aftg-and-random-things

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“I’m neil this is my husband andrew and our bf kevin and my partner jean and his husband jeremy (kevin and jean have something weird going on we haven’t figured it out yet)”

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He's a magical girl.

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uhhh fuck it: reverse-translating all the japanese in aftg 5

i guess this is what i'm up to these days??? i'm so terminally bored i'm ctrl+f searching "japanese" in all the aftg books by nora sakavic. turns out aftg 5 (the golden raven) is the only one with actual legible japanese (i.e., japanese written as english, instead of just "and then he spoke japanese"). so uhhhhh yeah let's translate that!!

note: i'm going to include some rōmaji (latin transliterations) in this post, just in case it breaks langblr containment!

1. 無理やり = by force

anyways, let's get into it. here's our first of three:

jean rounded on kevin and did the only thing he could: he slipped into japanese and said, "don't make me do this." (175)

ooh, this is very english, especially "do" as a filler verb. japanese doesn't often use する this way, but we'll use it here due to context.

let's check out "make me" first. in japanese we've got the causative form:

〜させる* = to make or let (someone) do ~

which is fine and good, but we've got to make it clear that we mean make and not let (which is probably the more common usage). to do so i'm going to use this adverb:

無理（むり）やり = by force, against one's will; forced (i.e., not natural or obvious)

with this, there's no way you could read the sentence as *don't let me do this or similar.

lastly, we should get the flavor of the imperative (command) right. we could use the true blue negative imperative, させるな, but i don't think that quite matches jean's tone here, which is much more like begging. so, let's use 〜てください, or more specifically, the rough version 〜てくれ—in the negative, of course!

putting all these together, we get my reverse translation:

無理やりさせないでくれ。 = (lit.) please don't make me. = "don't make me do this." transliteration: muriyari sasenaide kure.

i'm pretty satisfied with this! we could maybe get a more specific verb in there, but that's less to do with the translation and more with the source text.

*of course, this form shows up as 〜あせる in 五段 verbs :)

2. 〜てもらいな = get them to ~

this one is long, a veritable speech:

kevin ignored her and answered in japanese. "have jeremy take you outside for some air. i will inform hannah we will not be answering any of these questions. if she refuses to back down, we will leave. i will message jeremy with the decision either way." (175)

i'll be honest, this one took me a while—it was tough, but fun. (also, kevin is my favorite character, so i wanted him to sound right!) let's go sentence-by-sentence:

have jeremy take you outside for some air.

tricky right off the bat! what are we supposed to do with "have jeremy take you"? probably we should use 〜てもらう, which usually comes up in cases of receiving. after all, kevin is basically instructing jean to "receive" an action from jeremy. because this is a sports anime, we could have kevin use the rough imperative もらえ, but we could ALSO have him be slightly nicer (but still authoritative), since jean was once his mentee/mob partner/co-captive/etc. just bc i like the tone of it, let's do the nicer-but-authoritative one using the shortened 〜なさい form:

1. ジェレミーに外で休憩でも連れて行ってもらいな。

honestly, this is much wordier in japanese than in english, which i don't completely like. we could probably delete 外で (= outside) and lose a bit of specificity but keep all the essentials if we wanted.

next sentence:

2. i will inform hannah we will not be answering any of these questions.

idk about you guys, but in my english, "will not be ~ing" essentially means "refuse to ~", so that's how i'll translate this sentence. also, because kevin is going to use reported speech ("hannah, we will not..."), i'll put that portion in 敬語 (respectful language). as we know, kevin is a perfect publicity boy, so he would definitely be appropriately and maximally formal in these situations. lastly, he's emphasizing that he will take care of hannah and that jean doesn't have to worry about it, so i'll put in 俺 with emphatic が.

2. 俺がハンナにこんな質問お断りしますと伝えてくる。

next!

3. if she refuses to back down, we will leave.

again, "refuses to back down" isn't extremely wordy in english, but in japanese, something like 譲るのを拒む is very wordy, so i'm going to switch this to something more like "won't yield" using 〜てくれる.

3. 譲ってくれないならやめよう。

and lastly:

4. i will message jeremy with the decision either way.

i'm actually going to change the sentence structure a little bit here: instead of saying "with the decision," i'll write it as "once it's decided" (using 〜たら). i'm also going to use 〜てあげる instead of the rougher 〜てやる, because again, i'm having kevin be slightly nicer to jean out of like vestigial cult survivor affection. (also, he's talking about jeremy, who's his hero/憧れの人!) and lastly, i'll end the sentence on the particle combo からさ to express something authoritative yet reassuring, like so you don't need to worry about it (which we got a little bit of in sentence 2 as well).

4. とにかく決まったらジェレミーに連絡したげるからさ。

now, we actually have something of an interesting task: putting it all together. in the english kevin just rapid-fires off all these statements, but in japanese we like a lot more transition words, so i'm going to combine and reverse the first two sentences.

