The Quest for the Legends

Hmm… Have you ever been the victim of discrimination due to your being an atheist?
(Jeez, that's worded ackwardly…)

No, not really.

What made you decide to give Volcaryu to Carl?

It was just the sort of thing Carl would do, so he did it. And it offers lovely opportunity for Chaletwo to get all worried in his subtly-fatherly ways.

What are you favorite animes/mangas?

They don't show any anime over here and I've never been into either anime or manga at all; my boyfriend has showed me a couple of episodes of various anime and gotten me to read a couple of manga books, but it would be wildly irresponsible of me to start picking a favorite based on that. Quite literally the only non-Pokémon anime I've seen any substantial number of episodes of is Neon Genesis Evangelion, which he made me watch in its entirety. Even so, I never got that much into it, really (maybe I just need to watch it again to properly get what the hell is going on). So I'm… eh, not really qualified to answer this question.

Do you watch subbed anime, or other TV programs, exluding Pokémon?

As I said, my boyfriend likes to show me things he likes, but I rarely see more than a few episodes of whatever he's most obsessed with at any given moment.

Do you like dubbed anime in general?

Judging from Evangelion and Pokémon, I tend not to be too fond of English dub voice acting, but again, not really qualified to answer. Actually I think they are quite literally the only dubbed anime I have ever seen.

Have you always been a perfectionist?

Pretty much.

Do you think Ash's Chimchar will evolve?

I have not seen a single episode of D/P and exactly one post-Kanto episode. I'm really not qualified to answer that question. Hell, I didn't even know his Chimchar hadn't evolved yet.

Do you like exploiting glitches in Video Games?

Trying them is often fun if they have interesting or bizarre effects. Actually exploiting them tends to take the fun out of it.

How much, on a regular day, TV do you watch?

About six minutes average. This would be because I watch a 45-minute episode of Lost once a week. :P Well, okay, my boyfriend downloads House and I watch that with him, but that's on his computer so it's not technically TV.

Are you fluent in any languages other than English and Icelandic?

No, but I speak a little bit of Danish and German and a very, very tiny bit of Japanese.

Have you ever started a sentence in English and ended in Icelandic or vice versa?^1^2

On occasion when talking to my boyfriend because we tend to switch between languages a lot. And I've found myself uttering random words of English while speaking Icelandic, like saying "but".

…uh.

No.

For very, very many reasons, but mostly these:

1. It's quite long. Translating it would take years.
2. Nobody would actually read Pokémon fanfiction in Icelandic, meaning it would very much be wasted effort.
3. The few that could read it in Icelandic could just as well also read it in English; it would not expand my audience at all.
4. You can't write Pokémon fanfiction in Icelandic. The games are not translated; we play them in English. The anime translated attack names, but badly, and only a few of them; there is a multitude of attacks whose names quite simply could not work in Icelandic, and even more general concepts. Pokémon city names sound stupid in Icelandic; Icelandic has no words for half of what one needs to write something like this (the closest word to "strategy" we have means "military tactics", for crying out loud); translating decently is a skill.
5. Trust me when I say that you would not be able to read and understand it in Icelandic. The language it would use would not be simple. You would not be able to look up the words you don't know in a dictionary (they take a billion irregular forms and you would have no way of knowing how to convert it to the form you can look up in the dictionary).

To stay at least a bit on topic, why is it, Dragonfree, that you know English better than half of us who have it as our first language?

Foreigners often have an advantage when it comes to learning language, because they won't be as easily fooled by homophones, at least if they learn pretty much exclusively through reading as I did (that also makes me likely to spell better than an average native speaker), and they'll actually read up on grammar and punctuation rules that the natives know only to the extent to which they're ingrained in their sense of the language. On the other hand, native speakers have a bigger vocabulary, though the foreigner can improve that by reading enough, and they have that sense of the language that the foreigner lacks, meaning the foreigner might butcher figures of speech or say awkward phrases that a native would never use. A language like English is especially easy for a foreigner to speak, since it's rather regular and thus having an internal sense of the language is not as important as in, say, Icelandic, where it is pretty much necessary if you're going to try to form grammatically correct sentences.

Also, I am not a silly Brit, I am a silly American! (Unless you want to count me as one, since I live in the New England states, but that would be a bit weird.

By "you silly Brits" I was referring to, well, Brits. o.O It was a response to elyvorg, who is a Brit. You were not in any way implicated.

