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Abyss

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if you guys know the og photo 😭☠️ i have so many mdzs shitpost art i’ve made LMAOOOO

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wwx wip (and a 7 min sketch catfish)

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he deserved it

didn't he?

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quick juniors in modern drip

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drawing prog stuff

here's prog on the day in Yiling drawing! I like this kind of stuff so here anyone goes if ur interested. Most of these were taken on my phone of my pc's screen so apologies for that orz

(am not very well-practiced in coloring anything to say the least so was taking lots of pics to compare stuff along the way. Also severely out of practice when it comes to drawing in general, it's been years)

Used Paint Tool SAI for everything but the "post-processing", which I did in Photoshop.

Final pic

Original reference (very straight, time to homo-fi)

Sketch phase! Hair's a mess because I couldn't figure out where I wanted the strands to go, so just drew them everywhere to get an idea of it

Lineart phase! I'd call this rough lineart phase now but I actually thought this lineart was fine. Idk how to do lineart (and still don't)

Base colors done! Plus some shadows on WWX.

Highlights on hair for Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan, plus some shadows for A-Yuan.

Highlights and shadows for all complete! Didn't like how the highlights looked on WWX's hair so severely desaturated them. Later ended up regretting this because I just added different kinds of highlights.

At this point I messaged my friend and asked her if she thought A-Yuan looked like a demon child from a 1930's children's book, to which she responded with yes 😭 so time to redraw

Sketch phase of A-Yuan redraw!

Redraw finished! (Minus colored in eyebrows)

At this point I realized Wei Wuxian's hand didn't make any sense. Redraw time!

After around 5-8 different renditions this is what worked (finally). After this trial realized that I only know how to draw left hands so bought an articulated (right) hand mannequin model right after. Too many hours were spent on this.

Ice cream time! This is before the extra swirls. Gave it a happy face (was crying in the original line art).

Most of the other coloring was done utilizing the lineart but this, A-Yuan's face, and Wei Wuxian's hand were done freehand. Ngl I've never drawn food before so of everything in the pic am most glad that the ice cream finally ended up looking like ice cream even though it's just a dumb reference

Finally!! It's done!!! Friend pointed out that it looked empty without a background.

Background time!!!!

Day 2 of background time

Background good enough, I gave up. Was gonna add more layers and make it more realistic but attention span is short and wanted to do something else. Moved over to photoshop

All done! Added light and shadows to interact with the rest of the picture, and added some canvas effects to the background buildings and tree to fade them a bit. Lights and shadows done with overlay layers of various settings.

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While flipping through mdzs to verify some stray thoughts of mine, I happened to fall into a translation discrepancy that I feel really, really emphasizes how important it is to have a proper grasp on the language you are translating before translating for a public audience.

Now before we get too deep into this, I want to reiterate that I am someone who does not understand Mandarin in any form but has been reading translations (both by humans and machines) for a few years now. However, because I have been reading translations that tend to follow the Mandarin more closely in grammar and because I haven't shied away from reading machine-made or bad human translations, I have noticed some places where mistranslations from Mandarin to English are common: pronouns, verb-subject matching, negatives, prepositions, and conjunctions. For this post, we will be focusing on the latter two.

In the lead-up to the Wen invasion of Lotus Pier, we are given a scene where Madam Yu whips Wei Wuxian, and in this scene, we are given a glimpse as to Madam Yu's average punishments towards the young ward.

While Madam Yu always pelted him with hostile words, she’d never really hit him hard before—two or three lashes at most, or being made to kneel or confined indoors, and it never took Jiang Fengmian long to release him from that.

—Vol. 3, Chapt. 12: Sandu: The Three Poisons, 7seas

In the past, although Madam Yu had always come at him with harsh words, she had never truly been cruel to him. The most that he’d been through were two or three strikes and being grounded. He’d also be let out by Jiang FengMian soon later.

—Chapt. 57: Poisons, exr

Reading these back-to-back, it should be very clear that though the same section is being translated from the same exact source, these translations do not say the same thing. The official stresses that Madam Yu had never hit Wei Wuxian "that hard" before, as well as saying that his punishments were a few lashes OR being made to kneel OR being confined, three separate punishments never taken together according to this diction. The exr translation, however, states that Madam Yu had "never truly been cruel to him" (emphasis mine) and that him being whipped was in addition to being confined. The emphasis on the strength of her lashings is absent, but an emphasis on the intent behind her actions—that she never meant to be honestly cruel to her ward—is established in its stead. (While this section as translated by exr does not mention kneeling, later scenes reflecting on Wei Wuxian's childhood in Lotus Pier do.)

Both of these translations... are wrong.

