#i will come back to reword this at some point but . yknow

[dreamertrilogys]

If you are comfortable sharing, what's the situation with dani? ofc pls only share if you are comfortable!!<3

i typed up a response to this & then accidentally deleted it TWICE i fucking hate this app. anyway this got long soooo

okay so we first met in english class at the start of the year right (we were both sort of friends with this one girl & like we sat near each other and both spoke up in class a lot). anyway we got this assignment to write a memoir about something that’s happened in our lives. so here i was a week before the due date, still topic-less (we had a month to work on it btw). i half-jokingly said i could come out to the teacher as bi in the memoir bc then she’d HAVE to give me a good mark right (it worked btw i got a 98% on it <3). and then it sort of spiralled into a whole “you should write about someone you’ve dated and being sexuality into it via that” / “i’ve never dated anyone” / “pretend you dated me”. (oh btw dani was already out to me and our other friends from english class as bi at this point). and so then we started flirting a LOT but like mostly as a joke(???). it was definitely more lighthearted at the start but like. well we were still very much flirting. like it was to the point where she’d ask me to go somewhere with her and i’d have to ask “in what way do you mean that” (the reply to that was always some variation of “in whatever way you want me to mean it”). this continued for like months and stuff but i didn’t consider the possibility that she actually liked me until recently (around a week ago ish?) anyway

okay so now it’s ummm. last tuesday(?). there’s a supply teacher for english so we decide to skip together (in a date way. i think). many things happen here:

we hold hands (romantically. she specifically asked me if i held hands with my friends and when i said no she was like ok good)

she kept looking at me and i kept saying what and then eventually she told me she thought i was pretty and that she liked me

this was so. like i had to cover my face with my hands for a bit after this and then i eventually told her she was pretty too and stuff. i couldn’t manage to tell her that i liked her but i did heavily imply it i think

i then came out to her as trans (ok so this was kind of rocky. first i was like would you still like me if i was a guy & she was like (lightheartedly/mostly jokingly) no bc guys have penises

and i was like are you bi? (like not meanly but just she’s sort of been questions if she’s bi or a lesbian and like. yknow) and then we sort of talked abt it for a bit and she was like i don’t know there’s like one (1) guy i’d date but don’t worry it’ll never happen (can’t tell if she only likes him bc he’s unattainable or if she was just clarifying that it would never happen bc yknow she just told me that she liked me)

anyway then and then she was like why tho? and so i was like i’m trans etc etc (MOST EMBARRASSING CONVERSATION OF MY LIFEEEE i genuinely despise the act of coming out to people it’s so awkward). anyway she was incredibly nice about it and apologized for her previous answer and shit (like she was genuinely truly sorry for it trust me). she was also like “for the record i still like you”. anyway she asked what names/pronouns she should use in front of which people etc etc

anyway while walking back to school after the whole coming out business she was like “can i reword something from before?” and then told me she thought i was hot (like in contrast to the earlier pretty). this was SOOOOO

okay so anyway ever since then she’s taken over the spot of the guy who used to sit next to me in english and every class we just spend with our chairs pressed together shoulders touching etc etc. now my PERSONAL issues with the idea of dating her:

i mean. there’s my religious stuff obviously. islamically i technically can’t date anyone but like. i genuinely don’t know where i stand on that anymore it’s quite awful i don’t want to think about it etc etc

there’s the fact that i still have a huge crush on one of my other friends (but like. he’s very definitely currently unattainable so i’m not sure how much this matters)

i’ve never dated anyone before this is so scary 😭😭 she’s dated much more than me and like. idk

she’s so cool and pretty and nice and hot but i don’t truly think we could like be together forever like we simply are just two very different people without enough in common (OR maybe i just have commitment issues. who knows.) (then again we were never really friends like the whole friendship was based on flirting as a joke so really what common ground do we have) (do i really have commitment issues? i mean yes probably but also i genuinely think if my friend who i have a crush on asked me out right now i’d probably say yes. but then again who knows for sure. certainly not me!)

not an issue this is a pro. did i mention she’s SO fucking hot like it’s insane 😳

[bisexualsdeservebetter]

i "love" how you completely ignored that i'm actively helping trans people get the care they need. yup, i "hate" trans people so much that i make sure they're navigating medical gatekeeping, which is direct violent transphobia. yes, this includes "real" and "fake" (according to you) trans people which must mean i "hate" trans people even more. i know trans people that have had to de-transition and go back into the closet. as i said, google that shit because you don't know what you're talking about. you've clearly never spoken to any trans people outside your little online group, and that's honestly really sad. and the only reason you won't say your race, which is directly tied to how people view gender, is because you're white - as i pointed out in the beginning: a white transmed. shocking. you don't want to acknowledge that you're a privileged, entitled transphobe that is harming other trans people. also, i "love" how you've been rewording everything to fit your ridiculous bigotry. to end this, i don't forgive you. because you're a transphobe. you don't deserve forgiveness.

