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journalxxx · 3 years

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By Hook or by Crook (2)

May 1st, 2270

“Hello, Izuku.” “Hi, dad.” Izuku hadn’t exactly been dreading this conversation, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it either. He’d hoped his mom would do all the talking, having to break the news to his friends had been hard enough. For him. Most of them seemed to have gotten quite the kick out of it. “How are you? Your mother told me you’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” “Mh.” “Still upset over that visit?” “Mh.” “Speak, son. Sulking doesn’t translate well over the phone.” His father chided gently.

Izuku sighed. “The doctor said I’m never going to get a quirk. I’m sorry.” “Whatever for? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. Quirks are innate, surely you know that.” “Yes, I do.” Izuku said, staring at the paused frame of All Might’s debut video on the computer screen. The reflection of his own miserable face was superimposed with the triumphant silhouette of the hero. “But I’m sorry anyway. You have such a cool quirk… and mom’s useful too. I could become a great hero with one of them, but I’m never going to get any.” “Again, that’s none of your fault. And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway.” “Uh?” Izuku gulped, gripping the phone tightly. “Y-you don’t think I’d make a good hero?” “No, that’s not what I mean.” His father chuckled. “I mean that I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. You’re very young, there’s still plenty of time for your quirk to manifest.” “But the doctor said that all quirks appear before one is four years old. And I’m four. And I have the extra toe joint-” “Tsk! Some doctor they assigned you. As if one could unerringly guess the nature and development of something as unpredictable as a quirk with a single test. An x-ray, of all things. Ancient technology.” “The doctor said there was a study...” “I have an extra toe joint too, you know.” Izuku’s father laughed hearing his son’s surprised gasp. “Studies like the one your doctor mentioned draw conclusions based on the analysis of hundreds, thousands of cases. Those conclusions may hold true for the majority of them, but there are always outliers. Having that oh-so-precious joint and a quirk is indeed rare, but not unheard of.” “B-But…” Izuku’s eyes burned with the feeling of impending tears. He hadn’t expected his father’s reaction to be like this. No one had even remotely doubted the validity of the doctor’s opinion. No one. It almost hurt to hope. “I’m also too old…” “My own quirk didn’t show until I was… fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Way older than you are, anyway. Another important point to consider, don’t you think?” Izuku sniffled. Then cried, quietly. His father remained silent as the boy let the tears flow freely, wiping them on his arm now and then. There was a tangled ball of emotions deep in his chest, that he couldn’t quite unravel. After a couple of minutes though, the sobs abated and he felt better. Better than he had been feeling before his mom handed him the phone. “...Do you really think the doctor was wrong?” “You shouldn’t believe everything doctors tell you. My personal physician keeps calling me ‘the peak of biological and anthropological evolution’, but that’s because he’s been fishing for a raise for years. Clearly you’d expect a Darwinian champion to be able to walk under the sun without protection for more than five minutes without turning into a peeling tomato.” “Uh? Does that really happen to you?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that I’m albino? My skin is very sensitive to sunlight, and it burns easily. I have atrocious eyesight too.” “I didn’t know that.” Izuku winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.” “Not nearly as much as you think. I have plenty of skills and tools at my disposal to compensate. It isn’t an inconvenience at all these days, although it did cause me some grief when I was a child.” His father’s tone got softer. “Sometimes it does feel like our bodies are our own worst enemies, doesn’t it?” Izuku hummed in assent, very much agreeing with the sentiment. “I’m happy it doesn’t hurt you any more.” “And I’m glad you didn’t inherit this nuisance from me.” A sudden thought made its unwelcome way in Izuku’s head. “If… If I didn’t inherit your skin and eyes… maybe I won’t inherit your quirk either…” “Izuku.” His father’s tone was kind but firm. There were times when his presence, even just through his voice, felt way more real and solid than that of many people Izuku habitually shared a room with. “Your ability will emerge one day, I’m positive of that. Just give it time and don’t agonize over it.” Izuku nodded, even though he realized that wouldn’t translate well over the phone either. “...Okay.” “Now, what else have you been up to in this past month, other than brooding over a criminally incompetent diagnosis?” Not much, honestly, but Izuku told him anyway. As he kept chatting, his heart grew lighter than it had been in weeks. Mom did always say that his father was a good listener.

July 1st, 2272 “They were talking about it on TV yesterday. It’s an old incident from some years ago, before All Might met Nighteye!” “I see...” “Not many people know about it, because there’s no villain involved, and villains make all the stories more interesting! But it’s a great story nonetheless!” Izuku rattled on enthusiastically, taking advantage of his father’s unresponsive compliance. “Uh-huh...” “So this boy was having some big troubles, I think, and he jumped into a river because he didn’t know what to do about them. But luckily All Might was around! Do you know what he did?” “He offered to cover all the expenses for the years of therapy the boy would need afterwards?” “Uh… They didn’t say that on TV. I don’t know. I think he just rescued him from the river.” “That doesn’t seem to address the underlying problem.” His father commented icily. “Daaad, you’re ruining the story.” Izuku chided him. “Anyway, the funny part is that this boy had a quirk that could turn water into vinegar, and he activated it in a panic while he was drowning.” “Mh. A peculiar quirk...” “So All Might got all drenched in vinegar when he dove in to save him. He made this very silly face in front of the cameras, it was great! And when the boy apologized for causing trouble, guess what All Might told him?” “I’m sorry I’m the living embodiment of this unfair, hypocritical society that has driven you to the brink of despair?” “No. He said,” Izuku continued, breezing past his father’s petty remarks with practiced ease, “It is I who should thank you. My skin’s looking ten years younger now.” “Oh my God…” The man groaned, and a loud thunk-crash noise accompanied his words. “Oh, come on!” Izuku giggled, covering his mouth with his free hand. “It’s so funny!” “Just because they’re called ‘dad jokes’ doesn’t mean I’m legally obligated to laugh at them.” “But it is funny! All Might’s the funniest! Did you know that he just wrote a joke book? It’s called All Might’s Gags and Jokes: A Compendium. It already has amazing reviews! They say it’s warm and relatable and cy.. cyclical…” “He wrote a joke book. A veritable Renaissance man, this one...” His father muttered. Izuku heard something clink in the background. Probably the pieces of whatever his father dropped. “Mom says she’ll buy it for my birthday!” Izuku added, swinging his whole body on his chair in sheer excitement. “That is such a poor use of your remittance. I’ll need to have a couple of words with her…” “It’s for my education!” Izuku enunciated with solemnity, straightening his posture. “There’s a whole chapter of American puns and word plays! It will help me learn English!” “If you want to learn English on your own so soon, please choose a decent source. Start with basic grammar and alphabet books, watch some subtitled shows and movies to get the hang of the correct pronunciation-” “I’m learning a lot from All Might already! The catchphrase he used when he was in college in California was I am here! When he’s surprised, he says Oh my goodness! When he doesn’t believe something, he says Nonsense!” Izuku parroted, taking great care of imitating All Might’s confident, surprised and disbelieving expressions respectively. They would be lost on his father, but he needed to practice them anyway. “If that’s a good American accent, I’m the next Symbol of Peace.” “Dad.” Izuku said, suddenly very serious. He had a very important question to ask, and it had been a long time coming. “Why do you always make fun of him? It’s like… It’s almost like you don’t like him at all.” The words sounded so wrong he almost wasn’t brave enough to say them. Izuku would have been mortified if anyone had moved such an accusation on him. “I suppose he has a sort of… charisma about him.” His father admitted ruefully. “I can’t say it strikes any chords with me though.” “Are you just jealous of him?” Izuku asked shrewdly. “Kacchan also talks a lot of trash about All Might, but it’s obvious he’s just jealous. It’s all right if you are, though, I mean, he’s so-” “I’m this close to hanging up, Izuku.” “But- but how can you not like All Might?! Everyone likes All Might! Boys and girls, children and grown-ups! From age 0 to 100!” “...I guess I just don’t fit the target demographic then.” Izuku huffed. “You’re so boring, dad.” “Says the one who’s been talking my ear off about the same topic for the last forty minutes.” The boy frowned, nibbling at his lip. “...Sorry. Am I annoying you?” “I’ll admit I may have hit my monthly tolerance limit of All Might trivia. Don’t worry about it though.” Izuku did in fact stop worrying, his father’s amusement clearly detectable in his voice. “I think I’ll be able to bear with your unabashed enthusiasm until you hit your mandatory disillusioned teenage phase. Then we’ll see if that obnoxiously cheery act of his will still resonate with you.”

June 2nd, 2274 “His normal body temperature is about two degrees higher than the average. Around 38-39 °C.” “And what can you deduce from that?” Izuku’s father goaded. The boy stared at the scribbles in his notebook in deep thought. “Uhm… that it’s difficult to tell if he has a fever or not?” His father laughed, but not unkindly. “I wouldn’t think so. You just said yourself that that is his normal temperature. Therefore, I wouldn’t call Endeavor’s doctor unless his thermometer read more than 39.5 °C, probably.” “Right.” Izuku nodded. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he understood that on his own? His father didn’t seem to mind his blunder though. “Try again.” “I think…” Izuku’s eyes were just about to bore a hole into his rough sketch of the hero’s costume. He gave up after the silence started to make him uncomfortable though. “...I don’t know. What can I deduce from that?” “Hm… You did bring up an interesting point. Do you know how fever works, Izuku?” “Yeah. Your body temperature rises when you’re sick. If it rises too much, you can get in serious trouble, you could even die. It never really gets that bad though.” “But why does it rise? What does your body accomplish by doing that?” “Uh…” Izuku frowned. He was sure he’d read or heard something about that, but the details escaped him at the moment. “To help you fight off the sickness, right? You feel worse at first, but it actually helps you get better.” “Exactly. Most bacteria and viruses that infect men thrive and multiply optimally at around 37 °C, which is the average person’s normal body temperature. But the growth of these microorganisms is hindered when the environment gets too hot. That is the principle that makes fever useful for humans. As your body gets hotter, it debilitates the invasors, so that your immune system can remove them more easily.” “..Oh.” It was a pity that his father called him only once a month, Izuku could have easily listened to him for hours every day. He always had so many interesting things to say about so many different subjects, and he always exposed them so neatly. “So. Can you deduce anything new now?” “Uh, uhm… He… I guess he...” Izuku snapped out of his reverie. Right, this was a conversation, not a lesson. He went over the new information in his head as quickly as he could. Higher temperature than normal... Fever... Microorganisms... Immune syst- Oh! “He heals quicker than- no, wait! He doesn’t get sick at all! Because he’s always too hot for the microorganisms! They can’t grow in his body!” “Excellent reasoning!” His father’s warm praise made Izuku’s chest swell with pride. “Obviously he isn’t completely immune to any and all infections, there are lots of exceptions to the mechanism I just explained to you. But yes, I do believe it’s safe to assume that our esteemed Flame Hero suffers from the occasional seasonal maladies far less often than the general population, if at all.” “That’s so cool…” Izuku immediately added the new data to his notes, almost breaking the tip of the pencil in his enthusiasm. “Is that what you wanted me to deduce? Or did you explain that just because I brought up the fever thing?” “I was actually thinking of something else. But, on second thought, it may be too technical a topic for an eight-year-old.” “...Can you tell me about it anyway?” “Of course.” Izuku would never not be grateful for the patience his father had, never denying him any clarification on anything. He was just about the only adult who never got tired of his questions. Even his mom sometimes hid her fatigue behind a mildly insincere I don’t know. “High heat isn’t exactly conductive to the activity of human cells either. That’s one of the reasons why you feel exhausted and achy when you have a fever, your body struggles to keep doing what it’s supposed to do above its normal temperature range. But Endeavor not only is at peak condition at 39 °C, he can also withstand open flames with a much higher temperature. This suggests that his cells must be fundamentally different from the average person’s on a biochemical level, that his quirk must provide some particularly efficient cellular mechanism to prevent heat damage. One example might be some dedicated enzymes to protect proteins from denaturation, but now I’m entering mere speculation.” A pause. “Did you follow me?” “...Kind of.” Izuku said, kind of lying but not entirely. He had followed most of that. He scrawled and circled a couple of terms he hadn’t grasped - Biochemical - Enzymes - Denaturation - on the page. He didn’t want to waste his father’s time by asking him to explain the meaning of words he could easily look up later on his own. “The gist of it is that Endeavor’s Hellflame has at least two facets. Not only ‘creating fire’, but also ‘not incinerating himself’. The first trait would be a fatal liability without the second.” “Got it!” Izuku cheered. Now that he had understood completely. “You sure know a lot about quirks, dad! Like, a lot! About anything, really!” “For the sake of intellectual honesty, it must be said that it isn’t difficult to impress a primary schooler.” His father laughed. “I’m just older than you.” “How much older?” Izuku asked, realizing for the first time that no one had ever told him his father’s age. “Oh, by a lot. Centuries.” Izuku cackled. “You can’t be that old. You still go to work. Our neighbors are 80 and they’re already retired.” “I do try to keep a youthful outlook on life. But yes, quirks fascinate me quite a bit. And they make for the perfect topic to distract you from your incessant yapping about All Might.” “Speaking of All Might-” “No, I-” His father sighed theatrically. “I just walked into this one, didn’t I?” “Yep.” Izuku grinned. “What about his quirk? Do you know anything about it? He never gives straight answers when people ask him about it…” “That may be the single sign of intelligence he’s ever displayed. The more your enemies know about your quirk, the easier it is for them to find your weaknesses. I’m surprised the other pro heroes aren’t as reserved.” “I wonder why All Might does that, though. His quirk is… pretty obvious.” Izuku pondered. “It just makes him strong. Very strong. Like, the strongest ever. But that’s it.” “Allegedly, yes. But as you noticed yourself, if raw power was all there was to it, there would be no reason to skirt around the issue in interviews, no?” “So there must be something else… What do you think it might be?” “I think it would be no less than cruel to deprive you of the thrill of carrying out your own research.” Izuku let out a dissatisfied moan, and his father chuckled. “You are already so very proficient at it. Your mother told me you’ve already filled a whole notebook with hero and quirk analyses.” “Oh, ehr… It’s just stuff I read here and there…” “Mh, I’ve heard enough of your ‘stuff’ to know that there’s more than random factoids in that head of yours. In fact…” Izuku felt his cheeks warm for the compliment. “I think you’ve gotten old and judicious enough to be trusted with my emergency number.” “Uh? What emergency number?” “It’s a phone number I’ll always answer to, on any day and at any hour, in case you may find yourself in a bad situation. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but better safe than sorry. Now…” His father’s voice raised slightly, drowning out Izuku’s impending interruption. “Can I rely on the fact that you are aware that desperately wanting to tell me that All Might saved a kitten from a meteor does not qualify as an emergency?” Izuku pouted. “I know what an emergency is, dad.” “Good. Ask your mother to give you the number then. Don’t save it on your phone or write it anywhere. Memorize it, and be responsible with it.”

