so I finally found a subbed version of PS3 Vesperia recently (what the DE was ported from), and that means I am now properly enabled to further make my arguments LOL. basically since the DE text is still in English and there are no subs for what's actually being spoken in the JP audio, it's harder for me to make some points since sometimes people will just listen to audio in JP but not really understand what's going on and have to rely on the English text (which again is localized and not genuinely translated, and in a lot of major cases with Vesperia, it's pretty egregiously bad).

idk how many posts I'll end up making about the bigger changes but I do want to cover some of the things that rubbed me the wrong way with unnecessary and even harmful to Yuri's character changes.

for instance, Yuri has a skit with Estelle that was heavily altered in the dub, originally talking about how he can't find himself being grateful to someone like Raven for showing them how to sneak out of the castle. his reasoning is basically that Raven is shady and he's not sure he should be grateful to someone like that, and is confused as to why Estelle would be so grateful when she doesn't even know him (because in his mind, he knows the guy feels somewhat shady from meeting him and isn't sure he wants to trust a guy with those vibes).

in the dub they just kinda... make him sound like an ungrateful jerk and not so much because he's not sure he wants to trust Raven. the dub skit doesn't make it sound like it's an issue of his with Raven specifically and that he just generally doesn't feel grateful for the aid (and that in general one shouldn't feel grateful for aid like this), which gives off a really wrong impression of him that doesn't hold up throughout the game.

Yuri wasn't wholly ungrateful for the gesture itself, but because of who it came from - and let's face it, getting that info from a guy in jail who had to be taken out by the commandant himself wouldn't look good in the eyes of an average citizen.

the dub really hurt Yuri's character in a lot of ways, but ever since I'd first played the game on the 360 yeaaars ago, that dubbed skit rubbed me the wrong way even before I knew the JP audio and now that I can show others the full JP context (again, can't really do that with the western release because the dialogue is still written in English so some people can hear the audio but if they don't understand it, the message they take away from it is still whatever is written in the localization) I really want to talk about some of the more damaging changes (in particular about Yuri because he got the absolute worst brunt of it). the skit is one example of a lot of weird changes that make no sense and unfortunately one of many that changed the entire meaning behind something Yuri meant/was doing.

there are a lot of weird cases of them just adding in entire sentences for no reason that don't really make sense or fit, but I probably won't cover those or at least in much detail. it's some of the bigger things I want to talk about because I feel like there's a huge disconnect in a lot of cases between western fandom Yuri and actual Yuri, and western fandom Yuri is partially if not mostly a result of the dub just yeeting entire aspects of his character out the window at the speed of light because dear heavens we simply can't have a cool adult man show a range of emotion evidently.

...on that note it's very wild to me how often they remove all traces of people calling Yuri an idiot. Karol had multiple but only got like one in in the dub. yeah.

/ Since I mention in my pinned post that this blog has some changes from canon, I'm going to make a rundown post that I'll be linking in my muse info on my blog. My timeline post covers some of this too and has other things canon to my muse that aren't here because they're timeline based and not direct changes based. I'll update this as needed.

Repede had another owner before Yuri got him in the game. I'm combining this with FS. Thus, Repede would have been basically an infant when he and Lambert ended up with the knights. From there he took to Yuri as he did in the FS drama CD so Yuri was primarily in charge of Repede during his stay with the knights, but he and Flynn raised Repede together as is in line with the game. This means they continued raising him together even after Yuri left.

In the JP version of the game, Yuri says he was with the knights for a short time but doesn't specify how long that time was, so I'm completely yeeting the "three months" dub aspect from this blog. I can't reasonably assume he signed up, took the exams, went into training, went from errand boy to battle status, then went on normal missions and left in the span of three months. So as usual, we're following the JP timeline. Generally anything the dub makes up or actively changes from the original context/tone gets yeeted here.

In the FS drama CD, Flynn is extremely repetitive about Yuri quitting the knights and with his nagging. At least with @mistralxsoul and anyone else who prefers it the following way in threads with my muse, we're toning it down because it just feels absolutely batshit to us how bad it is in the drama CD (it's worse than even the movie itself).

Since the timeline for Yuri and Flynn's knighthood conflicts super horrendously between the novel, FS/FS drama CD and the game, I'm mixing all of it together (primarily because I consider the novel more canon than the FS drama CD). Basically (for my muse), they signed their names and didn't take the exams immediately, but when they eventually did it was at least a couple years later, due to Yuri still having his teen appearance when he signed his name to join in the novel. This is because otherwise, if I average my muse's teen age out to be fifteen/sixteen and his age to be about eighteen/nineteen in the knights, it would mean he'd been with the knights (including training, etc) anywhere from 2-4 years if his sign up was immediately after the novel's events. If they were to sign up and join immediately after the novel timeline, it also makes even less sense because Flynn's attitude in FS and his relationship with Yuri (and remember, the FS drama CD comes before the movie's timeline and Flynn was even worse about Yuri's attitude in the CD) would seem like it literally 180'd overnight.

So basically, to avoid all this insanity, a short summarized timeline for my muse would be: they signed up but didn't join right away, Flynn moved away and was gone for a couple years or so after the events of the novel, both of them changed in personality/behavior drastically in that time, they met up at the exams, they went into training, they got sent to Niren's squad, they were more errand boys than actual knights when they were still super fresh newbies and Yuri was extremely annoyed with that, they were actual knights for a while (I'm going to say Yuri was a knight for at least six months or more, especially if I consider the trajectory of Flynn's behavior toward him in the drama CD through the end of FS), the events of FS were not one straight timeline and things happened between the days etc etc, then Yuri left.

Following the game's drama CDs, Yuri hesitated a lot more when Flynn was injured at Zaude. If not for Flynn nudging him to go after Alexei even while wounded, Yuri wouldn't have left him there.

Following the same drama CDs, it's Raven and Repede who find and look after Yuri when he wakes up after Zaude. That is to say, Repede was already with Raven and lunged when he sniffed out Yuri in his room (super doggo powers). Raven followed Repede in a panic, who ran to Yuri's room upon realizing Yuri was there, and Raven finds Yuri awake but right in the middle of passing back out (the sound is basically Raven's voice being distant with some ringing, so it's from Yuri's point of view that Raven is trying to get him to steady himself but he passes back out). Raven takes care of him from there until he's recovered properly enough to go back. In this time, Rita did investigating and eventually, with the others minus Raven, went to Zopheir after deciding they couldn't dawdle and just wait in their grief. While they're there, Yuri and Raven have headed out after them and show up together and reunite with the rest of the group. Raven has already been updated on what Yuri knows from Duke at this point (Duke saved him as usual, but the drama CD changes come in after that), so the two of them update everyone else.

In the game, there's a skit with Yuri, Flynn and Karol where Yuri mentions "playing in a river", but in the novel, they were actually getting water at the river and the other kids were playing in the river when they got attacked by a monster, fell into the river (Yuri also mentions (I thiiiink in another unrelated skit) that just falling into "a river" was enough to panic him), and Flynn grabbed onto a merman. For my muse, I'm just going with Yuri simplifying the situation to Karol while keeping the novel's event as my muse's canon.