#it was the beautiful work of deepL and Google Translate

[suncklet]

What the fuck i never posted this thang

[zeichannnnn]

⚠️ In regards to the natlan controversy (and Sumeru by proxy)

Do NOT accuse people of being racist just because your skin colour cannot be found in a game. Learn to know that people don't live in the same situation as you.

Please read this fully for the reality of things I'm sorry for getting political, skip if you don't want to interact

I’m kinda sad at the fact that a lot of people are quick to hate, judge, and scrutinise Hoyo without understanding the situation.

With recent teaser of Natlan characters, people are rightfully upset at the fact that the characters shown to hail from Natlan… don’t exactly look the part. With characters lighter than my own skin tone (I’m a Chinese Southeast Asian by the way, heya) people are calling hoyo bullshit and accusing them of being a racist for failing time and time again at giving us characters with POC shades of skin. Now I’m not here to defend Mihoyo for their actions, or to tell you to stop being mad at the situation being the way they are. No, I’m here to shed you some light of how life is as a game company under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Xin Jin Ping (XJP cause I won’t be bothered to type his whole ass name)

I've highlighted points of each section

Any pages that requires translations, I recommend using DeepL instead of google translate because you can check the meanings of specific words and it's translation are better (imo)

Skip to the last part if you just want a summarised version

Before we get into the nitty gritty that is Genshin drama, I'll give you a run-down on what and how China works.

check the part "In relation to Genshin's design choices and how China's beauty standard influences it" if you want to go straight on to the point

People’s Republic of China

is a Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic. This means that China is under a one-party (Chinese Communist Party) rule with communism ideology on how they rule and govern the country and socialist standards for how they manage their economy and everything else. [.]

The CCP holds a very nationalistic view

[.] which is commonly used as propaganda [.] for them to garner either sympathy or control over the people of China. These nationalistic view, in its raw and most rudest form, simply states that Chinese people are pure by upholding traditional Chinese culture (that's not even traditionally Chinese, more or less more catered towards communism and the CCP's ideologies which are that they're great and everyone else is wrong) and not mixing themselves or tainting themselves with things that are not pure (i.e. anything that isn't Chinese, from China, belongs to China) This nationalistic views, which glorifies China and detests anything foreign (i.e. culture, language, people, etc.) have led to a lot of xenophobia being built and nurtured inside of China's society [1] [2] [3]

Aside from the CCP's nationalistic views,

China's society is very censored and monitored by the CCP

[.] Google, YouTube, or more specifically, the internet itself is heavily banned by the government, electing the people to use the CCP's private internet that allows them to be monitored 24/7 through IP location and private information. [1] [2] [3] [4] Aside from heavily monitored and controlled internet access, people in the real world are also actively being watched and monitored through CCTV with facial recognition features and an AI that can predict people's action (yes, exactly like the akasha, and yes, Sumeru arc is based on reality, I won't talk about it here but feel free to read between the lines and compare it with the sources and news articles I'm about to drop on you) [1] [2. Behind paywall] [3] [4] [5]

With its censorship in mind, let us talk about what brings us all here:

the gaming censorship in China.

In order for a game to be published in China, whether it's made by an indie or a multi-billion dollar company, the game has to go through a complicated preliminary test made and assigned by the CCP to play, test, and go through your game before publishing it anywhere in Chinese media [.] This test includes you company's paperwork, your game's paperwork, the things you're displaying in your game, and the story it's trying to tell. There are not that many rules on what should and should not appear inside of your game, such as: polyamory, the undead (in both graphic and non-graphic manner), etc. That should be considered tame and should cause no problem, however, we do have a problem with one of the rule given which is: Emphasizing Cultural Sensitivity.

Emphasizing Cultural Sensitivity

in the article I've mentioned before, describes it as "Games should impart “correct” information on politics, law, and history, as interpreted by the authorizing agency." Now what does "correct" information entail? Who fucking knows because truth is relative. Facts, when in the eyes of the CCP, are relative to what they believe is to be right and what they want us to believe is right.

Now with that out of the way, let us get into the main deal.

MiHoYo

(not to be confused with Hoyoverse/Cognosphere which is their international branch) is a is a Chinese video game development and publishing company, founded by three classmates from university Cai Haoyu, Liu Wei, and Luo Yuhao [.] That means that Genshin Impact's development, ever since it was at its infancy, first-established days, and updates until the near future, are all subjected onto that game censorship law that I mentioned earlier. Now you might all be wondering, what does all of those rules have to do with genshin characters having dark skins? To that I point you towards the fact that MiHoYo and the CCP are and have been actively working together ever since around September 2021. [1] [2]

Cooperation between MiHoYo and the CCP

Ever since Genshin Impact's massive hit both nationally and internationally, its massive fanbase has hit the internet no one has ever seen before. It is the first ever Chinese game that has gotten world wide acclaim and with that, new eyes begin to look upon China. It is no surprise to anyone that Genshin is very particular about showing and promoting Chinese culture to the outside world. Genshin has somehow become the face to Chinese culture in just a year, with limited events such as Lantern Rite and Moonchase festival to showcase China's cultural beauty. With world-wide acclaim comes a price, wherein the CCP no longer treats Genshin as "another game" but a tool that they can use to promote and advertise themselves into the global population.

Begin the censorship and micro-manipulation of things in Genshin

New gaming censorship dropped after the Genshin Impact became a hit in the industry, with even Venti and Gorou as examples of characters that should not appear in media published in China (effeminate man) [.] In additional to the list I've linked in the "the gaming censorship in China" section, a lot more additional rules have been added to that list, such as: queer representation, morally grey character, but I what I want you to look at more is the section where "historical elements, including characters, maps and clothing, should conform with mainstream accounts." in addition to that, a self-regulation pact was made between game companies and the CCP that bans any and all content that is deemed "politically harmful" and "historically nihilistic." Now focus more onto that "historically nihilistic" point, what does that mean?

Historical nihilism

is a term used by the CCP and many Chinese scholars to describe research or discussions deemed to contradict an official state version of history in a manner perceived to question or challenge the legitimacy of the CCP [.] TLDR; it's a term used for when what you're saying clashes or goes against what the CCP said. Why is this important you may ask? It's because that now, at this point, if anything Genshin does something—whether that'd be plotline, design etc.—that the CCP thinks shouldn't exist or be represented, they have the lawful right to block or stop it from reaching the final product. Now this, this is what happened to Genshin's Sumeru and Natlan cast.

In relation to Genshin's design choices and how China's beauty standard influences it

white has always been a predominant part of modern Chinese beauty culture, for some reason (I don't know and I'm not going to go that deep into it, research it on your own if you're curious) In fact, it's not only China but also Asian culture in general. White skin has always been hailed as pure and beautiful here in Asia, where the line "as pale as the moon" is a common compliment to give to someone. Skin colour that are tan or even darker are connected to being dirty or stinky. Despite the younger generation not really adhering to that view, the older generation (calling out the CCP here) upholds that standard till this day. Pin straight hair, round eyes, pale white skin, and a thin figure are the standards put upon those born as female. Their male counterpart are not that different, with lean and fit being the preferred body type rather than big muscles or bulky forms.

The reason behind why this is the case is because of Asia's strict social code in rules and appearances. We must appear prim and clean, that means no dyed hair, no tattoos, no piercings, and minimal make-up. Anyone that goes against those rules are regarded as delinquents or deviants that usually break the rules and do criminal activities (despite it not being the case) Having a bulky stature also applies to that list, regardless of what gender you are, and especially for men. You're regarded as dangerous, criminal, bad influence if you look like that in public (this is why we don't have that much bulky characters gang and why we were robbed of heavy muscles Itto orz) (he deffo was very bulky in the original design, probably similar to the Nobushi but it got nerfed in final product)

Given all of that in mind, it's no wonder that Sumeru's and and Natlan's casts are mostly white... but were they always that way?

The original skin colour design for Natlan cast might've been darker than what we have in the final product.

As a lot of people have mentioned (especially with the many beautiful edits I'm very fond of) the character designs for Natlan's new up-coming rosters looks better with darker skin tone. Take for examples this edit right here:

taken from @ rarepairz on twitter [source]

Their designs (with darker skin tones) seem to pop more, giving highlights onto their clothes and accessories in comparison to the original design. Here are more examples of this happening:

taken from @ Wabs_nabs on twitter [source]

It is especially clear to anyone with basic colour theory that the colour used for designing the clothes and accessories and highlights in the hair look better with darker skin colour. There is *intent* on making it this way in comparison to woeful ignorance of making them look white as hell. If they were to intentionally to make the characters look white, they would've chosen a better colour for the clothes, less bolder ones and eye-popping ones to contrast with the already luminescent light that's emitting from the skin.

And this is not the case for only Natlan, by the way! The same thing happened when the Sumeru cast was first leaked. Case in point this:

taken from @ animuswonder on twitter [source]

and my personal art of Cyno and Nari:

Look at how much contrast there is between their colour palette or how much resonance there is, with Cyno his more cold-colour attire and hair, in comparison to his deep dark warm skin or Tighnari that's the epitome of a "spring girl" like come on man. There's INTENT in those designs, to have more darker shades than they are in the game. Sadly, they just can't do it due to censorships. Why? Because, as I have mentioned before, darker shades of skin are represented as dirt here in Asia as we glorify pale skin more.

The representation of uniqueness and differences in Chinese game is not common due the fact that most Asian countries are homogenous, which means they prefer everyone and everything to be the same, to look the same, and follow and do the same things. They do not advocate for uniqueness, they do not advocate for individuality, they advocate for us to conform and to follow like a sheep in a herd. Because of that, most people spend their whole life trying to whiten up their skin, keeping them light, and those who are darker than most are shown prejudiced and scrutinised.

Mentioning again the fact that MiHoYo and the CCP are working closely together, Genshin Impact is currently being used as a cultural weapon by the government. With MiHoYo showing numerous time that they've donate and support Chinese cultural heritage, the CCP is using that fact and holding control over Genshin as a way to promote and advertise sympathy towards Chinese culture and the Communist regime by proxy. It's like how your parents are getting you to eat broccoli brownies in hopes that you'd eat normal broccolis and other vegetables by proxy. Everything and anything that Genshin shows in its game are now under close inspections of the CCP and colourism especially will not fly-by their radar.

In conclusion

Your anger and hatred towards the new characters’ designs are justified, however the person you aim those anger and hatred should not be towards Mihoyo, or Liu Wei, or any of the staff members but towards the situation and the laws and the local government MiHoYo has to adhere to.

We're already lucky to have MiHoYo even wanting to represent and shpw different cultures from different parts of the world, telling us engaging stories, and incentivising us to think more and to be be more of us instead of following the crowd and to judge those in power (if you are literate and have the ability of a 6th grader, you know the theme Genshin Impact is showing in its story). In a world where they aren't able to live as freely as people outside of mainland do, they shouldn't have to put their life at risk by creating a game that goes against the CCP's laws that will lead to a deduction to their social points (yes, those actually exist, WAKE UP). Yet they do, they update every month, telling stories, creating characters with many characteristics that goes against Chinese gaming laws, just for us to enjoy.