December 3rd, 2275 Sorry for the long silence. I had an accident on the job and I won’t be able to speak clearly for a while. We can talk with the included devices. Use your ring finger to activate them. Usual days, usual hours. Hisashi That short note held the first words Izuku had received from his father in the last five months. The first month he hadn’t phoned, Izuku had felt slightly disappointed, but understanding. His father was a busy man, surely something very important must have been requiring his full-time attention. It was fine, Izuku was confident he could manage to sweet-talk him into a double-length call the following month to make up for that. The second month, he had started to worry. His mother hadn’t heard from his father either. It was unprecedented not to hear from him for such a long time. Since Izuku could remember, his father had never skipped one of their monthly calls. They often talked on the first day of every month, and he kept trying to contact them exactly once each following day if his calls were missed. He never failed to reach them past the third day. He always called from a hidden number, so trying to get hold of him was not an option. The third month, Izuku’s mother had decided to use the emergency number. She hadn’t been able to get through to her husband, but the polite colleague of his who had picked up had reassured her that he was indisposed but overall fine, and would get in touch with them as soon as possible… which could still take a while. Curiously, the coworker had also instructed them to collect a sample of their fingerprints and send them to a specific address. Izuku had been mystified by the request, but his mother had readily agreed, commenting that it was “not the strangest thing Hisashi’s ever asked for”. The silent wait that followed had been a little uneasy, but not harrowing. Izuku and his mother reread the message a couple of times before opening the box they’d just been delivered. Inside were only the two mentioned devices with their respective chargers, snuggled among waterproof packaging and stuffing. They looked very much like ordinary mobile phones, except they had no buttons or ports on any side. Some quick experimentation proved that they could be turned on simply by pressing the indicated finger on the touchscreen. The display showed a very minimalistic chat interface, with a fixed red dot on the top left corner. No amount of tapping on the screen could bring up the virtual keyboard though, which was puzzling. There was no way to access the rest of the phone’s functions, if it even had any. It was the third day of the month, so technically still within the familiar communication window. Izuku kept poking and prodding at the buttonless phone for the whole afternoon until eventually, shortly after dinner, the red dot at the top of the chat became green. A minute later, a message popped up. Hello, Izuku. Izuku almost dropped his cup of hot chocolate in excitement, which was quickly replaced by frustration because he still couldn’t type anything in any way. How was he supposed to- Speak. I can hear you. “...Oh! Nice!” Izuku exclaimed. “Hi, dad! How are you? What happened?” I’ve been better. I got decked by a hysterical ape. Izuku frowned. “That’s not funny. Mom and I were very worried.” That wasn’t really a joke. What? What even- “...How? Did you break into a zoo or something…?” Sorry, you’re right. Let me rephrase. I had a violent disagreement with a brute. “Oh…” Izuku was about to ask for further explanations but he waited. The three bouncing dots at the bottom of the screen signalled that his father was still writing. We will have to communicate like this for a while. I hope it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you. Judging by how long it took him to type even the shortest messages, Izuku thought it was going to be much more of an inconvenience for his father. He felt sorry for him. “No, not all. Is it… is it really bad? Shouldn’t you come home so we can help you get better? It sounds like you won’t be able to work anyway…” I’ll receive better medical treatment here, and I can still get some work done while I recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll recover fully sooner or later. Izuku picked at the lint of his blanket, choosing his words carefully. “You could… come home anyway. Even if you could work. When you’re feeling a little better. So we could spend some time together.” The three bouncing dots reappeared, but Izuku kept talking. He already knew what his father’s answer was going to be, but he wanted to take advantage of the delay to get a few more words in. “Some of my friends have parents that work far from home too. They’re away a lot, but… they do come back to visit sometimes. Usually for the holidays. At least… At least once.” At least his friends had actually met their fathers once in their whole lives, Izuku completed only in his head. You know how things stand. My job doesn’t afford me this kind of free time. “...What do you even do that won’t let you ever do anything?” Izuku muttered, out of sheer petulance. That was another familiar point of contention, to which his father replied with the same, word-for-word justification he always used. Every detail concerning my activities is classified by the government. We’ve been over this. Don’t be childish. And that was usually the end of it. Any further questioning after the ‘classified’ thing invariably turned Izuku’s father into a slippery wall of smooth deflections. But, considering the current situation, Izuku felt like he could get away with a little more nagging, if he played his cards right. “I know you can’t say anything. But how about…” He physically leaned forwards, trying not to let his tension seep through his voice. “How about I try to deduce something? About your job. Just… for fun.” No new message showed up, not even the typing dots. Izuku decided that it was as much of an approval as he was going to get, so he started to voice his thoughts as they formed. “...Your job is classified by the government. So it’s important, very important, so important that other people can’t know about it.” When he was very young, Izuku had obviously interpreted it as irrefutable proof that his father must be some sort of secret agent. He had exposed his conclusion to Kacchan and his gang once. They had… not-so-respectfully disagreed. Izuku had never brought up the matter with them afterwards. “Your note said that you got hurt on the job. So someone you know from work punched you so hard that, even after five months, you still can’t talk well.” Izuku paused. That was… a scary idea. It dawned on him, for the first time since the beginning of this whole ordeal, that his father may have really dodged a bullet there. What kind of a brute could possibly want to injure someone that much…? Surely a criminal… A villain, maybe…? “Your job is dangerous, and it leaves you almost no free time. It also pays well.” That last item was admittedly a shot in the dark, Izuku didn’t really know much about money handling. But he had noticed that his mother never denied him a gift or a treat on the grounds of its cost (his vast collection of All Might memorabilia was a testament to that), like so many of his friends’ relatives were wont to do. She didn’t need a job herself, and Izuku remembered overhearing a conversation she had with Kacchan’s mom where she had said that they were ‘well provided for’. “You know a lot about a lot of stuff, especially about quirks and heroes. You know a lot of things about quirks and heroes that I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet.” Izuku paused, racking his brain for anything else that stuck out. Before he could come up with more points to make, his father finally wrote back. You sure put some thought into this. I’m impressed. The lack of reprimands was an encouragement in its own right. Now came the hard part. These were all facts that he already knew, now he had to put them together… and no matter how much he tried to come up with different possibilities, there was only one explanation that rang true in Izuku’s mind. “Dad… are you some sort of… undercover hero?” Izuku waited with baited breath for the dancing dots to turn into a complete message. Definitely not. ...Aw, shoot. Although I guess I do happen to deal with heroes quite often in my line of work. Izuku gasped. That was the first real piece of information his father had ever shared with him about his job! And wow, he worked with heroes! And whatever support he lent them had to be pretty vital if he was always so busy and tight-lipped. “So you’re like… a policeman? An informant that tracks down villains for the heroes to catch? Or an engineer bound by trade secret? Or-” Enough, Izuku. I’m supposed to be resting. I don’t think being given the third degree by my own son counts as such. Izuku deflated. So close to the truth, and yet so far… Maybe he could manage to get some other clue out of his father later. But… there was one more thing he simply had to ask. “...Have you ever met All Might?” I’m just going to ignore you after this. Well, it had been worth a try. Izuku finally relented, reasonably satisfied with the result of his investigation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. No more questions. And no All Might stuff. Not that I have much to tell you about him. He hasn’t really been around lately.” Hasn’t he, now? Uh, odd. It wasn’t like his father to miss an opportunity to dodge All Might gossip. Izuku supposed there’d be no harm in taking advantage of this atypical spark of curiosity. “Yeah. It’s been like this for a few months. Rumors say he’s abroad, working on some large scale mission. Something very secret, that’s why there are no articles on him in newspapers from other countries either.” I wasn’t aware of this. That’s very interesting. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone less suited to hushed-up operations. Izuku couldn’t help but snort. In light of the recent revelation, he wondered if his father was so unapologetically critical of All Might because he had worked with him and they hadn’t gotten along… which seemed kind of impossible. How could All Might be the unpleasant type of coworker? Or maybe his father really was just jealous because he couldn’t work with All Might often enough. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. “...Sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about hero stuff now that you’re, uh… on forced vacation.” Actually, I’d love to. I’ve been a little out of the loop lately, I need to catch up with the news anyway. Fire away all the information you have. Izuku smiled. “Even about All Might?” Especially about All Might.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #izuku midoriya #deku #all for one

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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 3 years

Text

Hakuoki Yuugiroku 3 drama: Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! English translation

Special thanks to @nollatooru for extracting text again since there’s no way this would have been translated anytime soon since the majority of drama translations that I’ve found as videos only are near the very bottom of my to-do list.

This is my translation of the 薄桜鬼遊戯録隊士達の大宴会店铺特典「教えてください山崎さん！」, the Yuugiroku 3 (too much of a hassle to look up the actual name) drama: Please teach me, Yamazaki-san!

Ended up doing a bit more research that I would have liked to translate this since the names of the positions in the Shinsengumi’s organization for spies didn’t translate well from Japanese into Chinese (huzzah for google translate and for biographies that list names in Chinese and Japanese so I was able to find the information I was looking for in English)... Also, i didn’t look up the gameplay for anything since I had to uninstall KW and EB for space when I was taking things off my damaged passport, not that it would have made much of a difference since I can’t recall a point when the “Watch” was actually voiced... so I might not really be consistent with a few things in this translation since I only did research during the latter half of this...?

oh well. i don’t know Japanese and don’t do the editing for my subtitle videos until I compare everything to the audio later so I can claim ignorance. i suppose that’s an odd benefit of not understanding Japanese hahaha.

Anyway, as always, my translation not be 100% accurate since I translate from Chinese. final edits will probably take a bit longer (in comparison to the other things i’m still sitting on) to do since im still debating about what im do with all the Watch-related words since I really don’t like it when the things I translate aren’t consistent....

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: I HIGHLY ADVISE AGAINST READING THIS AND WAITING FOR MY SUBTITLE VIDEO.

Hakuoki Shinkai Yuugiroku, Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! Drama CD

Translation by KumoriYami

Yamazaki: (I think that since there haven't been any large manhunt operations lately [reword later? tl can also mean "to hunt and arrest"], things have been quiet.)

(However, what is that guy doing/is that guy's purpose?)

The one out there, I'm not going to run.

So come out and tell me why you're spying on me.

~wind blows~

(Not planning on coming out...?)

-grips sword-

Then, I'll take the imitative to attack.

(movement in bushes)

Souma: Ah, please wait a moment!

Yamazaki: Oh. You are... Souma-kun?

(movement in bushes again) Saito: Sure enough, I was immediately found/discovered/I was detected immediately. As expected of Yamazaki.

Yamazaki: Based on just the breathing, I thought there was only one person, yet Saito-san was also still here. Exactly what are you doing?

Souma: Sorry! I didn't mean to do anything strange.

It's just that I wanted to observe Yamazaki-san work.

Yamazaki: Observe me work?

Although it's fine if you want to watch, but aren't you the Chief's page?

Saito: I recommended that he try this, But he was immediately found. Still it's better to ask the person himself directly.

Yamazaki: You two, what are you talking about?

Souma:...Um, Then, Yamazaki-san, please show me how to [/you] work! ----

Souma: Hakuoki Shinkai Yuugiroku, Store Bonus Drama CD, Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! ----

Yamazaki: In other words, you now understand the duties of a page, and still want to know what sort work the other warriors do, and want to try monitoring/surveillance/doing the Watch's work?

Is that how it is? Souma-kun.

Souma: It's just as you said. As the chief's page, I work hard every day, but I still don't know a lot about the Shinsengumi.

That's why I went and asked Saito-san [about this].

Saito: I know that Souma is working very hard. Though that will naturally be [more/become] obvious as time goes by/Though as time goes by, that will naturally be understood/Although this has been said for a while, this will naturally be understood. [check audio]

Yamazaki: But you don't want to wait for/until then, and want to be of use as quickly as possible?

Souma: Yes. Can you help me with this, even if it's [for] just a little bit?

Yamazaki: Hm.

Souma: Yamazaki-san.

Yamazaki: No, I was just reminiscing the past/thinking about the past.

I used to be as anxious as you are.

Alright, if I can, permit me to teach you.

Souma: Thank you very much!

Saito: Then can I also accompany/join you?

Yamazaki: Saito-san also wants to? That won't be a problem.

Saito: I also have experience following people while on patrol

I'm very interested in how the Watch [im pretty sure it's the Watch here and in the earlier instance. tho i can't say for certain since CN doesn't exactly do capitalization and ive never played the game in Chinese] fulfills its duties.

Please allow me to learn again. [check audio]

Yamazaki: In that case then, I'll ask you to please look after me.

----

Yamazaki: Although it normally referred to as the Watch,

the Watch is actually divided into two sections.

Souma: In terms of how it organized, sorry but please review it for me again.

Saito: The part of the organization for spies which acts by itself to gather external intelligence is called Shoshi shirabeyaku ken kansatsu*, and within that, those who are responsible for investigating/monitoring the conduct of [the/our?] members/the investigators whose duty is to supervise the conduct of/our members are known as the Kansatsugata**

* Shinsengumi's organizational post for investigating movements of the opponents and keeping the Shinsengumi members under control. (source: https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/person/Kuwajiro%20OISHI.html)

** had to look this up on the Shinsengumi wiki.samurai-archives

Yamazaki, who holds both positions/is capable of accomplishing both duties, is at the core of the Kansatsugata.

Souma: Shoshi shirabeyaku and Kansatsugata...

After hearing this again, I really feel that Yamazaki-san is quite amazing.

Yamazaki: Uh, do-don't say that out loud. I'm not used to it.

Souma: But, monitoring/investigating/supervising the conduct of the other members...

Saito: It's to secretly investigate whether or not members are conducting themselves in a manner that is befitting as members of the the Shinsengumi, and whether or not they have done anything improper.

Souma: In other words/That is to say, that also includes my actions so far.

Yamazaki: At the moment, you have no problems [there are no problems with you?].

Souma: Is-Is that so...

Yamazaki: There are almost two hundred members. Among them, there will be people who do not abide by the regulations, and those who clearly show their dissatisfaction/obviously dissatisfied or are treasonous/or even rebellious.

Souma: I see. Indeed there are people who obviously show that.

Saito: It these people incite trouble within the team, it would be very troublesome.

