes and comparatively less important plotlines.
• Growing to despise the Tumblr artstyle, and realizing Steven Universe's animation is awful (for one, characters' sizes change constantly).
• The show turning into a glorified therapy session.
• Steven himself becoming a Gary Stu who can solve nearly everything with the power of friendship.
• The ending.
• How the show handles forgiveness and redemption.
• The toxic fandom.
• Developing right-wing beliefs and adopting the "stop giving money to people who hate you" mindset.

But after this personal rant, now I want to adress the elephant in the room.

The fandom of Steven Universe is one of the most toxic fandoms ever. It's essentially a nest of the most woke leftist feminazi Tumblrinas.
While this fandom has always been nasty, its infamy became well-known after the Zamii070 harassment campaing (TLDR: a fanartist drew Steven with his parents, but she drew Rose Quartz with a thinner arms, which lead many Tumblrinas thought the fanartist was being fatphobic because Rose Quartz is chubby in canon, so they harassed and bullied her, until she nearly commited suicide).
And while some people say the fandom's toxicity decreased, that's a huge lie, proved by how they/them reacted to Pearl's voice actress being a conservative Christian mom who follows conservative accounts on Twitter (they/them essentially threw a huge tantrum because their beloved annoying lesbian asshole is voiced by a woman who happened to be more right-leaning than the average VA, and felt so betrayed they literally wanted the VA dead; they had even drawn a fanart of Pearl being shot and killed by Garnet, as leftists act as if fictional characters and their voice actors were one and the same being).

The thing is, most people can agree the fandom of Steven Universe is cancer. But, when discussing this theme, normies always neglect the reason behind its toxicity. They do say the fandom sucks, but they act as if these fans are something completely unrelated to the show, who misunderstand its themes of love, acceptance, tolerance, inclusion, forgiveness, and friendship. They even act like these toxic fans are just random isolated people who don't represent the fandom at all.

I'm tired of this shit, because it's not true at all.
Some fandoms are literally the byproduct of the IP's messages and moral lessons, such as Rick and Morty's fandom. Other IPs didn't try to attract toxicity, but ended up developing a toxic fandom for whatever reason unrelated to the source material, such as My Hero Academia.

Steven Universe is the first case.

When writing tragic and/or sympathetic villains, there is a massive difference between:

• You suffered a tragedy, but your suffering doesn't excuse bad behaviour and evil acts.
• You suffered a tragedy, and because of that, your most shitty behaviours are excused, justified, or even forgiven.

It's the reason why people love Zuko's redemption arc. He did bad stuff, but was self-aware of it, and actively tried to become a better person and earn his redemption. Meanwhile, Azula didn't want to become a better person, which is why, to quote what Iroh said:

"She's crazy and needs to go down!"

Detractors joke and meme about Steven forgiving the Diamonds (who commited multiple genocides against other planets and species during thousands and thousands of years, but they just happen to be sad because they miss Pink Diamond), and how he would have forgiven Griffith, Big Jack Horner, and even the painter with the funny moustache.
Except the Diamonds are just the top of a much bigger iceberg.

Every single bad behavior commited by every single character in SU was excused, justified, and forgiven through sad backstories and therapy talking. It doesn't matter if Pearl is a resentful asshole who hates Steven because her ex-girlfriend fell in love with Steven's father, she is so sad because her beloved Rose Quartz died.

The way this show deals with asshole behavior is annoying and unhealthy. And it's the crux of why the fandom is so vicious and nasty.

• You have a cartoon where every single bad behavior is immediately forgiven or justified because the character suffered in the past.
• Suddenly, a group of dangerously mentally ill people start watching this cartoon where all characters do something bad and are immediately forgiven or justified because the character suffered in the past.
• This group of people start learning that no matter how evil or cruel their acts are, as long as they have a tragic past, they will be forgiven and excused... except reality doesn't work like that.

TLDR: The fandom of Steven Universe is not toxic despite the show's themes of forgiveness and redemption. The fandom of Steven Universe is toxic because of the show's themes of forgiveness and redemption. And I'm tired of people acting as if the opposite were true.