If we give exr the benefit of the doubt by virtue of being the original completed English translation of mdzs, then the official 7seas release should automatically raise red flags for the ways it seems to directly contradict the narrative that has existed for a few years before the novel was licensed. It doesn't help that the official has been riddled with many mistranslations and omissions from the very first volume, lowering any credibility it would otherwise have to stand on. But if we were to examine the rest of the exr translation, then the emphasis on Madam Yu's intent also rings false given the fact that we are told over and over again in this same translation that 1) Madam Yu is, in fact, unnecessarily, illogically, and erratically mean-spirited and cruel, and 2) Wei Wuxian knows this even at this time in his life (shoutout to the Lotus Pod Seeds extra) and understands her actions as targeted cruelty. What does the actual text say, then?

Although Madam Yu always spoke ill of him before, her hand had never been this viciously cruel. At most, she whipped him two or three times and ordered him to kneel down and be confined to his room, and he would be released by Jiang Fengmian sometime later.

—@jiangwanyinscatmom (emphasis mine)

Madam Yu has never been "as cruel" as in that moment when whipping Wei Wuxian, because normally she only whips him 2-3 times. She would whip him a few times and send him to the ancestral hall to kneel and be in confinement, which matches up to the memories that Wei Wuxian reflects on in other parts of the novel. This translation gets rid of the character inconsistencies that the other two translations create. So how did we get here? Remember how I pointed out those common Mandarin-to-English translation mistakes? Well, both the exr and 7seas translations fall into the trap of confusing conjunctions and prepositions. That's how we get a list of punishments rather than an order of events for a singular punishment type. That's how we get "not truly cruel" instead of "not as cruel." That's how we get these sections contradicting what we know about Madam Yu's personality and behavior from the rest of the novel through those two translations. Unfortunately, both translation teams just happened to flub in the same area in slightly different ways, and while I'm willing to give a multi-lingual grade-school student translating in their spare time the benefit of the doubt, a paid translator with a translation team hired by a professional publishing house should have better quality control than a spare-time hobbyist.

Also, just in case anyone wants more proof on what mxtx meant for us to take away about Madam Yu's treatment of Wei Wuxian from this scene, it was also apparently so important to mxtx for readers to know that Madam Yu was truly cruel to Wei Wuxian during his childhood that the act of her routinely whipping him whenever he was in her presence was something that was added into the revised mdzs. It was not in the original unedited version of the novel.

In the past, although Lady Yu always insulted or patronized him, she never laid a hand on him. At worst, she’d make him kneel for prolonged periods of time, but he’d always get bailed out by Jiang FengMian after a while.

—Chapt. 57. Act 12: Sandu/Three Poisons, Part 2, qinghe-nie

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Day out in Yiling

This totally definitely happened at some point in MDZS

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en:

"Finally... Lan er-gege finished his love-weaved gift for Wei Ying 🥰

Xian: Lan Zhan~ Lan Zhan! Such great craftsmanship! Ji: Mn. (As long as you like it)"

終於...藍二哥哥把要送給魏嬰的愛織好了🥰

羨：藍湛啊~藍湛!好手藝呀! 機：嗯(喜歡就好)

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Here's a Changelog!

Made edits to the translations for chapters 1 and 2 of MDZS' manga. I originally wasn't going to make any further edits but felt bad that someone could come across my translation and miss some details or nuance because of it. I think this is a final version.

This is a lot of yap but here you go anyway

Chapter 1 link Chapter 2 link

Chapter 1 page 3 Missed 不夜天; original t/l only said "bloody night", but this is referring to the battle at the nightless city. (it was a bloody night tho lol) page 6 Skipped over 奪舎; original t/l ommitted the robbery of a body but it's explicitly stated. Added to include. page 8 t/l word order was confusing. Meant to say the mom was born of the servant, not Mo Xuanyu lol. Original said "Born from a servant, who my mother doesn't even acknowledge as a sister" which doesn't really make sense in English. page 9 Changed "family" to "clan" in second speech bubble. Really, either is fine but MDZS does use sect vs clan in general, rather than school vs family. This is also more consistent with the existing page 4 translation. 仙門 cultivation was used in both the 2nd speech bubble and the 6th. Added the word cultivation to the the 6th bubble as well. Thought about changing it to "distinguished cultivators will be our guests today" since that sounds more fluid in English but the distinguished is attached to guests rather than cultivators so left the rest. Otherwise it would be implied that the cultivators are distinguished (Jingyi's in that group that would be categorically false)(jk I love Jingyi) page 15 A-Tong, the Mo servant's name, is used in the first part of the first speech bubble, so added his name. It was already translated and added to page 16 but that one's tiny so this way it's more clear who he is lol. I don't remember if he's one of the people that needs to die for the ritual, but figured it would be better to be clear rather than not just in case his name is brought again in a later chapter. Probably everyone in the MDZS fandom knows this but in case this is your first exposure, 阿 "Ā" in Chinese is a flattering initial particle that can be added to a person's name or nickname. It's used to be cutesy, express affection, or indicate that you're close (depending on who's using it on whom). Added t/n to explain 阿 also. It's used in a few Chinese dialects, not just Mandarin. WWX also calls the distinguished guests cultivators in page 15 but figured it's clear who he's referring to so didn't think it's really necessary to add the word there. page 16 Rearranged the words of A-Tong's second speech bubble to include his little っわあ waah!!. Made the other small text on the page a little bigger, it was too small to read earlier.