That's why the Kansatsugata are needed to investigate people like this.

Yamazaki: Having said that, the three of us have been quite noisy so it would be helpful if we quickly correct that here. Ah. The two of you, over there.

Saito: Say who is there [more like "name" i guess? probably more "identify who is over there" ]

Souma: That is... Nagakura-san? There are several other people [He's with some other people/several others].

Yamazaki: This is a rare opportunity to train one of the basic skills for spying/[needed] as a spy. I'll give you a demonstration. Afterwards, you'll eavesdrop on their conversation without being discovered.

Souma: Yes, I'll do my best.

--------

Saito: Almost 15 minutes have passed. But it's really bold for you to have come up with this practical training, Yamazaki.

Yamazaki: For his first time attempt at doing this, Nagakura-san is suitable [to practise with]. As long as one isn't murderous [being bloodthirsty? think of something later], he'll basically ignore you.

Saito: Nn. If it was Souji, he would immediately draw his sword for a harsh/ruthless interrogation.

Yamazaki: No, Saito-san would do the same thing, and immediately get rid of your pursuer [not sure if this is in the "dispose of" sense though the tl i have can be translated that way lol].

Saito: Well, it doesn't feel good to be tested when I obviously haven't been disloyal.

Yamazaki: It's as you say, but this is my job.

Souma: AAAHHHHHH!!!!

Saito: Uh. [That’s] Souma. Why is he being hunted down [chased/pursued]?

Yamazaki: By whom/Who is it? Ah, Okita-san, at this time?

(frantic steps) Souma: Sorry! I didn't mean to do anything else!

This was just training for surveillance work!

(sword swung) Souma: AAAHHH!!

Okita-san, please forgive me!

Saito: An unexpected situation.

Yamazaki: He needs help to get away/escape from that situation, he isn't his opponent at all/he's no match for him.

Saito: I'll figure out a way to deal with Souji. You escape with Souma/You take Souma and run away. --------

Souma: Truly thank you for just now. Okita-san was already behind me before I realized it I really thought that I was going to die/I was dead.

Saito: Dying is a bit of an exaggeration.

But I'm certain he would have stabbed your neck with his sword and left you half-dead.

Yamazaki: I didn't expect Okita-san to be nearby, but there was way of knowing that you'd encounter him/but nothing can be done about meeting him [check audio].

Well then, change your mood for the next training [reword later]. The target is that room. Remain quiet from this point onward.

Souma: What's next?

Yamazaki: Take this letter and swap it with the letter in that room. But, in the next room, there is someone you must not be detected by.

Saito: Training for intelligence work? If this goes well, then it's possible that the other party won't even notice you.

Souma: That would be good, so it's just this letter? Then, I'll be right back.

Yamazaki: Ah, be very careful.

---------

Yamazaki: He entered the room without any problems.

Saito: Ah. So, who is the person in the next room?

Yamazaki: Well, it shouldn't matter since that person is asleep during the day.

( door slides open, then frantic steps)

Souma: Saito-san, Yamazaki-san! I'm sorry! I couldn't do it! As soon as I entered the room, I felt that someone was staring at me through the door of the next room! There was also this creepy laughter/ing!

Saito: Laughter? The eyes staring at you, were they red? [i swear this is going to become fanart one day lol. for both the spying and souma talking about what happened]

Souma: Yes! they didn't look like human eyes at all!

(door slides open.... slow creaking footsteps)

Saito: Does that mean that one over there was...

Yamazaki: Ah, damn it! He's awake!

Saito: Yamazaki, you go first! I'll deal with this!

Yamazaki: Sorry! I'll leave the General Secretary [so... i don't really like the English localization translation of Sanan's position being a "colonel" so i looked up what it said on wikipedia and used that] to you! Souma-kun, come here!

This training/Training ends here!

Souma: Eh, eeehhhhhhhh?!

Saito: I'm sorry that it was noisy while your rested [that this noise disturbed your rest?], this was as a result of... --------

Souma: What the hell that just now...

Yamazaki + Saito: It was just your imagination.

Souma: Eh. But, "General Secretary" was clearly said...

Yamazaki + Saito: You imagined hearing it [tl is more "it was an illusion" and one that is heard... maybe "you're hearing things"?. kinda gave up on thinking about that right now. ]

Souma: Is, is that so... uh. That being said...

Saito: What's wrong/What is it?

Souma: Although the Kansatsugata feels quite unremarkable, each individual/everyone posses outstanding abilities, and I've been made aware of that again. [However] I 'm incapable of doing this sort of work.

Yamazaki: Hm. It can be said that you're not talented at this.

Souma: Eh?

Yamazaki: In the first place, not everyone can do this.

All of us within the Kansatsugata are constantly working on improving our skills.

We're always fighting in the shadows for the Shinsengumi.

What you think of being outstanding abilities is the results of our hard work. [remarkable capabilities?]

Souma: Truly, Yamazaki-san is amazing. I understand why everyone trusts you!

Yamazaki: Th-That's why you shouldn't look at me like that. But for you, I think that you're better suited to doing honest work [tl can basically mean "honourable," "not devious" or "out in the open" in the straightforward sense] and not this secret monitoring work/surveillance in the shadows [reword later].

Saito: Indeed, compared to secretly taking covert actions in the shadows, you are better suited at working in the open, Souma.

Souma: I-is that so...

Thank you very much for this/that. If it's possible, I hope to still learn some things from you.

Yamazaki: There will be opportunities for that. Then, we'll end today's training here. Souma-kun, is there/do you have anything else you want to ask?

Souma: [Something] I want to ask.... ah. then, Yamazaki-san, may I ask you one last question?

Yamazaki: Ah, if I can answer, I won't hold back [will/do so].

Souma: What sort of technique is the "Tatami flip"?

Yamazaki: Ta... Where did you hear that name from?

Souma: Just now during this investigator training/spy training, Nagakura-san mentioned it/Nagakura-san mentioned it while doing the operative training. It is said that it is Yamazaki-san's most powerful technique.

Yamazaki: That guy said something unnecessary! No, Souma-kun, that's.... It's not something amazing like a secret technique..

Saito: Why are you being modest? That move is indeed capable of being referred to as/called a secret technique. If it's possible, I'll ask you to please teach me it. Perhaps I will be able to apply it to kenjutsu.

Yamazaki: Even Saito-san, what are you saying? [Even Saito-san is saying this? check audio]

Souma: Please, Yamazaki-san!

Saito: I'll be requesting the same of you, Yamazaki. [tl is more "i'm also requesting (you) to do so/asking"]

Yamazaki: Bo-Both of you, please raise your heads. I-I get it! I'll teach you.

Souma: Really?! Thank you very much!

Yamazaki: But, you can't tell anyone else about this.

Saito: Nn. Understood.

Yamazaki: Then, please get behind me. Aoyi***, Tatami flip!

This is the literal Mandarin pronunciation of the tl without tones. CN tl can mean “profound argumentation” (in Chinese), tho it's also used to refer to some of the highest level of martial skills in JP (so says a baidu search on the term).

The English google translate of that page puts this phrase as "Ogi," and after reading this page that mentions "ogi" (http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-9948.html#:~:text=Yielding%20is%20called%20%22ju%22%20as,an%20open%20heart%20without%20ego.), so i will probably change this to either "Secret move" or "hidden technique" based on what it mentioned there

Souma: Uoh!

Yaamzaki: Ju-Just now, that was the Tatami flip.

Souma: Amazing, that was amazing, Yamazaki-san! How were you able to do that without any tools [check audio]? Please tell me how to do this!

Saito: This can be used indoors while fighting defensively/can be used as a defence when fighting indoors. It can also be used to hinder an enemy's movements.

Yamazaki: Yes. This requires focusing your strength into the centre of your palm, and within a single breath, smack/slap the edge of the tatami, and then lifting it up when the edge bounces.

Souma: So it's like that? Hoh.... tatami flip! Uh. Areh? It didn't bounce at all.

Yamazaki: Haha. It's not something you can master right away. It also took me a long time to do it. Concentrate/Focus a bit more strength into the palm of your hand.

Souma: Ha! Ah! Yah! It-It's not moving...

Saito: Practise makes perfect./Won't practise make perfect [check audio]? Alright, I will challenge this. Should the position of my hand be around here?

Yamazaki: Yes. [Though] It's better to have it moved a bit forward [moved up a bit]/ if the if the center of gravity is moved forward.

Saito: Understood. Then, I'll be going. Secret technique: Tatami flip!

Yamazaki: No way...

Souma: Uoh.

Saito: Nn. That happened naturally [reword later...? tl is is basically "letting nature take its course was achieved"] .

Souma: Sa-Saito-san, that was amazing! You actually succeeded in one go!

Saito: No, there's no guarantee that this will succeed every time. The accuracy and speed can be further improved upon.

Souma: Really, the Shinsengumi has assembled some amazing people. I can't fall behind and have to work even harder.

Saito: Ah , work hard. I am always willing to practise kenjutsu with you.

Yamazaki: Ah, but, to have it actually done it so easily, my confidence...

Saito: What is it, Yamazaki?

Yamazaki: No, I just feel that need to train a lot more. Let's improve together, Souma-kun.

Souma: Yes! Please look after me!

Souma Kazue, Kaji Yūki Saito Hajime, Toriumi Kōsuke Yamazaki Susumu, Suzuki Takayuki

-end-

sorry but this is the only souma thing i have scheduled for april.

also i wanted some Yamazaki content translated, but i unfortunately don’t remember if i ever found Yamazaki’s route from Yuugiroku 2... so I settled on translating what I hope is a certain complete chapter (as viewed via the extras menu) of Souji’s route with him in it... sorta. scheduled for july!

--------

image from suruga-ya

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki yuugiroku 3 #hakuoki drama cd #hakuoki drama translation #Saito Hajime #Yamazaki Susumu #souma kazue

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mrs-amber · 3 years

Text

speaking.

So, I found this prompt by @writing-prompt-s and couldn’t help myself. This was not exactly what this prompt was about, but here we go... A short fic in which Laurent doesn’t like talking and still get’s Damen’s attention.

[Read it in Ao3]

---------------------------------------------------

“But Auguste, I almost don’t see you around anymore.” He could feel he was pouting as he trailed after his brother, who took a moment looking at his outfit in the mirror before answering.

“I know, Lau… I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you’d be comfortable going out, so I never bothered.” He came closer to his younger brother, sitting beside him on the bed and shuffling his hair.

“Yes, I know…” He began and stopped, thinking of the best way he could say what he wanted. “I just didn’t expect that you’d go to college and forget we ever hang out together.” And that’s not how he wanted to sound at all.

“Oh, come on, Laurent. Would you like to go out with us, then?” His eyes were bright at the prospect. Laurent wasn’t super excited.

“God, why do I love you anyway?” He exhaled and dropped himself on the bed in a dramatic gesture. “I feel like I won’t have a better chance than this…” He stared at his brother, who had a smirk on his face.

“What if I tell you we can keep pretending you’re deaf?” And the wicked smile Laurent gave him was answer enough.

He couldn’t exactly tell when it began, but he never bothered to correct anyone, so it didn’t matter anymore. He had always been a quiet kid, prefering to read books and stay away from other kids whenever he could. It didn’t change much as he grew up. His mother was deaf and that’s why he learned at such a young age to communicate through the language of signals. At some point in his life, someone must have seen him communicating with her and his family, since they always talked through signals when she was around, and must have supposed that it was him the deaf one.

It became an inside joke when he went out with his closest friends or his brother, they never expected him to interact outside their group and inside it he was almost as quiet. When they wanted him to pay attention or answer anything, they would communicate through signals.

Laurent and his brother had almost the same age, barely a year of difference, they were in different years at school and took different classes, but they had the same friends and hung out with the same people. When his brother graduated, the only one who knew he wasn’t deaf was Ancel, a red haired boy that he was friends with since he was 9 years old and moved to this school.

When they heard a honk outside, Auguste pushed Laurent out of the door of his room and downstairs to the exit. There was a friend of his who had come to pick them up, Damianos or something. Auguste introduced them, telling Damen who was him and then turning and telling Laurent the same, but through signals.

Damianos’ eyes were already glued to him from where he was seated in the driver's seat and they went large when he realised what Auguste was doing and what it meant. He didn’t know how to react, considering he had no clue on how to speak through signals, his only reaction being a bright smile and an apologetic expression as he turned to yell at Auguste.

“How could you not have told anyone your brother couldn’t hear? How am I supposed to communicate now that I can’t even say ‘hi’?” There was another man seated in the front seat, and he was muffling a laugh as the brother’s got in the backseat of the car. Nikandros, he would later on learn his name. He looked a lot like Damianos, only a bit smaller. If only you could call it small.

“Oh, he can read lips, you know?” This made Damen blush, and wasn’t that dimple in his left cheek adorable? “But if you want we can teach you some words.” He said the last part lifting one eyebrow to his brother, making Laurent himself feel his face warming up when he turned to offer Damen a shy smile.

The following weeks Laurent was glad to say he saw more and more of his brother, even if it was almost always with his other friends. And not that he was complaining about that, since they always treated him very well. Some of them were actually making an effort to learn how to communicate with him through signals. Especially Damen who still didn’t seem to be over the fact he couldn’t properly talk to him and trailed after him whenever they went to help and always looked really disturbed when he couldn’t understand and had to call for Auguste to translate what Laurent said. Laurent found it really adoring and almost felt guilty for not telling him he could actually hear what he said and spare him the effort of trying. Almost, because he was really interested to know the lengths Damen would go just to understand him and make him feel comfortable. There must be a point where it would all come down and he would understand why he did it, someone couldn’t be interested in him that much just for the sake of it.

They would come to their place and watch movies, with subtitles of course, drink and play games, or they would go out to the beach, mall, movies, clubs or anything else they had in mind. Laurent was beginning to feel like he once more belonged somewhere, and it made him dizzy.

There was this one time they had gone out really late, it was a tuesday and all bars and clubs were closed. Nikandros and Auguste were really desperate for alcohol and said they couldn’t waste such a beautiful starry night without getting drunk and going somewhere they could really appreciate it. Laurent knew it was only because it was their last week at College that semester and they just wanted to celebrate. He offered to drive them, but Damen was already with keys in hand and said he would enjoy it more if he could properly see the stars once they arrived, and Laurent couldn’t contradict him.