Do NOT accuse people of being racist just because your skin colour cannot be found in a game. Learn to know that people don't live in the same situation as you.

You are right to be mad, you are right to be upset, but do not condemn them for something they hold no power to. It's between their lives and your fantasies and if you choose to value your delusion over their livelihood then that just shows what kind of a person you are.

Where's this conviction towards other game companies aside from MiHoYo? Where's the rightful air when it comes to companies that breathe much fresher air? Do they not have the same responsibility? Or is it because you actually do not care and merely want to point your unbridled emotions towards something or someone? If so, you're pointing at the wrong person.

[bcacstuff]

Summary Day 1 at Land Con Paris (part 1)

via [Live] blog rostercon.com

note: Disclaimer: This live is automatically translated from the French version by Deepl. Translation errors may be present in the content. Une version française du live est disponible ici.

What's on the agenda for Saturday?

To get you in the mood, the credits from the Outlander series are sung by an artist on stage at Land Con 7.

The cast of Outlander: Blood of my Blood has revealed in a video that the series will be broadcast exclusively on Max in France.

The cast of Outlander took to the stage, officially kicking off Land Con 7.

Time for the first panel with Grant & Stephen

Grant and Stephen were proud to see their sons play the younger versions of their characters in Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

Tobias Menzies panel at Land Con 7

Tobias has fond memories of shooting Outlander; it was a real collaborative effort. He adds that they all learned from each other.

Tobias admits he doesn’t have a favorite character among those he’s played. He adds that that’s the beauty of the profession, to be able to play such a wide variety of characters.

Tobias talks about his upcoming projects, including the film F1, due in cinemas in June. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon.

Tobias admits that he enjoys the opportunity to vary his projects, whether in film, theater or TV. He adds that theater keeps you humble, because the audience reacts live to the actors’ performances, whereas with film projects, you don’t get that instant feedback.

New panel, this time with Richard & Diarmaid

The two actors admit that they didn’t know each other before shooting together in Outlander, but that they immediately had a good chemistry with each other, and that they both work in the same way, which made things easier.

Did playing in Outlander open the door to new roles? For Richard, Outlander took up a lot of his time in recent years, so he had little time to devote to other projects. He was able to shoot a few productions between seasons, but it didn’t have to conflict with his Outlander schedule.

Diarmaid says that all the characters he’s played in the past have helped him land the role of Buck, and he hopes that this character will in turn open up new opportunities for him. He adds that the character of Buck has allowed him to show a new facet of his acting.

Chris Fulton is now on the panel

Chris says he knew about Outlander before he starred in the series. He adds that the mother of one of his friends is a big Outlander fan and that when she heard he was going to play Rob Cameron, she said about the character: « He’s a complete bastard ». That was his first introduction to the character he was going to play.

Chris goes on to say that it’s fun to play a villain like Rob Cameron except when you get hit by Sophie.

Did he prefer his experience in Outlander or Bridgerton? Chris humorously wonders if he can really make a choice other than Outlander, given that he’s at a convention on the series.

He confides that since he had more shooting time on Outlander, he had the opportunity to forge more bonds with the series cast. As for Bridgerton, he admits he really enjoyed the opportunity to shoot in period costume.

Chris Fulton now plays a game in which he discovers certain Google queries about himself, and takes the opportunity to share a few anecdotes about his past experiences. In particular, he recalls an unusual story that happened to him during the filming of Bridgerton.

He was due to stay at the hotel and so arrived to collect his room. However, there was no reservation under Chris Fulton’s name. He then indicated that since he shoots with Netflix, his reservation might be in the streaming platform’s name. This was still not the case, so he tells the hotel that he plays Sir Phillip Crane in Bridgerton and that his reservation might be in that name. This was the case and the hotel was really expecting to welcome a Sir so the hotel had reserved the presidential suite for him. And so, for two days, he enjoyed a luxury suite.

Chris Fulton clarifies that he will not be returning to Bridgerton for season 4.

A new panel, and it's David Berry's turn to answer his fans' questions.

David really likes the evolution of Lord John Grey in season 7. We learn new facets of this character, he evacuates all the frustration he has accumulated in previous seasons.

Panel time for Charles Vandervaart

Charles recalls a funny anecdote about one of the sex scenes in season 7. His grandmother watches all his series, so after the episode aired, she called him to find out if he’d really slept with the actress as it seemed true. He told her no, it was just TV, and explained how they filmed such scenes.

Charles and David have a very good relationship both on and off the set. David showed him around Glasgow when he arrived on the set of Outlander. Charles adds that he likes David a lot.

Duncan Lacroix kicks off his panel at Land Con 7

Duncan recalls that in season 1, they were shooting a scene in which they are « chasing » cows in a field. They were asked to speak Gaelic and just said footballers’ names, which they associated with each other. This was a particularly funny scene to shoot, but at the same time, they were also shooting Jamie’s torture scene, so we had to quickly get serious again.

Duncan is happy with his character’s storyline and the fact that Murtagh’s death really adds something to Outlander’s story and Jamie’s development. He adds that he’s not someone who cries easily, but when he shot his last scene, he cried, as he was saying goodbye to a character he’d played for so many years.

When he was cast, Duncan read the Outlander books but there was little information about Murtagh. He says the writers gradually gave his character more importance, starting with the scene with Jamie at the wedding.

Outlander cast reunites for group photo at Land Con 7

[saffron-words]

Introduction and UtsuKare Translations Master Post

Some of you might recognize me as that Russian translator of Utsukushii Kare books from Wattpad. I decided to revive my tumblr to compile all the links and explanations here for those of you, My Beautiful Man fans, who can't wait for official English releases of the books.

I could never keep a blog, so for now here I'll just tell how it all came about, and you can find links to all my MBM translations at the end (feel free to just skip the wall of text).

So a couple of years ago I finally bowed down and decided to read Utsukushii Kare series in Japanese for language practice, even though I found the summary unappealing and I'm generally suspicious of overhyped media (as far as BL novels go, these books seemed to be The most hyped-up series in Japan). Much to my surprise, I loved it so much it was hard to move on. And while I waited for a chance to buy book 3 and Interlude, I gobbled up everything else related to the series that I could. The manga was only just starting, I didn't like dramaCDs (but I'm in the minority), and the drama somehow revived my love for watching Jdramas, even though I thought that this part of my fandom life has been over for years. When the second season started airing, I made a new friend in the Russian-speaking parts of the Internet who was even more obsessed with MBM than I am, and we fangirled to our hearts' content. At some point I promised her to translate the big sex scene from the end of book 3 as a gift for all the talks. I did, and since back then there was nothing for book 3 in any European language, as far as I know, I decided to post it online and give a link to English-speaking UtsuKare fans too. And since Wattpad doesn't allow copying text, and the browser translator feature from Google Translate was really inadequate, I also put up a link to the translation made with Deepl. As far as machine translators go, it is noticeably more comprehensible, and I didn't have the time (or skills to do the book justice, really) to translate it to English myself. Anyway, after this excerpt I thought I could manage one more important scene from book 3, then one more, and then I finally gave up and started translating it properly from the beginning. I also started correcting mistranslations in Deepl-versions that I kept doing for English readers, so some parts of the book are now much more readable than others. Now the third and the second book are done and I started to work on book 4, Mamanaranai Kare that was published in Japan at the end of October 2024. I also translated several stories from Interlude and plan to do at least one more, and maybe some others for some holidays.

So here are the links to everything I've translated from My Beautiful Man book series:

Book 3 "Nayamashii Kare" which continues the story past the movie (completed). The text is in Russian, but there are links to decent machine translations to English at the beginning of each part (I've also run through most of them and corrected the mistranslations). Or you can use the in-browser translation feature, but the results would be less readable.

Book 2 "Nikurashii Kare" which was technically turned into season 2 of the drama and the movie, but the script has deviated so much from the book, at times it's like a completely different story (completed). I don't make Deepl translations for this since the official English release finally came out in December.

Stories from the Interlude. A number of stand-alone stories from the collection of them called "Interlude". The book has a total of 15 stories, and I probably won't translate it in its entirety, but I've dones the ones that I personally liked. One of them had also been translated to English by Mauli before, but I didn't use her version when working on mine. The rest of the stories have never been translated by anyone else, as far as I know. These, too, have links to Deepl-versions at the beginning.

Book 4 "Mamanaranai Kare" continues where book 3 left off. Ongoing. Usually I can manage at least one update per month, sometimes more, and I plan to divide the whole book into 12 parts. Each part will have a link to an English version which is machine-translated but with all mistranslations corrected by me.

Disclaimer: my Japanese is not yet really on a level good enough to translate fiction, and there are bound to be mistranslations even if you read the original Russian versions. But I'm cross-checking myself on everything to try and keep those mistakes to minor things. I also know how to translate so I made sure that the text flows well, doesn't feel choppy and retains the same vibe that I get from reading the original.

[an-aroaces-harem]

Ellis Twilight Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I just deepl and google translated my way through this because I wanted to know what’s going on, so there are definitely mistakes but I believe I managed the general gist of the story. Anyway, it’s just a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes. Ikemen Villains belongs to Cybird.

Another note: I know Ikemen Villains is set in victorian London, but I will use the japanese suffixes because I prefer them.

What is happiness?

It is like a twilight sky that changes color as soon as it is burned into the eye …

It holds your heart forever and never lets go, but you’ll never have the same one again.

Time, stand still, and let not this happiness fade away.

.

(From today onwards, my life will be monitored by the members of the assassin organization ‘Crown’ who control evil with evil.)

(As a ‘fairytale writer’, it is my duty and my only lifeline to record their sins.)

I get myself ready in front of the mirror and reassure myself that I am ready.

(I am honestly afraid to see this ‘sin’ again, but …)

(I’ve handled a lot of complaints and deliveries at the post office in the past, and I’ve also worked in busy and crazy situations.)

(Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll manage.)

Kate: Only one month. You can do it, you can do it …

I said to myself like an incantation, opened the door, and took a vigorous step forward.

???: Whoa.

Kate: Ah!?

I bumped the tip of my nose against the chest of someone standing in front of the room.

Kate: I-I’m sorry …!

Ellis: I’m sorry, too. … Does it hurt.

(Ah … that person …)

–flashback–

Last night, I discovered the secret of Crown, an assassination organization und the direct control of the Queen.

Harrison: … And? What are you going to do now that I’ve explained it to you so thoroughly, Victor?

Victor: Hm … yeah …

Ellis: Shall we kill her?

(Eh …?)

Ellis: She doesn’t seem happy at all, but I’ll take care of that business.

–flashback end–

(He was the first person to suggest killing me.)

(But, then …)

–flashback–

Ellis: I’m Ellis.

Kate: Ellis … -kun. Nice to meet you.

Ellis: Hmm … nice to meet you. Jude and I often go out for outside work.

Ellis: I’ll make you as happy as I can while you’re here.

–flashback end–

He was the same guy, but he calmly said something like a marriage proposal … a slightly different person.

(Why did Ellis-kun come in front of my room …?)

(Oh, right. Surveillance has already started.)

If I do a bad job, they might kill me.

I remember the fear I felt last night, and I’m sure I stood up straight.

(We shouldn’t be in the same mood as we were before.)

