#korean transcriber

[bts-trans]

[📣NOTICE]

ARMY! Bangtan Subs is now recruiting for the following positions:

Korean-English translator

Korean transcriber

Typesetter

Timer

Applications will stay open until positions are filled 💜

➡️ Apply on our website: http://bangtansubs.com/apply

[wigglesforsquiggles]

i tried to spell wiggles using hangul and ice instead made an alternate name for myself

i'm sir wigolas now and you shal refer to me as such

[theinfinitedivides]

'yah!!!!!' 'what?' 'you. come here.' 'no, you come.' 'i'm coming!!!!!' *brief pause* 'oh.'

[starswallowingsea]

[Transcription: A Korean person in a blue suit talking like a car commercial voice over. There is blue text saying "Little Hal's Lesbian Depot Everything Must Go written at the top of the screen.

Little Hal: I got too many lesbians! That's why I'm slashin' prices! All lesbians must go!

The person changes into a black crop top, red flannel, gray beanie, and outdoor pants with a jacket slung over their shoulder.

Little Hal: We got 40% off lumberjack lesbians!

They change again to be wearing the same crop top with a green half jumpsuit.

Little Hal: Half off half jumpsuit lesbians!

Their outfit is now reminiscent of punk musicians; black pants with a belt, a shirt with metal rings connecting the two sides, and a fishnet glove on one hand.

Little Hal: 40% off lesbians who play bass in a band in Silverlake coffee shops!

The outfit is now a rainbow tie dye crop top and jean shorts. They are holding a reusable water bottle in the air like a lantern.

Little Hal: 30% off lesbians who wake up at 7 to take you on a hike!

They are now wearing a white tank top, saggy gray sweatpants, and a black snap-back worn backwards.

Little Hal: 70% off lesbians who dress up like a 16-year-old boy who uses slurs on the internet.

They are wearing a red turtleneck with glasses and red/orange/yellow flannel pants.

Little Hal: This would have passed for a straight woman in 1972 for some reason! 60% off!

They cut back into the suit they wore at the beginning of the video.

Little Hal: So rent your U-Hauls and bring them on down to Little Hal's Lesbian Depot and get these lesbians out of here! Act now and I'll throw in a straight woman who loves to kiss girls but thinks vaginas are gross! I don't like them hangin' around they make me uncomfortable!

The TikTok logo appears with their username @/koreanbeef27 and the video ends. End transcription]

[miaemoons]

would it kill me to actually complete a transcript for once

[neonsbian]

forgot how to spell taemu’s name in korean like 5 times while typing it back to back

[dukebee]

Yeosang said earlier this year in a pop live that he’s not religious. I think it was between Feb 9 - Apr 11?

iirc he told a story about his dad taking him to a temple when he was a toddler and a monk was like “red is his color” which is why Yeosang likes red. The chat was like “wait, thought you weren’t religious” and the jist is he’s not but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t go to a temple or that it makes this story any less special to him

Not that it matters too much but I'm doing a little updated version on the post I made about the boys religions/beliefs because I can edit the og post but it won't edit the reblogs so people won't even see it.

Yunho is Catholic and I'm pretty sure is the only one we know who has a religion.

Some comments said Mingi has said he isn't religious so if you know where he may have said that let me know!

Wooyoung recently said on a Live that he's an atheist.

Even though San sang in his church choir he has said that he has no religion/is an atheist.

Seonghwa, Yeosang and Jongho I don't think have ever stated their beliefs.

According to a comment I saw on Twitter Hongjoong said in 2022 that him and his family are not religious, though I don't know where he may have said this.

[qsmpmiraheze]

A call for Korean speakers!

Do you know Korean? Do you love QSMP? Well, then please consider joining the QSMP Miraheze Wiki team! We are currently at the staggering zero (0) Korean speakers, and while one of the admins is learning Korean, it is not enough to transcribe, for example, Korean characters' quotes and alias.

