"Why's clar a succubus and not an incubus?"
You know this is a good question, now that I think about it.
The fake answer is that the word
succubus has its roots in Latin
succubare 'to lie beneath' and refers to the demon's position under the man in bed. As Clar is a bottom, this makes it technically appropriate, which is the best kind of appropriate.
The real answer is a little bit more complex. First we need to consider why succubi(female) are succubi. What I translated as 'succubus' was originally the term 夜魔 [yoma?]. It's composed of the characters 夜 'night' and 魔 'evil, demon, (especially in the context of SEQUEL) monster'. Literally, they would be 'night monsters'. Incidentally, typical words used for succubi/incubi are 夢魔 [muma] 'dream demon' and 淫魔 [inma] uhhh 'lewd demon?'. Both work for either gender.
There aren't really any good readily-available translations for
yoma, and I wasn't smart enough to make up anything that didn't sound awful. The literal translation of
night monster is problematic because then the Monster Log entries would either say "
Night monster monster" or "
Night monster". The first option is god-awful, and the second option is misleading because the entries are formatted as "<monster type> monster.", so the player would end up thinking a
yoma's monster type is "night".
Incidentally, the 'night' character in
yoma is likely the reason why they are often mentioned to get rowdier at nights. Both games have also made at least one direct reference to this--something like "this is a
yoma. just as the name has it, a monster of the night", which I had to then write around. Life is never easy.
So, as always, I settled for a highly functional alternative. The
yoma monster type walk like succubi, look like succubi, and quack like succubi. The largest difference is that they don't seem to have anything to do with dreams and the association with nights is not readily available. But I deemed those acceptable losses in the face of an understandable translation.
That's why a succubus(female) is a succubus. Now, to the original question: why is Clar a succubus(male) and not an incubus? There's two reasons.
- Because the word yoma is used for both succubi and incubi, and I didn't want to split the species in two. It could also cause headaches in the future if there's ever a yoma enemy of indeterminate gender--I'd have to gender them if I made the succubus/incubus divide, and I don't enjoy 50-50 guesses in my translations.
- Because Clar's species is introduced before his gender is made explicit. Nazuna addresses him as succubus Clarryuuto, which incites the gang into discussing succubi for a moment. Changing this to 'incubus' would immediately give the game away. It would be immensely clumsy to change Nazuna's line to "monster Clarryuuto" because that would make the succubus digression a non-sequitur.
It should be noted that while Clar does use the masculine
boku first-person pronoun, that's not an explicit tell of his gender just yet. The
bokukko archetype exists for a reason. Which is why I snuck in Clar referring to himself as "not a bad guy" in there, which is suitably telling but not too telling.
***
If you're willing to answer more translation-related questions then can I ask how you approach translation H-scenes?
Since most of the dialogue that occurs during H-scenes are voiced from females(or the rare traps such as Fake-Rabi & Clar), and I'm assuming you're male(I mean no offense by this), do you then go for a direct translation or try to add some spice? If you add some spice, do you translate in terms of how you think the characters themselves would speak(By their characters) or more in terms of what you think is "sexiest"?
This is a very good question, and you know what that means. It means essay time. Once again, apologies for being rambling.
It's worth noting that not all of this applies to SEQUEL blight, because I had absolutely no clue what I was doing with the early days of that project.
1. Basics
First, a brief surface explanation of the two core strategies at the heart of translating anything. When translating a text (games, books, speeches; anything is a text), the translator may either
bring the audience towards the author, or
bring the author towards the audience. These strategies are commonly known as
source text-oriented translation and
target reader-oriented translation.
S
ource text-oriented translations are commonly used in expressive literature where the stylistic methods used by the author are held in importance. The source text (original language work) sets the guidelines, and the translator's task is to write a target text (translated language work) that follows these guidelines.
Target reader-oriented translations are commonly used in communicational texts: instructions, guidelines. The function of the text is held in importance. The audience and the audience's culture sets the guidelines.
("Source text" means the original work in the language it was written, while "target text" is the translation. Similarly, "source language" is the original work's language and "target language" is the translation's language.)
2. The general approach to H-scenes
In SEQUEL games (and in many other H-games, I would wager), a worthwhile approach to translating H-scenes is
target reader-oriented. This is because H-scenes are mostly
functional. I'm not saying they are without literary merit to consider, but that in general, their purpose is to arouse the reader. While following the source text closely in form and linguistic form surely draws attention to the clever means the author pulls out with language, oftentimes this results in clumsy and hard-to-read wording that really isn't "sexy", as you put it. It misses the function of the text.
So, yes, things that were meant to be "sexy" should also be "sexy" in the translation. The informational content is secondary. That doesn't mean it's discardable--you don't want just make up unrelated stuff and replace the text with that just because it's sexier. But some adjustments have to be made and different translation strategies employed to keep the text palatable.
In my SEQUEL translations, I typically often employ three basic strategies in the H-scenes, one of which even has a fancy name.
2.1. Local strategy of degree of markedness
What a smart name, right? That's fancy translator-ese for "if the original language word(s) didn't stand out, don't use word(s) that stand out".
A word that I often employ this strategy for is 裏筋 [urasuji], which is the common name for 陰茎小帯 [inkeishoutai] 'frenulum of prepuce of penis'. It either occurs disturbingly often or I've got strange tastes that guide me towards works that like this term. English doesn't have a better word for it than 'frenulum', which still sounds medical and a lot of people probably have to google to find out what it is. The Japanese nickname
urasuji is not a medical term.