Do you genuinely expect me to believe you're some warrior for trans medical rights when you're spending a truly bizarre amount of time anonymously harassing a trans person just because they disagree with you...? I don't believe everything I read on the internet lmao especially when it comes from people like you who enjoy sending anon transphobic rants.

And yeah, I do think you hate trans people AND detrans people given you believe you can choose to be trans and that every person who has ever detransitioned only did so because of societal transphobia.

As for 'I've never spoken to trans people outside of online' I don't really engage with anybody on social media about trans things, as I said, that includes private messages or whatever else. The trans people I talk to are the trans people who are my roommates lmao and live in the same house as me.

I have said before and I'll say it again: I am not going to share ANY personal information about myself beyond I am FtM, above the age of 18, and bisexual. Nobody, including you, is entitled to my personal information for the sake of a fucking tumblr argument lmao. Especially when you aren't even coming off anon? You want me to tell you what marginalised groups I am/am not a part of when you won't even share your trumblr url?

I am not rewording things, I am expressing my views and opinions. It's not my fault if you can't understand that. Also, your forgiveness does not matter, actually. I still don't believe you're a nondysphoric fully transitioned extreme social activist for trans rights whether you forgive me or not; and if you genuinely are helping nondysphroric people access trans health care, you are actively harming trans people. You are hurting dysphoric people, and you are actively contributing to trans suffering by preventing dysphoric people from getting ahold of, again, LIFE SAVING MEDICAL CARE. I know you don't care about that, I know. I know you don't give a single shit that HRT and surgeries genuinely save the lives of many, many dysphoric people. You've made that abundantly clear in all of your yknow, persistent transphobic harassment.

[eyfey]

Do you have advice on how to improve on translating? Also, what made you want to start translating? Major props to you for translating Saiki because Akechi Touma’s lines kinda make me wanna die inside.

Thanks!!! (though tbh Akechi’s blathering is not NEARLY as bad as the non-stop puns/obscure references lol)

For what made me start translating:I found some Pyu to Fuku Jaguar raws for cheap at a used bookstore and started learning Japanese so I could read them. Once I got a little faster at reading, I noticed the Jaguar scanlation team had lost their translator, so I offered to join. My first translations were super not great (the only reason they’re even somewhat accurate is because Mangahelpers was more active at the time and I posted my translations there in the forums for people to proofread/asked for help whenever there was any kanji/grammar I got stuck on.

(If you want to go read my first translation, it’s ch62 of Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar. …Looking at it now, there’s so many places I could’ve translated better lol)

Since then I’ve gotten a lot better:

So here’s my hot tips on how to get better at translating!!!(under the readmore ‘cause it’s looong)

The number one thing that I recommend is… Just Translate! Pick up some raws and start doing some translations! They’re probably gonna be bad at first but who cares! You gotta start somewhere! Translating forces you to think about how to actually translate stuff and makes you look up words/grammar you don’t know. If you’re translating for a group/actually releasing your translations: You’ve got deadlines now! People looking forward to your translations! You’ve got consequences that will make it harder for you to slack off and drop your studies!

Google things! Whenever there’s a word/phrase/grammar that you don’t know: Google it! Google is a translators best friend!!!

Here’s some keywords I use:“[vocab/phrase in japanese] 英語で” will give you a google translate of the vocab, and if you scroll down a little like a weblio page or something with some translations for the vocab (the weblio/other pages are usually more accurate than the google translate option).

“[grammar in japanese] grammar” - Example 食べさせた (tabesaseta). Can’t remember what the -saseta verb ending meants? (I don’t blame you lol) Google “させた grammar” and you’ll get some pages in english explaining it along with several examples.

Have another translator proofread your translations! They can help you with vocab/grammar, parts that you misread, or even just suggest different ways to translate things that might fit better in different situations. The first scanlation group I was in did this and I learned soooo much that way! I don’t know how many other groups do this though (or how many other groups even have more than one translator) so maybe I just lucked out!

