June 2013
26 posts
Starry Reflection: [Translation] Taisho Mebiusline - The Beloved You Is Living Right Now (Shigure's Birthday SS) →
usatanscrapwonderland.tumblr.com
The second paragraph……..wow, mine differs so much. Omg. Edited the translations! THANKS SO MUCH for correcting and helping! Now the whole story makes a lot more sense to me. xDD And I actually have no idea how to make Kyouichiro’s dialogues sound softer…I tried to make it sound polite but sobs. OTL;
P.S. I’ve always been wondering but…this story should be set after the best end, right? Because in the good end, Shigure did mention that Sakurako was getting cozy with one of the Gohongatana boys. xD
To be frank getting Kyouichirou’s tone straight is a pain in the ass, since in the English language/culture dudes generally don’t speak that softly. >_> And with Shigure he doesn’t use keigo either so that’s out. I’ve found that this helps : think about what goes on in his head, then say his lines out loud, in the sort of vaguely adoring endlessly fond voice he uses for Shigure in the game. Then think of what you need to write to get that feeling across, if you’re writing for a gentle, shy, sheltered, extremely well bred and highly principled young heir of a country noble house who almost couldn’t figure out how to talk without using keigo. Once you’ve gotten a line, say it out loud again. If it doesn’t sound right, rinse, lather, repeat. This does require you to be nearly pitch perfect about what tone is being used when in Japanese, of course, which I remember was pretty hard to do when I was learning all this. If you’re not sure how to detect tone of voice from a line yet and everything looks like a regular tone to you, it’ll come in time.
Ex : “But you should at least know which season you were born in” is pretty conversational, matter of fact, and slightly accusatory if you’re a pessimist. Kyouichirou’s original tone was pretty conversational, but it’s also nudging and inviting instead of stating that Shigure should know, so….it might be closer to go with “But you have some idea of which season you were born in, don’t you?”. It can be said on a pretty hard voice, sure, but it can also be said in a softer, inviting-an-answer kind of voice. It’s not perfect, no, because I wrote that on the fly and picked the sentence out at random. AGAIN, I emphasize that my choice of words isn’t perfect, this shit depends on the translator’s brain crazy, but at least it’s an example, right? XD;;;
Yep, it’s set after the best end. XD In the other end, Kyouichirou didn’t meet Shigure again until he’s pretty much finished his studies and left Tokyo, remember? And even if he hasn’t mentioned that he still lives in Tokyo, there would’ve been zero reason for Sakurako to write him a letter if he’s also living in Momogi village!
Because the reply to reply plugin is not working for some reason
charmian said: ….Have they even read what the American reaction is? If they think that Americans only buy American things, they really haven’t been paying attention.
…..They’ve read SOME of the American reactions, mostly the easily-understood gifs and the Amazon Versus thing, so they know that the US reception is also rather bad but I doubt they’ve read the bulk of our discussion on it. That’s why they still think it’ll still be successful in the West. (And frankly? I don’t think they’re entirely wrong on that front, if rather far from right. Brand loyalty is powerful, and the game lending/TV feature is probably useful to US urbanites.)
Some people seem to know what the West are talking about in the discussion, but most of them seem to rely on other people to carry newsworthy discussion topics from Reddit/4chan to them. Which tend to be, ah, adjusted for maximum hilarity/schadenfreude rather than for factual consistency.
I mean, they were really pissed off about the whole ‘Windows 7 Demo machine’ thing, without even ONE mention in the threads that it’s basically old news at E3, so their knowledge seems a bit lacking more in-depth discussions.
(That said, the PS4 did use the real dev build.)
So what are the Japanese saying about Xbone?
They sound pretty tame when turned into English, but various shades of ‘owakon’ ‘hahahaha omigod can this get even more crappy’ and ‘oh look American hubris’ and ‘Just what we expected out of America’ and ‘only Americans would buy this piece of crap, they only buy American things’.
Nevermind that Japan’s got Galapagos syndrome, of course.
I posted this on DW once but I think it bears repeating
Today I’d like to speak up on Equality. More specifically, the Equality of Asses and Rectums.
Case in point : you see a lot, lot of complaining, nose-wrinkling and other displays of physical and mental disdain at the tendency in BL/slash to treat the gay ass as a glorified vagina. I can understand this sentiment. Gays are a prosecuted group, and they likely feel a bit creeped out with being objectified and romanticised by women, of all things. Bad sex is also painful to read even if you’re not particularly turned on or off by sex in general, and I can only imagine what it’s like for people who are usually turned on by them. Not to mention that in some cases, you can only wince in the sheer ‘but, but I don’t think human biology is capable of that’ of it. (It should be noted, however, that BL in general has made great strides towards relatively possible anal sex since the 90’s, unless you’re reading one of the shoujo manga expy BLs, in which case, shame on you).
