#i know it’s a bad translation…

[les-bee-ians]

Does anyone have the Sayooshi english patch anywhere? ; ω;

[originalartblog]

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Laios's three Boy Best Friends. And yes, they hate him.

[softhe4rted]

on loneliness jenny slate / japanese breakfast, posing for cars / corinne von lebusa, big glow / dadushin / alejandra pizarnik, tr. me / fka twings, home with you / avocado_ibuprofen / fiona apple, left alone / anne carson, “the anthropology of water”, plainwater / kiki smith, free fall / alejandra pizarnik, diaries

[salteytakesonmanga]

BIG DISHONORABLE MENTION FOR THIS WORD CHOICE. Zoro does not call Nami a “scheming woman.” What is with the translators making Zoro into a complete hater towards Nami?? Vivi says she can’t understand what Miss All Sunday is thinking, and Zoro replies “we’ve already got that type of person on this ship.” He never said anything about women at all! If you think of someone on the ship whose thought process is completely incomprehensible���

…HE’S TALKING ABOUT LUFFY.

[strugglingsapphic]

Chloe is a heater so she has to sleep in shorts ( they're baby blue ofc) and a tshirt a lot, and red is absolutely FERAL over her because in the mornings Chloe wakes up and her voice is deeper and she looks so boyfriend (Red explains that it's a tiktok thing, Chloe still doesn't get it but she takes the title with pride) And it takes Red all the power in the world to not jump chloe's bones right then and there because they have somewhere to be in an hour and she cannot make them late (again) but chloe is RIGHT THERE looking like THAT and she can't stop staring. So when the blue haired princess knows exactly what she's doing to Red, when she's leaning over and using her voice to her advantage whispering "Nous aurons le temps pour ça plus tard, cerise" in the girls ear and then has the audacity to chuckle at Reds little whine? Nah all bets are off, they'll make time NOW.

Chloe's absolutely melts when Red picks out one of her oversized shirts to sleep in (And only her shirt too, Red knows exactly how chloe likes it when the shirt is not only her baby blue color but her legs aren't covered either so Chloe's sure she's won the lottery), and Chloe has to fight tooth and nail to keep her eyes anywhere but her girlfriend when Red sits in her lap as she moves to get out of bed. And when the shirt pools at her hips (In the way she know drives her blue princess mad, and if she made sure the shirt rode up on purpose that's between her and god) Chloe can feel their difference in temperature when she puts her hands on Red's thighs, she can feel the shiver that goes through Red when she places her palms on her hips, she can feel the contrast of Reds cold lips on her feverish neck, she can feel Red's knees tighten when she whispers french into her ear and goddamnit-

She never had a chance of getting out of bed when she woke up this morning and fuck it she doesn't care anymore, Chad has dipped on Chloe so many times for Audrey that she thinks it's time to return the favor because if she doesn't pay attention to her girlfriend right now she might just die.

[kittyfrisk9]

Idea Dp x dc - Amnesia

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't understand the idea.

...

What an unpleasant color. That was the first thought he had upon waking up in a hospital and seeing the white walls.

They told him he had amnesia due to the damage caused to his head. It wasn't that he had simply forgotten everything; he still remembered what common objects like a door or an apple were. He also knew what eating, going to the bathroom, brushing his teeth, or any other daily activity was. But he simply couldn't remember... certain things.

Like his name, important events in his life, people... He couldn't remember anyone. Not even the boy who threw himself on him, crying and apologizing, saying that all of this was his fault for being too slow.

Apparently, this boy was his boyfriend.

And he was right, because something in his chest twisted when he saw that cute boy crying. He doubted it was his heart; it was more like a kind of feeling, a sort of instinct that hated seeing that cute boy cry.

"It's okay, don't cry, it's okay, I'm fine." He hugged the other man, stroking his hair and saying sweet things to try to calm him down.

Jason Todd started crying again.

...