Damen took them to a small beach he knew almost outside town, where the stars could be seen with little interference and where they could lay down in a pier that went deep into the calm waters. Nikandros and Auguste were already drunk from the cheap wine they had bought in the way and they were loud. Laurent could understand why Auguste would like to drink with Nik, since they had complementing personalities while sober but you couldn’t really tell who’s mind was thinking when they were drunk. They had horrible ideas and the other would just get along with it in a heartbeat and not even question their choices. And that’s why now they could see both of them running through the beach, already without shoes, racing toward the rocks at the end of it.

“God, I just hope they don’t get each other killed.” Laurent thought and had to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to talk in Damen’s presence. It was a task that was getting harder everyday, the more comfortable he got and the more he wanted them to have a proper interaction with each other. He just couldn’t bring himself to cross that point, thinking Damen would lose his interest in him as soon as he realised Laurent wasn’t that big of a deal and didn’t have the ‘deaf situation’ to help.

They walked together to the end of the pier, where Laurent took off his shoes and sat at the edge to put his feet in the water, propping himself in his hand behind his back. Damen sat by his side, feet in the water. He took a long breath and then laid on his back to stare at the sky. The breeze was fresh and wet and played with Laurents hair, as he pulled some lost strands from his eyes. There were some sea birds fishing and sometimes you could hear a fish jumping and then falling again in the water.

Damen moved his legs a bit and now he could feel his warmth spread through the layers of cloth and send shivers through his skin.

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you could at least hear me…” Damen started talking and Laurent felt himself freeze at the spot, before scolding himself to a relaxed position again. He wasn’t supposed to be hearing this, so he pretended he wasn’t.

“But I also think I wouldn’t be able to do this if you could…” He continued and his voice was barely beyond a whisper. “Since the first time I saw you, I knew it wouldn’t be easy and I would be doomed if I didn’t try. And here we are now, and I feel so stupid for not being able to tell you this in a proper way. I don’t even know how you feel about most things but I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking that you’d be comfortable if I asked anyone to translate any of this.” He exhaled and moved a bit. Laurent wouldn't turn around to know what it was, too shocked to do anything but stare at the sky ahead.

“I know it’s too soon, but I think I’m in love with you. I think I have been since I laid eyes on you that first day, but I only realized how fucked I was the first time I heard you laugh…” He laughed and Laurent felt his heart flipping in his chest. He couldn’t help when he turned to look at him, his expression so tender and his eyes so soft and Laurent finally realized what all those looks he saw in the past weeks meant.

“What did you just say?” He gasped and brought a hand to cover his mouth. Damianos eyes went wide and he could swear he saw him pale.

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mellow-elbow · 3 years

Note

talk more about tikal in SA3!! i love her and im excited to see her have more concrete importance to stopping chaos! (im a bit fuzzy on the original plot but iirc, she was a magical background force that helped sonic stop chaos? correct me there if im wrong)

👀👀👀

Tikal is the daughter of Chief Pachacamac (I call him Patch for short) of the Knuckles Clan- an Echidna tribe that lived in the mystic ruins 4,000 years ago before they were mysteriously wiped out- the truth would later be uncovered in Sonic Adventure 1 that Tikal’s father took his role as Chief after his mother, the previous Chief, passed away and began his reign of terror. Tikal shows flashbacks to the heroes of Sonic Adventure 1 to give them an idea as to what happened to warn them of the future repeating itself.

If you go through all the flashbacks, there’s a lot of truly despicable stuff. One of the most important scenes/quotes that still sticks with me is this one:

[image ID: Chief Pachacamac, a red Echidna in tribal garb, is ignoring his daughter Tikal- a peach Echidna- as she begs him not to attack. The subtitles of Tikal are “Attacking other countries, stealing and killing....” end /ID]

Other countries. The Knuckles clan was traveling, pillaging, and desecrating. But what were they doing in other countries?

[image ID: the same scene as before, this time Tikal’s subtitles read “No one has the right to take their holy grounds.” end /ID]

Taking their holy grounds. To the Echidna’s, their holy ground is the Master Emerald shrine. My theory is that there are other Master Emerald shrines across the world, possibly one for each Chaos Emerald (this translates well seeing thag in Unleashed there are ‘Gaia’ temples that restore the emeralds, I believe they were originally meant to be shrines.) I believe Pachacamac was sending troops to steal valuable information and even the Chaos Emeralds themselves to gain power.

Part of what always made Tikal so interesting to me was her color scheme. She’s much lighter than any of the other Echidna’s we see and I wanted that to have some sort of significance. So, after MORE research, I ended up giving the Emeralds their own geological shrine for each of the continents introduced in Sonic Unleashed (the game that was made of scraps from the original Sonic Adventure 3 concepts). Angel Island in the United Federation became home to the shrine of the White Chaos Emerald- or the Unity Emerald, as it’s called in my notes.

White is the color of purity, innocence, harmony, and unity- which kind of fit with the continent being named the United Federation in modern day. The emerald was also titled this because of something Tikal says in Tails’ flashback:

[image ID: Tikal is reciting an ancient mantra in front of the main temple in the Mystic Ruins. The subtitles read as follows: “The servers are the seven Chaos.” “Chaos is power... Power enriched by the heart.” “The controller is the one that unifies that Chaos.” end /ID]

“The controller is the one that unifies that Chaos.” This mantra was passed down to Tikal in secret for whatever reason, as there’s no mention of Pachacamac knowing it. So why was it so important for Tikal to never forget it?

[image ID: concept art by mellow-elbow featuring Tikal in a super-form with a white aura striking a powerful pose with a look of determination. There is a bright light emanating from where her corneas should be. End /ID]

She was a Guardian.

In my Sonic Adventure 3 pitch, Guardians aren’t only limited to Echidna’s- there were once Guardians for each geological shrine. Where’d that idea come from? Well, you may have seen this image once or twice:

[image ID: the mural from the Knuckles boss fight at Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles; the mural depicts a large entity in possession of a green emerald that may represent the Master Emerald. To the right of the mural is a blue figure surrounded by a yellow aura. There are 6 similar aura’s without figures behind the large entity. end /ID]

Everyone is always so focused on the blue figure surrounded by the yellow aura and scream and shout “Super Sonic! That’s Super Sonic!”... but everyone always seems to ignore the six other auras coming from behind the giant boss. To me, this mural depicts a spiky blue entity in a super form distracting the antagonist while 6 other super-formed individuals attack and defeat it.

My story goes that Pachacamac knew Tikal was a Guardian and wanted to use her powers to aid him in his warmongering ways. Before Pachacamac’s mother passed, she was hellbent on drilling peace and unity into Tikal to ensure it would never happen. Her efforts were fruitless, however, as Pachacamac began his reign of terror without Tikal and still succeeded.

When the time had come and he was ready to take the powers of the Chaos Emeralds for himself, Tikal stood in his way and begged him to leave the place be. Her cries fell on deaf ears, as Pachacamac ordered his men to stampede through Tikal and a herd of Chao- upsetting Chaos who used the negative energy to become Perfect Chaos and decimate a good portion of the Knuckles clan.

We don’t see exactly how Tikal stopped Chaos, we just know that she somehow sealed her spirit inside the master emerald with them. I wanted to introduce the powers of the Unity Emerald in SA3 and how she stopped Chaos, as it would be important info that would help the new Guardians defeat the main antagonist.

Tikal’s spirit would make a return in SA3 where she would help locate the new Guardian of Unity and teach the new Guardians how to defeat their enemy by showing how she defeated Chaos.

Anyways SEGA please hire me to make Sonic Adventure 3 😔🤲🏻💙

#sonic adventure 3 #I just think she’s neat :)#sonic lore #sonic theory #sonic the hedgehog #tikal the echidna

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aer-in-wanderland · 3 years

Note

hello! i see you're often dissatisfied with the official translations for tale of the nine tailed. i also always want to know exactly what the characters are saying and it saddens me to see changes in the translations. are there any translations of lee yeon/nam ji ah dialogue that you thought were particularly inaccurate? how would you render them?

Hello! I’m afraid you may have opened Pandora’s box with this one haha

First off, most (if not all) of the subs you’re seeing going around aren’t official translations but rather fansubs. Because fansubs go up as fast as possible there’s no time for review or editing, and this often means they leave a lot to be desired. As someone who has done a good amount of professional translation, I tend to put a lot of thought into ensuring that not only the content, but also the context and tone of my translations are accurate. It’s an art, not a science.

To answer your question, though, there are a few Yeon/Ji Ah interactions I can think of where the subs particularly bugged me.

The first is from EP05, when Ji Ah presses Yeon to tell her how Ah Eum died.

Yeon tells her, ‘It has nothing to do with you’ (or even more neutrally, ‘it’s unrelated to you’ but that’s an uncommon phrasing in English). The sub here was, ‘It’s none of your business,’ which is another way you could translate that, but it’s both less literal and also more callous than I felt Yeon was being here.

In response, Ji Ah insists she knows it does (have something to do with her). Yeon’s response was subbed, ‘At times, it’s better to be in the dark. So live your life as the clueless person you have been.’ This is taking a lot of license and not in a good way. I would have translated Yeon’s response as follows:

Yeon: At times...there are times when knowing something becomes poison. Please just keep living as you are now, not knowing.

First off, to my thinking there’s a big difference between ‘being in the dark’ and ‘knowledge can be poison,’ which is actually what he says. Second, he says absolutely nothing to the effect of ‘clueless person.’ He does literally say ‘not knowing anything,’ but I would have left out the ‘anything’ because it changes the tone of the sentence. It’s technically correct from a one-to-one translation standpoint, but ultimately wrong in terms of communicating what he means and how he means it. Finally, while he doesn’t literally say ‘please,’ what he does say (‘살아주라’) is the imperative form of the verb (to live) + ‘ju-da’ grammar pattern, which holds the implication that she is doing it for his sake.

The sub here really bugged me because it made it sound like Yeon was condescending to Ji Ah, saying that she should just keep on being ignorant, when in fact he was asking her very plaintively to trust him and accept not knowing. Overall, I thought it misrepresented his character in an unflattering light so it stuck with me.

Another example of a sub that bothered me is from EP12, when Ji Ah’s parents ask Yeon what he likes about Ji Ah and Yeon tells them being with her comforts him (paraphrasing). The translation of Ji Ah’s line that followed that was a bit problematic for me. The sub here read, ‘But Yeon made me realize...that we’re supposed to live in the shadows...of the people we rely on. I wanted to be that kind of person too.’ I would have translated this as:

Ji Ah: But I met Lee Yeon and came to understand: people live their lives in the shadow of someone they can depend upon. I have to become that type of person too.

You can see there’s not too much difference (other than the ‘supposed to’ and the ‘wanted to’ - not sure where they got that) and that’s because the main issue here is actually cultural. In English, if we say you’re living in someone’s shadow it’s a negative thing, but Ji Ah is actually making a reference to traditional Korean wedding vows, in which the groom pledged to become a tree and the bride his shadow. That’s obviously a carry-over from a more antiquated time in gender relations, but the image of the tree remains that of something that provides shelter from the elements. So, to live in someone’s shadow in this case actually means to live being protected and cared for by them. This is in direct contrast to her telling Yeon in EP06 not to be too good to her for fear that she’d come to depend on him. It shows character growth. And Ji Ah is saying that she also wants to be that someone for Yeon.

Since there’s no way to explain that context in the subs, though, I might have taken some creative license and changed ‘shadow’ to ‘shelter’ or something to that effect. It would be more of a departure from the literal, but somewhat closer to the intended meaning.

Another exchange that I felt could have been translated better was from the night scene on the beach in EP13 when Ji Ah asks Yeon if he remembers the first time he met her.

Yeon: Of course I remember. I spent my life working to catch others, but you were the first person who chased after me so ferociously saying they were going to catch me.

Ji Ah: At that time I should have just confessed ferociously. If I had, the time we could have spent being happy not knowing anything would've been just a little bit longer.

I don’t remember exactly what the sub said, only that it left out the word ‘ferocious,’ which they both used. I thought it was a very Ji Ah thing to say - that she should have confessed ferociously instead of chasing him ferociously, and you can see Yeon look at her when she says it.

Another thing that dropped out at times was the humour. One recurring joke they use plays off the word for ‘bastard,’ which translates literally as ‘baby dog’ or ‘child of a dog’ (kae-saekki). Putting ‘kae’ (dog) in front of anything turns it into a curse word actually. [Edit: It’s also used as an intensifier in modern slang similar to how the f-word is used in English]. As you might imagine, this gets a lot of mileage in relation to Rang, our resident 600-year old baby fox. So in EP03 when Yeon and Rang fight on the island, Yeon makes this joke:

Yeon: They say you’re supposed to raise wild children* with a firm hand (literally: hit them as you raise them), but I couldn’t do that, so I ended up raising a baby fox into a bastard (baby dog), didn’t I?

Rang: And who was the jerk who kicked that baby (saekki) to the curb? You treat me like a stray dog any chance you get.

Yeon: My little brother, I’ll have to gift you a muzzle this Christmas.

Because the dog jokes dropped out ‘muzzle’ became ‘mouthguard,’ which is less funny and also makes no sense out of context. [*Edit: Also, thinking about it again, I still would have used ‘muzzle’ since that implies that Yeon means to protect the world from Rang whereas ‘mouthguard’ is more about protecting Rang.]

[*Edit: the word used here is 호로자식, which many Koreans understand to mean something like a barbarian child, but the true origin, as it turns out, is a parentless child. It’s also used predominantly by grandpas/old men hehe]

Another funny moment came when Ji Ah asks Yeon for his phone number in EP04:

Yeon: Nice. Your character is very consistent.

Ji Ah: I get that a lot.

There’s no good way to translate Ji Ah’s line, but she literally says ‘I hear that curse (yok) a lot,’ implying that people say this to her and mean it as an insult/in a ‘goddamn you’ sort of way...to which Yeon nods as if to say, ‘makes perfect sense.’ haha

Finally, there were times when the subs were just straight-up wrong. When Yeon is telling Ji Ah about how he met Ah Eum in EP05, he says she was so cute he hit her once and then sent her on her way. Ji Ah prompts him saying, ‘And then?’ To which Yeon responds that she went down the mountain in tears but then returned to chase after him with her bow in tow. The subtitle said something like ‘she left and returned within the day,’ and I honestly can only assume whoever was translating it wasn’t sure what was said and just wrote something likely based on context because it’s such a loose estimation.

Sorry this is so long. It’s nowhere near an exhaustive list, but hopefully it gives you an idea of some of the things that catch my attention when I watch the subbed version. If there are specific scenes you’d like to see me translate, feel free to send me another ask. =)

#ask #tale of the nine tailed #korean language #korean translation #thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent haha #edited #totnt ask

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ao3commentoftheday · 4 years

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I noticed in some fandoms, you list a character's Sub name and Dub name in the same tag. What usually leads to that decision? Because I know it doesn't happen in all shows with Dub and Sub name differences.