(I’ve already stepped into a different world.)

Kate: Ellis-kun, right? Please take care of me from today.

Ellis: Yes, Ellis Twilight. Come on … don’t be so stiff.

Ellis-kun laughed lightly and looked into my face with concern.

Ellis: … your nose is turning red.

Ellis: I’m sorry. I was just about to knock when the door opened and I couldn’t avoid it.

A long, slender arm held the door.

Behind his habitual hair are the one and only twilight-colored eyes of his namesake.

I gasped at the unexpectedly close proximity and hurriedly apologized.

Kate: No! I’m sorry I was too enthusiastic and stepped out too fast.

Ellis: Spirited? Why?

Kate: Eh!? Umm …

(“I was afraid of living with you guys, and I was trying to get my mind off of it.”)

(How … can I say that?)

Kate: It’s like being transferred to a department you don’t know at all, so … it’s …

Kate: Oh, yes! It’s like that …!

Ellis: Oh, yes …

Ellis-kun blinks his eyes.

(Hmm, too unnatural …)

Ellis: … You’re such a cute person.

Kate: Um … it’s okay if you don’t follow me …

(I should have been to have an excuse, but it’s kind of very embarrassing …)

As I averted my gaze as if looking for a place to hide myself, Ellis-kun returned to a straight face and said something in a loud voice.

Ellis: I’d like to ask Hana-san to do her first job in a new department.

Kate: … Wow …

(Beautiful garden.)

I was taken to the courtyard of Crown Castle …

There was a beautiful garden there that had been meticulously manicured in every detail.

Seasonal flowers are in full bloom and smell good, like paradise.

(Although last night I felt nothing but majesty and danger in the towering castle …)

(There are some places that are so restful.)

I followed Ellis-kun along the path, admiring the beautiful gardens, until we came to a pavilion.

Tea and scones are prepared on the table as if a tea party is about to begin.

Ellis: Go ahead.

Kate: Uh … T-thank you very much.

I sat down in the chair, puzzled by Ellis-kun pulling out the chair and waiting for me, and he sat down on the opposite side of the table.

(He asked me for a job. But I’m not sure I can do it …)

Kate: Do we do my first job here?

Ellis: Yeah … your first job is to have breakfast with me.

(… Eh?)

Ellis: Tell me about you over a nice meal. I’ll tell you about me too.

Ellis: If you record it, it will be a record as a ‘fairytale writer’, won’t it?

Kate: That would be … honestly very helpful.

Ellis: Good, I’m glad I could be of service.

It seems like he is serious and trying to help me.

Ellis: I’ll tell you about the other members of Crown.

Ellis: I think it’s a bit scary to live among people you don’t know at all.

Kate: …!

(I never expected this ‘first job’ to be …)

Kate: Did you ask me out to relieve my nerves?

Ellis: … kinda right.

Kate: ‘Kinda’?

Ellis: It’s also so I can talk to you, which is … a little incorrect.

A soft, faint smile is on his lips.

(I wonder if the first impression I had of Ellis-kun last night was a misunderstanding.)

Just by being near him, the temperature of my body feels cooler …

… it is as if something is peeking at us from the blurred open darkness …

… I’m sure I felt that kind of anxiety last night …

(I don’t feel such anxiety from Ellis-kun in front of me.)

(Maybe that was because that was right after I saw the murder scene.)

I quietly brushed aside the strange feeling that was surely brewing in my chest, and decided not to look at it.

… In hindsight, this was a mistake.

(Anyway, since Ellis-kun arranged this for me …)

(With all due respect, let’s hear what you have to say.)

Kate: Thank you very much, Ellis-kun.

Ellis: I didn’t do anything for which you could thank me.

Ellis: Do you like sweets? These are the scones Victor baked this morning.

Kate: What? Victor bakes …?

Ellis: Yeah, it tastes really good. Al is also a good cook.

Ellis: The clotted cream is something I learned from Al and made it myself.

Ellis: Liam recommended this jam, so he bought it for me.

Ellis: Maybe it’s because he’s a stage actor, but he knows what’s trendy.

Ellis: This meat pie is from a place Roger-san used to take me for lunch. He often writes about it.

Kate: W-wait a minute. I want to write down what you just told me …!

I took out my pocket notebook.

Ellis-kun told me all about the people of Crown, and I was very impressed.

Kate: I know this apricot crumpet store! There’s quite a line, isn’t there?

Ellis: Harry and I bought them side by side. Harry has a sweet tooth and loves a good sweets store.

Kate: Hehe … I see you are all good friends at Crown.

(I’ve always felt like I lived in a different, though.)

(I feel a little relieved to know that we are the same people who live in London …)

(Thanks to Ellis-kun.)

Keeping the overflowing smile on his face, he spreads cream on the scone at hand.

Ellis: Kate-san.

Kate: Yes …?

Very naturally, Ellis-kun’s large hand reached up to my face.

Ellis: … It looks like cream is on your hair.

Kate: Eh? Ah …

(Really, I didn’t notice.)

Ellis-kun scooped my hair with his fingertips and gently pulled it over my ears.

Kate: Thank you very much.

Ellis: You’re welcome. Was it so good you got carried away?

Resting his face on one hand, Ellis-kun looked at me and smiled.

Kate: … Yes, it’s delicious.

Ellis: Good.

(I can’t believe you can do this casually, Ellis-kun seems to be … popular.)

Realizing that my heart was pounding, I tried to calm down my erratic heartbeat.)

Kate: You prepared a seat like this for me, you cared about me …

Kate: Why are you being so nice to me?

(I don’t even remember doing anything to Ellis-kun that would make him be this nice to me yesterday …)

Ellis: Kate-san, you didn’t look happy all last night.

Ellis: I just want whoever is around me to smile as much as possible.

(That’s it …?)

(To Ellis-kun, I’m a stranger who knows nothing about him.)

Kate: Do you do this for everyone? Even if you have never met them before?

Ellis: Eh …? Hm … I guess it’s no good.

His naive doubt, on the contrary, made him look puzzled.

(Ellis-kun is a bit of a strange person after all.)

(But …)

Kate: … I was happy.

(I’m sure Ellis-kun made me feel better.)

Ellis: I see. … I’m glad you don’t mind.

… By the end of the harmonious breakfast, my guard was completely down.

Ellis: Do you enjoy the theater?

Kate: Yes, I do. In fact, last night, I took an unfamiliar night shift because I wanted money for tickets …

Ellis: Fufu … quite passionate.

I chatted with Ellis-kun endlessly, as if we were new friends.

Then, the sound of footsteps echoed.

Victor: Hey, hey, it’s so exciting!

Ellis: Victor.

Kate: ��! Good morning.

Victor: Oh, don’t get up! I don’t mean to interrupt your pleasant banter.

Victor: Ellis offered to take care of breakfast for me, but … have you relaxed a bit?

Victor smiled at me and looked at me probingly.

The shadow of unfathomability I felt from him last night has faded, and I sense warmth and concern in his jewel-like eyes.

(Maybe it was because I enjoyed my ‘first job’ with Ellis-kun so much that I was able to relax.)

Kate: Yes, thanks to Ellis-kun and the delicious scones Victor baked for us.

Victor: …

I smiled gratefully, and Victor seemed a little surprised.

But soon after, he smiles like a blossoming flower.

Victor: Yeah, yeah. Your open smile says “I’m so happy to be Crown’s exclusive fairytale writer”!

Ellis: … Didn’t you say that much?

Kate: … Hehe.

Victor looked at me with a small shake of his shouldered and narrowed his eyes.

Victor: Well, I have two requests for you, fairytale master. You must keep the secret, and you must write down the sins.

Victor: The former is fine, but I didn’t want you to be lost as to what to do about the latter.

Victor: Can I explain a little?

Kate: Yes, by all means.

Victor: It’s not that hard. I want you to take a good look at the people in Crown and write down what you find sinful.

Victor: I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to do it.

Victor: You can see multiple people on different days, or you can focus on one person and work with them.

(Observe the Crown members carefully, the methods and partner are free … I see.)

Kate: I understand. … Um, what is the extent of my surveillance?

Victor: I don’t want to restrict your freedom of movement except to go out alone.

Victor: I may ask to accompany me on missions, but you can spend the rest of the time however you like.

I’m a little relieved because I thought I’d be under more intense scrutiny.

Kate: I understand. Thank you for your explanation.

Victor: … I have to admit, I was a little surprised just now. I didn’t expect to see your smile so soon.

Victor: We showed you a terrible scene and we are an evil organization that can’t even say that you can rest in peace.

A joking wink …

Then Victor squinted his eyes to watch the dazzling sunlight.

Victor: Hopefully, this will not take away your smile and the darkness that will inevitably touch you.

Strangely, I didn’t think the words he told me were a lie.

(The people at Crown are no doubt dwellers of the darkness, horrible people who are willing to lay their hands on people.)

I thought that if I looked into the depths of their hearts, I would be able to understand their feelings.

Victor: I’ll leave you to it. The Queen’s aide is quite busy.

It seemed that he was just there to see how things were going, and Victor quickly left without getting on the tapes.

(To note a sin, you must first take a good look at the person in Crown, huh?)

Then I’d like to know more about Ellis-kun first.

Such feelings come very naturally.

Kate: Um, Ellis-kun … what are your plans for today?

But my voice is interrupted by a swarthy voice.

Jude: You have to work, right? Why are you slacking off? I’ll kick your ass!

Ellis, Kate: !

The dusky voice makes me jump up and down.

(That voice …)

Fearfully, I turned around to see Jude-san standing in the courtyard with his arms folded, looking exasperated.

(Oh, he is angry …)

Ellis: Sorry, I’m coming.

Without even standing up, Ellis-kun leisurely turned his gaze towards Jude-san and answered.

(So carefree …)

Jude-san clicked his tongue and quickly flipped his cloak and went.

Ellis: … today’s schedule, as you can see.

Kate: You work for a trading company, right?

(Jude-san was the president and Ellis-kun was his assistant …)

(I was going to observe Ellis-kun, but maybe I should change the day.)

Kate: Thank you for taking the time for me. Good luck with your work.

Ellis: …

Ellis-kun stared at me, thinking about something.

Kate: Um …

Ellis: If you want, you can come with me.

⤷ next chapter

[life-on-sparking]

realized i never finished translating the Raging Supermarket interviews so i finished them up! Mostly translated through Google Translate with some DeepL so take them with a grain of salt but i figured it was better than nothing... Originally posted by @archenemyintellegence! Thank you for your work o7

Q-1: What do you like about the Angels?

Eiichi: There are countless things I like about the Angels. If I had to pick one, it would be their devotion. I'm so grateful that they always look at even the smallest details. I strive to reach higher in order to repay their love. There's no relationship more suited to the term "mutual love."

Kira: Your heart is pure and beautiful, but also passionate. I always feel a strong earnestness in the feelings you convey to me, no matter how they are expressed. That gives me boundless joy. No matter how much I express my love, I never think I can beat you.

Nagi: I think they are so cute ☆ Nagi and the angels have been together for a long time, so maybe we are becoming more and more alike ♪ Whenever an angel compliments me or smiles, I get really nervous. Because they are my favorite partners. You feel the same as Nagi, don’t you?