Fun fact! If something seems out of place when you’re reading/translating, it’s probably one of the following:a). A pun/cultural reference. b). A specific phrase/saying that shouldn’t be taken literally. (Googling the entire phrase will usually give you an equivelant phrase or appropriate definition in English.)c). Some weird grammar that you’re translating wrong (do a deep google: a lot of grammar forms have multiple meanings/change meaning based on very small factors/are very similar sounding to other different grammar forms)

Understand that a literal translation is not always a good or accurate translation: There’s some famous Natsume Souseki shenanigans where the line “I love you” was translated as “The moon is beautiful” in Japanese, because of how Japanese people are more shy or something and would never say “I love you straight out”. Natsume Souseki is valid- some things when you translate directly lose their nuance and change the meaning to something completely different.

That being said, changing TOO much will also ruin your translation. It’s a fine balance.The point is: once you understand what the Japanese says, you gotta think “okay now how would they say this in English?” If this series were originally in English, how would the author write that dialogue? What is the main point that needs to get across and what is the tone and how do you accurately convey both of those in English?

Consume! Consume media! Read stuff! Watch TV! Listen Learn how people talk! Get a bunch of English vocabulary up in your head and save it for later. Translating is not just understanding, it’s also WRITING. You need to have at least SOME understanding of how to write a poem if you want to translate a poem. You need to have at least SOME understanding of how to write comics/fiction if you want to translate comics/fiction.

Read/watch translated stuff! See how other translators translate certain words/phrases and take notes. Steal their cool ways of translating things and incorporate them into your own translations. Notice what DOESN’T work in a translation and make a mental note to not do that. (Season 2 of Aggretsuko on Netflix had me going “WOW that’s a good translation!” constantly while watching it. Good job Aggretsuko S2 netflix translator!)

Google again! Remember how you had to google to learn Japanese words? Good! Now google English words too! Google vocab terms! Google synonyms! Google phrases/sayings! Google words to make sure you’re spelling them right! Google grammar to make sure you’re using it right! GOOGLE!

Accents/dialects: Tread carefully with accents and speech quirks. Sprinkle them in, don’t lay them on heavy. Read the dialogue you’ve written and think “Does this sound like how an actual person would talk? or does this sound like someone putting on a shitty fake accent?” I’ve seen so many translations where people slam the accent on so hard you can’t even read the dialogue any more… It’s not great. *Exceptions for if the character IS putting on a shitty fake accent in Japanese, in which case go hog wild.

Puns: If you hate yourself, you will try to translate the puns instead of putting a translators note. Don’t worry too much about translating the pun EXACTLY. With puns/jokes, there’s two important factors at play: 1. What is the joke? Is it a reference? Is it a play on words? 2. What is the text ACTUALLY saying?Start by translating the line with no pun, just regular dialogue, and then adjust from there. Then re-word to try and fit in the pun- swap out words for ones that lend themselves better to punnery, or change which part of the sentence has the pun worked into it. (Wanna know a secret? Sometimes*, if the pun is the main focus of the line and there isn’t actually any important meaning to the dialogue? You can just write whatever the fuck you want to fit the pun. *but only if you’re ABSOLUTELY sure that it’s 100% about the pun and there’s no other significance)

しかたがない: This sucks. This phrase sucks. “It can’t be helped” sucks 98% of the time. “What choice do we have”, “Fine then” “What did you expect?” “I guess” “If you insist” “Whatever”. There’s a million ways to translate it, but no one way works for every situation. Sometimes you can just take it out completely. It all boils down to “I don’t want to do this but I’m doing it anyway” so think of what someone might say in that scenario that conveys that feeling and still feels natural.

Sentence structure/double bubbles: Japanese grammar structure is weird. Sometimes they do stuff like put the subject at the end of the sentence. It sounds weird when you do that in English. Don’t do that in english when you’re translating it. If you’ve got a line like 強いね、君は (tsuyoi ne, kimi wa). Please don’t translate it as “You’re strong, you are”. Just translating it as “You’re strong” is good enough. If you want to try and keep the pause in there, you could do something like “Yknow, you’re pretty strong.” If you’ve got something like this that’s split up across multiple speech bubbles- DON’T try to translate each bubble individually. Translate them all together as one big block of text, then divide it where it feels natural, and THEN re-distribute it to the speech bubbles. Sometimes what was in the last bubble will end up in the first bubble.

If it sounds awkward in English- Change it. Figure out what doesn’t sound awkward and make it be that.