For clarity’s sake, I’m going to start off by talking about the difference between subs and dubs, at least how I interpreted the question. not everyone knows the difference, because not everyone is into anime.

So: subs are the subtitled version of a show, with the original language’s audio. Dubs are the dubbed-over versions, in which the audio is replaced by new voice actors performing a translated version of the dialogue. Basically, “sub names” refers to the character’s names in the original language, and “dub names” are the names that the dubbed language translated gives those same characters. These languages in anime are usually Japanese and English, but not always. My answer is going to use “original names” and “translated names.”

The other thing I want to explain up front is “piping.” A pipe, in wrangler-speak, is the | symbol, which is not a lower-case L or upper-case i. It’s the one above the backslash \ on English-language keyboards. We use pipes to separate terms that mean the same thing in tags, so that we can include both terms or names in one tag while showing that they are distinct from each other. You’ll see them a lot, not only in translated names, but used for official titles, stage names, cape names, alternate identities, and cases where characters change their names- Min Yoongi | Suga, Eleven | Jane Hopper, and Alfons Borgia | Pope Callixtus III are all examples of piped character tags. However, I would guess that most of our piped character tags are translated names.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s get into the question. In some fandoms, we pipe the original names and the translated names, and in others, we pick one set. The main reason that wranglers might have chosen to not pipe is the fandom’s usage. Here’s something that we say a lot: the Archive is not a wiki. We’re not in the business of making every tag exactly correct based on all the canonical information, we’re making tags that will be the easiest to understand and use for the most people. Sometimes that means using a nickname in place of a formal name, or omitting a last name that was only ever confirmed in a spinoff novel; we will use whatever name or combination of names that suit the fandom best.

If the fandom mostly tags for the original names for the characters, or only tags for the translated names, then the wrangler will most likely follow the taggers. If, however, the taggers are split, both names might be necessary in the character tags. It doesn’t need to be an exactly even split - 70/30 is enough to justify it. Our goal is to make tags that taggers will be able to find in the dropdown, tags that taggers will use.

Here’s an incomplete list of reasons that character tags might not have both original and translated names:

The overwhelming majority of the fandom prefers one set of names.

We don’t usually pipe for minor name changes, like long versus short vowels.

They pre-date the official translation.

There isn’t an official translation yet.

There are multiple translations, and they conflict with each other.

Also, it’s not obvious to users, but: tag renaming is serious business. We can’t just type it in real quick and change the text of the original tag, because that’s not how we treat tags. As wranglers, we will never change how the tags you chose appear on your works. That means we have to create a new tag completely, then slowly detach old tags and reattach them to redirect to the new tag we’ve created, taking time so we don’t overwhelm the servers and making sure all the works still appear. Once we do the character tag, we then have to do the same thing to all of the character’s relationship tags, one by one. It’ s a lot of time-consuming work, and we don’t do it lightly! So if the current tag is working fine, we’ll often leave it be.

So, to sum up, some fandoms are piped with both the original names and the translated names because the fandom uses both sets of names, while others only have one set of names for any of a variety of good reasons.

I hope this is helpful, and not too confusing!

- Guest Mod Pepper

(Ask me a question here! | Disclaimer: I speak only for myself; if you need an official AO3 response on an issue, you should contact Support.)

#guest mod pepper #ask a wrangler #translated tags #character tags

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dokidokivisual · 4 years

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Gochiusa BLOOM episode 3 impressions

Previously: episode 2, episode 1 (seriously, the number of notes on ep 2 review is too low...)

Welcome to another review of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM. In this episode, the series explores a topic it rarely touched previously, which is school life. Unlike many similar slice-of-life series, Gochiusa rarely concerned itself with such a mundane setting, preferring the ambience of cafés and cobblestone streets. There were a few exceptions, such as the first half of season 2 episode 10, but this is the first episode fully dedicated to a school setting.

Another distinguishing trait of Gochiusa is that the group of main characters attends not one, but several different schools. In particular, there are two high schools: a “normal” one attended by Cocoa and Chiya, and an “elite” one attended by Sharo and Rize. Moreover, there’s a group of middle school characters on the verge of graduating. As such, the question of which high school will Chino, Maya and Megu eventually choose was bound to come to the forefront at some point. And that’s exactly what happens in this episode.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to discuss, so let’s get down to business...

The episode opens with a shot of Aoyama Blue Mountain on a boat, which also appears in the beginning of season 1 episode 1. By the way before COVID you could totally ride a boat like this in Colmar. Just watch your head...

Yeah, this is under the bridge from season 2 ED. Filmed by me.

Anyway, I’m being sidetracked. What’s important is that this is the only shot where you could tell it’s morning, because of the angle of the shadow from the bridge. It is indeed morning, and we see Cocoa and Chino walking down to school. Seems the summer vacation is over and it’s already September? Cocoa, the self-described pikka-pika no onee-chan, tries to coerce Chino into committing to enter the same high school as her, while Chino is not sure about that. We’ve seen Chino being unsure about her future as recently as this season’s episode 1, and in regards to the high school choice the time for a decision is quickly approaching.

Soon we see Maya and Megu who are facing the same decision. Megu seems to have already decided on what Maya derisively calls the gokigenyo school. The greeting gokigenyo (ご機嫌よう) comes from the word “kigen” (機嫌) which means “mood”, and can be literally translated as “how do you do”. However the same word is also used as farewell, which often causes troubles for translators.

The concept of “gokigenyo school“ has been popularised by the light novel and anime series Maria watches over us (Marimite), which is also one of the most influential works of the yuri genre. This concept has also been parodied a number of times, for example in the excellent episode 5 of Flip Flappers.

Megu manages to convince Maya and Chino to come with her to a tour of this school, and we get a close-up of Maya hinting that she’s definitely hiding something.

Meanwhile at Cocoa’s school, the class president declares the theme of the cultural festival being “cafe”, and puts Chiya and Cocoa in charge of it, because they work at a cafe. It seems that Chiya is considered to be more dependable than Cocoa by her classmates, since she got a higher rank. Nevertheless, it is Cocoa who mostly delivers the speech to fire up the other students.

Note the usage of Chinese tally marks to tally the votes. The five strokes comprising the character 正 (”truth”) equate 5 votes. This method is popular across East Asia, even in Korea where Chinese characters are no longer used.

Also I’ve seen a lot of people were confused by the inclusion of “sex museum” as one of the proposals, which is how 秘宝館 (hihokan) has been translated by the official subtitles. This word, which literally means “the hall of hidden treasures” has been used by various establishments of this type in post-war Japan, however only few of them remain open now. I think “sex museum” is a bad translation because, while technically correct, it breaks mimesis, or in simpler terms, immersion. The English translation is so blatantly inappropriate that it would never make it onto this blackboard, whereas the Japanese word is obscure and innocent-looking enough that it just might. A better translation would be “adult museum”, in fact that’s what the most well-known hihokan, Atami Hihokan uses for its English title.

As proof of each other’s ability, Cocoa mentions Chiya’s triple tray wielding skill (お盆三刀流 obon santoryu) which has been demonstrated in season 2 episode 1. Chiya brings up Cocoa’s “basking in the sun” (日向ぼっこ hinatabokko) attitude which supposedly makes her popular among customers. This is a reference to season 2 episode 5 where Rize says Cocoa always either practices latte art or basks in the sun.

On the way back from school, we learn that Chiya is actually scared of the responsibilities placed on her, and her dream of becoming the president of Ama Usa An franchise (which has been mentioned in s2e1, s2e9 and maybe other episodes I forgot) might be ruined because of this. Cocoa consoles her, again showing her motherly side.

Back at Rabbit House, Cocoa explains how the upcoming festival will be exciting (wakuwaku) and fluffy/cuddly (mofumofu). This is one of several times Cocoa uses silly onomatopoeia to describe something in this episode (aforementioned pikkapika onee-chan and describing her school also as mofumofu in a latter scene). Interestingly, all of these lines are anime-original, and at this point seems like an intentional effort to make Cocoa speak in a more eccentric manner.

In the next scene Sharo becomes angry at Chiya for keeping secrets from her, and blows her cheeks, which makes her turn into a Fugu fish, according to Chiya. Fugu is famous in Japanese cuisine for being a highly poisonous but sought after delicacy, however in this case the comparison has to do with the tendency of a live fugu (as well as other pufferfish) to inflate its stomach, giving it an almost spherical appearance to deter predators.

Next there’s another anime-original CocoChino scene where Chino asks Cocoa about what her school is like. This is my favorite part of the episode because it’s just so adorable. Like, even the fact that Cocoa is drying Chino’s hair with a towel after bath shows how close they became. The direction and the delivery of the dialogue is masterfully executed. Cocoa would be really hurt if Chino chooses any other school, and Chino knows that. But Chino can’t admit she’ll choose her next school because of Cocoa, at least not yet.

Now we move on to the main plot of the episode, which is Chimame visiting Rize and Sharo’s school. Like I said in the preview, this episode covers chapters 10 and 11 of the volume 5 of the manga, which in-universe occur at the same time. However while it fully covers (and has the same title as) chapter 10, only the first half of chapter 11 is included. So about 2/3 of the episode are dedicated to the story of chapter 10.

Chimame attend a speech by “OG” Mate Rin. OG in this case doesn’t mean “original gangsta”, but “old girl”, which is a Japanese term for female alumni of some school (there’s also OB for men). Chino recognizes Rin as the editor of Aoyama Blue Mountain, and I’m not sure if Maya and Megu ever met her, so they don’t. When Rin recalls a senior who turned her life around, Chino recalls her chance meeting with Cocoa. In particular the phrase deai ga taisetsu (”chance meetings are to be cherished”) sticks with her. On the other hand, Maya seems to be interested in the fact that Rin was recommended for scholarship. Interestingly in the manga, Maya slept through most of the speech.

The senior Rin was talking about was obviously Aoyama and we see that there’s actually a huge bounty placed on her. The currency sign consisting of combined letters G and U wasn’t seen before, with prices usually displayed in yen, but there was a Euro-like sign at an open market at the beginning of season 2 episode 1, which might be a shorthand way to write GU. Either way this currency must have a serious hyperinflation problem as the reward for finding Aoyama exceeds 10 billion GU. In countries affected by hyperinflation, a stable foreign currency is often used to perform economic transactions, which might explain why most of the prices are in yen.

But is there some significance to this exact number? Why, yes, 10/27 is Aoyama’s birthday! It is also the start of “reading week”, which actually lasts 2 weeks, until November 9.

After the speech Megu gets separated from the rest of the group, and the other two also get lost in the vast campus of the school. As seen from the above interior shot of the school, it is also inexplicably rabbit-themed (or maybe just this particular hall is), with golden rabbit statues and also a picture on the left wall with the kanji for rabbit (兎).

Through a series of misunderstandings Chimame end up infiltrating the school with Sharo and Rize providing uniforms for them to blend in. Despite having trouble to behave “ladylike” before, Maya naturally blends in once she treats it as a game, and even gets invited to a tea party. She makes a mistake though by mentioning moyashi (bean sprouts) which is considered a cheap and low-class food, but she’s saved by the fact that the rich girls don’t even know what that is, and Sharo explaining how to prepare it in a fancy way.

Eventually the groups meet each other and Maya reveals she has been recommended for scholarship due to her good grades. Perhaps she also treated her school grades as experience points to gain, as the title of the episode (and the manga chapter) ”The whole world is my experience points” seems to suggest. This is the idea behind a real concept of gamification, by the way.

There’s also a callback to the season 2 episode 8, where Maya asks Rize for advice while Chino and Megu are spying on her. It is worth to rewatch that scene, because it’s full of foreshadowing for this episode. Back then Maya thinks she’s the only one of the three to go to this school, but now she thinks there’s a good chance all three will still go to the same school. Chino doesn’t seem to feel this way though.

In the end we see Cocoa and Chiya joining the group, also wearing the elite school uniforms, which is briefly explained by them gathering supplies for the cultural festival. I guess the next episode will explain how they ended up there. In the manga even the fact that they have a cultural festival wasn’t revealed until this point. Also in the manga fukiya club president, Karede Yura, inexplicably appears for just one panel so that Cocoa and Chiya could thank her, without any lines. In the anime she appears just as (if not more) suddenly, however there’s some foreshadowing with her inviting Rize to a tournament earlier, and she gets quite a few speaking lines.

If you listen closely there’s a funny sound effect as she looks at Rize, and then at Sharo. I really liked her design since her first appearance in the manga, and Koi probably does too, as her role has greatly increased in the recent chapters. Consequently her single-panel background appearance has been expanded as well in this episode, she got her full name mentioned in the credits, and there’s even a Karede Yura character song included on the second BD volume (which includes this season’s episodes 3 and 4). All things considered, I fully expect Yura to appear in the episode 4 as well.

The episode ends with Chino looking at the sky with a worried expression. It just hit her that both Megu and Maya are going to a different school than she is expected to go to. As Megu and Maya have a clear path forward, Chino’s future has become even more uncertain, and she feels like the odd one out in the group. Now the part of the ending where Chino is suddenly alone makes sense:

this is basically her imagining the future where Maya and Megu leave her. The coffee cup transition symbolises Chino waking up and seeing that MaMe are still her friends and aren’t going anywhere. We’ll see though...

This time it’s Megu doing latte art in the ending, and the picture is of Chino and Maya dancing. The weird thing is, Megu wasn’t even present at this scene, so how did she draw it in such detail?

Also another random fact I noticed: Chino’s Alice costume actually appeared in the opening of both season 1 and season 2. Here’s a comparison for reference:

Anyway, that was the third episode of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM and I hope you enjoyed reading my review. See you next week... or so.

#gochiusa #gochuumon wa usagi desu ka?#is the order a rabbit?#review

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entamesubs · 3 years

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Regarding Past Mistakes & the BD Release

Hello everyone, entame here.

As I get closer and closer to beginning the sub process for episodes 1-13 of SEVENS using its Blu-Ray, I do want to address some issues regarding my subs that have been brought up either directly to me, or anonymously across other sites.

Before I begin, I want to note that this concerns most of my earlier subs, which is why I thought to make this post with the BD releases on the horizon.

------------

As of writing this, this “sub group” consists of two people (and is in the process of adding a third, mostly to help with timing)—the person writing this post (”entame”), and Yona, the proofreader. When I first began subbing SEVENS (specifically for episodes 12 and 13), it was a one-person job. This means I did translations, proofreading, and timing by myself (to some extent, I still do all three of these jobs, but not as much as I used to). Yona did not join until around 13-14.