Please. We won't even make you do any work we'll just occasionally ping you for transcribing/translation help. You can just sit there and look pretty. 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발 제발

[noconceptpenpal]

@dasineoreul: English page: My favorite way to decompress after a long day at work / Korean page: Transcribing the song ‘Blue Hour’ by TXT

―📓 A6

[solradguy]

What’s been the most fun and/or challenging part of working on the wiki? Also is there anything that still needs to be worked on that other people can help with?

THE CODE KILLED ME. So the wiki has a template that automagically puts this cool little Wikipedia help thingy next to Japanese text (the "?" on the end) in infoboxes and by command in text using some {{wiggly boys}} code:

And we wanted to try to get the Korean stuff on the wiki too because it's the second most officially supported language behind English and there's a bunch of cool exclusive Korean GG stuff no one's ever documented before. But there wasn't a module like this to help out with Korean text like there is for Japanese text.

I put one together based on the Japanese template's code and it was a nightmare. I was fighting for my life in the template trenches. It works though!! I did get it after a while!!

Mostly.

Shoutout to the Final Fantasy Wiki for the original JP template code and to the Dragon Blaze Wiki for seemingly being the only other English language wiki out there that cares about Korean text lol I don't know anything about Korean writing beyond super basic stuff (like what "hangul" is) so I had to do research into that alongside trying to learn wiki code.

The most fun part was probably getting GG World together, honestly. We couldn't believe that no one had actually transcribed those anywhere online before. Well, there was a file compiled by Lux for Revelator, but we wanted to transcribe these as-presented in the games and we couldn't use Lux's file since the goofy typos and some lore oopsies had been edited haha

Toxic and Elk have hauled ass getting those entries ripped and added. Major shoutout to them. I got the base layouts together and they went to town lol It's so cool seeing it all together now. We even started getting the official languages besides English and Korean added for Strive too.

As for what someone could do to help........ There's.... a lot...... Of the 4,532 image files currently on the wiki, only a very small handful of them were organized into categories when we forked. Here's the page of all the files currently not in a category: https://guiltygear.wiki.gg/wiki/Special:UncategorizedFiles

And all of the image categories they need to be sorted into. Note the subcategories under some of them: https://guiltygear.wiki.gg/wiki/Category:Images

I think I made the correct amount of categories for stuff but there may be one missing here or there. There were a lot and it was hard keeping track of them lol Feel free to holler at me on here or on my talk page over on the wiki if you need something made. I'm solradguy on the wiki.

These major character pages are also either entirely lacking citations or only have maybe 1 or 2 on the entire page (bad!!): Johnny, Chipp, Kliff, Baiken, Venom, Jam, Robo-Ky, Slayer, Sin, Izuna, Dr. Paradigm, Valentine, Bedman?, Answer, Haehyun, Elphelt, Giovanna, Happy Chaos, Asuka R♯

Swapping out the vague "GG World" citations on the wiki with the correct entry would be very helpful too. Like some pages will cite something and it just says "GG World" instead of " 'Axl Low' Xrd Rev2 GG World entry" or whatever relevant entry is needed.

If you know Korean, we also need to have the romaja added for the GG World entries. None of us knows Korean well enough to do that so not a single one has it filled in lol.... We were planning on using Revised Romanization of Korean since it's the official South Korean romanization system but if there's one that's more commonly used/accepted that's cool too (like how Hepburn is used for Japanese more often than the official Kunrei-shiki romanization)

[minggukieology]

Hello ! This is my first ask here.

I have a doubt regarding JK's yesterday live. One of Jimin's comment was about JK leaving at 2am/pm. There are 2 versions of translations going around - one is future tense, "you have to leave at 2pm. So go to sleep now" and another version is past tense , "you left at 2 am , so sleep now". There is a confusion about this , can you clarify it for us?

Hi, thanks a lot for your message!

I have seen this comment being translated in all kinds of ways, perhaps partially due to the fact that the way it is phrased is pretty vague and also it is written in Busan satoori.

