Treehoused

a translation of some form of media, frequently j-panese videogames, which is heavily edited. connotation is that the edits detract from the work, are not true to the source material, or are used to push the translator’s beliefs or politics.

the most common edit is rewriting the media to make it “safe” for us audiences, which are -ssumed to be around 8 years old. this can include the removal of adult themes such as racism or murder, removal of difficulty options, removal of “offensive” art such as the female form, et cetera.

other instances include rewrites instead of translations, often to push an agenda. examples include inserting memes at random into the dialogue, giving characters “quirky” obsessions or speech impediments, or changing character traits such as s-xuality or gender ident-ty.

specifically used as a derogatory statement. all translations include some form of localization — changes for the audience. a piece of media is treehoused when these edits are poor quality or go beyond merely conveying the original author’s intent and create new content out of whole cloth.

named after treehouse, nintendo’s official localization team, which infamously treehoused the localization of fire emblem fates, making it nearly unreadable to anyone familiar with the source material, as well as heavily influencing other localizations during this era, such as tokyo mirage sessions. these actions sparked the torrential downpour consumer movement on the internet.
“don’t pick up nier: automata, they apparently treehoused the h-ll out of it.”