I realize that I have made a lot of mistakes over the course of this subbing career, but especially concerning the beginning episodes, which were the finale of the first arc, and therefore very important in the grand scheme of things.

I want to deeply apologize for them, and address what happened and what’s going to change about them (and possibly future subs) going forward.

Episode 12 in particular was rife with some mistranslation errors. The most “obvious” was concerning the first release of the episode where the context of Roa’s rule-sharking was different than it is now (I don’t quite remember it exactly, so this is why it’s vague). Obviously, a lot of this was corrected in the second release of the episode, and the first version isn’t a thing that exists anymore, even on my own hard drive. It is somewhat fortunate that it also doesn’t exist on anime mirror sites either, as the first group to get a sub out was SevensRoadSubs, so it is their version of episode 12 that exists on most streaming sites.

Likewise, episode 13 suffered these mistakes as well. One example is translating the tournament that Otis was disqualified at as “the 60th” instead of the “the 666th”, which is the correct one. Stuff like this slipped past my notice, so please accept my apologies.

However, the framing of 12 and 13 also laid the groundwork for how certain things would be subbed in future episodes. This means mistakes would endure, such as Roa saying “Distortion Power Code” or the phrasing of his summoning chant in the subs of 13 and 18, despite the fact that it should be “Distortion Power Chord” (as I learned later on). Some of you will also remember the notice I made regarding the decision to use YGOrganization’s translations of cards (where available) post-episode 15, for the sake of consistency across fandom.

Doing subs for SEVENS every week has been a very great joy to me, and something I don’t regret doing. That said, I also know I have made a lot of mistakes, earning some ire. I have learned a lot in the past 3 months since I started. I have never done large-scale translation work or fansubbing before this, so a lot of it has been growing pains. I intended to use the translation of SEVENS as a stepping stone to improving my Japanese (which it has!), but I am not perfect, and always open to corrections.

I say this on every sub release post and also at the end of every episode—I am always, always, always open to corrections. I will make mistakes, and though I try my best to notice them, sometimes I may not. Sometimes, as in the case of “Distortion Power Chord”, I will not even notice them until weeks down the line, when it is too late to change them.

That is why I always try to release 1080p versions where available—because they correct mistakes in the first 720p batch, which are speedsubs.

Still, I think it’s important to acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made for the sake of transparency and to let the fandom know of wrong information I inadvertently circulated.

The upcoming BD releases of episodes 1-13 will go through a much more rigorous subbing process than my usual weekly episodes. For that reason, it may be a rather slow process of working on them, as I plan to have multiple eyes comb through the episodes before release. The BD release will not have a re-release, nor will it be possible to correct potential mistakes after release, so it needs to be the best version I can confidently put out.

I say this because episodes 12 and 13 in particular were extremely rough in terms of translation, as it was my first foray into fansubbing. This means the existing scripts for them may be completely re-translated or re-worked in the BD release, leading to some inconsistencies of future episode’s subs (particularly those past episode 14). If I can ever get the 2nd Blu-Ray set, these will also, of course, be addressed there.

For full transparency, and going forward, there will be some changes to how certain things are phrased, worded, or translated.

YGOrg will always take priority in terms of card name translations. Previously, I played a little loose with my own interpretations and having some fun with puns, but going forward this is now a hard rule. If they translate a card name a certain way, I will use their translation for the sake of consistency. This means no more instances of things like “Kill-Lure Bait Ball” or “Washbuckler” (though they were fun, it became confusing).

BD-specific: I will also try to match information with stuff on Yugipedia. This is BD-specific because weekly speedsubs may come out faster than info on Yugipedia, so there will always be some inconsistency there. However, for the BD, things like “Beastgear World - Trike Fox” will become “Trike Fox of the Beast Gear World”, and other such changes.

Also BD-specific: 2 subtitle tracks! One will use official spellings of names, like Ohdo Yuga, while the other will use transliterations, like Oudou Yuuga (as I usually do). On Luke/Rook - not sure what to do yet. I don’t want to make 3-4 different tracks for official and transliteration, each with Luke/Rook options. Both tracks may use Luke just for my sanity. No change for weekly releases, however; those will always use transliterations.

Weekly episode titles will always follow DMC’s translations of the summaries beforehand. This was also a loose rule before as I always tried to do this unless I wanted to have some fun with puns or references. This will now become a hard rule.

Regarding BD release timelines, while I don’t have a “date-by-date” planned out, I do expect to be done by the second or third week of December. This may change or be delayed, but I will always announce here ahead of time. The second BD comes out in January, so I want to be sure to finish before then, as January and February tend to be busier months for me (fun fact: despite living in the US, neither my family or I celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas, so these two months are prime time for getting things done).

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far! Please know I would never have gotten to this point without your support, and am always deeply humbled by the positive response. The BD release would never have happened without you, as it was crowdfunded by you. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

When I first started subbing, I thought I would be a second subber alongside another group, so I could never imagine having come to this point now. This is why I chose to make this post addressing my mistakes and future changes, for the sake of clarity.

Before I close off this (extremely long) post, I do want to give a shoutout to Yona! There would be a lot more mistakes without her. While I control the blog, the name, and the posting process, she has been indispensable with her work and I don’t want to leave her out. This sub group went from one to two, and I am extremely grateful for the help.

Thank you for reading to this point. Hopefully this clears a lot of things up going forward! As always, my submit and ask box are both always open for questions, comments, or corrections. Please never be shy to correct me on anything—I welcome another set of eyes!

#announcements #oh this came out longer than i expected

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adultingautistic · 4 years

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help? rambling! sorry for that thing.

(saw in the ask-section: so written today as of the 20th of August in the year 2020)

Hey,

No idea how to approach this. Though first things first: English is not my native language and I have some trouble with languages (even my native) [mostly speaking and writing… and understanding (the hearing part but sometime also the meaning part) – okay I just can’t language – sorry] and this thingy here will be long, again – sorry Though I learned to understand written english just so I could read more fanfictions (‘cause the ones in my native language didn’t satisfy me anymore) - spend a whole summer just reading stuff in english and now I *need* to read everything in english and watch things in their native production language (synchro is weird af) and if possible with subtitles (books: if it’s the authors native language; otherwise both languages (german and english) would be translated and then it doesn’t really matter, most of the time anyway)

WARNING: Messy, chaotic and about 2500 words long. Sorry. and it isn’t proof read and some sentences could be… not a sentence

I think I might be autistic / have adhd ? not sure, going to someone (professional) is not really an option as that would take at least 6 to 12 month to even get maybe a appointment… and it involves a lot of social interaction that would stress all people – even those that don’t have to think about *every* interaction they have with eachother… like no planning or thinking about what you have to say or can’t say and what’s appropriate? Like that is a thing – always wondered how most people got through life when everything is so damn hard. It is apparently a thing that isn’t so quite normal… lol*

Okay, most of the time (that I remember) wondered how that worked for everyone else except me – how they get through life thinking all those things, or well… don’t thinking all those things like HOW?!? Why can you “people”? and I learned it’s important if you’re a girl or not; so yeah, girl here. Followed adhd / autism stuff for a few month / weeks and now again for the last days (it’s an on and off thing). so yeah, I can relate to so much on like everything. Long time I thought, nah, can’t have it: good in school (more so when I was younger but never actually bad), finished school good (though could have been better, if I had studied once (like for my oral exam, I opened the document that should help us learn one whole time, the morning of the exam so yeah, not good at that; brain just goes, heard it once, why should I read this information? Can’t really recall it but while reading I “know” it, so WhAt Is STuDyInG?)) anyway (at this point I would have deleted about everything but like 3 or 4 sentences because… rambling. Sorry, but I think it is important what’s actually going on in my brain; I know it’s hard to read lol) considering all those things I read here (and on other blogs and stuff), I would explain so much about what’s going on in my life (I made a document where I collect all that stuff but it’s redundant sometimes and really messy; try to make a short list with most important things).

Like as a kid, it took me longer than other kids for this social stuff (not like it got “everything”, just enough to communicate more or less lol) or I was so freaking focused on rules; one example is at the train station, there is this line to indicate where you should wait for the train and the other side is where you’re allowed to step once the train is in the station – I lost it, when that rule wasn’t followed (never really big, loud but I was really upset – you know, I learned that it isn’t “allowed” to act out in public). Another thing, I would always get the adults (or kids) around me to speak to others: I mean, I wanted ice cream? Couldn’t order it (still hard to this day – I’m 19 years old btw) or any other basic interaction stuff – I mean I broke every connection to my best friend (in 6th grade, so I was like 10 or 11) because he broke a rule while playing “hide and seek” like yeah, one rule one time while playing and I didn’t speak to him for like 6-7 years (met him at driving school again lol) and I still have his book because I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore (now it’s just awkward to give it back).

As I was younger I loved reading, couldn’t get me away from it – now not so much lol (books or reading in general is so hard sometimes… most of the time) – but that is more like: I lost myself in the books and was super focused on it – now I “don’t have time” as in I can’t really read a book if I don’t have theoretically the whole day and night – cause if I have to do stuff later “there is not enough time to read a book” because I could get lost in it and miss stuff and 5 hours is like 5 minutes, right? (that is a part of “time blindness”, am I mistaken? – never really related to that on a deeper level but the longer it think about it, the more stuff comes to my mind that could be part of it lol / like I always at least try to) get ready when I want to visit my grandparents, it’s like a ten minute walk so I need at least 45 minutes to prepare. Example: want to be there at 14:00 so I should go to the bathroom around 13:15 the latest, bathroom always takes long ‘cause I get distracted, so I then somehow get going around 13:50 – spoiler: I need more like at least 15 minutes not less then 10 to get to my grandparents by foot – and where is the time? I got out of the bathroom somewhere before 13:40 most of the time – I do the exact same things every time and sometimes I’m like: oh, it’s like 13:25/13:30, why would I think I need so much time to get ready? And then most often I need longer – and no, then I start to got even earlier (bathroom is like the first thing in the routine I do before I have to leave the house) and somehow it is now 13:45 and I just leave the bathroom – HOW??)

Okay, MSWord tells me, I have written like almost a 1100 words and haven’t even looked at my 11 page document – sorry (can I even write that many words in an ask at tumblr?)

Another thing I found is RSD – of my god (I usually don’t like to use it like that but omg), that explains so much – don’t want to write too much (missed quite a few “too”s I think lol hope you understand anyway) – I really react so intense to small, constructive criticism and I didn’t (don’t) understand why; and question everything; I remember everything I did wrong (so many “small” things but I’m such bad at human sometimes) and the feels and oh no, I didn’t even do something wrong, my coworker/sort-of-not-really-friend told me how I could have slightly improved what I did: I’m such a bad human, I can’t do anything right and they won’t want to have to do anything with me again – thank you brain, not helpful. One other thing was, like I asked for one weekend of and I wasn’t allowed to take it ‘cause they planned to or already shifted an event (couldn’t really focus on that) to that weekend and I didn’t know it and when they said “no”, in that situation I could have lost it, I was almost in tears (you do not cry in public lol) and thought, how could I even ask that and be soo egoistic (along the lines of that).

This next one is just the text copied from a post but that is like exactly what it is for me:

“I literally thought all the symptoms were the default way a brain works, so you’re telling me some of you can “choose” what to pay attention to? Like, if you know you absolutely have to listen to and remember something you just “can” even if you don’t like it?

And if you’re at a restaurant and three other tables are having conversations you don’t just automatically absorb everything they’re saying?

And if you know you have to do something within the next hour it won’t just remind you of a different subject entirely which reminds you of another different subject entirely and you don’t just take you three days to remember the original thing you were doing????”

so true lol.

Found another post with autism signs in adults (that my have been missed as kids), I took out everything I don’t really relate to (like 5 or 6 things lol):

- may constantly rehears conversations or interactions

- may feel as though you are always on stage

- may have a few close friends, not many acquaintances

- may struggle with other people breaking rules (RULES ARE ABSOLUT – HOW CAN YOU BREAK THEM?)

- may often fidget, chew, tap, or other repetitive behaviors

- may get more or less upset at something than is “appropriate”

- may struggle to adjust when plans change without warning

- may have routines that don’t seem to have a real purpose

- may struggle in situations that are unfamiliar

- may be a very picky eater with few preferred foods

- may struggle with noises, touching, or sensory input

- may struggle to process visual or auditory information

- may struggle to settle body down enough for restful sleep (though I now have a weighted blanket and that’s soo awesome, it really helps at least a bit (don’t wake up that often at night anymore))

- may struggle to keep track of a fast conversation

- may take jokes very literally, and not understand teasing

- may miss sarcasm or subtleties while others are speaking

I understand teasing, I can more or less successful tease and be sarcastic but I’m not sure if people are teasing me. I do not prefer to communicate via text or email. It is still very stressful for me - a telephone is also bad (tone and stuff, not understanding the words correct and not even seeing the other person and in person is also bad – so no to communication and/or interaction lol)

I could provide example for everything but I’m at around 1700 words and just no.

Didn’t really mention sensory stuff, another post I found: “basically, your day-to-day sensory input shouldn’t be causing you distress. sounds wild, i know, but it’s not neurotypical for the stimuli (be it sound, touch, visual, etc etc) you encounter on a day-to-day basis to make you unhappy. also, if busy shopping malls or crowded parties consistently cause you distress or agitation, that’s a neurodiverse thing. it sounds strange, but apparently but yeah, it’s normal for most people to expect to be comfortable in their day to day surroundings.”

Like on one level, I knew it couldn’t be quite “normal” to be always uneasy in “normal” day to day surroundings but like, I can’t understand how people can not find it hard to be in such environment (I heard some enjoy it even, like HOW?).