It has been officially transcribed like this:

Though they did change the word '나가더구먼', written by Jimin originally in Busan dialect as '나가더만'; similarly to '어서 자' which Jimin wrote as '어여자' in Busan dialect. (Little detail but I just love how they automatically slip into their regional dialect when talking to each other 🥹)

To get to the content of the message, Jimin doesn't specify what time of the day exactly, he just says "at 2 o'clock."

Based on that solely it could be understood in both past and future sense. However the overall meaning of "너 2시에 나가더만" implies that:

You've told me/I've learnt you are going out/leaving at 2; this is a fact that I've got to know

Despite that I see you are not sleeping (my assumption and expectation is being opposed; I am surprised)

I know this probably sounds very confusing but yes, this much can be expressed with suffixes in Korean 😅

Then Jimin continues saying "어여자 이제" which is satoori for ushering someone to "go to sleep quickly now"

The full translation can be phrased as:

"(I know) you leave at 2* so hurry up and sleep now."

(*implied additional meaning: yet you are not sleeping)

Jungkook then replies:

"That's right, I am going out/leaving at around 2 o'clock, I am going" (-는데 this form again implies opposition- 'despite/even though' but it is hard to capture in English translation).

Basically Jungkook agrees to the juxtaposition with his answer, as he is seemingly not sleeping even though he has a schedule at 2.

He closes it off with an informal sentence: "Why do I hate sleeping this much?"

I have to admit even when I was watching this for the first time, I never got the impression from the whole convo it could be translated in any other way than future; but I guess there can be a bit of difficulty trying to express the full scope of the meaning in English and the sentence is indeed a bit vague. Though Jungkook's reaction doesn't really fit any other interpretation.

Hope it helped a bit!

[lopposting]

translation notes on deleted lines + why translation is truly so important

[long post]

Hello everyone... As I'm sure you've seen, the deleted lines here that were leaked have been a wrecking ball on both this fanbase and my heart!!! (thank you to the users who put that together.)

OKOKOK more translation notes!!! This is a little too out of my level in Korean for me tbh, but I'll try my best to explain my point of view.

기억은 없지만 저 역시 당신의 아들임니다. I may not remember, but I'm still your son.

Pino is using the form Dangshin (당신) here and not father (as in 기억은 없지만 저 역시 아버지의 아들입니다?), probably because he isn't directly talking to Geppetto, and it's a general formal version of "you".

Grammatical notes aside and getting to the main point, this line shows that translation is SO finicky and SO important

This line is such a completely crazy example of how translation can change an entire story; how one word can make something entirely different.

Let's look at that line with the two different interpretations.

기억은 없지만 저 역시 당신의 아들입니다. I may not remember, but I'm still your son.

Alternatively, where 역시 (yeokshi) is interpreted as "TOO":

기억은 없지만 저 역시 당신의 아들입니다. I may not have [his] memories, but I'm your son, too.

Here's the thing... "but I'm still your son, too"...

that "too" changes EVERYTHING. That little three letter word, at the end of that sentence changes everything, and has the power to steer an entire story. Because why would he need to add the "too" modifier if Geppetto only had one single child?

At my level, I cannot say that it's one or the other with 100% certainty. Translation always requires some form of interpretation, and either one is "accurate". But, as you know, a translation being "accurate" is often not even enough. [note: In the process of writing this post, and giving it some thought. I would say that yes, considering the context, the second translation is more accurate (because in this context he is referring to Carlo's memories when he uses the word "역시") ]

Deleted lines are deleted for a reason

Over the many days I've been deliberating over this (lol Lies has taken me heart and mind), I've realized that maybe I've gotten caught up in a bit of survivorship bias. As in, I think I was focusing on the content of the deleted lines, and not that they were deleted in the first place.

[Among other reasons,]

I think these lines were likely deleted because the (almighty gods) Developers wanted to keep it more ambiguous and up to interpretation whether or not P is Carlo. It's a very intriguing choice. That being said, I really appreciate that people shared this so we can see the creative decisions that were even made in the first place.

