#but this has been bugging me recently

[darknesspervades]

i think that a lot of the fandom mischaracterises hijacked!peeta and it low key bugs me

because he isn't a single-minded murderer or filled with bloodlust - he's terrified

like a wounded animal, he lashes out at katniss because of how much he fears her; his mind has been so utterly warped that he can't see an escape other than through violence. he's convinced she's going to torture him, so he wants to stop her

which is why i think the idea that he hurts her post-mockingjay isn't a fair assumption; by this point, he's recovered enough that he is no longer violent. even in the capitol, his final descriptive relapse shows him punishing himself before he's willing to lay a hand on katniss

while he'll obviously never fully recover, his reported periods of relapse (grabbing the back of chairs and the like) are drawn from terror, previously aimed at katniss and later at himself as he gains back functionality

he was never warped into a mutt, or stripped of his personhood, or turned into a sadist. he was just made to fear everyone and everything - primarily katniss, which then manifested as a fear of himself.

[project-sekai-facts]

How are we feeling about ensekai’s emu3 translation!!! (I’m mad)

(if you remember the 3 whole posts i made when asahi got de-gayed on EN you'll know i am mad too and that this is probably going to get long)

i don't like to be too cynical but it was so obvious that they were going to change that line, i had a feeling since the event first released on JP and after the incident with Asahi where I went through and tracked down multiple other examples of EN removing queer subtext it became clear to me that in no way shape or form was "emu-chan really loves nene-chan" making it to EN without getting changed. what i didn't expect was them changing Nene's line after Luka's comment, which actually makes this whole situation far worse than many of their other instances of toning down queer subtext.

for anyone who isn't aware of what happened, in chapter 5 of the current Emu event, there's a scene where Nene, Rui and the Virtual Singers are talking about what would cheer Emu up. The vsingers all talk about how much Emu loves spending time with Nene, leading to the following exchange

If you look for them, any fan TL of this scene will be something similar to this:

Luka: ...Fufu. Emu-chan really loves Nene-chan, doesn't she? Nene: Th-that's nothing special...

EN's official translation is this:

So what's the issue? I'll start with Luka's part. In the original text, she uses the word daisuki, which can mean to "like a lot" or "love". It's a word you will see frequently in the idol/idol-adjacent genre of games, due to its ambiguity in that it can be read as either platonic or romantic when used towards a person, and often will be used in ambiguous situations so that it's harder to confirm the writers' intentions either way. so here, fans of the emu/nene ship could view the fact that emu loves spending her time with nene as more on the romantic side, but people who don't like the ship could view it as platonic and move on.

while they didn't translate daisuki directly, Luka's line still works, and still contains the ambiguity that works as ship tease in the original text. it's a perfectly fine localisation that still conveys the original intent. despite that, there is something to be said about EN's consistent refusal to translate daisuki as love in most instances when it's not used on An/Kohane (but then again, EN has literally teased An/Kohane on their twitter account so is it all that surprising?).

Here's some examples:

Aibou no koto ga daisuki de / he loves his partner -> he cares about his partner very much (The Power of Unity chapter 7 when Kaito is comparing Arata to Akito and Toya)

HARUKA-CHAN, DAISUKI DAYOOOO!!! / HARUKA-CHAN, I LOOOOOVEEE YOU!!! -> You're the best!!! (Dear Me, As I Was Back Then chapter 4 when minori is at an ASRUN concert. this one isn't actually that great of a localisation)

Honachan no koto daisuki dakara. Kore de iinda yo. / I love Honachan, so this is fine. -> I want what's best for her. And this is it. (Leo/need main story chapter 14 after Saki tells Honami she won't bother her anymore)

Minna daisuki de - taisetsuna tomodachi na no / I love them all - they're my dearest friends -> They're all amazing, and very dear to me. (Leo/need main story chapter 17. this isn't good either)

What's particularly amusing about that last one is that there's a second official translation for it that I assume was done by JP staff (since EN never promoted doing the Journey to Bloom subs like they did back when they provided subs for Petit SEKAI) that actually keeps the word daisuki as love.

Yeah. I love all my friends - and they mean the world to me.

It's a better localisation than the official EN team one.

Questionable localisation choices aside, Luka's line is fine and is actually in line with the original. The issue with this localisation very much lies with Nene's part, because that is an entirely new line.

In the original text, Nene's "that's just normal" or "that's nothing special" or however you choose to TL it, is meant to be her questioning Luka's statement, since all the things that the other vsingers said that Emu liked were pretty normal things like going shopping and playing video games with nene. To Nene, these things are normal activities for them to do together, so she gets embarrassed by the fact that Luka concludes from that information that Emu loves Nene. When I dissect it like that I think you can really tell what the writers were going for here lol.