俺がハンナにこんな質問お断りしますと伝えてくるから、ジェレミーに外で休憩でも連れて行ってもらいな。 = (lit.) i'm going to tell hannah we refuse to answer these questions, so get jeremy to take you outside for a breather. = "have jeremy take you outside for some air. i will inform hannah we will not be answering any of these questions." transliteration: ore ga hanna ni konna shitsumon okotowari shimasu to tsutaete kuru kara, jeremī ni soto de kyuukei de mo tsurete itte moraina.

then, the next two sentences will go in regular order:

譲ってくれないならやめよう。とにかく決まったらジェレミーに連絡したげるからさ。 = (lit.) if she won't back down, we'll give up. in any case, once it's decided, i'll contact jeremy [so you don't have to]. = "if she refuses to back down, we will leave. i will message jeremy with the decision either way." transliteration: yuzutte kurenai nara yameyou. tonikaku kimattara jeremī ni renraku shitageru kara sa.

and just for thoroughness, i'll compile the japanese:

俺がハンナにこんな質問お断りしますと伝えてくるから、ジェレミーに外で休憩でも連れて行ってもらいな。 譲ってくれないならやめよう。とにかく決まったらジェレミーに連絡したげるからさ。 transliteration: ore ga hanna ni konna shitsumon okotowari shimasu to tsutaete kuru kara, jeremī ni soto de kyuukei de mo tsurete itte moraina. yuzutte kurenai nara yameyou. tonikaku kimattara jeremī ni renraku shitageru kara sa.

phew! that was a long haul, but i'm pretty happy with how it came out, especially kevin's tone. let's look at the last one!

3. やってやらねーわ = no way in hell

i like this quote in english a lot, so the pressure is on for me:

in weary japanese, kevin said, "our damage control needs damage control. i will never do an interview again." (179)

ooh, tasty! this isn't exactly a joke, since he obviously means it, but there is some sarcasm in there. japanese....doesn't do sarcasm very well (lol), so we're going to have to make it a little more literal. let's do the joke first:

1. our damage control needs damage control.

this sentence basically means our damage control is insufficient, which would translate into japanese really succinctly and comprehensibly—while, of course, completely losing the sarcasm. our other option is to force the sarcasm into a bit of a wordier/weirder sentence:

1. ダメコン足りねー。　<OR>　ダメコンにもダメコン要るじゃん。

i like both of these, but for the sake of being loyal to japanese, i'm going to stick with the first one. at the very least, using the rough 〜ねー negative gets across how fed up he is.

now, let's do the follow-up:

2. i will never do an interview again.

i'll interpret this as something like, "i'll never deign to give them an interview ever again," using 〜てやる, because he actually IS being a huge bitch here. that way we can enjoy using this extremely rough form which he hasn't been using with jean and give it a flavor of no way in hell. lastly, i'll add なんか for disdain and the masculine sentence-final particle わ for emphasis:

2. もう2度とインタなんかやってやらねーわ。

funnily enough, i feel like the sarcasm comes through much more clearly in this second sentence. and here's our final translation:

ダメコン足りねー。もう2度とインタなんかやってやらねーわ。 = (lit.) our damage control is not cutting it. no way in hell i'm giving [them/anyone] a stupid interview ever again. = "our damage control needs damage control. i will never do an interview again." transliteration: damekon tarinee. mou nido to inta nanka yatte yaranee wa.

am i completely satisfied with this? honestly, no, but i think it gets the job done. some of the problem just comes from the way the dialogue is set up, which would be a problem for an ACTUAL translator to fix (lol).

what did we learn...?

weirdly, we learned (or i learned) that i really want to put 関西弁 (kansai/western japanese) into all this sports anime ass dialogue (lol). i resisted since it wouldn't match the tone, assuming that kevin and jean learned how to speak from a tokyo mafia prince, but maybe if jean speaks marseilles french he'd actually be pretty down with getting into some 関西弁! やんけ！

also, as i've mentioned a couple times, i found the sentence structure of these quotes to be really wonky if you translate them straight to japanese. i messed with it a little but, but definitely not enough for it to sound like regular japanese (i don't think). that wasn't exactly my mission here, so i'll let it go as a problem for another, rainier day, but i think it's important to note. (actually, my opinion is that some of this sentence structure is pretty awkward in english as well...but since she's writing drama, the dialogue doesn't HAVE to sound like real people, ofc.)

and lastly, we (i) learned (remembered) that i love kevin day!! heinous bitch!! <33

anyways thanks for sticking with me for a pretty unusual episode of "sasha uses this blog for whatever the hell she wants"....hopefully it was interesting even if you don't know the source material! as always, great work and お疲れ様でした!!

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Its Andrew’s first time trying a cigarette and he coughs on the smoke and its Aaron’s first time snorting cocaine and he sneezes on the tickly powder. Andrew aged 14 enters juvie to get away from Drake and Aaron aged 19 enters custody after murdering Drake. Andrew and Neil sit on the roof and Aaron and Katelyn enter the library, Andrew crashes the car holding himself and his not-mother and Aaron drives the Mas holding himself, his brother and Neil in California, Andrew gets onto drugs just a year after Andrew gets off of them, Aaron writes a letter, "Andrew," [Aaron says,] desperate and frightened. He held onto Andrew like he thought Andrew would disappear if he let go and Andrew writes back a refusal, Andrew who’d barely acknowledged Aaron’s existence in the entire time Neil had known them, looked immediately to his brother, they’re identical twins and they’re the closest set of twin primes, Andrew forces Matt clean as to not trigger Aaron into relapsing and Aaron wavies his right to a jury and hinges the entirety of his life onto one judge to save Andrew from spilling his trauma to strangers, Andrew slams Katelyn into the wall and Aaron hounds after Neil viciously to make sure his intentions towards Andrew are pure, they’re doomed in every universe and they seperate after graduation but they interconnected no matter what they do.

