#what a spinterest does to a man

[jackalhadrurusluvr]

i hope that the person who liked my tweet about dunes birthday and has been reposting dune the movie things knows that idc about dune the movie i only care about dune my oc. my beloved oc. my very very very beloved oc who was named after a grumpy elderly character in the hit book series wings of fire, not dune the movie

[coffinsister]

Hi there!

I just wanted to let you know that I'd never heard of Saya no Uta until I saw you talking about it on my dash and I was like hey I'll look into that!! I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and it was definitely an experience. I've only played the route of choosing Saya and choosing to call Ryoko, so I still have to make the other choices to view all of the game's content, but I just wanted to come say thank you for giving me the second controversial piece of media I've been able to consume without my ocd throwing a bitchfit, because the whole story is fascinating from a psychological standpoint and that definitely drew me in.

I just wish the story was a little more 3D, I guess? Like the writing is overly descriptive of things it doesn't need to be descriptive of and underwhelming with the actual voiced dialogue. It's an extremely bizarre contrast. And from what little Japanese I've learn over the years out of SpInterest there are some translation points that aren't entirely accurate.

A big one is the fact that Saya speaks in third person which is a common cutesy mannerism for small children in Japanese media. In fact, she speaks super similarly to Maria Ushiromiya from Umineko ( complete with using 'uu!' for emphasis too ) which caused me to attach quickly to her for it. While it's true that this doesn't translate well into English, it does lose in translation just how young Saya really sounds while speaking. Because in Japanese she's saying things like 'Saya did this for Fuminori because Saya wants to be with Fuminori forever!' and it's getting translated as like 'I did this to make you happy. So you'll stay with me forever, right, Fuminori?' and those are two completely different tones. In fact, it's so overlooked from the English translation that this trope of hers isn't even mentioned on the The Song of Saya tvtropes page and that's wild to me.

Sorry, I didn't meant to turn this into a rant in your inbox asjklhd. Thank you for bringing this intriguing piece of media to my attention. 💖

Hiii, I'm so sorry for taking so long to reply to this ask but it was lovely getting it, so please don't apologize! We love getting long asks, and talking about our interests <3 And I'm really happy me basically screaming into the void about it, got you into it! That's great, that's exactly why I post about the things I like.

This was very interesting to read so thank you for sending it.

Side Thought: TV Troupes actually really really sucks for this kinda thing, it is widely innacurate with big media, and incredibly lacking for small media. So personally, I would not chuck TV Tropes lacking this as much to the (very bad, like super bad) official translation, as much as I would to the site just kinda sucking.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh, the website is fun, like any other wiki is, I just have personal beef against it, do not mind me, old man yells at cloud.

The first route I finished was also the one with Ryouko, and tbh, in my opinion that's the best one, but obviously seeing the other endings gives a lot of extra information, and character depth, so I hope you play through them and enjoy them too.

And yeah, I feel you, I wish it was more 3D and that I could have cared more about the characters, the writing definetly feels too much like purple prose, and way too descriptive about meaningless things sometimes, while also compeltley glazing over others.

Also big big same about the translation, I already posted my long rant about it, but it's really such a shame, because Nitro+ is actually so good at conveying character through dialogue, like actually reading some of the VNs in Japanese is a whole new experience on its own

And exactly as you said, it would have been far easier to understand Saya is a literally preubecent child if the translation had shown how childishly she actually speaks, or another big one, we would have gotten to see more of just how badly Fuminori wants to show off in front of Saya and Yoh, if the translation had actually shown him avoiding being fully honest with Saya.

Like there's so so many moments in Japanese of him just going, Well, about that, you know... to Saya when she's asking him about their plans together, and he's very reluctant to ask her for help, even when he really needs it, until she blatantly offers it, and he takes it.

In the Official English version he literally just goes "Well, the thing, Saya is that I failed to kill Koji, any ideas about that?"

So much character missed there, I feel like also missing the honorifics isn't helpful or good, like Yoh calling Oumi, Oumi-chan makes them feel way way closer, than just college friends who hang out between classes. And it gives you a better sense that they care for each other.

My hot take about translations is that they shouldn't just accomodate to what's most familiar to the target audience, in this case USA people, it should just make the media more accesible. It isn't a failure of art if it is a bit of a struggle to engage with it, it's good to make an effort to try to understand foreign art, even when the way the text is presented, isn't super familiar or relatable to you.

This is basically what everybody who isn't from an English speaking country already does lol

[dramaturgydrakes]

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

i have no words to describe how much i agree

the part of the (red hood specifically) fandom i truly have the most issue with is the part that is so against jason being portrayed as traumatized and complicated, because they see a man (not a boy) who is strong and angry and think that this is him using his trauma to make himself “stronger.” but you can’t use trauma to strengthen yourself without external help; what a lot of red hood fans do is misinterpret repression as strength. jason is strong, just because he’s survived as long as he has while literally being consistently depicted as suicidal, but he is not coping healthily. he uses anger as a front but it really shouldn’t take someone with a psychology spinterest to notice how that only just barely masks a myriad of other emotions that he himself doesn’t know how to handle or identify.

as someone with three cluster b personality disorders, i understand so, so well what it’s like to be the Bad Victim. the survivor who came out Wrong. jason is one of those, from the perspective of society, but then many of his fans have the opposite problem of degrading and devaluing survivors who openly act vulnerable and afraid so much so that they cannot handle the prospect of jason ever having a moment like that. of needing a moment like that.