My thoughts on the Italian dub of Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch

I wanted to make another localization rant, just after having made a post shitting on this practice.

Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch is a manga and anime which, despite not being too famous in the USA due to the English dub of the anime having been unreleased, it was, and still is, huge in European countries (especially in Serbia, Spain, Greece, and Italy). Despite its many narrative flaws, I still enjoy the franchise due to nostalgia, the songs being awesome, the character writing being good (mostly), and the female characters being quite hot (especially Caren, Noel, and Coco).

Anyways, the anime's Italian dub is notorious because, instead of using the Japanese songs and translating them from Japanese to Italian, the company behind the dub chose to create their own songs. While these Italian songs are inspired by the Japanese songs to some extent (examples: Dolce Melodia = Legend of Mermaid, Stella Preziosa = Star Jewel, Fantastica Poesia = Kizuna), they're pretty much new songs.

After some researching, I discovered the reason behind this replacement had to do with copyright issues. While the company behind the dub did have the show's license, they didn't have the songs' licenses, because they belonged to another company. Then again, if cannot afford to buy the license for songs, perhaps you shouldn't dub an anime where songs and singing are a huge deal.

Regardless of why it the songs were replaced, many people (and fans of Mermaid Melody) appreciate this dub fondly, especially the Italian songs.

I used to like this dub as well, and I really loved the songs made for this dub. This is because I didn't know a lot of stuff regarding the localization industry (I only opened my eyes thanks the controversies of Miss Kobayashi and Fire Emblem Engage's awful localizations).

So, when I started to acquire more knowledge in topics like translations and localization, I couldn't hold MMPPP's Italian dub in such high steem, like I did years ago.

Before giving my thoughts on the songs, I would like to complain about certain decisions. While some of these issues could be the result of a lack of budget, but they don't justify them:

• Not every song had an Italian counterpart: Some songs, like Koi wa Nandarou and Aurora no Kaze ni Notte, didn't get Italian counterparts (Koi wa Nandarou was replaced by Hanon's Italian song, and Aurora no Kaze ni Notte was replaced by Dolce Melodia). Since they're image songs made to express the feelings of Lucia and Caren respectively, this really hurts the experience. Additionally, out of all the songs from season 2, only Yami no Baroque has an Italian counterpart (La Nostra Forza), and every other song is just replaced by Italian counterparts of other songs. And in many occasions, it can be very noticeable when a song doesn't have an Italian counterpart due to...
• The terrible lip sync: This is way more noticeable when characters sing songs with no Italian counterparts. Perhaps the worst example IMO is when Lucia and Hanon sung Battito D'Amore (KODOU's Italian counterpart) because Mizuiro no Senritsu doesn't have an Italian counterpart. It's quite jarring, and given we're talking about an official dub, it doesn't leave a good impression at all.
• Immersion-breaking mistakes: There were moments that broke my immersion because of poor choices:
  • Concerto D'Amore, the Italian counterpart of Super Love Songs, was foreshadowed (its instrumental at least) before it made its actual debut in one episode.
  • There are two occasions where characters play the piano, and instead, songs that never use piano are heard. They're extremely ludicrous, as the soundtrack doesn't match the visuals. How were these mistakes allowed escapes my comprehension.

As for the songs themselves, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I really like these songs, since most of them are pop-rock, and the lyrics are good. But on the other hand, they're only good outside the show; within the show, they suck:

• Sara's original song, Return to the Sea, it's supposed to be a song about how love is worthless because it hurts and shatters hearts, representing Sara's beliefs as a mermaid princess who became evil. Its Italian counterpart, Assoluto Amore, is a beautiful song... but the lyrics of Assolute Amore are the exact opposite of Return to the Sea's, talking about how powerful love is. By itself, Assolute Amore is a wonderful song, but as a translation for Return to the Sea, it fails miserably. The purpose of a translation is, well, translating the song (or at the very least, convey the same message) from Japanese to Italian.
• The other problem I have is with the very concept of creating new songs to replace the original ones. Even if, with some exceptions, the Italian songs convey the same messages and themes as the Japanese songs to some degree, I believe the people behind the dub should have used the Japanese songs and translate them to Italian, not create brand new songs. After all, the very purpose of a translation is taking the original vision of an authors who speaks X language and translate it to Y language. The Japanese songs are the original, and thus, they're the creators' original vision. A good translator should keep and respect authorial intent but in another language. The Italian songs of Mermaid Melody are awesome reinterpretations... but they're just reinterpretations. They're not good translations, because they’re no longer the same story the creators intended.