PROOFREAD. You’re gonna spell things wrong. You’re gonna misread things. You’re gonna go back and decide to change the wording of a sentence but forget to change the tense of one of the words. You’re gonna translate something too close to the Japanese sentence structure and you won’t really notice it the first go around but when you go back to proofread you’ll be like “Wow. No one talks like that in English.”

For reference, here’s my translation/proofread process:

1. Translate. Get it into English. Doesn’t matter if it sounds janky or awkward right now, just try to get the meaning down in English. Anything you’re not sure you translated right? Mark it so you can double check it later. (I usually do this in a google doc on my phone.)2. 1st passthrough. Go through, and turn all that janky english into more natural sounding English: Check for anything that sounds off and give it some tlc. Reword anything that needs it. Do some hard research on the places you weren’t sure about the first time.3. 2nd passthrough. One more sweep through to polish up any parts that still sound awkward in English. If you’re not pressed for time it’s good to do this one a day or two after the previous passthrough so you’ve had some time to let the translation simmer in the back of your mind. Maybe you’ve come up with a better way to word something? Maybe you came up with a good way to make that joke work?4. Final proofread. Usually I do this after it’s been typeset: Sometimes something that read fine as a script doesn’t read so great when put on a page, divided into bubbles or split into separate pages. Adjust those parts. Check extra hard for any missed typos or messed up grammar ‘cause there IS going to be some that slipped through.

KEEP NOTES: If you’re working on a series, consistency is important and makes you look professional! Keep a document somewhere with translation notes so you can do a quick consistency check whenever necessary. Write down things like: How to spell/translate the names of characters/places/special attacks/etc (especially side characters that only show up every once and a while), how you translate certain catch phrases, how you handle certain characters’ speech quirks. You WILL forget if you spelled that name with one R or two Rs and it’s WAY easier to keep it all in one document than to have to go back and scan through every chapter until you find the ONE panel to see how it was written before. It also helps if you have multiple translators working on a series.

Put your name on your translation scripts if you want to be credited! Doesn’t have to be on every page, just once at the top- I used to not bother 'cause they were always just uploaded directly to the scan groups/never publicly uploaded, but then one day someone used one of my translations and the credit page just said something like “don’t know who to credit” lol

…and that’s all I can think of right now! Hope that helps!

[rebeccacatalinas]

another huge change brotherhood made that i cant fucking stand ! ! ! roy’s ending ! first of all, why would roy be in the hospital he had minor injuries compared to the hundreds of soldiers that were critically wounded during the battle. its a waste of time and resources to take him to a hospital imo and he wouldnt wanna go anyway but, like, whatever, whatever

[ this got long so...under a cut ]

also why is he sharing a room with riza? that seems inappropriate and like...it was just included for fanservice. now i love the fanservice and i love the fics that a shared hospital room has led to but i dont understand the decision otherwise

a more important issue tho: brotherhood made it so roy was already interested in helping the ishvalans reclaim their land and he was already studying ishval and everything about it and yadda yadda. ok......but he has literally never mentioned doing any of this before, like obviously his ambitions wouldve involved helping the ishvalans, but he didnt plan on any of that until after he became fuhrer. helping the ishvalans wouldve, most likely, been a bad career move since i imagine most amestrians were racist towards the ishvalans and didnt have a problem with the massacre - but im basing this off the obvious comparison of german christians / jews in the holocaust. so it makes the most sense for roy to wait until hes already fuhrer before putting that plan into action imo

BUT ANYWAY, marcoh having to beg roy to put all his resources into helping ishval is so good. its SO good and of course roy is gonna say yes even tho just the thought of it triggered him back to the scene when kimblee told him to never avert his eyes from death. roy doesnt wanna go back to ishval or think about ishval and now hes in a position where he has to help them directly instead of indirectly as he originally planned. idk, i think its an important part of roy’s character that hes afraid to talk about ishval. when people bring it up he immediately changes the subject. the only time he’s ever brought it up is after a bad nightmare ! hes traumatized by his own actions and he wants to help the ishvalans as indirectly as possible. but now he owes it to dr marcoh to get out there and fix things.

idk im just rambling here but i really hate how they changed this to make roy seem like some kind of amazing saint who is totally confident even while blind ! ! !  but hes just.....hes not. i think its said about his character a lot that he wants to focus on the future and he hates to look back [which is why roy and riza’s stuff about backs/watching each others’ backs/etc fits so well into the narrative]. but what kimblee said to him in ishval is sooooooooo important and the line about remembering the people hes killed and never averting his eyes from death comes up a lot because its actually a really good point and roy tries to ignore it but its at that point when dr. marcoh talks to him that roy finally realizes he has to actually listen to what kimblee said. theres no more avoiding it !