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I know Andrew is mainly afraid of flying because he is afraid of heights, but I wonder if some part of it is because of the lack of control. I am afraid of flying because I’m afraid of heights but I’ve come to realize a lot of it is also because I hate giving up control and that made me wonder if that’s the case for Andrew as well. I feel like Andrew likes to have a specific degree of control over things, like the way he uses deals to manage his relationships with people idk? Being on an airplane isn’t just being off the ground, but it would require Andrew to give up control to the people around him and not have any recourse should anything go wrong. Couple that with being in the air and that’s just even more terrifying. It isn’t like the roof where he can back up from the edge himself? I don’t know this could all just be projection but I wouldn’t be surprised if that also plays a role in his fear.

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Robin Cross is your favorite character’s favorite character

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“In defense of AFTG” “it’s not perfect but AFTG” “it’s bad but AFTG”

Stand ten toes down it’s a PHENOMENAL series with a cult following, it has remained relevant for over a decade, it’s an indie book whose author receives utter NONSNESE if not HATE for her own stories, it has complex and morally grey characters, it’s about surviving, it’s about living, it’s about love and friendship and hard work, it’s high stakes, it’s diverse (even more so now), and has a great fandom.

You don’t need to qualify liking it with critique. You don’t even need to defend it against people who don’t like it. These books aren’t for everyone but they are for us and personally that’s enough for me.

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aftg is insane because what do you mean an ex gang member turned christian college sports player stormed a castle to save her pretty french situationship

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Your friends watching something for the first time and getting to that scene VS you, the knower.

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Trying to post things without thinking too much and hoping the regret goblin doesn’t eat me up. Hahahahah

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I don’t usually like starting posts with “we moved on too fast from” but I really don’t know how else to say that I think we moved on too fast from Agent Browning saying “Can’t say we didn’t try, but maybe you’ll be more valuable as bait.” Like I know the entire scene is screaming the fact that the FBI is onto the Moriyama’s, but he literally says to Jean’s face that he’ll be more valuable as bait? And Jean doesn’t even so much as bat an eye??

Anyways when Agent Browning says this he is kind of implying that they think the Moriyama’s will make the first move to get rid of Jean as a witness which will bait them out of hiding (at least that’s how I’m taking bait in that sentence). But something that doesn’t add up is that I really don’t see happening unless the Moriyama’s know the FBI is onto them because they already have a deal with Jean. They won’t act against Jean unless they have good reason to assume Jean will betray them or if the FBI is getting suspicious enough that it isn’t worth trusting Jean and keeping him as a liability. So for Agent Browning to think that he could use Jean as bait that means either 1. that he doesn’t know Jean is secure with the Moriyamas and so he thinks they might get rid of him or 2. that the fight between the FBI and the Moriyama’s is several steps ahead than we know as a reader and he has serious reason to believe they will target Jean soon. In any case, the FBI is blatantly using Jean to draw the Moriyamas into the light and just no—fuck them, leave Jean, Laila, and Cat alone.

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besties, the sunshine court still has me in a chokehold and i'm unable to escape so i'm giving you laila and cat for pride month!! Happy Pride Month everyone!💕 Genuinely am so happy with the colours and background details considering that I always struggle with it🤧 But since I want to start developing a webtoon soon, I need to work on it so I took it really serious this time!!

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I did not know Robin Cross had agoraphobia.

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okay nope i am at heart conflict avoidant. I will not be doing this

I think it’s time to finish my essay on the sunshine court’s themes…cause yeah no I can’t believe the Trojans are being blamed again

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canon thing that gets to me: when neil first goes to katelyn in TKM to talk to her about aaron, the FIRST thing she says is "he's having nightmares again, isn't he?", which means THREE things

ONE: aaron had recurring nightmares about drake & thanksgiving, bad enough that katelyn was aware of them (probably meaning he was waking up with them regularly because if he could've hidden them from her, he would've)

TWO: these nightmares didn't stop but possibly lessened after andrew came back from easthaven, because:

THREE: aaron told katelyn they were gone/had subsided after he couldn't spend nights with her as often, presumably trying not to worry her when she couldn't be there for him

CONCLUSION: love is real and it's these fucking two

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I think it’s time to finish my essay on the sunshine court’s themes…cause yeah no I can’t believe the Trojans are being blamed again

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Once you understand that "cringe" as a condemnation only has power over people who are ashamed or afraid to engage earnestly and joyfully with the things they love during their one brief and fragile human life, it will lose all power over you.

You will be free.