I ended up translating this into some form of 'back of the penis', 'underside of the penis', or maybe even 'back of the glans' so that it's not hugely disruptive to the reading experience. I think the sole exception was in one of Lec's scenes, where the exact anatomical part was a core component of the line.
2.2. Keeping in mind what the source text does not do
This one probably has a name, but I don't remember which book I learned the idea from so I can't grab it and check. I try to avoid repetition unless the source text has repetition. This often means that whenever I'm translate a sentence describing how vigorously the cum dances through the air or whatever, I maintain a small sanity check of "did the author use the same adverb here as they did four textboxes ago when I used 'vigorously' for the movement of the hips?" If the answer is no, it's synonym time. If it's yes, I wash my hands off it.
Similarly, while I'm
always an
astounding
appreciator of
alliteration, I try to
pin that
part of my
personality back so that it doesn't reflect on the target text. Unless, of course, I find alliteration in the the text and I can sate my inner beast with a "glittering golden gaudy" weapon.
Inclusive language fits into this--whether making adjustments based on markedness or the "sexy" factor, if the source text does not use discriminatory, belittling, or offensive language, I don't use it. This goes beyond the scope of H-scenes, but an example of this would be the socialization option "Talk Technical". An available translation for this particular line would be "Sperg out"--but I'm not looking to insert derogatory language in places where there originally was none. Also it's kind of off in tone, as more of a phrase out of internet dialect.
2.3. Stylistical concerns
This umbrella fits under it both the source text's stylistic choices and the target language's established literary norms. They need to be melded together in a reasonable way; the cultural differences in writing styles adapted. It's probably the most freeform part of translation.
When an source text sentence is short, it should be kept short. When it employs a literary trick, it should be preserved. Simple stuff: a joke where a joke is, lines that refer to previous lines or continue their themes sohuld be apparent, and such. Sometimes the exact same trick isn't possible in English and should be substited for with a similar one. Other times the trick just can't be made to work, meaning it's
lost. A proper translation would
compensate for this elsewhere: if a joke couldn't be made to work in one scene but could work in another, it could be slipped in there. But I'm really lazy and if I can't compensate in the immediate vicinity of the loss, I don't bother.
*
The difference in writing styles is probably most apparent in the omission of known topics and the use of the Japanese passive. The so-called passive verb form in Japanese is a common and natural way to describe something being done to the subject. However, in English, it can come off as detached and not very interesting. So I employ active constructions instead of passive ones whenever I need to. The difference is the following:
兎の魔物の思うがまま、精液を搾り取られた。
usagi no mamono no omou ga mama, seieki wo shiboritorareta.
Passive (~'literal') translation:
Done with as the rabbit monster desires, (your) semen was milked out.
That's kind of awkward. We had to explicate the subject "you" in the second part of the sentence because English really wants explicit subjects. But now it's kind of buried in there. The translation of
omou ga mama turned into a trainwreck too. Also, we'd like to keep to a consistent tense.
Keeping the passive, rewording and shuffling to make it more palatable:
Your semen is milked out by the rabbit monster who does as she wants.
That's starting to sound like English. But the passive voice of English is not very engaging, so it sounds dry. We're not writing a scientific paper here.
Also, the SEQUEL games are thematically femdom games. By explicating the subject and bringing it to the left, we're inadvertently giving extra agency to the player. I think it is preferred to avoid doing this.
I ended up with:
The rabbit monster does as she likes, milking out your semen.
Here, we have an active sentence in the present, which is immediately more engaging. The subject is now the rabbit monster and the player is relegated to the object. Heck yeah, syntactical domination.
*
I find myself a bad judge of what is "sexy", because I can't find anything that I've written myself arousing. This includes translations. I do find some turns of phrase and instances awkward or unarousing, which I try to then avoid. I think there was a time in SEQUEL blight where I feasibly could have translated something as "
the fleshy crack is cleaved open" or something, but that really sounds more like serial-killer talk to me. Yikes, and no thanks. I try to keep in the same realm of palatability that the original text is.
Like I alluded to before, I do some sanity checking inside the scenes to avoid repetition. Not so much across multiple scenes, because if the author didn't themself care that they used the exact phrasing 興奮を煽る [koufun wo aoru] fifteen times across the whole game, I'm going to keep on writing "stirs your arousal" because it gets the job done.
3. The general approach isn't always appropriate
The vast majority of text in SEQUEL games' H-scenes is narration, but as you said, dialogue plays a part. The general approach I outlined above is functional for the narration, and somewhat functional for dialogue, but really breaks down with partial sentences, alternatively-written words (eg. using hiragana instead of kanji), nonstandard punctuation and moaning.
I try to keep to the character voices and literary tricks, but sometimes this is at odds with the information content, length, and English legibility. In these situations I grumble and swear and eventually give up on finding the best solution, oftentimes sacrificing any of the latter three. It's not like anyone's going to call me out for my gormless lack of settling for either...ellipses...for....pauses, or commas, for, pauses, anyway.
I think that's enough rambling for the day. I hope this answers your question somehow. Also, I'm not going to confirm or deny questions about my personal identity, no offense taken.