I'm reminded of Antonia's letter, because I still find it that profound. (she really was the best ;_;) When she sees Pino, she doesn't mention carlo at all to Pino, lady Antonia just treats him exactly as he is.

And her final letter is so touching. Perhaps guessing what complicated emotions Pino might be feeling about his relation to Carlo.. she tells him, not that he is or isn't Carlo, but that

"Whether you are that child or not -"

he is worthy of love and that he is precious.

"Whether you are Carlo or not, You are precious to me."

Director Choi's message on the Special Release Vinyl:

This is from discogs, the quality is hard to read so I've transcribed this portion here.

Lies of P harbors a plethora of concealed enigmas and artful subtleties, and there are no wrong interpretations to them. Piece together the scattered fragments and unravel the puzzle to craft a narrative of what is true to you. ... With sincerest regards, Lies of P Director CHOI JIWON

Seems to directly confirm that some things being left up for interpretation is by design. Very very neat!! I love it!! :)

[akgaereporter]

꩜ briizes: seunghan/wonbin/taro main dancer discourse 🤕

tldr: an ot7 account made a big thread on why seunghan is vital to riize's lineup, talents and visuals wise. they explain why his dancing is needed to balance the team but some taro/wonbin stans took it as shade towards their biases dance skills and ended up seeming lowkey ot6..

so everything started with this ot7 user posting a thread in korean about how seunghan is vital and unreplaceable within riize. they mentioned things like how his visuals and proportions blend the group properly, how he’s the mood maker and has good sense in variety and comedy contents, etc. very well written thread btw, here’s the link to read it if u havent already !

anyways, the issue started bc of the part where nomad talked about seunghan’s dance position within riize. they praised him for his flexible movements in contrast to shotaro and wonbin’s ��rough street dancing and standard styles.” they also said that after watching the member’s fancams, seunghan is the member best at “using his upper body” and “highlighting the details of the choreography.”

here is the whole translated paragraph transcribed from the ss:

“Additionally, in order to widen the range of performance types that a group can handle, it is best if the specialized styles of each dance member do not overlap too much. While Shotaro and Wonbin's characteristics are rough street dancing and standard styles, respectively, Seunghan's style, in contrast, is very flexible and allows him to control the strength and weakness well. Also, by analyzing the members' fancams, we can conclude that the member in Rise who uses his upper body the best is Seunghan, and more importantly, Seunghan is the member who is the best at highlighting the details of the choreography among the members. In this way, the three dance line members are already the best combination, complementing each other's shortcomings, so if even one of them is missing, the quality of the performance will inevitably decline.”

this thread sparked a lot of seunghan praise:

now idk abt yall but after reading all these, the first thing on my mind isnt “ok but what about x member..”. this is clearly about seunghan, how he affects the performance/stage/vocal dynamic of the group, and what they lose without him. this is for seunghan and about seunghan, RELATIVE to the other members, not comparative. but some people clearly have other things in mind..

things got kinda messy from here🤕

and some people just straight up revealed they dgaf about him fr☠️

and youll never guess whats in shawty's bio..??

like hmm?? if 2+2 is 4.. how can you support an ot7 riize if you think he doesn't bring anything to the group? that hes not vital in anything? that they're doing fine w/o him? like im genuinely curious but anyways..

some people clocked how weird these reactions were but the damage has lwk already been done bc this is such a strange discourse to have at all🤕

☆ my opinion

again i just think its crazy how u can call urself ot7 when u dont believe he’s indispensable to the group? the whole point of nomad’s thread was to showcase what seunghan brought to riize, and why this ot6 body isn’t bringing out their full potential as vocal&performance artists. there are so many things to take into account here:

because one member is good at a certain aspect of a skill doesn’t make another members’ any less than..

the thread was to show seunghan’s unique differences from any other member, and highlight what the group loses by not having him. not to say “hes better at x than y member,” but to say “this is how seungan’s skill contrasts any other member and creates a better result.”