Chapter 2 Page 1 I totally butchered this one. Honestly the whole chapter's translation was pretty bad, I was sleep deprived at this point. Original translation said "there are some young men in our family who have a talent in cultivation" because I didn't understand what she was saying. Fixed! Madam Mo is talking about connection to cultivators not like, connection with cultivation, equating to talent lol Page 2 Had the same issue as page 1 in the first speech bubble, fixed to refer to connections with cultivators rather than connection to cultivation. Also made Lan forehead ribbon text bigger to make it easier to read. Page 3 Changed text size a bit. Changed the back and forth between uhhh Lord Mo(? I forget his name and it's not in the manga yet) and WWX to actually reflect what they're saying. I didn't get what Lord Mo was saying initially, now it's true to the Japanese version. WWX's response is changed back to "wakatta!" (Got it!/I understand!) now that it makes sense lol. Page 4 The mangatemple font that I have doesn't have a ~tilde so it was hard to see in the Aah~!, so I changed the font. OG Japanese has tilde. Changed the 2nd part of the 7th speech bubble to make more sense in English within the context of the first panels of this page. Page 6 Removed "words" from "Don't take my words seriously!?" in the third panel because it sounded stilted in English. Page 9 Missed Wei Wuxian's tiny little "fu~tsu" sound effect on page 7 when I was doing SFX lol. Added translation. Page 10 Added extra to Sizhui's first full line to make it more obvious in English that Sizhui's saying it's not a big deal. There's probably a better way to word this but whateva Changed the to the original unit of measurement of Li/Ri. Li (the Chinese,Japanese,Korean traditional unit of measurement, originated in China) is used in the OG text so figured it should stay in English too. Ri 里 is also a traditional Japanese unit of measurement but figured might as well keep the Chinese version in since there will be other Chinese words used in the manga (like the A- prefix, clan names, locations, etc) that don't really have an equivalent. This way using incense sticks to measure time blends in better I think too. If I translate future chapters I'm going to keep the convention of maintaining original Chinese terms for similar culture-specific words. Also t/n Jingyi doesn't actually say "Listen to me!" in the 2nd bubble but Wei Wuxian's response of "No way! Taking it!" (more literal translation) makes sense in Japanese but doesn't really make sense as a response to "Don't touch!" in English I think, hence the added line for Jingyi. Missed WWX's tiny hehe sfx so added that Page 12 This one was also butchered. Missed 役所 so that messed up the grunts' 2nd and 3rd speech bubbles. Now it's correct!

Plus small font/font size/centering changes.

I don't like how many errors there were so if I do future chapters I'm gonna take more time with it. I learned a lot this time! The SFX didn't take very long to add once I did them (only maybe like 3 hours) so I'll prob just include the translations for them with the first version next time.

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idk who (or if) anyone might want this but quick and dirty edit of the MDZS manga's chapter 1 with all speech bubbles removed lol

Official release

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My translation of Chapter 2 of Mo Dao Zu Shi's Japanese manga, which released yesterday (the 17th of August 2024)

Also loaded to the internet archive as a pdf (pretty big file size though)

You can support the official Japanese release and buy the Japanese manga at cmao.jp

it's pretty inexpensive, only around $2 per chapter!

Chapter 1

Mangadex link

Pre-sfx version is still available at the archive.org website

Edit: I originally wasn't going to make any further edits but felt bad that someone could come across my initial rough translation and miss some details or nuance because of it. Made some changes, a changelog detailing everything and why is here. (I think) this is the final version

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My translation of Chapter 1 of Mo Dao Zu Shi's Japanese manga, which released yesterday (the 17th of August 2024)

Also loaded to the internet archive as a pdf (pretty big file size though)

You can support the official Japanese release and buy the Japanese manga at cmao.jp

it's pretty inexpensive, only around $2 per chapter!

Chapter 2

Mangadex link

Pre-sfx version is still available at the archive.org website

Edit: I originally wasn't going to make any further edits but felt bad that someone could come across my initial rough translation and miss some details or nuance because of it. Made some changes, a changelog detailing everything and why is here. (I think) this is the final version