Eiji: The fact that they watch over me so kindly. When I think that the angels are with me at all times, there is nothing that I can't do. That's how positive I feel. Thank you for always giving me so much courage. You are always supporting me in my heart.

Van: I especially love the way they believe in us and follow us, and the way they are so dazzling. When I tell the Angels that I love them, they respond in kind, making them the best partners in my life! Let's keep moving forward on three legs and have lots of fun together!

Yamato: The fact that they are always honest. The way they accept any aspect of me with a smile. They have warm and straightforward hearts. Just looking at them makes me feel happy. That's awesome power. Please continue to teach me about you. I want to like you more and more.

Shion: Perhaps it is the healing feeling that envelops me. The angels are always trying to understand me, and they are always softly standing by me. Thanks to this, Amakusa's heart is always warm. The depth of the love they give me easily surpasses my imagination. I can only hope that they will stay by my side in the future.

Q-2: If you were to entertain an Angel?

Eiichi: I want to be the one to give you the best time, according to your preferences. Leave everything to me. You can come with just your feelings. It would be fun to go a little further away and share experiences that can only be had in a certain place. I want to be with you always, even in your fond memories.

Kira: First, I want to hear your wishes. Once we have decided on a general direction, I'll do the planning. My hobbies are mostly indoor-related, but of course you don't have to match that. Making the other person happy is the most important thing. Your happiness is also my happiness.

Nagi: Let me take the lead ☆ I'll make a perfect date plan with lots of trendy places and Nagi's favorite spots ♪ A date at home is fine, but I think Nagi prefers to go out with you~. Holding hands, of course ☆

Eiji: I'd like to do what you want to do with me. Maybe it's more like I want to be led, or maybe it's more like I want to help make you smile. So don't hesitate to tell me anything. If I had to choose a place, it would be outside. I think somewhere with beautiful greenery.

Van: I'll be happy to entertain you at any place you want to go, or at any place I recommend! I'm more of an outdoorsy type of person, but there are many things about relaxing indoors that are nice and different from being outside. I'll make sure you have fun wherever you go! Leave it to me!

Yamato: I think it's best to choose a destination that suits you. If you go with me, we'll definitely end up doing something outside and moving around. It wouldn't be any fun if that was all we did. Also, it's important to consider the mood at the time. There's also the weather that day, so how about seeing each other in person and going somewhere that feels right?

Shion: I'm not very good at leading someone forward… so I want to walk slowly with you, shoulder to shoulder, caring for each other. I would prefer to go somewhere calm and relaxed. Perhaps inside the house, or outside, somewhere where you can enjoy a leisurely stroll.

Q-3: What does HE★VENS mean to you?

Eiichi: HE★VENS is everything to me. They are someone I should always devote my heart to, and a wonderful person I can trust. As a leader of talented members, I have a sense of responsibility and I keep in mind that I must show them a new world. I'm the one having the most fun, after all.

Kira: It's something I must protect with my own hands. Even if it's something I could never achieve alone, the seven of us can achieve it. This miracle not only helps me grow, but also gives me the joy of sharing the same aspirations. I want to continue supporting the members in every way, and lead the Angels to paradise.

Nagi: They're the best group, capable of producing the best. When they perform, their uneven personalities fit together like puzzle pieces. They create unimaginable chemical reactions, and it feels amazing! They may be a little absent-minded at times, but Nagi will make up for them☆

Eiji: I feel reassured when I am with them. They push me when I feel like I'm standing still, and I can be myself without feeling the age difference. But we don't just blend in with each other. I want to be worthy of everyone, so I can do my best. I'm constantly receiving happy days.

Van: We can develop each other's good points and make up for each other's shortcomings. We are a well-balanced group that shares the same heart for the angels! Since we live together, we are organized and considerate of each other, so we can spend a comfortable time together. I'm the one who makes everyone smile!

Yamato: The strongest! There is no other word for it. Because we believe in each other, we can seriously challenge each other without hesitation. If we are together, we can open up our future. It is good that we never stand still. Among them, I'm the one who is in charge of getting to the heart of the matter. I am always ready to deliver results.

Shion: It is indispensable. I love the incomparable friends who have given me such warm acceptance. And the beautiful tone that can only be spun by HE★VENS is irreplaceable happiness. ...... I want to not only be supported by everyone, but also to be of service in whatever way I can.

Q-4: If you could have super powers, what would they be?

Eiichi: The ability to predict the future. If I could sense a crisis before it happened, I would be able to take measures and avoid it. However, I don't want to know anything else. I have to carve out my own future with you. Sometimes the unexpected happens, which is what's wonderful about life.

Kira: The ability to read the residual thoughts that reside in objects and places. Memories that were cherished by someone. The hidden effort that went into creating them. There is a story to be found everywhere. There is much to learn from history. I always want to keep my eyes firmly fixed on my predecessors, and show you a new me.

Nagi: Teleportation, that's what ☆ It would come in handy when I'm at work, and I could get to all those faraway places I've always wanted to go in no time at all ♪ And, of course, be close to you! The only problem is that you might not get enough exercise and you won't be able to enjoy the scenery along the way. Other than that, it's all good ☆

Eiji: Telepathy would be nice. If I knew exactly what the other person wanted, I would be able to grant it. Then I could get closer to that person. But everyone has secrets, and it's definitely not good to know about everything without permission. So, I'll ask directly.

Van: If I had the chance, I would want something magical! I want an ability like that! Like controlling fire, water, wind, and lightning. I don't know when I would get to use them in real life (laughs). My ideal situation would be to dash in and save an angel in a pinch, quickly and coolly!

Yamato: I'd like to be able to see farther than I can now, or to have super strength, or something like that. It would be useful for many things, and the more power the better. And the more power I have, the better to protect you. Well, I can get by with training. Other than that, I don't think I can make use of them.

Shion: The ability to fly freely in the sky is desirable. Flapping one's wings like a bird, one can gaze at the trees and the earth from a high vantage point without a care in the world. Even the same scenery will feel different from walking on land. It may even give new ideas for lyrics. Come on, let's go ...... together.

Q-5: What is important to you when creating a song?

Eiichi: To face your own heart without compromising. To think thoroughly about how to express what you want to convey to the Angels, and to do whatever you can to achieve that. This stance remains the same even for group songs. Pursuing our ideals, we aim to create the best music together, as friends.

Kira: It's about choosing the words and singing style carefully so that the feelings I put into the song can be conveyed. I'm not a very talkative person, so I don't usually share my inner thoughts. That's why I want to put all kinds of feelings into my songs. I want to continue taking on the challenges necessary to achieve that.

Nagi: I value communication with the people I work with on a song ☆ For group songs, sometimes Nagi takes charge of discussions with the members. Everyone is unique, so it can be a challenge, but it's a great way to show off your skills ♪ You can also grow by taking the initiative ☆

Eiji: Until recently, I used to sing freely, letting my inner feelings guide me. Recently, I've been taking it a little further, thinking about how I want the listener to feel when they hear the song, and experimenting with different variations. I feel like I'm broadening my musical horizons.

Van: Now and always, music should be fun! That's my motto. That's why I usually write high-energy solo songs, but recently I think my taste in music has been broadening. I really enjoy any kind of music, solo or in a group, in my own way. Half-assedness is the worst way to go about anything, don't you think?

Yamato: I don't like to think too hard about it. I value the feelings that come from inside of me. I work tirelessly until I can present it in a way that is satisfactory to the angels. I think that way is perfect for me.

Shion: Doing my best to the best of my ability for the sake of supreme music. No compromise is allowed in lyrics, singing, or performance. Our music is a gift to our beloved angels. This is what makes HE★VENS shine. We will continue to work tirelessly to achieve our ideal music.

Q-6: What is your charm point?

Eiichi: Probably the mole near my mouth. It's a distinctive feature of my appearance, and it's easy for others to see. I'm sure having it or not would make a big difference in how people perceive me. It's like a natural gift that makes my facial expressions look more expressive, so I really like it.

Kira: This is a difficult question, but I want to answer "eyes." There is a saying that "eyes say as much as words," and even if I take into account that I'm not very good at talking, I think there is something we can communicate by exchanging glances. It's not so much my own feeling, but people around me often compliment me on it, so I was happy to choose it.

Nagi: Everything ☆ I would like to say “ everything,” but if I had to, I would say my lips. I consciously adjust the way they open and close during photo shoots. It is essential for Nagi to manage his professional facial expressions! That's why I take extra care of them. I have to make my lips more attractive to the angels ☆

Eiji: I can't think of anything very specific. Can I answer, “Atmosphere?” I've had many people tell me that I'm kind or that I make them feel at home when they are with me, so it's really a strong word. I want to know what you think is good about me. Because I want to value what's inside as well as what's on the outside.

Van: I've been waiting for that question! Of course, it's my eyebrows! I do trim them a little, but basically I keep the original shape of them. It is often forgotten, but a slight change in the eyebrows can make a big difference in a person's appearance.

Yamato: Muscles. I work out every day, so I'm confident. I am not ashamed to show it to anyone. My favorite part is my back. I can't really see it myself, so I make sure I'm very conscious of it. A man's back speaks for itself.

Shion: My hair is my favorite part. I like the way it tickles my fingertips and the feeling of it blowing in the wind against my cheek, even without any special attention to care or setting. Perhaps that is why I often have my head stroked. However, I must be careful not to let my bangs grow too long.

Q-7: If you could live forever, what would you do?

Eiichi: A study into this life. Why were we born this way? Why will we never die? There's no point leaving these endless mysteries unsolved. I'm not like Abel. I want to grasp the truth and live the life I want to. It'd be a good companion on the eternal journey, where there's no hurry.

Kira: I want to slowly face myself and live alone peacefully. I want to play the piano to my heart's content. I want to turn the pages of various books. I'd be the only one in the world living in a different time. I don't want to get involved with the people around me in a clumsy way. Maybe I'm similar to Keith who stayed in the garden.

Nagi: I've always wanted to do this! I would do all the things I've always wanted to do in that order ♪ Mika may not know it, but I know now that if I don't give up, unexpected and wonderful things will happen in my life. So I'm sure that after one wish comes true, a new one will be born soon ☆

Eiji: I would take landscaping seriously, like Eric did. I would create new varieties of flowers. I would experiment with different combinations, and I would create many flowers of my favorite shapes and colors, paying close attention to their placement in the garden. Then I would share a long life with them.

Van: I would go on adventures! I would see all kinds of things, meet all kinds of people, and try to learn all kinds of new things. It's just like Virgil's original hope to live merrily. The world is a big place, and maybe there are others out there like me who also live forever!

Yamato: Same as I do now. I wouldn't go out of my way to make it special, just like Hugo did when the seven of us lived together [in Black Garden]. The longer I live, the less and less I feel like I'm special. So, I think it's better to live a normal life, instead of being so self-conscious about it. Cherish the small, trivial pleasures.

Shion: I wonder how the world would end up. I want to witness what happens to the world with my own eyes until the very end. Countries that flourish and then perish again. The breath of new life. The expansion into the universe. ...... I am sure that the present Amakusa will be able to taste a future that is immeasurable. This is a different perspective than Simon's, who loved a closed world.