However, there is very little care about the health and safety issues of asses in male-oriented hentai. There’s just a lot of crickets chirping, shrugging, and ‘eh, it’s porn, we’ve got tentacles, it doesn’t need to be realistic, let us guys have our thing/let the guys have their thing’.
And if you’ve read any hentai involving anal sex at all, you’ll notice that all the tools that have became common in BL just doesn’t exist there. Lube? God forbid, the female asshole is just another vagina, don’t you know? It exists to stick a penis in. It autolubes. It has immense elastic properties. It doesn’t have the usual contents of large intestines in it, either, and hentai being hentai, the objectification of these asses/vagina tend to be a lot more prominent than Porn For Girls.
I don’t really think female asses are physically more elastic than male asses.
I demand that asses be treated more equally.
There’s a bit of pressure on the slash community that one type of ass is more equal than the other, and more worthy of a careful treatment. And if you don’t see the implications of greater things in there….well, you might want to rethink the matter a bit.
I understand the prosecution. I’m genderqueer, although as someone who doesn’t need to talk about that ever IRL I understand that my genderqueer is basically a First World Problem. However, to object to the objectification of one group and turn the blind eye to the objectification of another group (who has, let me point out, only recently gained the right to vote and the right to property and the right NOT to marry and still lead a productive life—-the latter of which is still being criticised in both Japanese/Western/any culture ever, when people thought political correctness is not looking) is not really the way to go.
Of course we’re not going to stop porn having ridiculous things in it. It’s porn, after all.
The question is, can’t we just deal with the fact that every group has the right to have their own porn? (That said, down with the argument that Women Shouldn’t Be Reading Porn It’s Not Womanly in general.)
Either object to the issue (or any issue you find squicky) in all porn, or don’t object at all. Let people have their fantasies and fetishes.
tl;dr, I’m fascinated by sex and the emotional baggage people brings into the subject of sex, which, in the end, seems like Much Ado Over Nothing. I’m upset when these Ado’s hint at thought processes that shouldn’t really be here in this day and age.
Hi! The Hetalia Kink Meme finally has a Tumblr! This blog will be used to post news about the kink meme, as well as to keep tabs on the request freeze rotation.
I’d greatly appreciate if this post could be reblogged as widely as possible—the more KM users follow this blog, the more useful it is as a resource! (But we’re also on Twitter, if that’s more convenient for you.)
IT’S ON DW.
AW YESH.
Starry Reflection: [Translation] Taisho Mebiusline - The Beloved You Is Living Right Now (Shigure's Birthday SS) →
usatanscrapwonderland.tumblr.com
Note: As the title suggested, this is a brief translation for the short story with Shigure featured on the game website in honor of his birthday. I have to note beforehand that my knowledge in Japanese is actually pretty crap. I depended on…
Well, there are a few minor mistakes and tone mismatches (Kyouichirou’s dialogue is generally supposed to sound softer than that, for example), but there’s nothing big left? Let’s see….
Going on another skim——-Kyouichirou wasn’t ‘shocked’ by Sakurako’s handwriting, he was ‘surprised by how much more girly her handwriting seemed all of a sudden, and was flabbergasted at its contents’.
I would use ‘found an object of admiration’ instead of ‘set her eyes on someone’, since it’s originally a phrase that leaves SOME room for interpretation (kind of like ‘does he mean ‘love’ or ‘like’ by ‘suki’??? EGADS’) and it would fit better with the stuffiness of the era, but this one is kind of up to the translator, really.
And the second paragraph, which I kind of skipped for the first time SORRY >_>———- is more like….ah this one has some fairly large mistakes I’m sorry. I think it’s the confusing sentence structure, but you ended up leaving out a bit of details.
“That girl, who had started taking calligraphy lessons from the widow who lived across the Hiiragi estate this year, was about 15-16 years old. The sight of her in her student-styled short-sleeve maroon hakama with arrow patterns was so refined and elegant that Sakurako was besides herself with one-sided feelings, and often eavesdropped on her playing the song ‘Saga no Aki’ (‘The Cragged Peaks in Autumn’) from across the hedge fence, sighing longingly. After deciding to call her ‘The Lady of Saga’, she also managed to ask this and that out of the widow who taught the girl, learned her birthday, and wrote her brother in Tokyo to ask for his advice on this thing that he couldn’t possibly figure out.” <———that’s what he said, but HONESTLY KYOUICHIROU I figure you’d know EVERYTHING about starting a gay relationship with the person you admire!