Lol… Silly Brit… GMT is for kids…

…what?

…I can't read Japanese. Or rather, I can transcribe Hiragana and Katakana (only two of the three writing systems), but that doesn't give me the faintest idea what the hell any of it means. Two semesters of Japanese doesn't give you much.

Besides that I'd have to actually live in Japan to get CoroCoro or anything else to derive useful Japanese information from before Serebii/Pokébeach/Bulbanews get their hands on it.

:P Roughly, "COMPUTER DEMON FROM HELL". Although the literal translation sort of tones down the swearing; we don't really have any sexual swear words in Icelandic, so "hell" is actually one of the worst ones we have. So perhaps a more context-appropriate translation would be "FUCKING SHIT COMPUTER", but that's actually more offensive because we aren't that sensitive about swearing in general. Well, whatever.

It is kind of hard to teach people how to pronounce complicated Icelandic words.

In which language? :P In English, I don't really like a lot of swear words, but if anything probably "Goddamn".

Icelandic names are patronymic by default, with just a couple of families who had some pretentious forefathers deciding to adopt a family name. Although my name is actually matronymic (Önnudóttir, using my mother's name, rather than Vilhjálmsdóttir), which is unusual but not unheard of.

Patronymic means your last name is the first name of your father (in the possessive) plus "son" or "daughter". Matronymic is the same, except with your mother's first name.

It amused me, incidentally, that the question asked specifically if I had a 'regular' last name, since I have an early memory of asking my parents why the heck Bart Simpson's last name is "Simpson" even though his father's name is "Homer", not "Simp". When they tried to explain it I found it very odd indeed. :P

My parents sometimes visit my site on a random impulse, more just to see what I've been doing than anything else, since they don't play Pokémon or anything. My mom has been reading The Quest for the Legends, so she goes here.

I've never played AdventureQuest. I picked up "ebil" from common usage as a sarcastic misspelling, which theoretically could have come from AdventureQuest for all I know, but I didn't take it directly from there.

That would be my mom. She was confused because she'd gotten the impression Gyarados was a legendary Pokémon, and I told her no, it isn't. Though your feat would be more impressive if it hadn't actually contained the words "Gyarados" and "legendary" in English. :P

What does "I come from the mountains…" mean?

It's an Icelandic expression referring to basically being clueless about the matter at hand.

Do you drink iced tea?

I'm afraid not.

What is your favorite Pokémon from a fossil?

Either Kabutops or Aerodactyl. Probably Kabutops; it has scythes.

So, um, wold you become a trainer if you lived in the pokemon world?

Sure. I'd try it, at least. Then again, maybe I'd end up deciding it would be more fun to have a fluffy Eevee or something as a pet and spend my days writing on the computer.

Why must your friends be so witty? >:-(

Hm?

What's this, um, story you wrote wrote when you were seven. Sound like a good read.

It is, but it's in Icelandic and is not nearly as charming when I attempt to translate it (and when my delightful attempts at illustrations aren't there). I don't have it with me right now, but I suppose I can try to type it up from memory, though, since I was just reading it the other day (I do that regularly).

BOOK 1

Gráni, Faxi's father, lay and waited for death. Faxi stood by his side and said, "Dad, will I inherit everything?"

Gráni replied: "Yes, son, and that's quite a lot. You will inherit three things: the first is a necklace, the second is a map and the third is a chest."

Faxi thought this was weird. What was he supposed to do with these things? Then it was like Gráni read his thoughts: "The necklace makes you invisible, the map shows the way to Blakkur's cave* and the chest stores your treasures," said Gráni.

"But Dad, I have something for you," said Faxi. "And what is that, so late in my life?" asked Gráni.

"Yes, very 'late in your life'," said Faxi, "it's a medicine! Eat some of this grass!" "Yes! I'm cured!" Gráni ran away and all his belongings were left with Faxi.

Faxi paced around the clearing. He liked it there and decided to live there. He headed out to find new adventures.

Suddenly, Faxi heard a gunshot! He ran the other way, straight towards a human! It was a trap! The man with the gun had been herding him towards his partner with the bridle, who now put it on Faxi and led him away.

Faxi was sold on the condition that he would be shot when he could no longer work, at least NOT sold. He tried his best but soon it came to his dying day. He escaped narrowly, but his right front leg was wounded, and he lay there helpless until a tiger came and saved him. Then he limped away.

But soon it became apparent that a rock had gotten stuck in Faxi's eye. But soon it fell out.