there is nothing wrong with being an Angry survivor. there is nothing wrong with jason being an Angry survivor. i am glad there is representation of non-palatable trauma responses, but it’s still watered down enough so people don’t get Uncomfortable. and if we acknowledge that there’s a scared, hurt, sad, lonely, confused child under all that anger, it becomes Uncomfortable, because you have to address something “ugly”: trauma.

i think the poorly concealed toxic masculinity surrounding some people’s opinion of jason is definitely something to be deconstructed…

idk. i think there are definitely two “extreme” sides to the portrayal issue here: people who don’t want to see jason vulnerable because it’s “not him” and romanticize his tough guy persona, and people who make it too easy for him to get better and come back to the batfam because they don’t want to deal with the intricacies of his emotions. just because you peel away the anger doesn’t mean you’re done addressing what he’s feeling and dealing with.

i also thank you very much for pointing out the maturity thing; like i mentioned earlier, i feel like a lot of people see a Man where there should instead be a Boy. jason hasn’t actually Grown Up—he’s highly independent but at the expense of his own mental health because he is not at all emotionally mature enough to be in the position of power he’s placed himself in. he is not making himself stronger, he is actively self-destructing (which makes sense because he’s canonically suicidal, at least passively—he does not care about his own health).

(theres also a certain fic (which i adore) where the dissonance between his physical and mental/developmental age are addressed repeatedly and i really do appreciate that)

also very sorry if any of this seems contradictory of your words or my own i’m. Really Bad at communicating the thoughts inside my brain. bcs i agree with you completely and jason is just. so complex. i really do love him and i wish both canon and fanon writers would do him proper justice more often

sometimes i think jason’s anger gets too oversimplified as just anger and so rarely do i see it acknowledged that it is absolutely also grief, just not in the "standard" way

on top of that jason would’ve been mad at bruce no matter what he did. because grief is illogical in the things it makes us think and feel. i’ve loved pretty much every batfam fic i’ve ever read but sometimes i feel like we write jason as too easily swayed by being told about batman’s downward spiral after his death. because explain all you want, grief is stubborn and grief is not something you can just… convince away.

is this me being a fucking nerd about psychology and wanting to see more jason content that actually explores the fact that anger is only one component of his grief? maybe. none of your business go away im at a restaurant >:(

[twisted-wonderland-but-gayer]

So I'm writing a thing for my twst MC (whom I have dubbed Mars, after my favourite planet) and I know I probably won't finish it but I'm so excited that I have to tell SOMEONE so I'm telling you (if you don't mind, of course)

So, to start with, Mars is a Victorian man who works as a servant in a middle/upper class household who gets plucked from his world and into the world of TWST while he was out doing the shopping. Why is he Victorian? Well, because I wanted to challenge myself and also because I wanted to write his reaction to Modern Inventions (I've sent u an ask before about their bathtubs!! so I guess I really just wanted to put my knowledge of my spinterest to use I guess)

BUT ANYWAYS. SO. Everything stays (mostly) the same BUT. it's all told in the form of a diary! also to challenge myself but I'm surprisingly having a lot of fun writing it!! and what's more is it's sort of writing itself! So far, he finds ace annoying and deuce humourous and endearing. I don't have very much written yet cause I started it maybe like 30 minutes to an hour ago and I'm hoping I don't abandon it like I've done with my....other multi chapter fics.....though it certainly does help that it follows the game storyline so.....I forgot what else I was gonna say. bye now -📖

Me to ur Mars (high quality verson)/j

[notquiteaghost]

sorry to keep yelling abt destiel in semi-earnest i have spinterest brain worms but. just.

like the problem is. HOW can u fucking grab someone by the SOUL and pull them out of HELL without falling at least a little bit in love with them! that is narratively compelling! that is narratively correct! no shit cas has been in love with him this whole time! fuck!

but. dean is made entirely of repression and rage and violence and trauma. and the show could've been SO GOOD if at any point they'd had him acknowledge that, had anyone else acknowledge it, and then actually ADDRESS IT. if any of the many times dean does something objectively terrible to his loved ones instead of saying "well that gave me yet more ptsd but you did it out of love so i forgive you", someone had said "that one was too far. and you are insane. and i love you but we cannot keep doing this. you are going to therapy."

i could write a goddamn 10k word thesis on how spn handles trauma and the cycle of abuse and how the perpetual motion tv machine's need to just keep upping the stakes is detrimental always but in spn's case made the narrative abt one very fucked up man's crusade to kill himself For The Greater Good and take all his loved ones with him, which is an INSANE THING to make on ACCIDENT. i think maybe the spn showrunners shld also be in therapy.

if at any point spn had decided to stop having The Apocalypse Again: This Time Even Worse! they could’ve made groundbreaking television. imagine a show where the tortured male protagonist looks at all the violence in his life and says 'huh, yknow what, i hate this?' and then stops. and goes to therapy. and kisses a boy. spn fandom has this story in droves, because it is the best fucking possible ending of dean's character arc, it’s established in THE. FIRST. SEASON. that he hates hunting and he hates himself. this chekov's gun has been on the mantle for FIFTEEN YEARS and instead of shooting it spn just keeps picking it up hitting their audience in the face then lovingly putting it back.

just. just! imagine if they had kissed!!!!!! imagine if the show wanted to actually tell a story and not just make money!!!!!!!! i want financial fucking compensation!!!!!!!!