STILL ALIVE! Chapter 3 release and a massive update on what we’ve been up to.

Still alive! It’s been about half a year since our last release! Some of you wondered where the heck we are and why we’re not posting any updates on our progress, while others rejoiced at our silence and presumed us dead. Never fear, my friends, The Broken Toy is back with another chapter for your pleasure.

To answer the question “Where the heck have you been?” I can only say, that both translators have this little bugger called Real Life to worry about. Slaaneshi is a senior year college student, so the last term was anything but easy for him. He also had a fun experience of organizing an MLP-themed booth for UNICON 2016, a multi-fandom convention in Minsk. Unfortunately, that took his attention away from the project for a while, and he had a little case of depression to overcome afterwards. If you wanna find out more about UNICON, ask Slaaneshi, he’ll hook you up with all you need know.
V_Korneev is a family man and has a very demanding job with a whole lot of deadlines to meet, so he’s been working his flank off in those two departments. I, being a family man as well, can totally relate.

I was hard at work as well. I successfully managed to print the second edition of hardcover copies of The Broken Toy in Russian supplied with an artbook. Also, I published 2 of my new stories, Солнце в рюкзаке and Новый помощник (rough translation: Sun in my backpack; New assistant) set in the Broken Toy universe and canon Equestria, respectively. Another of my Broken Toy stories is being published as well: Дорога из желтого кирпича (Yellow Brick Road).

Also, a singular occasion happened during our months of silence, for our team managed to meetup, i.e. Slaaneshi, my chief editor DrSchmallhausen, my co-author BlaadwinDufo and me all met up at RuBronyCon 2016, a pony convention held in Moscow, where I was selling my hardcover Broken Toy copies and chilling, and Slaaneshi helped out the convention guest, Pony Berserker and his companions, and interpreted for a Skype interview with Nicole Oliver, the voice behind Princess Celestia and Cheerilee. Actually, we so absent-mindedly failed to take a group picture, so we’re sorry for that. But, for one, at least Slaaneshi got targeted by cameras during the Skype interview, so you can have a good look at him (and, even more importantly, enjoy the interview) here (Slaaneshi being the guy to the right).

With that taken care of, we have a little announcement to make. To prevent such long unscheduled hiatuses from happening again, we’re expanding our translation team. So, if you have a good command of English and just enough of Russian to understand The Broken Toy, in Russian, we welcome you.

The requirements for the translator are listed below:

1. Good command of English (no less than B2 according to CEFR, ideally a native speaker) and Russian (enough to understand the source text; preferably a native speaker)
2. A substantial experience of reading fiction and non-fiction in English (including celebrated pony fiction works of no less than 100k+ word count) - at least 5 literary works for the last year.
3. Russian to English translation experience or English fiction writing experience are a huge plus. Send us your portfolios =)
4. Some free time and the will to develop your English skills and translation skills.

There are many tests to check your English level online. Say, I found this one while writing this post. Also, if you’ve recently taken TOEFL, IELTS or some level assessment test at your English courses, send us the results as well. This vocabulary test is also highly recommended.

So don’t just sit there! PM Slaaneshi and join us today. European Gigapolis needs YOU!

At the end of this already longer-than-anticipated post, I can’t but give huge shoutouts to the people who keep this project alive and kicking, V_Korneev, Slaaneshi and Icy Shake. And a separate thank you to Clacksphob and Hatterthethird/Will who guest edited for us, and to EQD’s Friendship is Gaming Discord server for support.

Aaand now we’re off to work on Chapter 4 and the audiobook version of Chapter 3. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted on the progress.. or at least do our best at it.

P.S.