riize is a team, teams have members, members are going to have distinct styles that they execute best. shotaro is obviously the main dancer as he's very versatile and can cover a wide range of movement, but that doesn't change the fact there are details & aspects of seunghan’s dancing that he makes most noticeable, & that differ and contrast shotaro’s in a good way. those differences make them look better as a group. like yes taro is a pro dancer, but he has a more "x" style while seunghan accentuates more "y" movements, and "x" and "y" work together perfectly with the rest of the members on stage. its not about who is better, it’s about how they look together as one.

i feel like some taro/wonbin stans are referring to individual skills, which explains why they're bringing up taro's past as a dancer. individual skill is a whole different story, and again, that wasn't the purpose of the thread, it was to show what riize loses as a group by not having seunghan.

the “better at moving his upper body” part is one of those details seunghan highlights, but that comment is an opinion on nomad’s part, so ofc u can disagree with it. however the undeniable fact is that seunghan is very talented at dancing with his upper body, and whether x member is better than him or not isnt the point - it was included to show how he and only he executes it differently than others to create an enhanced look on stage. i think its funny how theres literally a part of the thread where wonbin is agreeing that seunghan has the most flexible upper body in an interview but some milkteas were still acting like nomad saying that is a snub to taro??😭

getting mad at a seunghan praise tweet for praising seunghan is odd behavior. u can of course have preferences, but to call it “discrediting” shotaro is a huge stretch. no one is downplaying shotaro’s skills as a dancer, in fact nomad’s thread is one of the only threads ive seen actually articulating and placing focus on seunghan’s dancing, so to say it was “objectively untrue” is crazy and i think we should just let hongjjangus have nice things. if u disagree, and think taro is better at something, gone ahead and make ur own thread like this user did (maybe with a less shady caption🤕) instead of creating a space for people to feel comfortable demeaning seunghan's skills comparatively to other members.

like who was speaking on him??😭😭 some people have definitely lost the plot but at least its a minority.. unrelated to these screenshots but theres srsly an epidemic of briizes who are lowkey moving ot6 but claiming its in the name of supporting riize's active members so be careful who u call oomf & stay strapped in these streets😕🙏🏽 seunghan WILL be home soon trust me ladies.. im psychic

[c l o s e t a b ?] ◀ ⇨ akgaepop.com

[helenstudies]

I hope I'm not being rude but how did you have the time to do everything on your bio when you're only 24? Can you share how you learnt a lot of languages?

It's fine. Believe it or not, people ask me that A LOT.

I'm born in Myanmar and only spoke Burmese until I was 10 and my mom decided her children should be able to speak English. She sent me and my sibling to an English Summer School and then started speaking English at home. I've been bilingual since then. Burmese people are very good at English (read: we were colonized by the British) I started learning Chinese at age 12, I think. Then at age 14 and 15, while writing novels and fanfictions, I taught myself how to read hanguel (korean script) and hiragana/katakana (japanese script) then started studying formally after graduating highschool.

In Myanmar, until a few years ago, high school students used to graduate at age 16 and go to the university. So when I graduated high school, I went the distance education route in University and became a freelance translator and interpreter. I also did some transcribing and content writing. Then I went to Korea and studied in a language program. I came back after nine months and at age 19 I just started taking things seriously and self studied everything to pass all the language certification exams.

In 2021, because of the military coup, I dropped out of high school, realized my freelance translator job is not really going well due to the dictatorship, so I started to branch out. Now I read tarot and interpret astrological birth charts, teach classes and tutor people, sell books and ebooks. That's just how freelancing is. I think.

Anyways, all these things seem a lot until you realize I just spent a decade of my life just doing things I want. A lot of people tried discouraging me of course They're always like "choose a language!" "choose a path!" but I just don't like to listen to people. Hopefully, a few more decades and I might become a jack of all trades. And learn a few more languages. And read a few more books. And get into a few more hobbies. Yeah.