There, that should be about it. Don’t worry, your Japanese is better than you think! It’s just that Mebiusline spares no one in its difficulty, that’s all. Heck, the ONLY complaint I’ve ever heard from Japanese players is ‘dear god WHAT IS THIS WORD I NEED DICTIONARY’, so you’ve done good for a learner! :)
I hope I was of help! It’s always nice to see people who love Mebiusline! :D And thank goodness you didn’t mind me being a Nazi. >_>
“
For most of America, Psy is a funny name, a funny face, and a funny personality. He doesn’t sing in English and most people just don’t get it leaving most of them to not take him seriously. It’s easy to strip the significance behind “Gangnam Style” down if you don’t know what it means and solely find entertainment in the Asian guy shaking his hips. But what most people don’t realize is that Psy doesn’t take himself seriously. He’s a satirist and political dissident. “Gangnam Style” was a commentary, not just a fun pop tune with a silly dance.
Gangnam is Seoul’s wealthiest and flashiest neighborhood. For South Koreans, Gangnam represents the ideal life of excess and consumerism. Psy’s character in the video is a wannabe Gangnamite. He dreams he’s living the flashy, excessive lifestyle while he’s really just like everyone else, swimming in a public pool and riding the subway. But never in the video does it seem that Psy’s character is unhappy. He’s content to play in a children’s playground and meet the girl of his dreams in the subway. “Gangnam Style” is much more that we have made it, but that’s not surprising considering Psy’s background and how little we know about it.
In America, it seems like “Gangnam Style” was Psy’s big break when in fact the song had been released on his sixth studio album and his music career hadn’t been about making flashy and catchy songs. He believes music is the key to overcoming the intolerance embedded in his country’s political systems. Throughout his career, his songs have been banned for inappropriate content and have been surrounded by controversy, not to mention the fact that he fought his mandatory military draft.
Psy is a voice for his people. He’s fighting the oppression and intolerance he sees in his culture through his music. And by ignoring his worth and his value, we’re reducing the culture of South Korea into a short man with funny pants doing a ridiculous dance.
” —Opinion: American media chooses to undervalue artists like Psy from “Gangnam Style” (via kpop-confessions)
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
(via nikinapalm)
This, but it goes in all directions, really.
When I was a kid, I remember that everyone was saying American pop culture is all about masturbating in public, because Michael Jackson was doing his concert here with that crotch-touching thing of his.
Even now, we still think American culture is so much more sex-related than it really is, and we think Europeans are prudes. It’s kind of funny.
(In other news, reading Japanese thoughts on Microsoft’s PR stumbles has been….interesting. In related ways.)
[Translation] Taisho Mebiusline - The Beloved You Is Living Right Now (Shigure's Birthday SS)
Note: As the title suggested, this is a brief translation for the short story with Shigure featured on the game website in honor of his birthday. I have to note beforehand that my knowledge in Japanese is actually pretty crap. I depended on my current knowledge in the language and my Japanese dictionary book to translate this LOL. But I’m pretty sure I got most of them correct. There were also a few sentences that were EXTREMELY hard for me to translate so feel free correct me if you spot any mistakes! I guess I can take this as part of some sort of training to improve my Japanese LOL.
Hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did! I love Shigure so much. ;-;
‘Teito’ should be ‘Imperial Capital’ instead of Teito. It’s just the era-specific nickname for Tokyo, so if you want to go for a name, use ‘Tokyo’. (Japanese people typically didn’t call their capital by its actual name until post-WWII. It’s always just ‘the Capital’.)
It’s not ‘it’s a loving act’, it’s ‘it’s a beautiful act’. It’s not putting the item in your sleeves, it’s ‘gently, softly, slip the item into your beloved’s sleeves’. ‘Kimi’, in this case, is not ‘kimi’ as in ‘you’, but ‘kimi’ as in ‘itoshii no kimi’, ‘the esteemed person of your love’. Thusly, it’s very much not ‘Saga-kun’, it’s ‘Saga no Kimi’. If that sounds weird to you, go with ‘the Lady of Saga/The Lady of the Mountain Peaks’.
It’s not ‘is still done between girls’, it’s ‘I wonder if it’s the popular thing right now’, because prior to the Westernization, birthday gifts wasn’t a thing.