Q-8: What happens when you fall in love?

Eiichi: Dating is strictly forbidden for idols. Therefore, they can't have romantic feelings for one particular person... But if it's someone they can respect, there's a chance they might fall in love. However, I would like to build a relationship where we can improve each other as equal partners, rather than a relationship where we are dependent on each other.

Kira: I probably wouldn't openly express my feelings for the other person. This is because I am cautious about whether my feelings are correct. If you are in a relationship, you also need to look to the future and take responsibility for the other person's life. Even if my feelings are reciprocated, I will want to maintain a certain distance. "Even friends should be polite."

Nagi: If you are interested in someone, you might be aggressive in your approach ☆ Because you want to know all kinds of things about them, right? You want to know how they look at you when you say this or that ♪ Nagi will take good care of you, so show me everything ☆

Eiji: I want to know everything about who I like, but it can be difficult to ask good questions when the time comes. I guess I try to get closer to them by talking to them in small moments or serving them food. Maybe it's not so different from what I do for the other members. ......

Van: If you think you like someone, you have to make a strong approach! Of course, not just anyone will do. I have my own reasons for liking someone. And I can't say it myself, but I think I'm a single-minded person when I fall in love (laughs). I will attack as many times as I have to!

Yamato: I don't think it would be any different from the usual. I'm not good at playing games or trying to talk my way around things, so I'll probably ask them directly what they want me to do. After that, I'll do the best I can. That's all. I'm confident in my strength, so I think I can protect you from danger.

Shion: If I have allowed myself to trust someone enough to fall in love with them, I may wish to be with them all the time, never leaving them even for a moment. Someone who understands and respects my ideas is so rare that I fear losing them even more. I want to give my all and cherish our relationship.

Q-9: What would you consider surprising about yourself?

Eiichi: People say it's surprising that I'm quiet when I'm alone. I unconsciously tense up in front of the members and the Angels, but people tend to think that's how I am in real life. In particular, when I take my glasses off, I feel like I switch off. I always take some time before going to bed to not think about anything, and reset my mind.

Kira: It's hard to tell, but I'm quite shy. I get confused in new environments and I get nervous when meeting new people. I try not to show that side of myself as much as possible, in order to get closer to my ideal image of an idol. I'm grateful when people say I'm confident, because it means my efforts are paying off.

Nagi: As I'm sure the angels know - Nagi also loves to be cool ☆ Nagi is always the cutest in the universe, but in my private life I like to wear cool outfits and enjoy being myself in different ways. I like to incorporate what I think is good for me without being too prescriptive ♪

Eiji: I don't know if it's surprising or not, but sometimes I think I'm pretty selfish and self-indulgent. To put it better, I'm self-paced. ...... I often tell my brother and the members what I want to do, especially when I want to do it in a particular way! I've been reflecting on whether or not I'm being too spoiled.

Van: It may not look like it, but I'm a pretty meticulous person. I like to be precise. It bothers me when there is something missing from a bookshelf, and I have a habit of completing things. I'm a little picky in a weird way (laughs).

Yamato: My everyday self is the same. There's not much difference between when I'm at work and when I'm relaxing. ...... Oh, I do get praised for things that I think should be obvious. For example, reading and writing Kanji characters. I mean, I don't understand the hard ones, but... Does this type of thing qualify as a gap?

Shion: I would say that usually I am in my natural state. I try to be actively involved in things that interest me. I am always eager to pursue and master what interests me. I am often seen being helped by other members, so it may come as a surprise to the Angels. ((take this one with a grain of salt especially. It really didn’t want to be translated))

Q-10: What do you tend to order at a café?

Eiichi: Coffee. I don't really care about the type of beans, but if they have iced Americano, I'll order that. Hot coffee isn't bad either, but the fact that it's not too hot makes it easy to get some fluids, and the refreshing taste makes it suitable for any time and occasion, which is probably why I order it more often.

Kira: I don't often go into a cafe with the intention of ordering something, so I don't have a specific menu item that I always order. Luckily, I don't have many likes or dislikes. I think I often order the same thing that someone else has chosen. That way the food is served quickly and efficiently.

Nagi: I definitely choose limited edition sweets ☆ Most of them are made with seasonal ingredients, so the taste is guaranteed to be good. The specialness of being only available at that time is wonderful, and I get a thrill from tastes I've never experienced before~. I guess a classic is pudding? It's interesting that it varies from store to store ♪

Eiji: Hmmm... I would probably choose a popular menu item from that restaurant. I open the menu and choose the classic or recommended! I tend to see them when I open the menu. I often order not only drinks but also snacks. I like simple and gentle tastes, like egg sandwiches.

Van: I like menus with a sense of fun. I like set menus with a variety of dishes on one plate. It's a good deal, and it's fun to think about which one to start with. And the lively atmosphere is great because all the dishes are lined up in front of you at once! This excitement is the best part of eating out, isn't it?

Yamato: If I'm going to go into a café, I want to eat a hearty meal. I have trouble narrowing it down to just one dish every time. I often order omelette rice or beef stew. I choose Western food more often than Japanese food. I'm not that concerned about dessert, but if the person I'm going with orders it, I'll order it.

Shion: A coffee shop is not always a place where I feel at ease, depending on its location and the people I am accompanying. Therefore, I always order something light so that I do not have to worry about being disturbed. I prefer something soothing, such as a richly scented herbal tea. I don't like to challenge myself too much ....... I prefer something with a taste I know well.

Q-11: What are some of your favorite winter memories?

Eiichi: I was wearing a red sweater on Christmas and Eiji was jealous because he thought I looked like Santa. The following year, we decided to celebrate Christmas together wearing the same sweater and Santa hat. Even as a child, I felt happy when I saw Eiji enjoying our matching outfits.

Kira: In winter, the air is clear and the stars are easily visible, so I spend more time looking up at the sky than in other seasons. I think because of this I have strong memories of the star-filled sky I saw as a child. I read books during long nights, and when I get tired I look up at the stars from the window in my room. Even now, when I have free time, I spend it like that. It's my favorite time.

Nagi: I loved spending time with my family on New Year's Day~☆ We would eat a feast in a warm room. Playing cards and backgammon was a tradition, and I would challenge the adults until I could beat them. Of course, my family didn't cut corners just because they were playing with kids and I was a genius, so it was always a good match ♪

Eiji: I celebrated Christmas by wearing matching sweaters with my brother. I think we were more excited than usual because the patterns on our clothes were so cute and most importantly, we were happy to be matching. Decorating the tree, eating the feast, and opening presents ...... are all great memories.

Van: I'm so excited in winter because it's my birthday and there are so many events going on! There was a time when I went to see the lights on the spur of the moment and felt out of place because of all the couples. But I was impressed by the scenery and had a romantic time, even though I was alone!

Yamato: I remember shoveling snow was a big job. The grounds of my family’s shrine are huge, so it took a lot of time. I've never been averse to physical exertion, though, so it was fun to do it. I used to make snowmen out of the snow that piled up. I used to play in the snow long after the cleaning was done.

Shion: Snow is rare where I was born, and I used to wonder at it when it would fall. I once stood outside looking at the snow as it fell and my head and body were covered with snow until I was pure white. The adults around me were shocked, but I was happy because I felt like I was one with the snow. I caught a cold the next day.

Q-12: Any recommendations from Raging Market?

Eiichi: Welcome to Raging Market, Angel! For someone beautiful and proud like you, I recommend the Red Soda. It's a fruit-flavored soda with a stimulating taste. Its taste is perfect for refreshing yourself. It's sure to bring a freshness to your everyday life.

Kira:How about a mild-tasting, rich, soothing coffee? When I brew coffee from scratch in the morning, I feel like time passes more slowly and it improves my quality of life. Coffee that I brew myself tastes special. I want you to experience this same happiness.

Nagi: I recommend corn flakes made with high quality ingredients ☆ It has a sweet and happy taste, and if you eat it with milk, it has a good nutritional balance ♪ You can also add fruits to it ☆ But they taste even better when eaten together with you ♪

Eiji: Try their gently flavored jam made from organic blueberries with no additives. The chunky pulp makes it very satisfying, and it's delicious on bread or as a topping for ice cream. I hope your everyday life gets a little more festive with this jam.

Van: I have a craving for potato chips~. I recommend the ones made from carefully selected freshly harvested potatoes. They are wave-cut and thickly sliced, so they are very chewy, and once you start eating them, you can't stop! I'm sure I'll get a big smile on my face when I share them with you.

Yamato: If you train, protein is indispensable. It's a great way to get efficient nutrients. In addition, the strawberry yogurt flavor of this product makes it easy to drink and makes you want to drink more. Why don't you take the same one that I do and try to build up your strength? I'll teach you the rest.

Shion: My choice was a green soup with nutritious green vegetables. It is rich in ingredients, concentrated with the flavor of vegetables, and has a rich taste. It can be consumed just by heating it up, making it suitable for storage. It is also good to share with your friends. It will surely bring you warmth and smiles.

[thoughtportal]

The etymology of the word translation—“to carry across”—conjures an image of physical labor. It is deeply relational, requiring at least two bodies, those of an author and of the person who carries the author’s words to a previously unvisited place. Let’s say we removed the laborer and replaced that person with a car. Or a train. Suddenly there is a feeling of weight lifted, certainly ease, and perhaps a little relief. But the intimacy of the earlier image no longer holds. Whether this matters has been the subject of recent debate as some publishers consider using machines to replace human translators and what that decision might mean for an ancient art.

In November, Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK), a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster, announced that it would trial the use of artificial intelligence (AI) “to assist the translation of a limited number of books.” Reactions rose in a flurry: Writers, publishers, and translators contended that AI would produce “bland” work. They lamented the possibility of lost jobs. The European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations resisted the standardization of an idiosyncratic process, stating that the imagination, understanding, and creativity that translation demands are “intrinsically human.”

VBK’s decision to incorporate AI into the editorial process may shock some but is not unprecedented. With a broad range of AI tools now available on the market, an increasing number of writers and publishers have turned to large language models (LLMs) to assist in, or contribute to, the production of creative work. As of February 2023, there were more than two hundred e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store that listed ChatGPT as an author or coauthor, according to Reuters. Maverick publishers like Spines, although small players in the global book market, plan to publish thousands of AI-generated books next year.

AI isn’t new to translation either. Literary translators sometimes input segments of their source text into AI-based technologies like Google Translate and DeepL to generate ideas for particularly thorny passages. But these tools have to be used “very carefully,” warns Seattle-based Finnish-to-English translator Lola Rogers, “because the translations it produces are error-ridden and devoid of flow or beauty.” Edward Tian, a cofounder of AI-detecting start-up GPTZero, adds that current LLMs not only do “a mediocre job at translations,” but also reflect the “majority white, English-dominated” nature of their source texts. Reiterating such worldviews and their biases runs contrary to the aim of much literary translation: to expose audiences to new perspectives. And Rogers, who was recently commissioned to use a translation tool to expedite a months-long translation process to five or six weeks, says that from her brief experiments, the time saved with machine assistance was “minimal.” French-to-English translator Louise Rogers Lalaurie shared a similarly underwhelmed account of editing poor machine-led translations.