[sebbyisland]

!!! IVAN INTERVIEW DROPPED !!!

Set where we left off after Episode 5/6!!! Offically only transcribed in Korean. Fan translation in English. I will update this post if any translations are released/shared.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: june 2023

as promised (to myself) I spent all of gay months reading books by and/or about the gays, no exceptions! (unless you count the heaps of old Batman comics I was reading, but come on. it's all pretty fruity.) the trend will be continuing into July as well because I overshot and still have book I need to finish, so in the immortal words of Janelle Monáe: happy pride forever!

anyway, what have I actually been reading?

Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone, 2019) - man, I've been meaning to read this FOREVER! and I'm glad I finally did. Gladstone's space opera follows ultrawealthy tech genius Vivian Liao, a sort of dykey Lex Luthor who's CERTAIN that she's the good guy. okay, yes, she's trying to get control of the nukes, but she's not going to use them. it's just that the world's a mess and she needs to be in charge. unfortunately our girl Vivian doesn't get far in her master plan before she's transported across the galaxy and finds herself on the run from the all-powerful Empress in the company of a cybernetic monk named Hong and the legendary space pirate Zanj, the Empress' greatest enemy. from there our heroes are off on a slow, messy quest across the galaxy as they make new friends, grow as people, and strive to bring the Empress down. it's a very long book and can feel slow in places, but all of the time devoted to fleshing out the characters ultimately pays off as their stories converge into a resonant narrative about the notion of identity and what it means to be yourself. if you like Becky Chambers' Wayfarer books of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, get on this shit.

also hey listen Max Gladstone is having a bit of a Moment rn; the book he coauthored with Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War, is getting a huge boost thanks to the Trigun (????) fandom??? over on Twitter, and you should definitely go check it out

Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (Jane Ward, 2016) - Ward is a brilliant queer feminist writer; rigorous and insightful while keeping her work imminently readable. while the title may sound facetious, Ward actually takes entirely at face value that there are men having sex with each other an engaging in otherwise homoerotic activities - mutual jerkoffs, hazing rituals that involve anal penetration - that sincerely aren't stemming from a place of gay desire and asks us what the fuck we're supposed to make of that. what results is a fascinating look at masculinity and the intricate rituals that both subvert and maintain it. shockingly thought provoking for a book that contains so many transcribed craigslist posts of men looking for straight guys to have totally normal hetero dudesex with!

The Latinos of Asia: How Filipinos Break the Rules of Race (Anthony Christian Ocampo, 2016) - I was lucky enough to get to see Ocampo (who is gay) speaking at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity this year, and naturally I had to buy one of his books while I was there. I strongly suspect he's about to become one of my new favorite nonfiction writers, because the Latinos of Asia was a brilliant read that I really couldn't put down. Ocampo (who's also Filipino!) delves into the formation of Filipino-Americans' racial identity, and finds that many feel caught between the most conventionally accepted racial categories - feeling alienated from the idea of Asian identity, which is often perceived as pertaining to East Asians like Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and instead relating much more firmly to Mexican-Americans and other Latinos. it's a FASCINATING study on race and one (of many!) loopholes that exists in this very large, messy, totally made up construct of race.

A Lady for a Duke (Alexis Hall, 2022) - for my pride month romance novel I wanted to read something that I might actually like. I've previously adored Hall's genre-fucking ultra-queer Sherlock Holmes pastiche, the Affair of the Mysterious Letter, and Lady for a Duke was really well-reviewed, so my hopes were high! and you know what? I fucking loved this. it was like cotton candy, perfectly sweet and made to be inhaled without a second thought. Our Heroine Viola was the heir to an estate who faked her death at Waterloo so that she could run away and be herself - that's right baby, this is a 19th century trans lady romance! she reconnects with her old BFF the Duke of Gracewood, who's been catatonically depressed since losing his best friend in the war, and reader, you will not believe what happens next. just kidding, you totally will: they want to kiss each other so bad! they're yearning so bad and it's great. it's a very silly book and Gracewood is the most unexpectedly forward-thinking 19th century duke EVER who is instantly down to accept Viola entirely as a woman and thinks that having biological children is overrated, and you know what? that rules. I'm not reading this book for historical accuracy I'm reading it to watch a man beg his girlfriend to fuck him tenderly in the ass. and she does!!! if I'm being honest everything after they finally hook up is kind of nonsense and the book probably is too long, but god it's a delightful time.