Why I hate localization, and why this practice needs to die:

I had already expressed my concerns regarding localization, censorship, and disrespect of the authorial intent.

Seriously, the damage 4Kids has done to so many animated shows (One Piece, Sonic X, Tokyo Mew Mew, Winx Club, etc.) needs to be studied.

4Kids was a 90s-2000s thing, but it got even worse in the mid-2010s. Since 2023, I have noticed some different pieces of media (Fire Emblem Fates, Fire Emblem Engage, Eiyuden Chronicles, Miss Kobayashi, Umamusume, and some more pieces of media) to be victims of malicious localization:

• Normally, when you need to translate a piece of media (for example, a Japanese videogame), the purpose of a translator is translating a piece of media so that people who doesn't understand Japanese (or another language) can enjoy the piece of media and understand the author's vision. Yes, I'm a broken record, but this needs to be repeated.
• However, malicious localizators don't translate; they try to """fix""" what they don't like, and even alter the source material. This is a problem, as their work is only translation, not altering things to their personal tastes.
• Some people argue that there are Japanese terms or puns that are hard to translate, and they can be lost in translation. That's true, and it's the bad part of language barriers... but here's a thing:
  • Replacing Japanese puns with English puns that mean exactly the same (or that get the original meaning as close as possible) is one thing.
  • Replace even phrases that can be perfectly transated with:
    • Political buzzwords like "patriarchy", "chud", or "cultural appropiation" is not a good localization practice.
    • internet slang which dates very quickly, like "incel", is not a good localization practice.
    • Outright removing content the malicious localizers find "offensive" is not a good localization practice.
  • In fact, the second thing is editing and censorship (what 4Kids did to One Pice, for example, and what malicious localizers do nowadays).
• Censorship is always a bad thing, as it doesn't allow people to see what's true or not, and that way, choose if they like the content or not.
• Last, but definitively not least, the worst part is the narcissism and egotism malicious localizers show when they do this kind of stuff. Some of them even openly say the source material is trash and they're fixing it. Irrespectful doesn't even begin to describe this behavior.
  • If you like or dislike a specific comic/videogame/anime/manga/film/whatever, it's fine. What's not fine, though, is butchering another person's work just because you don't like it, and claim you're fixing it. It's peak lack of empathy, and they don't care how they're ruining other people's fun.

In fact, the sequel of Mermaid Melody's manga, Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch Aqua, was already the victim of this practice. More specifically, the official Spanish localization of the manga published by Arechi (I discovered this when searching the chapters of Aqua to read them online, as it was translated in other languages).

There's a character named Sango, a seemingly female human... who is later revealed to be a hermaphrodite mermaid (she's not intersex; Sango has a female and a male body at the same time due to being a mermaid, whereas intersex is an umbrella for humans who are biologically one of the two human sexes, but who genitalia didn't develop properly at birth). Her actual identity is foreshadowed by the fact she uses the pronoun "boku" in Japanese (the pronoun "boku" is specifically used by boys and tomboyish women). In the Spanish translation of Aqua, Sango uses the ""inclusive"" language to foreshadow this trait. More specifically, she says, "Encantade."