So what’s the threat?

One area where translators are feeling the pinch is in creating samples, book excerpts translated to give general impressions of a text to potential publishers. Some publishers have been considering using AI to do this work instead. Though she is unsure whether this is because samples are being automated, Rogers says, “The number of samples I’m asked to translate has fallen precipitously in the past couple of years, making it much harder to earn a living.” A 2024 survey of Society of Authors members found that over a third of translators have lost work due to generative AI. Close to half of translators surveyed said that income from their work has decreased.

To illustrate how AI might ease the time and cost pressures inherent to translation from a publisher’s perspective, Ilan Stavans, the publisher and cofounder of Restless Books, an independent press in Amherst, Massachusetts, gives the example of a recently acquired eight-hundred-page book. To translate it, “substantial investment” would be necessary: Not only are “first-rate translators” for the source language scarce, he says, but the project would also require at least two years of dedicated work. By the time the book is translated and published, the demand the publisher once saw for the title might easily have changed. Meanwhile, the publisher would have incurred a cost much greater than if it had used LLMs, the most expensive of which—such as the premium version of ChatGPT, which costs $200 a month—is a tenth of the average cost of publishing a translation.

“It would be fast and easy,” Stavans admits, “but it would not be the right move.” Though Stavans is enthusiastic about AI’s potential and sees the value of using AI to translate samples, he emphasizes that he would never condone translating an entire book using a machine. The key to the heart of translation is “that intimate, subjective relationship between a text and the translator,” he says—the nebulous yet nonetheless living connection that translator Kate Briggs describes as the “uniquely relational, lived-out practice” of “this little art.”

Will Evans, founder of independent publisher Deep Vellum in Dallas, does not see a future in which machine-led translations supersede the human. “I do not believe AI-led translation will be competitive for works of the literary caliber we are interested in any time before the AI bubble bursts,” he says, “though I have no doubts the corporate publishers who are interested in serving the same books to the same readers over and over again will have no such qualms.”

In the realm of literature, there is still a sanctity around “the human and the humane,” as Stavans puts it. “Machines can’t read a book or experience any of the personal connections to language that give a book life,” adds Rogers, who became a translator after translating Finnish song lyrics for friends. “Machines don’t find themselves unexpectedly chuckling at a phrase, or repeating a string of words because its sounds are satisfying, or remembering being in a place like the place described in a book.” Though a cliché, it nevertheless rings true: The destination might pale in comparison to the joy of the journey, something a machine might never know.

Jimin Kang is a Seoul-born, Hong Kong–raised, and England-based journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the Kenyon Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.

[clavissionary-position]

I want to clarify the disclaimer I put on my translation posts. It says all I primarily do, as someone who is neither a translator nor fluent in Japanese, is throw the lines into stuff like google translate or deepL (which is an AI translator), and then clean up whatever they spit back out.

I still think that's giving me too much credit though, because while I do run individual words through online dictionaries, I also consult websites that collect translated phrases and sentences and paragraphs from other works and documents (sites like reverso, kanshudo, ichacha, jlptsensei etc.) and just copy-and-paste those translations directly into my posts.

So I myself don't do much of my own translation or interpretation at all in the end. I just compile.

I should note that I generally don't read fan-translations within this fandom, but when I do, I'll note how they translated certain phrases and I'll keep a mental inventory. That's more of a case of inspiration than copy-pasting.

As such, all the actual translators in the fandom have my eternal respect because they bring the actual knowledge and experience and fluency and beauty of their own interpretations. Internet-hug your local translator today!

I've been feeling really bad about how I do my translation posts, and I don't know that I should continue making them anymore. I'm really very sorry!

[deathlessathanasia]

Maybe I have a bizarre sense of humour but few things make me laugh as much as trying to translate passages from ancient Greek using online translation services. I mean, here are translations of Hesiod's Theogony lines 10-21. Aren't they hilarious?

Google translate: The beautiful goddesses stood there, chanting Zeus, the earth-loving one, and the sweaty Hera. The Argives, wearing golden sandals, cut the sheep of Zeus, the blue-eyed Athena. Apollo and Artemis were the gods. They saw Poseidon, the earth-loving one, and Themis, the serpent-eyed one, Aphrodite. I saw the beautiful gold-crowned Hebe and Dione. I saw Iapetus and I saw the girt-necked Cronus. I saw the great and shining Helios. The Moon The Earth and the Ocean were great and Night darkened others the immortals, the sacred race of eternal beings.

DeepL: And they shall be sent to the periwinkle as they are, praising Jupiter the Egyptian and Pothnaeus the Greek. Argyne, the golden pedestals of the earth, "Cyrene the Aegean, Jupiter the Greek, Jupiter the Greek, Jupiter the Athenian. Fibonacci, Apollo and Artemis, and Artemina. Poseidaon geohon, enosis, and Themis, a helicopter maiden called Aphrodite. Ivin the golden-headed, good Dione. Leto the Iapetus and see Cronus the anchor "I'm the great bright and shining moon If the great ocean and the night were dark The holy race of other immortals was not born.

Also Hesiod's Theogony 901-927 because I can't help myself.

Google Translate: secondly, he brought forth the fat Themis, which bore Horus, Eunumia and Justice and Peace of the dead, whose labors are laborious and oppressive, Fate will, if Zeus gives the greatest honor, I will cut off Lachesis and Atropos, whether they give mortal men either good or bad. And Eurynome gave birth to three beautiful women, Ocean's hair, of a long-haired appearance, Aglaia and Euphrosyne, and Thalia, of the yearning: And from the eyelids he said that he was a man of the skin, a man of the hair: they will be well-groomed under the brow. Then Demeter, the multi-faceted, came to the land, who gave birth to Persephone, the fair-haired, whom Aidoneus had stolen from her mother: but Zeus gave her a daughter. of memory, the most beautiful, from which the gold-bearing Moses produced nine, the most beautiful of the seas and the most delightful of the eternal. When Apollo and Artemis were wedded, they bore offspring to all the heavenly beings, she became the eternal son of Zeus, mingled with love. You made Hera the most beautiful goddess, and you saw her: when Hebe and Ares and Elistheus were mingled with the love of gods, kings and men. He is the son of Tritogeneia, a wretched warrior of the Atryonian army, who, having no wars or battles, has not been mingled with love, and has been made a slave of Hephaestus, and has been given to whoever he pleases, who has been made of all the art of the Heavenly Ones.

DeepL: Secondly, he begat a fat woman named Thame, the daughter of Horus, Eunoomin the Dike, and Irene the Potter, …and the work of the work of the devil, Fate, O most honored one, the most honored mother Zeus, and atropos, and they teach to mortal man have good and evil. And three of the Evryonomy Grace, the three of the Grace of the Caliphares, the ocean's hollow, and the ocean's cavernous, and of a perpetual kind, Aglaine and Euphrosyne Thalene, the lover: of which, and of a pair of eyelids, were made of leather. And it is good that they be leached under the buds. He himself, Demetrius Polyformis, came to the word, or Persephone, who was white, or Persephone, who was white. And Aedile took her by the mother: and she gave her mother Zeus. And the sixth memorial was a calliope, from which the Musai chrysabytes rebelled. Nine, and the ghosts of wonders, and the serpents of the abomination. Let Apollo and Artemina be drawn, …and Imeroene's son over all the heavenly bodies, I have spoken to the Aegean God, the Son of Philately. I have heard the voice of the Lord, the voice of the gods: "The Eve and Ares and Elythia This man is of the head of a glaucous tritogenian heavenly, holy, holy, holy, holy Atrion. …and the celled ones and the gnarled ones and the wars and the battles and the fighting, I have spoken to Hephaestus, the cylon, the philosopher. and he was bent and he lived, and he lived as a paraclete, …of all the arts of the heavenly host. And Heres lived and died as a paraclete.

[triangle-strategy-notes]

Ezana Concept Art

Concept art and translations for Ezana! Translation notes and image id under the cut.

Translation notes:

On the first page when Ikushima is talking about how he feels pressure to make his drawings beautiful, he's actually saying something more like "Usually with sexy woman I go 'I'm obligated to/I must make them beautiful!'... " but no matter how I phrased it the wording felt awkward in English, so I changed the sentence to go without the quotes.

There's a note on the second page above the monochrome sketch that was pretty hard to read (the middle character in particular might have been scribbled out?), so I kind of guessed at the rough meaning from the surrounding characters. The first kanji seems to be 玄, which has the general meaning of "mysterious, occultness, black, deep, profound," and the third kanji seems to be 器, which has the general meaning of "utensil, vessel, receptacle, implement, instrument, ability, container, tool, set". I went with "mysterious staff" as the meaning of the kanji together, also working off of the fact that it's. um. pointing at a staff that seems vaguely mysterious.

"Call forth the rain" was more literally just "rain," but it uses a particle at the end that has a vaguely commanding/requesting vibe to it, so I added extra words to convey that.

There's a part on the second page where I write "SHAMAN" in all caps. On that particular line, "Shaman" was written out using English phonetics, whereas on the rest of the page when I use the word it's the Japanese word for an equivalent concept.

"Lines like a weather map" is literally "isobar pattern". I'm assuming that most people aren't familiar with the word "isobar" (including myself) but from a brief google search, isobars are the lines that show up on a map when weather forecasts are trying to show the range of a storm and the barometric pressure specifically. Since it's (probably) not a commonly-known word, I just wrote out the "weather map" stuff instead.

"Sexy as it sounds" is a weird one. I think it's a portion of this phrase, which is defined as, "not existing despite seeming like it should", but just uses some different particles at the end which I'm assuming make it non-negative (e.g., "as sexy as it should be"). But I couldn't find a ton of examples of how the phrase is used though or what the differences in particles would be, so I just kind of went with the auto-translation I got from Deepl.