Random interjection ‘cause I wanted to say something to thing from the beginning: * “Allistics do not “prepare” in order to socialize. They do not have scripts. They do not write them, memorize them, or use them. They just magically know what to say. “ yeah, wow, didn’t realise that for a long time, and it is really magically. But somehow they can; I still ask my mom to help me write emails (more or less important ones) ‘cause it’s hard and she’s always like: “we do it so often, why do you still need help, just write” – not helpful and we didn’t do it actually ‘cause it is a complete different situation now lol every new email is a new thing… I need to think about what to say to the cashier every damn time I’m in the supermarket lol; if I don’t have to talk, someone else orders for me (they thinks I’m lazy or so, I don’t know but it’s so hard and you know what to do, so you can do it lol)

And that executive dysfunction thingy also explains a lot – I mean, I like languages, I’m just not good at that speaking/hearing the words thing – still, I learn Ancient Greek as a sort of hobby (I mean, I learn it for so long now, it’s too late to stop, that would be weird and it is really interesting, just really hard) and I needed like 7 hours to do the work (like, got out of bed, got breakfast, started the computer and did like 30 minutes of working, then did some stuff on the internet for like an hour and then ate my forgotten breakfast, then did some more browsing (I need to do the work cause I have to send it to my teacher this evening lol) some work for like almost an hour, some more phone, a bit of work – and so on. I did some work (but like so many people would have done more or needed less time lol) – anyway I know I really need to work on the language and I just… don’t. arg, that sucks so much, every week I think, I could start doing things on Saturday and then everyday a bit so I have like six days to do some work and every time it’s Thursday and I’m like, lol 10 hours for doing a weeks work. And it’s not like I could focus for that 10 hours – except when I can but sadly it’s almost never on the things I *need* to do. Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

So, yeah, sorry; I think it’s quite possible that I’m autistic / have adhd, both or so – am I making things up and this is just my mind going a bit wild? (also, I’ve done some online “tests”; most of the time I get like ¾ of the maximal points, but at least always more than half the full points)

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Thanks if you made it to the end! 20.08.2020

PS. could write so much more in my mind but nope. i think one can get my point. otherwise just ask me

PPS. actually talked with my grandmother about it, lol, she said, it would explain some things she wondered about lol (never thought i would talk in real life with someone about it but i really needed to talk about my thoughts and then i couldn’t shut up and i was so worried but she is kinda cool with it? though she doen’t really know anything about the topic except what i told her so yeah. i acually have no clue how to approach my mum (even if it isn’t autism/adhd or so, i think i have to talk about how i tick a bit lol) (sorry, just had to write it a least lol)

so sorry, needed a part two (cause brain is stupid)

Okay, part two (I’m so sorry) (now it is the 21st of August 2020)

There is so much more I can write about: sorry, again like 1300 words.

Like, special interests – I have no idea; as I kid my teacher had to regularly remind me that I have to leave the classroom for break – cause I was so into my book that I didn’t hear anyone leaving the room or the bell; now I can get really invested in some fanfictions (if I have like five days for myself and nothing to do, it is like 3 books without a break) and I’m at a point where I don’t find (good) new stuff and read the same fanfic again and again (I know exactly what will happen and still love it), sometimes I don’t read it for like a few weeks or month and then like 5 times back to back. I absolutely love Doctor Who (but I’m not excessively obsessive or so and don’t know that many facts just some), just can ramble for a few minutes (okay, everyone who would listen speaks German and my main input for Doctor Who is English, so hard to translate that and stuff). Well back to books: I love them; even though I can’t properly focus much these day, I love them, I need them: but why? I hate that when book covers changes or the side of the book like it’s: publisher, name of book, author and the next book is like name of the book, publisher, author and all is mixed up or the symbol of the publisher is slightly different: why? Can’t it be consistent? Why??.

Routines, rituals and stuff. Yeah, I have for example this one street (they repaired the street but there is a small crack now), I have to cross it on the side that is where the street crosses another and then the last 3 steps have to be on the other side and the fourth is stepping on the sidewalk (I really can’t do it any other way and I hate this one car that always blocks the crack a bit – it shouldn’t be standing there ‘cause it’s almost directly in the crossing lol) when I still was going to school, my way home was very specific and one time there was a building/construction site (just some repairs or work on the pipe lines in the ground) and the first time I saw this I was stressed after a long day of school and almost lost it right there and then, because I couldn’t walk my normal way (and yes, at home I cried at bit); for the next few weeks my way back home was hell. I have some specific routines for the bathroom and showering (though most people have that, right?). I have to pack my things and then my stuff like keys and such in the same way every time. When I need a walk I have like two (or three) routes I can take and I have to do them and almost can’t change them after I started (I can though it really throws me off and I don’t feel really well after that). One time – cause Covid-19 and stuff – you need to use a shopping cart where I live in order to enter the supermarket (so you keep more distance) – so, I went to the market by foot and had everything planned, shortly before I am at the store I realise I don’t have a “chip” (thingy you need to use the shopping cart; don’t know if you know what I mean) and I lost it – my plans and routine how I go shopping to that market (if by foot) was ruined – went back home and cried and raged like for an hour (went later again, cause I really needed stuff and I couldn’t leave that thing open, that also feels… not good – had to finish the walking “round”: to the store, store, back home)

One thing I mentioned before: sensory stuff; yeah, not a fan of “loud” noises (it isn’t always the loudness but more the number of noises). Water in my face (nope, hate it, never under the shower and like a sponge or so is horror (like everywhere on my body), just clean water is okay (but please, I can’t have had soap like right before on my hands)), lights is a day to day thing (though if I’m tired / close to what I think is sensory overload, either the room I’m in gets like darker or lights up so much it’s not tolerable anymore (then I know, I really, really have to leave the room and not see or hear anybody anything anymore)), and food, yeah (everything has its place on my plate and please don’t touch), I’m a really “picky” eater and I absolutely despise like cooked or baked fruits (some vegetables too) (they feel soo weird in my mouth… and taste bad… but the texture alone is… really, really bad) (if I wait a bit more, I could think of more but you get the gist I think)

One thing that throws me off: Since I’m 14 years old, I do some stuff with youth groups like mostly work in the church as a volunteer (like in the (school)holidays going a vacation with a group and such things) – I needed like three years (I was and still am seen as shy, mostly) to really “lead” a group (I really am good at imitating the others that can lead a group, I think) and now after I finished school and am doing a “Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ)” (voluntary social year) (basically I “work” for a year in a social job (sorry, no idea how to explain it in English) and get not much money (that’s the volunteering-part, but ‘cause I work full-time (38.5 hours a week on paper), I get a bit of money)) – and now I applied for studying for working in a social job – can’t really explain it but important is that I would/will have to work with people and stuff, like my job is to create/plan activities for people (like for example, a meeting every week for old people, free-time activities for teenagers or so). On one level I somehow like that working with people (as long as I know what I do, I had time to plan and everything happens more or less as I imagined/planned), on another level I absolutely… well not hate it… but it is really taxing for me and sometimes I really question myself but then other people say, do it, you’re good at it – and I’m like: yeah? I sometimes feel terrible and have no idea what’s going but okay, good that you don’t see that?! Am I not totally awkward and what? Still, have no clue what I would do instead of that lol (sorry, explained that whole thing real bad; just ask, if something is unclear)

So, two options: either I fake everything I wrote before that last thing and how would that work? Or I’m really good at faking that last thing and how? I have no idea and yeah, I had to write that – can both work? Like, it’s not like that I’m always (really) comfortable doing that social stuff but on the other hand, a bit adrenaline and anxiety makes the life more fun or something like that (and it’s not like, yeay, one time a certain situation managed and the next time I can navigate that somewhat same situation, nope, it’s like nothing ever happened before and that’s… annoying?)

Sorry again to bother you. Thanks for reading

21.08.2020

PS. I will probably think of something new every few hours but that’s enough for now I think lol – sorry

PPS. And sorry for my bad English and explaining… language is hard (not like I could write it better in my native language lol)

_______________________________________________________________

First, I will never, ever, ever judge someone based on how good their English is, whether English is their first language or not. People communicate the best they can, and that’s all that counts, and it does not matter if it’s “perfect”.

So I can’t address every detail you brought up, because this was a LOT! I did read all of it though, and the general impression I get is that you’re right, you probably have ADHD, and possibly autism as well, though I am not a doctor and I can’t diagnose you.

You asked a few times if you could be “faking” it, and the answer to that I can say for certain: No, you are not faking. What you told me here are your life experiences. I just read a story of “How life is like” for you, and it was not fiction, this is your real perspective about how your brain sees the world. This is not fake. This is who you are, and I felt what you wrote was very open and honest, the exact opposite of fake.

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Based on your experiences that you shared, I’d say it’s more than likely you have ADHD. You talk often about trying to complete a task and losing your focus before it’s finished:

Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

This is all very suggestive of ADHD. You also had some symptoms that could be autism, but it seems like the ADHD is more prominent for you and is affecting you more (keep in mind, I’m only a stranger on the internet, I could be totally wrong).

I’m really happy that you were able to share these thoughts with your grandmother, and that she was open to listening to you about them, even if she didn’t have all the facts.

I know you said it would be a long wait, and very difficult, to get an appointment with a professional. But I do really think you should be tested for ADHD. Maybe your grandmother can help you talk to your mum about it, or maybe your grandmother can make all those phone calls for you (because believe me, I know how difficult it is to make phone calls, they are just as hard for me). Even if you have to wait a year, it would be worth it to know- and also, because in the case of ADHD, there is medication which can help you. So it would be really worth it for you to get that, even if you have to wait a long time.

You’re obviously a very detail-oriented, thoughtful person, and I know that you’ve studied this subject inside and out. You’re not faking, you’re not making it up. These are your experiences, and they are the truth, and you deserve to be tested if you want to be.

#actually autistic #actuallyautistic #ADHD #submission

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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How much effort does the mass immersion approach require?

(one of my many lol) final thoughts on the mass immersion method:

*information on the mass immersion method can be found at massimmersionapproach.com and on various language study youtuber’s videos.

so, contrary to what it looks like from an outsider’s perspective, it appears to be plenty of hard work and study. from an outside glance, it looks a bit ridiculous, in the sense that the method looks like “just watch/read target language content and you will magically learn it over time like a child!”

that is not the actual method.

the actual method, (to my understanding) boils down to:

Immerse often. Start on day 1. Immerse all in the target language (no language-you-already-comprehend subtitles or anything as a crutch). Immerse in anything you can manage to - shows, radio, podcasts, reading if you can bear it, etc. Look up new words every few to several minutes, when desired.

**Use mnemonics, repetition, SRS flashcards/review methods, or whatever you want to learn the kana (and romaji pronunciations) if studying Japanese. Or use these methods to at least get somewhat familiar with the radicals, if studying Chinese. (My personal additional suggestion: if studying chinese, use whatever methods to read through, listen, and become somewhat familiar with the pinyin system, tones, and radicals. You do not need to have these memorized, as immersion activities and vocab study will keep reinforcing these things, so just get a quick overview of what these things are.) Do this in the first few weeks/first month.

**Use mnemonics, SRS flashcards/review methods, and possibly a reference book, to learn the 1000 most common characters if the language is Chinese or Japanese. Do this in the first few months, to first several months.

LEARN the first 1000 most common words in a language. Do this in the first few months, to first several months. (My understanding is mia suggests doing this after the 1000 characters.)

READ through a grammar guide, early on. Do this in the first few to first several months. (mia suggests doing this while learning the 1000 most common words, if desired).

Once done with the two steps above, switch to learning more words are you run into them with sentence mining. Preferably, sentences where there is only one new concept or word you’re learning in the sentences. Preferably, make SRS flashcards for those sentences you’re studying.

While doing the step above, start using your immersion activities as the basis for your sentence mining. The words you have are looking up in immersion activities will be a source of your sentence mining. If desired, you can also look up word-frequency lists to get ideas for what to add to your sentence mining. If desired, you can utilize pre-made sentence mining decks like 10k core Anki deck for Japanese (although mia highly encourages making your own decks). My personal suggestions: Clozemaster app for sentence mining, using example sentences from Pleco as your sentences (when looking up new words in pleco), sentence examples from Baidu Translate app or Tatoeba, sentences from shows/novels you’re consuming.

At any point, but definitely if you have learned 3,000ish words, start immersion using long texts - articles, novels, stories, etc. (In comparison to only using target-language-subtitles as your reading immersion.) Read regularly, read a lot. Look up new words every once in a while. Continue sentence mining as desired, as long as its helping you.

** = steps which are specific to certain languages. Some languages will require similar steps to those. Other languages will not need anything like that done.

There it is, the method. So, is it as easy as “immersing and magically learning a language effortlessly”? NO. NO IT SURE ISN’T.

Let’s go over how it’s definitely got its share of difficulty. Even though it’s not a standard textbook and structured course approach, that doesn’t mean it’s any easier. It still is going to take hard work, dedication, consistency, and effort.

I would guess, the main reason this method looks “easy” from an outsider’s perspective - is because it tries to focus on primarily engaging the learner’s interests, and in building up comprehension skills as quickly as possible (so the learner can enjoy engaging in their interests). The immersion means a learner is regularly engaging in content in the language they specifically care about and want to understand - compared to standard textbook study that may include various topics some learners care nothing about. The immersion focus also means learners study how to comprehend more than they study how to produce the language themselves in a way with minimal-errors. So learners are more quickly rewarded with being able to listen to speakers, watch shows, read. Learners also will ultimately be able to communicate, although (and this is only my guess) their communication may have more errors earlier on. Communication is possible even with imperfect production. So a learner, once producing, can comprehend well enough to at least recognize their errors and comprehend when others tell them of errors they’re making. At this point, I am guessing, is when studying of more accurate production happens and errors are worked on. For learners who simply wish to communicate for enjoyment and engagement with others, this is fine and much quicker than many traditional classroom based courses.

The downside being, traditional textbook/classroom study is going to more specifically be helping students learn what they need to pass tests of fluency level (such as job/school required exams, JLPT, HSK, CEFR, etc). Mass Immersion Approach learners may not be developing those same ‘perfecting production’ skills of certain levels, at the same time as traditional textbook/classroom learners. Since traditional classroom/textbook learners are studying in the same order as often widely used tests, they’ll be prepared according to those test levels to do the ‘expected things’ each test level requires. Whereas a mass immersion approach learner, may end up with some gaps that the traditional course would have covered, and so the mia learner will have to fill in those gaps later if planning to take a test. This is probably an issue that stems from mia learners getting to immerse in content they desire which will be specialized to THEM, versus traditional textbook/classroom learners being forced to study ALL topics considered relevant by commonly used tests of language proficiency level. Now... many mass immersion approach learners claim, that after a certain amount of time, their grammar/word use is MORE NATURAL/correct then many people who studied traditionally from a textbook/classroom. Perhaps they are right, and they do ‘naturally’ pick this up over time. But I would still guess there are differences in WHEN mia learners versus traditional learners can utilize certain words/structures to a sufficient level to pass exams they need to pass to get jobs/get into schools etc. These differences could matter, depending on the specific needs of the learner. I would imagine that if an mia learner say, needed to pass HSK 5 in a year for a job - they could use their mia approach, and also HSK 5 prep-materials as desired to help them fill in gaps/practice points they MUST do correctly within a year on that test.

