They're Tamamo too.
btw re: OP
Text 魔術 魔法 Syunsuke Thaumaturgy Wizardry Moonlit World Sorcery Magic Tsukihime Uncertain, possible Magic Sorceress used for both 魔術師 and 魔法使い FSN Demo Magecraft Magic Melty Blood Magic Sorcery Re-ACT Magic Sorcery Fuyuki Thaumaturgy Magic KT Sorcery Magic FSN Magic Sorcery, True Magic? Act Cadenza N/A Sorceress used for 魔法使い KnK (Baka-tsuki) Sorcery, Magic (but 魔術師 as Sorceress, Magician, Mage, Magus) Magic (but 魔法使い as Wizard, Magician; but also Magus - the original text sometimes uses 魔法 and 魔法使い loosely) Zero Magecraft, Thaumaturgy Magic Actress Again (mirrormoon) Magecraft (but 大魔術 -> great magic) Magic CM3 food Sorcery True Magic CM3 mew Magic Sorcery CM3 arai Magecraft Magic, True Magic Kara no Cokeai The Art, Magic Sorcery, (Real/Pure) Magic Apocrypha Magecraft Magic Hollow Magecraft Sorcery Mahoyo (Mcjon) Sorcery Magic Case Files Magecraft True Magic Strange Fake Magecraft Magic
And that's just fan translations.
Mahoyo patch will use magic/sorcery too.
So basically, it's more than twice as usual to use Magecraft for 魔術 as anything else, and all other options are actually more or less on the same level of usage, including thaumaturgy. 魔法 on the other hand is almost tied between magic and sorcery, while true magic which a lot of people swear by is barely even used in comparison.
True Magic may have risen in use as the most clear-cut term to oppose whatever 魔術 was called at any given time, though I have vague memories of mirrormoon once using it in FSN.
It represents more than 15 years of fandom activity, I'd say it's good enough that certain naming conventions stuck and things didn't get extensively Coked up. Like others said, terminology becomes mostly intuitive after reading the source material and participating in a few discussions. It's also less important in actual fandom interaction than it might seem when first trying to get into TM and its setting.
(It's often seen as gatekeeping but if someone wants to get into the nitty-gritty of how TM works rather than just reading/watching it as a fun weeb game/novel/anime the best way really is to start out very confused about everything and then reading up until they're only slightly confused about some things)
Last edited by Leftovers; July 19th, 2020 at 01:12 PM.
The thing with True Magic is that it was never supposed to be "True Magic", it was supposed to be "true Magic". "Magic" is the glossary term and "true" is a clarification adjective optionally used in the first time the term comes up or when it's explained in detail, then omitted otherwise.
Huh. I wonder where I got the idea to use True Magic from. My thought when I decided to use it was just that it was the term I was most used to, but according to that table (and my memory, if I bother to check it) it's never been used in any of the things I've read.
Interesting table though, thanks for sharing.
My Fanfiction - Almost entirely short stories and oneshots
That makes a whole lot of sense.
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It does get used a lot in the fandom at least. In fact, the extent at which it gets used makes it feel like magecraft and magic could already be interchangeable for 魔術, but for some people people are still against that so it's strange.
At this point I don't think there will ever be commonly decided upon terminology that the fandom will use, because there will always be people that will complain and spark the debate to change it to X. It's an endless cycle.
I mean, looking at the franchise as whole and ignoring any attempts to preserve consistency with previous translations, 魔術 can be any immediately recognizable synonym for magic. Except sorcery stopped being an option since since 2017 because of weird furigana choices for 妖術, but until 妖術 becomes a properly defined term with significant differentiation, that's ignorable.
Overall, the only thing I consider dictated by any sort of game context is 魔法 being magic since that word is very consistently framed as the word laymen are the most familiar with, usually with the concept getting introduced the layman audience surrogate (Shirou or Shiki Toono come to mind but I'm far from sure if this scene happened with one of those two specifically) talking about magic and the more knowledgeable Rinspeaker going "Uh, magic is not what you're thinking it is". Or on a much more recent example I'm far more confident about, Tsubaki's saying she wants to learn magic during her conversation with Jester in Fake 06. FsF's example in particular feels off with any other translation to 魔法 due to Tsubaki being iirc 8 years old or something close to that.
I remembered someone I think on YT used magic for 魔術 and magick for 魔法. Magick in Thelema was Aleister Crowley's definition of the "real" magical shit to differentiate from magic tricks.
I was gonna say I'm pretty sure FGO just looks at the wiki and takes translations from there, but then I remembered it has so many translations that are just ???
Oh and if you look up 魔法 the first thing it'll give you is "magic" anyway so guess that couldn't be the case anyway.
IMO, whenever I see magecraft, I feel there's a modern connotation to it, hence I use it for 魔術 in post-Solomon context, and also use magic for the same word but in pre-Solomon context. I use Sorcery for 魔法 since it's a much more distinguishable word when put besides magecraft and magic. I'm still leaning between that or 'M'agic though, but the reason I opt for Sorcery was that so I can use magic in words like magic bullets, magic swords, etc. rather than magical bullets, magical swords, etc. since the former is the more deferred terms in many media.
As a related note, I use magical for things relating to 魔力, like Magical Resistance (instead of Magic Resistance), and by extension, Magical Burst and Magical Tuning. Since 魔力 was about the term magical energy, I found the word magical more apt in such contexts (even if MR is about dealing with 魔術, it uses 魔力 within the actual Skill naming, so I came to a compromise with that).
Where was sorcery used as 妖術's furigana the first time?
In regard to your first question, I used black magic for 妖術 when I considered what kind of people Avenger Amakusa and Kashin Koji were since that term was mostly used with those two in the FGO context.
Anyways, I'm interested in hearing more people's thoughts on what they think since I'm still on the fence on some translations I use myself, especially older references I can take a look at.