Image id:

[id: Multiple images from the Triangle Strategy artbook surrounding Ezana Qlinka. There is a page with a large colored portrait of her, along with a smaller line drawing in the corner. There are two illustrator's notes at the bottom: the first is, "Ezana has a really lovely ethnic design. Actually, after the character's portrait was completed, Mr. Ikushima redid all the linework, which added a lot to the character's beauty! (Yoshiura Rina)" and the second is, "Ezana is primitive, spiritual, and also a mysterious kind of character. With sexy women I usually feel pressure to make them beautiful, but strangely she was very easy to draw. I like how the natural colors are interspersed with the lapis lazuli. (Ikushima Naoki)". On the second page, the top half has several drawings of Ezana in a design close to her canon one. It is titled, "Weather Manipulator (Shaman)". There is one drawing where Ezana is without her headdress, captioned, "If there are different ranks of shaman, I think it'd be fine to start out without the headdress." There is a note pointing to her headress labeled, "Sheep's skull with some parts cut off," and another that reads, "Horns. Red and blue cord is coiled." Another note points to a full sheep skull and reads, "Origin. It's been shaved away starting at about this area." It points to roughly the middle of it. Another note points to a feather ruff she wears, labeled, "Crow feathers". Her staff is labeled, "A staff with elements similar to a dreamcatcher". There is a portrait of her from the back, with a note reading, "Back of the dress is open." The second half of the page is titled, "Weather Manipulator (Shaman) Large Brainstorming WIP". There are 5 drawings, each of a different potential design. The first is similar to her canon design, but with darker skin and a black dress. The second is very colorful, and has the notes, "Hear the song from the wind and go into a trance" as well as "Lines like a weather map" and "I think it would look better if the saturation was lowered a little or the colors were narrowed down a bit." The third drawing has a purple cloak with eyes on it, and seems to be throwing seeds into the air, captioned, "Sowing seeds toward the sky." The fourth design uses more pastels/bright colors, and has a drum at her hip. She seems to be saying, "Thunder!" and there is a note that reads, "Beat the cover and let it resonate through the air." The fifth drawing is of a woman wearing a full mask and a heavy cloak made of grass fibers. It has several bullet points including, "Weather Manipulator (Shaman)," "Female SHAMAN", "Indigenous - Separate wind and lightning magic", and "As sexy as it sounds." She holds a staff which is labeled, "Mysterious Staff" and also has a note reading, "Indigenous". She seems to be saying, "Bring forth the rain..." There are two illustrator's notes on the bottom. The first reads, "Mr. Asano requested that I add in leopard print, and I thought about how I could make it unique. (Naoki Ikushima)" and the second reads, "Looking at it again, it's a really sexy outfit. And it's great in battle! (Tomoya Asano)" /end id]

[meirimerens]

your art is so beautiful im jumping around the room & clapping & cheering whenever i see it on my dash. big Motif Enjoyer over here so i go soo crazy for all your farkhad works (& Everything generally but im a big farkhadhead for some reason. love the Guilt! love the Terrors! love whatever fourfold/three-and-a-halffold bullet has going on!). pointing & cheering whenever he shows up. your stuff makes me want to get more ambitious with my own art & replay patho1 so bad (& also improve my french so i can read your fics 😔). fantastic all of it..... thanks for being out here solider you are doing the most 🫡

WE LOVE TO HEAR IT... WE LOVE TO HAVE YOU HERE... THANK YOU FOR # ENJOYING HIS MOTIFS AND WHATEVER ELSE HE GAHT GOING ON... 🫶🫶 always overjoyed & giggling to hear my stuff makes people want to Game and to Grind... keep pushing keep doing it. images and motifs make the world go round.

and let me be 100% about what i write in french: i spend my ages 11 to 13 copy and pasting english fics into google translate (we did not even have deepL then. it was the trenches.) to read them. i will never be mad at anyone who doesn't speak my language for just plopping my shit into google translate to get the gist of it. will a lot be lost in translation? yes. will the rhythms the rhyming and some general images be lost? YES. but you can always come back to it later. when you have more #knowledge. go forth and read stuff that's how you learn. that's how i learned a lot of vocabulary.

🫡

[dbfandom]

hi! Sorry if this has been asked already! But I notice with some Japanese artists on twitter, they will retweet someone's art and then comment about it in a separate tweet rather than replying directly to the post. Do you know if this is an etiquette thing? Is it obnoxious if I'm the only person commenting directly on a post? When I see art I love with no comments it makes me sad so I try to leave a comment, but I'm not sure if I should sometimes. Sorry if you've already addressed this, or if this is more of a twitter-specific thing and you're not concerned with that! Thanks for what you do!!

Ayo!!

I actually asked a few of my JPN tweet moots about this practice like, two years ago and basically it's a "I don't want to be a burden on OP" situation.

The idea is that for many of them, "commenting directly" is like, coming directly to their table and fangirl "in front of them", which means they (as the commenters) embarrass themselves in front of the author/artist and "impose" themselves on their (the OP's) space (OP might feel obligated to respond, which is a burden)

By RTing and then doing a LRT (or LRP for those who switched to "repost" instead of "retweet" because musk made it all confusing <_<), they get to "fangirl" in their own space and not embarrass themselves all while still inviting their followers to check out the original work (which was RT'd just previously).

Note that this also happens even if the OP and commenter are friends / mutuals / collab / part of the same circle (aka they published together).

60% of them told me they actually like it when people directly comment. The rest said they "don't mind" (whatever that means lol).

I generally comment 90% of my japanese TL, either in English, with some basic Japanese, or with just emojis (think of it as keysmashing lol).

What's important is be positive and kind, not use any slang or acronyms if possible, and keep sentence structure super simple (no subordinates, no relative pronouns, no possessives) so there's no room for error in the translation (esp automatic twitter translation).

Something like "the colors are really beautiful!", or "amazing" or "pretty!" (simple adjectives), "the wind effects are powerful!" translates well, but "i love how you did the colors, they bang!" might not due to the subordinates and pronouns and other pronouns that the translator might not know what it refers to (that and homonyms haha).

Don't hesitate to use the names of the characters instead of the pronouns ("Gohan's hair is very pretty!") then replace Gohan with the rice emoji (unless the OP uses the character names, in general they tend to not use character names because they don't want to be indexed...).

When in doubt, drop your comment in DeepL or google translate, copy the result, and then run it again the other away around (or through a third language you know, like Spanish, German, etc...). And beware of homonyms that can mean many things (I've made mistakes haha)

Much love to you!

[lifehacksthatwork]

Just a bunch of useful websites

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

My Fridge Food – No idea what to make? Tell this site what ingredients you have on hand and it will give you recipes to cook.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

[batjokesbrainrot]

batjokes fic rec [international edition]

Hey guys. In this post, I am going to recommend some of my favorite batjokes fanfictions. Wait, you've it seen all? This is getting redundant?

Then worry no more, Because I've brought you probably underappreciated fictions (to English readers) written in Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish!

+ btw, the list will also include shameless smuts because there's not enough to be put in another post

------

Translator recommendations

Russian - Yandex (and sometimes Google translate/Deepl)

Spanish - Google Translate or Deepl

Korean - Google Translate

Chinese - Deepl (and sometimes Google translate)

Japanese - Deepl & Papago (Yeah this one is tricky. Don't ever use GT)

Tip: You can copy/paste URL into Google Translate and Papago. You can also upload documents for complete translation in Deepl. (For NSFW works on Pixiv, I usually use this site to extract links).

------

Ashley777

Batman/Joker stories are romantic that squeeze your heart. All plots are elaborately written and all of them come to a full circle. Their characterizations and interaction are amazing.

Five times Joker died, one time he didn't (Arkhamverse)

Joker dies the same way in Arkham City, but each time Bruce's reaction is different. Joker remains in character but the story gets very romantic. And the stunning imagery.. don't get me started on it.

Gotham Disease (#48 verse)

Two amnesiac patients entered the hospital. They are briefly interviewed and they describe their strange dreams.

Other fics that are not mentioned are also strongly recommended!

Alex

Her fics are well-written that left me emotionally devastated for months.

H (Telltale: The Enemy Within)

John explains to Bruce why he is special to him.

The Good Old Days (Batman Beyond)

Joker finds Bruce in his most vulnerable state.

"If it weren't for you, my old age would have been much less depressing." - Bruce

A late-night guest (N52, amnesiac!batjokes)

Batman appears at Jack's house at midnight with severe wounds.

Diseazhaze

She understands Batman and Joker very well. Her character analyses are comic-accurate and inspiring.

Twelves Steps to Quit (post-Joker War)

After the last incident, Joker disappears completely. Bruce, somehow conflicted, follows the trace to Joker's hideout. A story consisting of 9 chapters.

Diseazhaze also has NSFWs in her AO3 account and other fics that I have not yet read in her lofter blog.

F*ck you, Bat by mariferlafuria

Omegaverse batjokes. The way the writer brings Bruce's struggle and his identity as alpha together is brilliant. Non-con is from Joker's flashback, so keep that in mind.

only had an eye for that which was evil by muerteporagua (N52)

Joker POV. Character study fic. The fic's main focus is not romance, but I had to include this one. It's about Joker's despair and his choice.

There is no immortality by Jenny_Ien

The Laughing Batman takes over Joker's universe and tries to persuade him to see the world his way.

This is non/dub-con. And their interaction is violent. However, I want to point out that the writing is mesmerizing. So, so, beautiful. I'd have believed if I saw colors bleeding through texts.

Union of Strong and Independent by Браво (The Harley Quinn Show)

Joker is very towards Batman and Bruce takes it. Harley and her gang, unfortunately, walks into their affair.

This is Harley POV. Joker is very narcissistic and has a disturbing moment with Harley but this is hilarious. If you liked or hated the show, read this. I still remember the members' reactions, haha.

HIBANA by 桐野

Joker wakes up in a hospital room, and with his memory missing, he gladly accepts B's declaration, "I will personally watch over you," but his severely injured body has undergone certain changes.

+ I will be keep making changes!

[hikaritranslations]

Hello :0c, I love your translations! I was wondering what program you use to translate them. (Or does someone else translate it?)

I actually use several to double check work! Funny enough, though I recently discovered another rather amazing site that does this for free as well as one I do plan to use to pay for to help further my studies! (Kanji still trips me up but the break didn't help xD)

I'll start with the latter first, I'm currently studying under WaniKani.com, an AMAZING site that works with you online to really get the kanji down and explains them in such simple terms that it's actually been fairly easy for me to understand! They do a rather reasonable amount of teaching for free so you can do the trial and see if it's something that will stick with you before paying for the full amount.

You get to use it for free up until Level 4 but even lessons 1-3 are very useful for someone learning the language! To equivalate that it's a full school year's worth of Kanji and for the JLPT N5 test about 55% needed to know for it. Quite a helpful source if I say so myself! (NOT sponsored by the way! Just really impressed with the program so far!) Next would be actually using Google translate to draw out the sentences so I have a better understanding in writing them, if I write them down, they tend to stick better for me so I use this method quite frequently. There are occasionally some that are VERY complex, as I'm sure you as a reader would be aware of if you have seen the originals in their beautiful form, from there I go to Jisho.org! A completely free site that let's you narrow down the kanji via stroke order and even look further into sentence structures/ words that have that specific kanji, ect. It's been a GODSEND for years in my work and research. Finally, last one is a recent addition to my help links in referencing and understanding the structure of sentences completely. How to make them appear more fluid and readable to those of us who understand English easier. This wonderful site is known as DeepL Translate. Now, there are two versions of it that I'm aware of and so far it has been 100x's more intuitive compared to Google in translation and sentence wording! Impressive since it was designed by a much smaller company in EU. You can use either free or if you find it's worth the price, Pro depending on your situation. I'm only operating on the free version so far and I'm finding that this is currently all I need to help reword and restructure sentences to make them more cohesive to English speakers/readers. So, to recap, I write down what I know in Google translate, research what I don't on Jisho, copy and paste those into GT and once I have the complete sentence, I move over to DeepL to double check my findings along with wording of the story so it shows the same fluidity that it would in the original creation! It's VERY time consuming but a HUGE amount of fun for someone like me who desperately wants to keep the integrity of the artist's work intact but ensure others in the audience can experience it first hand! I do plan to implement these and other methods as I go from here since it's been quite some time since I've been able to return due to circumstances beyond my control but hopefully this will give you a small idea to what I use primarily for translating assistance. And yes, unfortunately I am but one person doing all of the editing, translating, and polishing for each one individually so it does take quite a bit of time to accomplish xD

[an-aroaces-harem]

Ellis Twilight Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: I just deepl and google translated my way through this because I wanted to know what’s going on, so there are definitely mistakes but I believe I managed the general gist of the story. Anyway, it’s just a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes. Ikemen Villains belongs to Cybird.

