#doesnt has the same impact for non brazilians

[littleseasalt]

The political/cultural context behind Forever's campaign slogan

This is a post I've been meaning to do for a long time now, since I had a talk with Kia a few weeks ago about the automated translations and Forever.

We were talking about how out of the Brazilians, Forever is the one who the translations are always off even when he sets them right. And the reason for that is very simple, of course. The automated translations are not suited to be able to get the different dialects Brazil has, neither to understand slangs. Specially Brazilian slangs, which are rooted directly to the culture and history of the country, the addiction of the dialect aspect worsening the situation.

That's when I realized, our speech is so rooted in our culture that even Forever's "Do the F" is something that is rooted to the politics/culture of the country. And none of the gringos even know that.

"Do the F" would be the translation for "Faz/faça o F", which is a parody of the political slogan "Faz/faça o L"

The slogan itself gained more force during the Brazilian 2022 elections, but the act itself- doing the letter "L" with your right hand- was something that already happened before. The "L" stands for "Lula", which was the main opposition to Bolsonaro in the elections.

I don't want to go to deep into Brazilian politics, but Bolsonaro was basically Brazilian trump. He's an alt right politician. Between 2016-2022, the working class in Brazil was severely demobilized. The last hope against him in the power was Lula, and even then, he was considered elected with 50,83% of the votes, compared to Bolsonaro's 49,12%

The slogan became a meme, which worked in favor of the campaign, mostly. It's something catchy, it's something that it's easy to promote- you just need to take a picture of yourself doing the L.

Then, when Lula won, Bolsonaro supporters tried to use the meme in their favor. They would say stuff like "Then, when the country goes broke, then you do the L". That. Actually backfired terribly, because people turned it against them and started mocking them back in the same way.

When Forever became the president, people started jokingly saying "Forever pay for the server". And now, whenever Forever crashes, his chat gets filled with "Now you do the F". Not in a supportive way, and not in a way that it's against Forever (like the Bolsonaro supporters use the "do the L"). They say "Now you do the F" as a way to both have fun and mock the people who unironically say "Now you do the L" after something bad happens.

It's sort of funny to see how much context there is behind his slogan, and that no one outside Brazil has any idea of how deep it goes (I can only imagine how weird it must be to see a character complaining about a presidential decision forever has, and see Brazilians doing the "now you do the F" joke. it must sound so rude lmao but generally they don't mean any harm or bad implications but are simply having fun with it).

[xantissa]

Hello. I saw you saing once you work in another language, if you don't mind my asking, where are you from? Since I saw that, I kept asking myself how do you write, I mean, I'm a writer too, but I have to do it first in my language (portuguese, I'm Brazilian) then translate it. So, how do you do it? I love your stories by the way, they are fucking awesome :)

Awww, first off thank you for the compliment. Writing in another language is a strange thing that happened to many authors by accident.And my response turned out to be an essay of 800 words, so I am putting it under a cut so as not to clog people’s dashboards.Edit: had to take down the tax note because it didn't work on my mobile and eats the text, lolSo, about writing. I’m Polish. Right now I work in american connected company so I use english work, but I started writing in english, hmm. about 17 years ago? I actually write first few novella length stories in my native language (before I discovered fan fiction) but I quickly realised I had nowhere to show this work. There was no audience, no real place for me to show the work off. Just the few friends that I was brave enough to show my works. I am saying ‘brave’ because from the very beggining I was interested in the darker themes. I wasn’t interested in the run of the mill romance story. And back then I was very aware that non-standard things were not always well accepted. Around that time I stumbled onto something called ‘fan fiction’ on the internet. It was Sailor moon fandom of all things. And boy. My mind was blown. I read like there was no tomorrow. Anything and everything. By the time I reached x-men fandom I was dead set on writing a story. At that time I had a CAE (certificate in advanced english) which meant I could communicate, even teach the begginers. BUT. I tried writing my first story in english. No translating, straight up english sentences from mind to paper… and it flopped so horribly. Turned out writing prose in another language wasn’t as easy as writing an email in that same language. I read fics in english (and books) for about 7 months longer before I wrote the first story I posted, Second Chances for x-men and it was long fic from the very beggining. I also immediately invested in a beta. Actually two betas, because there was too much to do for just the one :DNow we are reaching the meat of your question.The thing about languages is: do not translate. Seriously. Just don’t. I spoke russian before I started learning english, and the only trick I learned was: think straight in the language you intend to use. Translating doesnt really work. First is that words flow differently in languages. Some languages are high context, some are low context, some have words with multiple meaning (english) some are very specific (polish) Also, there is a theory of ‘emotional connection’ - example is that you will curse much easier in another language than in your own because in your native language words have emotional impact, some are bad words, shameful words and you are less likely to use them. The same words, but in foreign language do not carry the same emotional impact which makes them easier to use. It’s nt only about the bad words. FFrom personal experience I can tell you that writing explicit sex is so much easier in english than in polish. First because english is better equipped in sexual vocabulary and second because it doesn’t have that ‘embarassed giggle’ factor my own language has.It was strange and unbelievably slow at first, but oly the first chapter or so. After a little time (and it happens very, very fast) the odness passess and thinking in another langiage comes easier and faster. On some level there still is translation, but that translation happens on a subconscious level that doesn’t tax your conscious mind. Also, thinking traight in your targeted language makes the stry sound better, flow better because you subconsciously use better forms than with translations. And be completely honest with me - translating is boring. I did some translations for people/money/projects and damn, booooooooring. Start with thinking up conversations, short scenes in english. Make the sentences in your head, get a feel for how they sound. You read a lot, I bet you have all the vocabulary, all the grammar. You have it. You just need to open that one door in your mind that leads to changing the way you see other languages. Look at bilingual children, or really anyone, they don’t spend any time translating, they just do. because in their heads they just switch from language to language as needed. Try it, try a smaller story, a scene. Simply change tracks in your head and it will all come to you easily. I promise.