そもそも誕生日を年ごとに祝う風習は、よほどの貴顕はいざ知らず、大和の民に浸透していない。まして五本刀衆は男がほとんどを占める集団で、メランコリックやロマンの入り込む余地などないのだろう。
This should translate to, sans edits, ‘For starters, though the customs of celebrating birthdays may be well known among the highest of the social order, let alone having permeated down to the common folk. And for a mostly male organization like the Gohongatana, there was likely little room for such melancholy or sentimentalism.’
Shigure’s grandmother didn’t say that he’s born during the harvest season. She said ‘Of all the seasons you had to be born in it had to be the busiest time in the fields, you little rascal’. Otherwise, his next sentence wouldn’t even make sense.
授かった赤子が無事に育つかどうかも分からぬ暮らしの中、歳を重ねることは慶事ではなく、ひもじさや寒さや病と戦い続けた結果でしかないのだろう。
This is more accurately “aging is no cause for celebration, it is merely the result of winning battles in the long war with hunger, cold and disease, nothing more.”
It didn’t say three sons. It says, ‘Though our boy has lived to be three, how can we know if he would to be four’. And it doesn’t exist ‘somewhere’, Kyou just says that it’s still the reality of this country, and for Shigure.
Also, ‘read the movement of the stars’ is more accurate to what Omi did than ‘studied astrology’. It sounds like it’s the easy way out of the translation, but the Gohongatana clan is based on Onmyoudou in some ways and that’s what they do.
Sorry for the long list, I’m a Nazi when it comes to translations. D: Shigure’s past and Kyou’s understanding of it always makes me wibble, though.
EDIT : Oops, made a mistake myself. Corrected. >_>
So according to Nakajo Rosa….the Shigure CD will have Omi saying the words for the resurrection spell.
What.
WHICH resurrection spell.
It just struck me....
Rewind : PS3 vs. Xbox 360 reveal
PS3 : “Our platform doesn’t just play games! Look at this Blu-ray and multimedia options. It’s an all-in-one multimedia platform for your living room! You’re going to want this because we said so! Also it’s a wee bit expensive but look at the value you get, it’s totally worth it. If you can’t afford it, just go get a second job or something!”
Xbox 360 : “LOL. Dear gamers! We’re about gaming the way you want it, no strings attached! And at a price you can afford! We know what you want and we’re not going to force stuff down your throat because it’s what we want or anything!”
Fast Forward : PS4 vs. Xbox One reveal
Xbox One : “Our platform doesn’t just play games! Look at this skype and NFL and TV integration! It’s an all-in-one multimedia platform for your living room! You’re going to want this because we said so! Also it requires internet and is a wee bit expensive but look at the value of the Kinect you get with it, it’s totally worth it. If you can’t use it because you don’t have internet or don’t live in a supported country, just go get a 360 or something!”
PS4 : “LOL. Dear gamers! We’re about gaming the way you want it, no strings attached! And at a price you can afford! We know what you want and we’re not going to force stuff down your throat because it’s what we want or anything!”
Conclusion : Sony staff were actually body snatchers who are now inhabiting the bodies of Microsoft staff. Nintendo might be next.
Everything INTP: Let It Be Known That INTPs Are Not (Really) Assholes →
thatintp.tumblr.com
Let it be known that INTPs:
- Are truthful. This means we may value truth and honesty over sadistic lies.
- Are personable. They’re called Ti-Glasses. They let you see all kinds of cool shit without getting emotionally involved.
- Are nice people! Just don’t fuck with or misinterpret their…
Best description of life as an INTP ever. Except, dude, I rather care for the wellbeing of Cerberus! Wouldn’t someone think of Cerberus!?
Microsoft employees reportedly ambushing Nintendo's Best Buy E3 experience events - Haverzine →
haverzine.com
Microsoft’s employees are cockblocking gamers who want to buy a Wii U and redirecting them toward an Xbox One. Oh man, now I not only don’t want an Xbox One, I want to Quantum Leap to the year 2006 so I can change my mind about buying an Xbox 360.
Well fuck Microsoft.
I don’t even *like* Nintendo and have no intention of buying a Wii U, but this is a godmother of dick moves, IF TRUE. Because honestly Microsoft. Do you need even more bad press to dig yourself out from????
Reading over my old translations, I’m struck by how much they need editing for flow and smoothness. There’s quite a road ahead XD
IKR.
My current translations read like a brick whenever I look at them for editing. *sigh*
That's why it's Xbox 'One'.
One Box to rule them all
One Kinect to find them
One COD to bring them all
And in Xbox Live bind them
In the clouds of Microsoft, where region-locking lies.
(P.S. I don’t hate MS since I’m primarily a PC gamer and thus am using an MS platform by default, but since I don’t live in the 21 countries, MS is making my console choice for this gen awfully easy.)