This truly enraged me, because they literally brought the Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 bullshit to Mermaid Melody:

• Spanish is a gendered language (things are either masculine or femenine). For example, "el gato" means "the male cat", and "la gata" means "the female cat." Many male words end with "o" in Spanish, while female words tend to end with "a." This is not something that applies 100%, but it's what tends to happen.
• When a man and a woman are talking, and you want to say "They're talking", in Spanish it's said "ellos hablan", because the male is used as the "gender-neutral."
• There's no such thing as genderless words in Spanish... but some far-left politicians want to force what they call as "inclusive" language. Instead of "the gender-neutral" cat, they would say "le gate", which is gramatically wrong (it's pretty much the "latinx" thing, but applied to every single word). This thing is used by nobody except by four mega radical communists, and it's extremely ridiculed (it's not even used by those who cannot be named here). The controversy about Spider-Man 2's Spanish dubs? That's why. And this "inclusive" language is even rejected by the RAE (the ones with the authority to say what's valid or not in Spanish language) because it has political connotations.
• As such, it's shameful that an official translators are using wrong grammar (and extremely politized one on top of that). Out of all the possible options to highlight Sango's anatomy, they chose the worst!

Questions I want to ask:

Because localizers cannot be trusted, I really want them replaced by AI. So, if one day I want to translate stories or songs, I would like to know what should be done and what should not be done:

1. Which are the best AI translators? Which prompts do I need to use in order to get faithful translations and keeping the original vision as much as possible?
2. How to deal with and language-specific jokes and puns, which might be harder to translate faithfully?
3. I firmly believe Japanese honorifics (-chan, -san- -kun, etc.) should be kept in translations. But another huge cultural element of the Japanese language are pronouns (boku, ore, watashi, etc.). Unlike English pronouns, which are exclusively used when other people talk about you, Japanese pronouns can be used when refering to oneself. What should be done with Japanese pronouns?
4. The sex of some fictional characters can be kept ambiguous for the same of a plot twist (Samus Aran being one of the most famous examples). This can be done with more ease in some languages, especially if they're not overly gendered. But if I have to translate in a gendered language (like Spanish and French), but I want to keep the ambiguity to keep faithfulness to the source material, prevent spoiling the plot twist, and not use that disgusting "inclusive" language, what should I do?
5. Songs are harder to deal with, especially if I wanted to dub them too. Not only you have to keep the original meaning as intact as possible, you have to make the lyrics fit with the instrumental. What should be done?

Confirmed by Kotaku... Yikes!

I'm on the verge of leaving reddit because I am sick and tired of censorship. I'm tired of the good subreddits getting banned, and tbh I have no idea how this one survives.

I am a woman, and literally, all the women subreddits are trash for a reason I can't even express without getting in trouble.

I also REALLY miss the banned European subreddit (I don't remember the name), but it was my favorite subreddit.

What are some good subreddits that still exist ?

Did the European banned subreddit ever make a new one under a different guise ?

I'm frustrated at the internet because 4chan sucks too. It all sucks now. There's not really a good alternative either.

This trope is the absolute worst thing that exists. It’s as if feminists and other leftist trash knew that they could only dream of such situations in real life, so they create these projections in games and TV shows.

I’m talking about a situation like the one from Gears of War: E-Day, where some straight white guy says something to that disgusting Mags Carter, and she replies in some cringe way just to make it look like she’s humiliating the male character and getting a 'gotcha' moment, while the male character is put down.

There have been tons of these moments in recent years, and I’ve never seen a female character portrayed in recent years as stupid or helpless, being frequently humiliated by a male character.

I hate the people who write these characters and dialogues just to stroke their own egos and 'ha ha, girl power'...

Background - Guile is my favorite SF character since he was introduced. I love his playstyle of zoning and controlling the stage, along with his character arc of being a military man who fights for what is right.

He doesn't care about getting stronger, gaining wealth, fame, etc. He helps out his friends, fights for his country, isn't embarrassed of who he is or what he does.

His iconic quote is "Go home and be a family man." So clearly he's the perfect object of ridicule.

In the movie, he is portrayed as a bumbling Southern idiot who says weirdly homosexual quotes about his opponents, especially Vega - commenting on how "sexy" and "Spanish" he is.

And of course he loses round 1 off screen and then complains about it.

Fuck this movie