ok that was a jumbled mess and ill reword it if its confusing but my point is that theres no reason roy shouldve been one step ahead of dr. marcoh. that tiny little scene in the tent between marcoh and roy was rly important but whateeeeeeever

aNOTHER big thing: roy has dr. marcoh heal havoc using the philosophers stone. like, why? in the little photograph of havoc in the back of the manga, its pretty clearly implied that he was going thru rehab and had actually regained the use of his legs by sheer willpower and strength [since his mother said earlier in the manga that there was a small chance he could regain the use of his legs]. and thats cool, and i love that !  but in brotherhood, for some reason they felt like that wasnt good enough? so we’re gonna have him be healed immediately and magically. i just.....i dont get the point of that. is it another thing to make roy seem unselfish and saintly? it just felt pointless to me.

also i really like the scene where rebecca comes in to let riza know whats happening. i mean, obviously from my username, im a big fan of rebecca so i get that im biased. and i ALSO get how heartbreaking it is for riza’s last scene in the manga to be her laying down and in pain and thinking the colonel is permanently blinded, but it made sense for the moment and i wish there were more fics based off of that version of the ending ! its a sad and disappointing ending but i wouldve preferred that brotherhood expanded on it rather than completely change it

im trying to think if theres anything else from the end that i hated that im forgetting about. mmm...hmmm. OH YKNOW WHAT ! when ed is looking around at everyone before he goes to get al back, in the manga he focused for half a page on roy and riza and remembers two important things that they told him in the past. it made sense for ed to focus on them for a bit. and brotherhood just...didnt include them in that scene at all. which saves, what, 5 seconds of still footage? i mean, like, whatever. but again, i dont get it.

[ceratocampi-moving]

@obsidian-disorder (cant reblog from ur blog on mobile) op only had a valid point if you take away the context of decades of homophobia in pop culture. and also ignore that a large majority of gay characters (specifically lesbians) get killed off (originating from producers who said that a character can only be gay if theyre killed off, to show retribution for being gay). theres also a much larger number of confirmed straight characters than there are confirmed gay characters, so making a straight character gay isnt taking away representation as much as making a gay character straight is. 

also, censorship of lgbt+ characters is still very much a thing today. disney, for example, not letting Alex Hirsch include lesbian grandmas in the love god episode. also, disneys new beauty in the beast shows they have trouble respecting gay characters (lefou being made gay was really just a bad decision because of 1.hes a villain 2.mostly just there for gaston to push around 3.unrequited 4.im sure theres more but its 6am for me)

it isnt like the characters are starting on an equal playing field, either. a lot of internalized homophobia leads people to believe that being straight is the norm (hence why coming out of the closet is necessary). this means a lot of lgbt+ characters have their orientation as a deep part of their identity; erasing that would be kind of shitty considering how much reoresentation is already there for straight people. (same thing for poc representation, for neurodivergent representation, etc) this isnt to say that some straight characters dont have them being straight as a very important part of their identity, but because homophobia keads people to think of straight as the default, the characters might just be straight because the author decided not to put any time into thinking about it. or, yknow, homophobic author. kinda like with that one book, with ponyboy and all that? yeah

seriously, though, look at almost any disney movie. is there a relationship in it? do characters get married? if so, are the characters straight? most of them are while gay people get stuck to just cameos and background characters (frozens shopkeeper and his family, the lesbian couple in finding dory, there might be more but im blanking)

we make straight characters gay because the representation we already get is subpar, tragic, and often restricted to just real life fiction. theres some exceptions, but a lot of it falls under those lines. our identity isnt just some cause of pain, and we dont want that to be our only representation in media. we can live happy lives just like anybody else- well, we want to be able to, anyways, but yknow, homophobia and shit. straight people already get so much positive representation and they dont have an entire religion basically saying they shouldnt exist because theyre a sin. they didnt have marriage legalized in 2015 for them. they dont have trump threatening to repeal a law protecting their right to use the restroom. they dont have propoganda against them without any basis (like trans ppl do about whether or not they can use the restroom ‘because theyll assault somebody’, if i remember right theres been. zero cases of that happening) and they arent still illegal in multiple countries.

making a straight character gay is an act of subversion and support usually. making a gay character straight is an act of homophobia usually. (i want to be clear here though, im using gay in the umbrella term version in that it includes the lgbt+ community as a whole, partially because it would take too long to go back and reword everything. )