Note: Sorry, I don't know English, so please use a translator. I apologize if you don't understand the idea.

[lingerdingdong]

Marc Revelado Documentary clip and English transcript

[lurkingteapot]

Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."

I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show. When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.

Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.

And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse. And that's even before cultural assumptions come in. It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.

Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).

Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.

This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!

As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).

For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …

ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?

[yridenergyridenergy]

Vicious August 1998

[ahalliance]

interesting lore moment with the francophone yesterday (as in, it personally gave me brainworms) ft. qétoiles’ horrible, no good, stupid (lack of) self-preservation . subs in English, transcript below the cut

All spoken in French — translated into English subtitles

[Video transcript:

Etoiles: And, actually, I have a theory. Basically what happened is that I’ve just returned from a mission from Cucurucho.

Antoine: And what was the mission?

Etoiles: To do a dungeon, and to recover something from the dungeon.

Antoine: And what was this “something”?

Etoiles: And the “something” was a book that sorta says that I’m a test subject.

Antoine: A test subject?!

Baghera: What’s up with your arm? You’ve got a coded arm.

Etoiles: Uh, it’s from holding the shield, basically.

Baghera: Ahhh

(Pause)

Antoine: Watch out that it doesn’t contaminate you, or else you’ll turn into a code, man.

Etoiles: That’s impossible, man, I can’t be a code.

Antoine: That’s what the old codes said before becoming codes, you know.

Etoiles: No— well, we’ve never spoken.

Baghera: Maybe you shouldn’t be using the shield as much then, no?

Etoiles: Well, as it stands, I’ve been using it for a really long time, and my mind is still healthy, honestly. And the proof is—

Baghera: Well, half of his face took the brunt of it instead.

Etoiles: Yeah, but it’s not all there is, you know.

(Pause)

Baghera: Let me worry, Etoiles, right now.

Etoiles: You’re right. You’re right! But everything’s going well, I’m doing very, very well—

Antoine: It’s true that you look a bit sick.

Etoiles: Uh, yeah, for the past seven years, it’s a chronic illness, it happened—

Antoine: No, but not this one, the other— you seem even sicker, still.

Etoiles: Yeah, okay. Yeah but no, I’m fine. No, no, it’s fine, honestly.

End Video Transcript.]

[nocek]

And this concludes the grand crossover event

(or does it?)

(it does but I was given a great idea for how to solve Gwen's problem :) )

the timeline of previous relevant comics:

[Jeff has a great fashion sense and Peter is the best hooker]

[Jeff is found and fucks are lost]

[bro landed up in the wrong universe and all he got out of it is a lousy bow]

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[morgines]

I'm probably living in the neolithic since I can only make traditional art but I made fanart of some of my favorite scenes of Spy Wars by @clawedandcute !!!

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[egophiliac]

Wait, is Lilia canonically 700? I thought he was thousands of years old. Did I miss something in Chapter 7....

I thought so too! the stuff about his real birthday being lost to time, the way he talks about the planetary alignment thing that only happens every 100 years, and other things like that made me think he was waaaay older than he is. but nope, in 7-26 he says he's just shy of turning 700! (so he's actually like. 699.) his particular type of fae can live to around 1000, but he's running down early because he pushed himself too much when he was younger (and also he plays too many online games) (he was probably not serious about that but c'mon, man, at least use a blue-light filter or something).

meanwhile, Mal is from a much longer-lived race that doesn't even reach adulthood until 1000 (500 is young adult, and 200 is still a little fledgeling dragon baby). Lilia doesn't say exactly how old he is, except that he's developmentally a "little" older than the third-years (so like about 20 in dragon years? ...can Leona sense this. is this part of why he sees Malleus as his Eternal Rival.) which means he's probably somewhere around or just under 500.

...I just realized that, depending on when it happened, this means Lilia might've been, like, mentally a teenager during the flashback of The Time Baby Malleus Almost Killed Everybody. he's just had Dad Instincts his entire life, I guess.