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The Hooksexup Film Blog
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Each month a new artist; each image a new angle. This month: Giovanni Cervantes.
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The Hooksexup Film Blog
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Almost everything you want.
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A San Francisco photographer on the eternal search for the girls of summer.
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Houston neighbors pull back the curtains and expose each other's lives.
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Hooksexup's TV blog.
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  • TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"

    It's rare that we give much thought to the good men and women who turn our video game text from "YOU LUCKY ARE WINNER!" to something dignified. But where there are exceptions, there is the potential for small wars. By far one of the most controversial names in game translation and localisation is Mr Ted Woolsey.

    Ted Woolsey translated many of Square-Enix's best-known 16-bit works, including Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario RPG. To give you an idea of how divided gamers are over this gentlemen, consider that Woolsey hasn't done any substantial translation work since the death of the Super Nintendo but his name alone makes people jump up and down like testosterone-driven baboons.

    TV Tropes has a long and rambling Wiki entry about Woolsey, his followers and his haters. For the sake of a quick crash course, Woolsey was (in)famous for adding his own voice to his translations. This "voice" gave us something to smile at in the place of Japanese puns we couldn't understand (except for purists who can't understand why we don't think sound-alike sushi name jokes are funny). His voice also added a good deal of depth to what was, for most of us, an epic story. Final Fantasy II US had an okay thing going with illegitimate moon brothers or whatever, but Final Fantasy III US--or Final Fantasy VI, if you prefer--took on themes that were unheard of and still go largely untouched by RPGs today. Woolsey had to convey Terra's identity crisis, suicide, unwanted pregnancy and the friggin' Apocalypse while keeping the game text family friendly.

    Oh, and he wasn't allowed to make references to anyone dying, even though Kefka remains the only Square villian who killed people like bugs for the sheer joy of it.

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  • FMV Hell: Lunar, The Silver Star

    Time once again for a brief look at the Sega CD games that made us women and men (if you're currently a twenty-something, I mean).

    The full-motion video in games like Lunar, The Silver Star is unique stuff for a few reasons. First, it was an unfiltered assault of glittery, shojo-eyed anime during an age when most game localisers struggled to hide any cultural evidence that video games indeed come from Japan. Of course, Working Designs is still known for taking some, er, extreme liberties with their own translations and localisations, but by God that's another tome for another night. All you need to know is that Lunar saw its US release in 1993, ages before Pokemon made anime mainstream (bonus fact: anime became mainstream in Canada in 1996, thanks to Sailor Moon recieving an after-school time slot).

    The intro for Lunar is also made special by its...lack of animation. Maybe we were too busy drooling on the television screen at the time, but when you watch Sega CD intros in today's age of a thousand frames per second, you begin to notice that the "cut scenes" that wowed us over a dozen years ago are little more than kindergarten-grade cut-outs with pinned, movable limbs.

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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