Another note: I know Ikemen Villains is set in victorian London, but I will use the japanese suffixes because I prefer them.

The next morning. When I reported yesterdayʼs incident, Jude-san, who had received similar information, was also there.

Victor: “Circus” huh …?

Jude: That circus group seems to have disbanded a long time ago.

Kate: What!?

Ellis: Disbanded …?

Jude: “Grace Circus Troupe”

Jude: After making a huge success in London, he was tricked into debt by the maggots who flock to success and he was on fire.

Jude: A quick disband followed.

(Okay, then …)

Kate: I heard that Bill-sanʼs lost friend was “recruited”.

Kate: Itʼs impossible for them to be invited to a disbanded circus troupe. The recruitment has nothing to do with the kidnapping, right?

Ellis: Maybe someone is lying and lures the victims by pretending to recruit them to the circus.

Victor: I wonder if the Grace Circus still exists behind the scenes, only pretending to be disbanded on the surface.

Victor: Maybe it was the work of someone who worked under the name of the Grace Circus …

Victor: … Including that, an additional investigation is needed.

Victor: Jude, Ellis and Kate, thank you for the information.

Victor: The fair ended yesterday, so please take a break for now.

I took a deep breath as I stared at Victor’s back as he left with his long hair.

(As a ‘fairytale writer’, I may be fine as long as I just record the crimes of the Crown members …)

(I wish I could help with stopping this incident before there are more victims.)

(… Ah! Thatʼs right, a report.)

As a fairytale writer, I tried to think back whether there was any sin that he committed so that I could write a report about it this time.

(Hmm … Ellis-kun and Jude-san didnʼt do anything sinful, did they?)

(In the first place, I wonder if Ellis-kun would ever commit a crime that could be written in the report?)

(… Maybe it would be faster to write about Jude-sanʼs sins, who is hated so much that his life is threatened.)

Jude: Oi, donʼt act like yer thinking of somethinʼ rude.

Kate: What!? N-no way!

Jude: So, ya had the courage to go on a show and put yer body on the line?

Kate: How do you know that?

Ellis: Did you see it?

Jude: Even if ya donʼt like it, yerʼll be able to see it on such a huge stage at the fair.

Jude: I thought she was a troublesome woman who was constantly frightened in a scene of chaos and refused to escort her.

Jude-san looked at me again. He narrowed his eyes.

Jude: Ya seem to have the guts, so if yer willing to come with me, then Iʼd be happy to come.

Kate: Y-yes …

(Does that mean you approve of me a little?)

Jude: Ellis was the one who got me involved in the first place. Yer in charge of her.

Ellis: Yes, I know. Thatʼs good, Kate-san.

(Maybe this was a good thing …)

In this way, I ended up spending my days following Jude-san and Ellis-kun about their work.

He was attacked by business rivals and thugs once every three days.

A few days passed while I was writing in my notebook about the two people who would get revenge for even more outrageous behavior.

Then, when I finished my work as a fairytale writer for the day …

Ellis: Kate-san, I found a delicious restaurant. Would you rather take a detour or go home?

Ellis-kun always called out to me.

Today, it was a restaurant, and yesterday I was invited to a place with a beautiful view on the setting sun, eating crepes.

The day before yesterday, we had freshly baked baguette, and the other day, we saw a new poster in front of the theater, and on the way home, we ate meat pie.

Kate: Ellis-kun, youʼve been taking me to a lot of delicious restaurants lately …

Ellis: And …?

Kate: I feel like my body is getting a little heavy.

Ellis: I donʼt think it has changed at all … so why donʼt we go there?

Kate: … Iʼm coming.

(I just have to make up what I eat by exercising …)

Ellis: Really?

Ellis: Iʼm glad. I thought Kate-san would like that restaurant.

Ellis: I wanted to take you with me.

And the time I spent with Ellis-kun wasnʼt just about eating delicious food together—

Kate: Huh? Ellis-kun, this book is …

There was a book on the chair I always used in the common room.

Ellis: Oh, that … I believe you said you wanted to read it, right?

Kate: Thatʼs right …! Thank you … How much was it?

Ellis: Donʼt worry about it, itʼs a gift.

Ellis: Kate-san bought me some cranberry jam the other day, so I returned the favor.

Kate: Thatʼs because I wanted to thank you for taking me to the restaurant.

Ellis: Then, as a thank you for this … let me know what you think after you finish reading it.

(I gave him cranberry jam for the restaurant, and now he gave me a book for the jam …)

(What do I think about this book in return?)

Kate: … Is that a thank you?

Ellis: Yeah. Like listening to you.

Kate: There you go again …

(Ellis-kun is too good on pampering, isnʼt he …)

—The only thing that I found disturbing, however, were these particular questions Ellis-kun asked me regularly.

Ellis: Hey, Kate-san … how happy are you now?

What made me happy and how happy was I.

Perhaps wanting to know that, Ellis-kun sometimes asked me to come over and talk to him.

Usually, people asked me this when I was feeling happy.

He asked me questions as if he could see right through me, as if he was making sure I was happy.

It was like watching an exchange between lovers … that always made my heart tickle.

Kate: Hmm … I guess itʼs like when Iʼm taking a nap on my bed in the sun on my first vacation in a while.

I felt like Iʼve gotten better at expressing “happiness”, probably because I was always asked about it.

Ellis: …

He always smiled after blinking his eyes.

Ellis: … Iʼd like to see that. Would you take a nap with me next time?

Kate: T-together?

Ellis: Yeah. Think about it.

Ellis: Well then, Kate-san, see you tomorrow.

(Together …)

The kindness shown to me by Ellis-kun was so limitless that I almost felt conceited.

However …

(Oh, Iʼm afraid Iʼm going to be spoiled and pampered …!)

Perhaps driven by this sense of crisis, Iʼve been waking up early lately.

(Iʼm having more fun than I used to, even though Iʼm doing a job that could cost me my life.)

(Itʼs all thanks to Ellis-kun, who does everything he can to make me happy, but …)

At breakfast in the early morning, Jude-san happened to be alone with a newspaper, and I took the liberty of talking to him.

Kate: Is there a reason why Ellis-kun is so particular about happiness?

Jude: … What will ya do if ya know?

Kate: Huh? No, itʼs just a question.

Kate: He was so nice to me that I got worried …

As I spent time with Ellis-kun, I gradually realized what he had done—

He put “the other personʼs needs first”, not his own.

(As Ellis-kun said before.)

(Itʼs as if Ellis-kun has no feelings or desires of his own.)

Kate: I think Ellis-kun is a person who genuinely enjoys the happiness of others.

Kate: There have to be things he likes to do, and doesnʼt like to do.

Kate: Iʼm a little worried that heʼs not holding back.

Jude: … Heh, ya got a good grasp on that.

Jude-san snorted as he glanced down on the newspaper, seemingly uninterested.

Jude: So, ya believe there has to be an ulterior motive behind it and ya canʼt trust him?

(Eh …)

Kate: I didnʼt say that much.

But for a moment, I was at a loss of words, wondering if I could guess what Jude-san was saying.

Jude: Itʼs all the same.

Jude: “I canʼt read his true feelings, so I donʼt know if I should be happy to be pampered” is what ya thinkinʼ.

(… Truth to be told, he might be right.)

(Am I suspicious of Ellis-kun …?)

He was the type of person who would do anything to cheer me up.

I was afraid of becoming complacent with that kindness and missing out on the feelings behind it.

Jude: There ainʼt such a thing as genuine kindness, so leave that assumption aside.

Jude: Iʼm sure that his kindness isnʼt “just” due to simple favoritism.

Kate: Huh …?

Jude: Well, but if doesnʼt get particularly attached to ya, then itʼll be fine.

Kate: That sounds like there are circumstances where itʼs not okay for him to get attached …

Jude: Ha, yer smarter than I thought.

Jude-san raised an eyebrow and continued.

Jude: If ya know that much, donʼtcha think a smart girl would know what to do?

Jude-san looked down at the newspaper, as if he didnʼt feel like explaining further.

Thereʼs no such thing as genuine kindness.

If he doesnʼt get particularly attached, itʼs fine.

Even so, I could only get a warm impression.

So, I didnʼt know anything concrete about what would happen if I stayed with Ellis-kun.

(… What is this pain?)

It was as if I had reached out to touch a beautiful phosphorescent light and a small pin had pricked my fingertip.

Ellis: Morning Jude, Kate-san.

(Ah!)

Kate: Ellis-kun! Morning …

My heart skipped a beat and my hand involuntarily brushed against the silverware on the table.

Ellis: … What happened?

His gentle colored eyes looked at me with concern.

Kate: No, itʼs nothing.

Jude: All she did was whining and bemoaning how hungry she was.

Ellis: … I see. Then letʼs eat breakfast.

Ellis-kun smiled and took his seat.

(What Jude-san meant earlier … is to keep my distance so that he doesnʼt get really attached to me.)

(But … after being saved by his kindness so much, I canʼt act distant now.)

So, as usual, I smiled and called out to him.

Kate: Oh, I buttered the toast before it got cold.

Ellis: For me as well? … You did.

Kate: Thank you, as always.

Ellis: Thanks, Kate-san.

(When Ellis-kun smiles happily, it makes me happy too.)

I was sure that no one would leave him alone.

Because he was such a wonderful person.

(Iʼm sure thereʼs no way heʼll get particularly attached to me.)

(While repaying the kindness I received.)

(Letʼs spend the month trying not to be too on easy Ellis-kun.)

And not misjudge the his sense of distance—thatʼs what I vowed to do as soon as I came here.

(Every time he is kind to me, I almost forget that commandment.)

Since then, his kindness has crept into the cracks of my commandments, and the distance between our hearts gradually narrowed …

I was sure we had reached a point where I could still turn back.

(I canʼt make any more mistakes …)

Perhaps, surely—I canʼt make a mistake.

After finishing breakfast, when Kate had left to get ready to go out, Ellis turned his gaze to Jude.

Ellis: Hey, Jude.

Jude: If itʼs somethinʼ stupid, I ainʼt listening.

Jude made a noise with the newspaper as if to interrupt the voice.

Ellis: Do you think Kate-san will be the happiest in her life within a month?

Jude: Dunno.

Ellis: If she ever has a moment like this, I want it to be forever.

Ellis: Because sheʼs a nice person.

When Jude glanced up to him, he saw Ellis with a very serious expression on his face.

Jude: … Ha, yer as crazy as ever.

Ellis: I guess so.

Ellis: I … just donʼt like people I care about become unhappy.

Jude: …

Regarding the kidnapping incident, matters took a turn that night—

William wandered into the common room and saw Jude and Ellis discussing tomorrowʼs meeting.

Then he smiled at me as I took notes on the proceedings.

William: Weʼve received new information regarding the kidnappings from Alfons.

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