#mika talks about his accent and dialect and such the most in ! HOWEVER | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mishkakagehishka · 8 months ago

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I just . Repeating "characters are tools" you end up erasing so much about arashi's character and motivations and interactions with other characters if you avoid using her pronouns aka avoid showing she's transgender. It's on the same level of frustration with the translators i had when i saw they had Mika speaking standard English, there's a LOT that gets lost if you don't show those little things.

#and sure maybe some things wouldn't matter bc - i don't read many knights stories so beyond what's mentioned ab arashi in stories i've read #like those featuring mika and such #so i can't say for her but i can say for mika - because a lot of it is touched upon in ! which isn't getting translated #mika talks about his accent and dialect and such the most in ! HOWEVER #you still have idol story 3 where he talks with Tsumugi about how people perceive him because of his accent and #about how he feels like he's letting people down by not conforming to the positive stereotypes associated with his speech #and if you make him speak the standard language you completely lose that layer #if you erase the fact that Arashi is transgender you completely lose that layer of her characterisation and motivations #she literally has a story in !! where she talks about how much it hurts her to always be cast as the male character #in princess-knight themed shoots when all she wants to be is the princess #but how are you gonna get the full context of that if the story refuses to give you the context you had in the original #ie. that Arashi uses the (hyper)feminine ''atashi'' pronoun and that her speech pattern is one associated with young women #in ! she has a line where she asks i believe koga to not use the slur used for effeminate/gay men for her #because her name is arashi narukami and if anything she wants to be called arashi-chan or naruko #which is also additional context lost if you don't translate it right - the -ko suffix in a name is traditionally feminine #i'm no expert either but i'm a writer and i plan on working as a translator #and these are things that - if lost in translation - will impact your understanding of the entire story and/or character #whether it will have you completely misunderstanding it or just being confused is irrelevant but it's like #in my opinion as a translator it's your duty to translate even the subtext #if you need to show that arashi is transgender you don't need to say it (even tho #she did once say ''i will never be the woman i want to be'' iirc and #i do have recollection of mika telling her ''i don't really get it but you're a girl right?'')#but you should give us the same chance to come to the same conclusions which is to say. translate naruko to the best of your abilities.#idfk Nary maybe ? i feel like the -y ending is usually diminutive rather than feminine but.#something to that tune. and give her a girly speech pattern. it exists in english too.#slang can be associated with gender too #like you guys get it right.

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