Faxi ran out over the plains and onto the rock that separated the plains from the lowlands. There he met a beautiful mare. Cont'd.

*Blakkur is a horse who once fought Faxi and got a black eye. He is the only enemy who desires the necklace.

BOOK 2

The mare's name was Snow White. She loved Faxi and got together with him.

Soon a little foal was born into the world. There was plenty to do. Faxi went spying in the morning and didn't come back until the evening. One day, he came home with bad news. "Blakkur and Kola-Blakkur are going to kidnap the foal!"

"What? Kidnap little Blesi! Never!" But Blesi was kidnapped the next day.

That night, Faxi went to the cave and saw Blesi chained to a post. He tried to let him loose, but then Kola-Blakkur jumped on him! It was a trap! Now Faxi had to work all day carrying Blakkur's foal, but Snow White sat at home and thought things over.

One day, she had a brilliant idea. Faxi was on a night watch while Blakkur and Kola-Blakkur slept! That evening, she rescued Faxi (and of course Blesi too).

[insert random terrible overdramatic attempt at poetry about Faxi and Blakkur fighting here]

Helvítis. Which just means "Hell". Or rather, "Hell's", actually. Except that while "Hell" is one of the more innocent swear words in English, we don't actually have any that are categorically worse, so although we don't make a big deal about swearing in general (there is no such thing as being rated for language over here), it doesn't have those toned-down connotations you get with "Hell".

"The list"? There are a lot of creative expletives and insults possible in the language, but the main commonplace ones would be "helvítis", "andskotinn" (and a couple of variations thereof), "fjandinn" and "djöfullinn". The latter three are all references to the devil. There is also "bévítans", which also refers to the devil but is for some reason considered less of a swear than the others. No idea why.

You don't have the 'f-word' in Iceland or anything? Huh.

No. We have something that translates to it, but it wouldn't cross anyone's mind to use it as a swear word as opposed to when they're talking about the act of copulation.

If I went to Iceland on an average day, where would I most likely find you?

In my room, in front of my computer. Or in Shadey's room, in front of my laptop.

what are the more creative ones?

They wouldn't be very creative if there were a set predefined list of them, would they? By "creative" I mean you string together your own words/phrases for the occasion.

what, as in a "I'm going to go fuck my spouse" sort of thing?

Yes.

Have you ever had hákarl?

It's been offered to me, but I'm not the sort of person who eats repulsive things just to say I did.

Do you mind the number of people asking for lists of Icelandic swearwords?

It's sort of silly, but eh. :/

…And now my curiosity has gotten the better of me. How do you pronounce "Helvítis"?

Roughly "HELL-vee-dis".

Nope, sorry, can't give you any tips.

What is your favorite country that you've been to?

Didn't I answer this sometime? Probably Australia.

If I met you, would your english be as good as any American/Brit?

No. The bad thing about learning a language like English through reading/writing is you never have the faintest idea how half of the words you know are pronounced. Mostly I tend to make the mistake of assuming they're pronounced similar to some related words, like they would be in a sensible language. Also my accent sounds like a bad attempt at some sort of a midwestern US something, which it pretty much is.

And do you flick your tongue a lot in Icelandic?

…what? I mean, what constitutes "tongue-flicking" in your mind? All language involves flicking your tongue here and there in your mouth. Are you thinking of something specific?

Are you sad for Doctor David Tennant?

I've never watched a single episode of Doctor Who, so um, no, I can't really say I am. But from what I know about him, I probably will be once I do see it, so.

Oh, Danish is mandatory in Icelandic schools. We all speak it… a little bit. And mostly despise it with a passion. :P

I was first introduced to Pokémon by my cousins in 2000. They got me to play Yellow, I fell in love with the monsters and the battle system almost immediately, and I asked for it for Christmas. The rest is history.

Judging by the title of your LiveJournal, you're a Harry Potter fan. (No shit, Sherlock.)

Um, what? "Butterfree's Coughing Cupboard" has nothing to do with Harry Potter; it's a reference to the ranting forum at my forums, which in turn is a translation of "hóstaskápur", an inside joke in my family about the need for such a place to put my mom into when she was having one of her at-the-time-very-frequent coughing fits. The only thing vaguely related I can think of in Harry Potter is the cupboard under the stairs, but that doesn't involve coughing as far as I know. o.O

That said, I do enjoy the Harry Potter books, and yes, odds are I'd be in Ravenclaw.