Chlorine (Jade Song, 2023) - back in the days of twitter I started following Jade Song as soon as they announced selling this book, the story of a competitive high school swimmer succumbing to obsession as she fantasizes about becoming a mermaid. finally getting to pick up the book from the library and actually read it felt crazy after existing in potentia for so long! while Song's novel is a little rough in some places in exactly the way I expect from a debut, it's still gripping and visceral. our protagonist lives in an intense and demanding world, striving to please an overly handsy coach, wanting to please the immigrant parents she can barely speak to, stumbling through sex with boys on her team while longing for her female best friend. through it all she fixates on mermaids, and the story is told in flashbacks building up to a drastic act of self-mutilation at a swim meet. it's definitely not the right book for the faint of heart or anyone looking for feel-good fluff, but it's harrowing in the best way.

Vagabonds! (Eloghosa Osunde, 2022) - gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! Osunde celebrates queer life - those called vagabonds, society's outliers - in Lagos, Nigeria, slipping between the real world of social stigma, oppressive religion, judgmental family, and dangerous politics, and the world of magic, gods, and the unreal, blending the two together in an effortlessly dizzying effect. the ultrawealthy hide behind layers of flawless masks to conceal their identities, a lonely woman dying of cancer summons up a daughter than only she can see, and a young man channels the devil to raise his murdered lover. while the stories start bleak, firmly establishing the danger of life on the margins, they gather speed with increasing warmth and love as the story progresses, eventually bringing all of our protagonists together in glorious, life-affirming celebration of vagabonds and all who love them. Nigeria, in Osunde's hands, reads much like family - imperfect, sometimes even awful, but also capable of harboring tremendous love, surprising tenderness, and still worth holding out hope for. I think measuring books in terms of relatability is a fool's game, but as an American queer watching more and more legislation and persecution roll out against my people each day, it was hard not to feel a cord being struck. Vagabonds! is a beautiful reminder that queer resilience is eternal, and reader, I did cry.

Quietly Hostile (Samantha Irby, 2023) - I was a ride or die bitch for Sam Irby even before she picked up and moved to my small Michigan city, effectively becoming my neighbor. (not really, but she is married to the mother of a friend of a friend, so.) despite this, I will freely admit that I was a little underwhelmed by her last release, 2020's Wow, No Thank You. it's possible that WNTY was damned by its March 2020 release, putting it in the awkward position of being a humorous essay collection creeping out into the world at a time when everyone was paranoid and nothing was funny; maybe on a reread I would receive it a bit more warmly. Quietly Hostile, on the other hand, is just stupid funny right out of the gate. Sam Irby is old (see: in her early 40s) and going downhill, writing candidly about peeing her pants everywhere, adopting a rancid little dog, getting sent to the hospital with a severe allergic reaction, and jacking off to plot-heavy porn of elderly lesbian nuns. it takes a little bit of work to get me to actually laugh out loud at a book but man, I was chortling. if you don't already know her work, this is a sign from god (me) to check Samantha Irby out now.

what am I reading now?

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - the was one of the oldest queer novels(TM) on my list and I really wanted to knock it out for pride month. the Malaysian setting and culture is a welcome addition to contemporary urban fantasy, but I'm not sure I'm crazy about the story overall. and yet, I'm over 200 pages deep and don't want to give up, so ? I guess I'm persisting.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - my local library lost their copy just in time for pride month, so I bought one on ebay for all of nine dollars. haven't started yet, but I'm really excited to finally pop that proverbial Baldwin cherry!