"That's just us being friends" does still convey the idea that Nene thinks these activities aren't anything out of the ordinary and she isn't sure why the vsingers are picking these out as some of Emu's favorite things to do, but it's very different from the original line. "But those are just normal things we do together" is something I just came up with on the spot, but it's a lot closer to the original text and still conveys the same meaning. The fact they changed the line to "that's just us being friends" is, honestly, not even subtle that they're covering up queer subtext. The original scene was very clearly written in as ship tease, and EN mentioning "friends" for no reason, especially since the word nor anything close to it was not used in the original, is instantly a red flag because it's like the go-to for queerbaiting and censorship. This was intentional. There was no need for them to specify that the relationship is platonic, Luka's part is ambiguous for a reason so that fans can view it how they like.

Just to top all this off, here's Rin's original line just before that Luka+Nene interaction:

Oh, and! And! She said that playing games with Nene-chan is also super fun!

And here's Rin's line from the official EN translation:

That's not the same thing, but even more weirdly, the incorrect part (super fun->really loves) is a correct translation for the part changed in Luka's line. So, they can do it, they are willing to say "really loves", just not in the right places. Maybe because Rin's part is less personal than Luka's part? It's strange actually, this isn't the first time they've done this either. Off the top of my head I can think of an example from Shiho's Varied Kindness 2* story where they translated the word "suki" as really loves, despite that being much stronger than the original word used (and the fact that daisuki is used a lot in the Leo/need stories and it's incredibly rare if not entirely unknown for them to translate it correctly).

It's not subtle that they're trying to remove implications of the characters possibly being queer, they did it in curtain call and they did it in walk on and on, and multiple times before then too. And considering some of the content in this year's events and the amount of times they say daisuki alone, it's gonna keep happening. honestly i hate the fact that i keep trying to justify the translations in these posts. these translations are intentional. what happened in the curtain call translation back in october says enough. when a character who uses explicitly romantic language towards another guy passes as a straight character in the translation you know they're doing it on purpose.

oh and once again, it's only the EN server that has this issue. The scene in question was translated almost word-for-word on the TW and KR servers.

read fan translations. they're better than what EN gives us and people put a lot of effort into them.

[soaked-ghost]

video lol. like actual animation lol.

[redysetdare]

Y'all realize garlic bread started as an asexual symbol first right? The whole start of it was in reference to "garlic bread is better than sex" idk where the idea came about that it started as an aromantic symbol with "bad garlic breath saving you from kissing"???

Not saying garlic bread can't be a shared symbol but it's super weird to hear ppl claiming it was an aro only symbol and completely ignoring the roots it has as a symbol in the ace community??

[bambiraptorx]

I need to see more character designs that don't treat wearing makeup as the default for women I'm so freaking tired of it. why do female characters always have to have eyeliner or mascara or lipstick or eye shadow or some combo or all of the above. why is wearing makeup so expected that in cartoons you can tell if a character's supposed to be female by whether they have lips or not

[helltrskelter]

Call me Hermann the way I. The way I

[libertyeveningsun]

Sometimes I wonder if aces forget you can be ace and gay, and gays forget you can be gay and ace. Multiple times I've seen people arguing like "I hc this character as ace" and someone else saying "no that's not possible because I hc this character as gay/lesbian" and as an acespec lesbian it makes me want to scream. Especially because if you offer up the possibility of asexual homoromantic as a very convenient option that should satisfy both parties, neither side likes that

[kimbapisnotsushi]

saw a tweet that was like "who will win most problematic love interest of shoujosei anime for 2024" and kazehaya was part of list and i just. if we're having problems with kazehaya NOW i need EVERYONE to leave the goddamn scene because what the fuck

[sabraeal]

1000 Followers Update!

Due to some super fun chronic health shenanigans, the posting for the 1000 Followers Celebration is being postponed a month! Posting will start on 2/2 with to all the ghost still standing in this room, and continue as previously planned from there. Thank you guys for bearing with me-- I struggled with the idea of even postponing for a week, but it became very clear on Monday that I would not be able to catch up with the schedule unless I took an extended break to recover. Can't wait to show you guys what I've got up my sleeve!

[lovebugism]

brb crying to the vampire!eddie playlist i made months ago ✌️

[jessamine-rose]

/obey me! vent/

[imthatwannabeauthor]

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[vanillashusband]

i'm thinking of vanilla so much rn that its actually reviving me from the dead hfhgdgdv just indulging in the comfort he brings me is giving me the strength to draw again q w q hfhgdgd

[sameteeth]

all of my friends have been cancelling on me lately and its starting to tick me off

[scattered-winter]

ok maybe this is controversial but it's always rubbed me the wrong way whenever an actor/celebrity dies and everyone is mourning them but only in relation to the character they played??? like idk if my mom died tomorrow and everyone was mourning her because she couldn't do her job anymore I would probably commit a hatecrime

[gideonisms]

I love that there are no bugs in my new unit bless ♥️