In summary - the mass immersion approach appears easy at a glance, not because it is easy, but because it has the learner always engaging in specialized content they ENJOY and always USING what they’re learning (either for comprehension, or eventually for producing with the goal of communication over perfection). Encouraging a learner’s passion to keep studying, will make them feel motivated and make them feel the subject is not unbearable. While still difficult, it is often going to be enjoyable at least.

So, how does the mass immersion approach require effort? Why is it difficult? Well, it’s not exactly “learning how children do” and it’s also not easy just because some of it is a little bit LIKE “learning how children do.” The learning like children angle, refers to how the learner should be picking up a lot of new words/grammar concepts in the context of real use of the language - real dialogues in shows/books, real writing instead of textbook examples, sentences mined from that content, and mass amounts of exposure so learners have a LOT of context to help them comprehend all these words/grammar concepts. In mia approach, learners are not learning from textbook examples that may or may not be natural, and may be limited in how many are even contained in a given book. Learners are learning from massive amounts of input, massive amounts of examples they’ll see and hear. In this way, yes, it is picking up a lot of things the way a child does.

But mia approach also involves learning these things much faster than a child would, by doing specific activities to maximize how to speed up the process. This part is why mass immersion approach is a lot more hard work than just “turn on shows and watch and you’ll magically learn.”

Lets go through the steps of the approach again, in regard to effort:

Immerse often - you are using none of a language you already understand to rely on. So no, watching anime with english subs doesn’t count. Immersing in totally target language content is exhausting! The less you comprehend, the more exhausting it is! So it is very difficult for beginners starting out on day 1, month 1, etc! Immersion also generally means the learners should be trying to comprehend whatever they can manage to comprehend, and that requires attention and focus for the duration of immersion. Which is also exhausting, and the MOST exhausting at the beginning stages. Does that sound easy? This is one of many reasons it is vital a learner picks immersion material they are interested in. Because they need to be paying attention to it, and enjoying it enough to keep immersing. They’ll fail the whole approach if they give up immersion because they can’t tolerate the ambiguity and focus required at the beginning stages! (As a personal note, this is likely why my personal study approach is not as similar to the mia approach as it could have been - I had low tolerance for ambiguity and the exhaustion of trying to comprehend anything as a beginner, so I only immersed once every couple weeks for short periods. Whereas a mia learner would need to be doing it every day, or every other day!) Try to immerse in target language only content, in any language you don’t know yet or have just begun studying. Tell me it’s easy... I really don’t think it is.

**Learning romaji/kana if studying Japanese, or pinyin/radicals if studying Chinese. This step is pretty much exactly the same as a traditional textbook/classroom approach. It’s the same amount of effort. So mia learners still have to put in that initial effort, that includes reading and listening to an explanation of these things, repetition (either drilling or SRS). It may even be more effort for mia learners, if they had no textbook or resources suggested to them - then this step is also when they have to look up those things on their own, and find ones they like, to study these things from.

**Learning the 1000 most common characters. WOW IS THIS ONE AN INTENSE AMOUNT OF EFFORT! This is a step that many traditional textbook/course methods stretch out over months or YEARS, and usually teach alongside vocabulary and grammar so learners can integrate the characters into things they already know and use the characters they’re learning right away. mia learners do not get the luxury of having these characters integrated into a web of thing they already know. mia learners have their immersion, so they at least get regular exposure to start SEEING the characters they’re learning. But the sheer effort it takes to grind through learning 1000 characters is immense. It takes a lot of people years. Even with diligent learners, it takes several months. With the most dedicated learners, with the most intense amounts of time they can spare, it takes them a few months. This step is where, I imagine a lot of learners attempting the mass immersion approach will just give up. So I guess, if you’re studying a language without this particular hurdle, congratulations you may have an easier time getting yourself to keep studying consistently using the mass immersion approach! (In my own personal studies, I could not bear to do this with japanese or chinese - so I have always delved into learning maybe 200-500 characters this way, then immediately moving on to learning common vocabulary at the same time. I personally prefer to have a web of connected information in my head, so knowing vocabulary that uses characters, helps me learn characters better than studying characters in isolation. I just learn my first 500ish characters first so that I have a rough idea in my head of some really common characters, so I’m used to seeing the radicals in different ways, and so I’m used to making mnemonics. I have NEVER been able to get myself to purposely work through the 1000 most common characters before studying other things too. My method has its own benefits and drawbacks. The biggest benefit for me was it allowed me to keep studying consistently instead of giving up, since giving up would have been the worst thing. The biggest drawback - it took me 10 months to learn around 1000 characters. Whereas dedicated mia learners may have achieved that in 3-6 months). So, yeah, this step is a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF EFFORT. Arguably a lot more frontloaded work than traditional textbook/classroom learners. The benefit of doing this is that, later down the road, mia learners will comprehend reading more easily with less effort, and have less of a struggle learning new words compared to traditional learners. And a lot of this just has to do with when the different approaches learn this bulk of characters. A mia learner will either give up at this stage (so then they wouldn’t improve in the language reading-wise to any degree), or they’ll get through it and then have the tools learned to be able to keep improving their reading skills and vocabulary indefinitely without too much struggle. In comparison, a traditional learner may find limited gains in reading ability with each course they work through - maybe first they can read short informational signs, then menus and shopping tags, then short emails and texts, then news articles, then simple stories, etc. But they will also find if they quit, they may struggle to be able to improve their reading level because they have a limited base of characters they know, so they struggle to learn more words/characters unless they purposely pick up active studying again. This would be most noticable if they took classes that start off with pinyin only, or take courses that only end up teaching say 800 characters after 2 semesters, etc. If this learner quits too early, having less characters under their belt may require more effort for them in the future. mia learners put in most of this effort upfront, in the first several months. It is... a slog.

Learn the first 1000 most common words. First off, it will pay off immensely in improving your comprehension. This is a great thing to do no matter what language you’re learning, and no matter how you do it (whether you study like a maniac and learn them in 2 weeks or a month, or whether you take your time and learn them in a year). Now, if you’re an mia learner - it is a slog. In the mass immersion approach you are trying to learn them relatively quickly so that they’ll improve your comprehension for immersion. Whereas in a traditional learning approach you’re probably just learning them as they pop up slowly over time in your textbook/course over a year. An mia learner will benefit more in their other study activities, if they prioritize learning these 1000 words at a relatively quick pace. This is why mia learners are probably encouraged to use SRS flashcards for study, because its fast and efficient. They’re also encouraged to use mnemonics and associate the words with context to help the new vocabulary more easily stick in their memory. Alternatively, one could probably also learn these words through rote memorization, golden lists, exposure (probably the slowest way?). Now, learning new words is hard. We know its hard. There’s choices - mnemonics and memory tricks are faster, but require a learner to figure out how to do them and then dedicate time to doing them for each new word (versus traditional learners that in a class might skate by memorizing for tests by just looking at a word list then forgetting). SRS flashcards mean purposely dedicating study time to review, on a regular basis (also making the cards yourself if you can’t find/don’t like any pre-made resources). Some learners prefer physical flashcards and spaced repetition review of them - that means making the cards yourself. And, if you hate flashcards as ardently as I do, it means hell. (My personal study method involved picking up some of 1000 most common words from - reading word lists and reviewing them on occassion, since I think that’s less draining then flashcards; reading through some pages of high frequency dictionaries; reading the vocab lists in my textbooks and character reference books; looking up common words during immersion; and finally going through an SRS flashcard deck of the 1000 most common words to fill in the gaps and also to REVIEW in an efficient way so that they’d stick in my long term memory. I do think SRS review is a very efficient way to remember things long term, and I do recommend it if you’re trying to be efficient. If you are like me though, and hate flashcards - its up to you how much you want to use other approaches as an alternative or in addition). Learning these words is again, putting the bulk of the effort required on the beginner stage learner. A traditional learner may learn these words over a year, or years. A mia learner will probably want to learn these within the first year, hopefully within the first several months. Like the previous point about characters - there’s benefits and drawbacks to each approach. An mia learner is going to have more to study upfront, regularly, so they might want to give up from the workload. But the payoff is that the words they study will pop up regularly in their immersion, and they’ll be rewarded with greater comprehension for each word they study. This reward will happen a lot faster than for a less-intense paced traditional study plan. So more effort, more reward. The traditional learner, if their course isn’t too intensely-paced, will probably learn these words over a greater length of time - and so won’t get to read them or listen to them and comprehend as fast. But they’ll be less likely to give up because of intense effort required and burnout. In contrast, a traditional learner may be more apt to give up because its taking them longer to get to the level of comprehension they want.

Read through a grammar guide early on. This is easier than traditional learning, in that an mia learner doesn’t have to do ANY grammar exercises or read to the point of memorizing/internalizing any grammar points. It is harder... because a learner needs to read over ALL of the main grammar points, in a matter of weeks or months. Many traditional learning courses will cover that material over a period of years, spending a week on one or a few points at a time. Reading through a grammar guide requires an mia learner to read one or a few points a day, and to read MANY grammar points in the few weeks-months that the learner spends going through the guide. While completing exercises is not required of mia learners, instead they are required to read through material in a short amount of time that is complex and requires attention and focus. Material that traditional learners are exposed to much slower and with more support as they get a plethora of examples on how it works and in depth details on the topic if they want/need it. Traditional learners also often get to skip reading a formal grammar guide at all, if they have teachers who through example teach them, or if they have textbooks that have a plethora of examples if they don’t want to read ‘why’ to do things in a formal way. An mia learner must read through this grammar guide knowing they’re not going to have any of it memorized, knowing its all basically a ‘summary overview’ for them. Knowing they’re going to be re-looking these points up in the coming months as they keep seeing them in context of immersion and struggling to comprehend them because they look familiar but the learner can’t remember the specifics of the grammar point. Also just... have you ever read technically informational texts like a grammar guide? They’re draining to read through. It takes effort and dedication to start reading a grammar guide (when you aren’t motivated by needing to pass a test in class), and consistency to complete it. (My personal studying experience: YES, YES, YES, I recommend doing this. It’s a slog but if you’re dedicated it will take 1 week to 1 month tops, and can be done alongside any other study activities you’re doing. I can’t emphasize enough how immensely reading a grammar guide in the first few months helped my own progress down the road for any language I’ve ever studied. It helps so much, because after you read through one, everything you run into that is ‘confusing’ you already have a summary in your mind for to build connections and more understanding to. And you can start noticing all grammar points at work immediately, and recognize their examples and proper use. Compared to a traditional study method, where you may only be aware of a few grammar points even Existing when you’re a beginner. YES, I highly encourage you no matter how you are studying a language, to do this sometime in the first year. You don’t have to memorize anything, just read through a grammar guide and try to treat it like a curious interest-read you’re doing. Try to understand the explanations you can, and try to just get some exposure to those explanations that don’t click yet then move on. It will pay off so much later on.)

Sentence mining. In my opinion, this is almost like making your own note-version of your own textbook. Writing your own study book is a lot of effort! Making all the sentence mining flashcards it will require as you keep studying and improving will eventually add up, and take a lot of time and effort to make. Then, as usual, also means dedication to regularly studying and reviewing. Studying and reviewing material is something you’re doing regardless of if it’s the mass immersion approach, or a traditional textbook/course approach. The big difference again, is mainly that mia learners are learning based on their specific interests/needs based on what they’re immersing with, and mia learners are making their own study materials instead of relying on a pre-made textbook. Making your own sentence mining materials is a huge undertaking over a long span of time, it’s not ‘easy’ (unless you are the very opposite of me, and absolutely LOVE flashcards and think they’re the funnest thing in existence - in which case, yay, the mass immersion approach is at least 50% your dream study method!). As someone who does hate flashcards, this sounds so horrible! Although the method itself makes a ton of sense - its studying vocabulary and grammar in the context of examples. So, if you learn better from examples instead of explanations, this method is very well suited to you. And if you need explanations - you just go find that grammar guide again and reread a section on the topic you want further explanation for. Alternatively, a traditional learner’s equivalent studies may be: continuing to work through a grammar book with examples, reading graded readers in progressing difficulty so they’re also basically exposed to sentences that introduce new vocab/grammar over time based on their level, eventually branching out into reading/watching native material at or just above their comprehension level - and possibly writing some sentences down for study or flashcards, on occassion. Sentence mining, in essence, is not easy unless you think flashcards and all the efforts that go into making your own study material, are so fun and delightful you happen to not notice the effort you have to put in.

Immersion using long texts (also just immersion, generally, as your comprehension increases). This is learning by doing. See the very first thing I wrote in this list, about immersion the first time - immersion where you are aiming to comprehend without anything to rely on but your target language takes attention, focus, and effort. It will only get easier over time, if you keep practicing consistently. It only gets easier by doing it more. Every other step in the mass immersion approach, just seems to be ways of helping make THIS step more bearable and easier. The alternative would have been... to only do this step, immersion. Can you imagine doing that? Just consuming native content and looking up new words either intensively (every single time you ran into a new one), or occasionally (every few minutes)? Some people in this world must have learned a language this way. It certainly does not sound easy. Even harder... would be to truly learn it like a child, where you would do only the immersion step and barely look things up until you comprehend enough to understand a monolingual dictionary. That would be a mega-slog. Which pretty clearly shows why the mass immersion approach is not exactly the same as “learning language exactly how a child does.” The mass immersion approach relies on immersion to learn from context, but it also includes several other study activities to help a learner build a basis of vocabulary and grammar early on in that language (the character, grammar guide reading, and vocab grind in the first several months). Then activities for the learner to keep studying grammar and vocabulary based on their interests and what they’re immersing in, by doing sentence mining - which is like textbook study with examples catered to the specific learner. Only after that, once a learner should be comprehending at least the GIST of material, is the learner expected to be learning a big chunk of things from context of the immersion material - and even then, everything made into sentence mining sentences is getting the added support of srs flashcards that can be regularly reviewed to help speed up learning. Immersion, once a learner can comprehend the basic gist of things, is the act of practicing a skill to improve. Practicing, as with anything you aren’t good at, is difficult until it gets easier. A mia learner may find it less draining at this stage, because they have so many tools that allowed basic comprehension to be managable - so their attention and effort it hopefully only being used on a few new confusing parts of material per immersion content. Whereas a traditional learner, especially if they weren’t doing any listening/reading immersion throughout, is going to have to suddenly start doing this when they’re ready to ‘consume target language content.’ The traditional learner is going to find it brutal, because they haven’t been practicing this skill from day 1. So this... may be why it seems like sometimes mia learners seem to ‘learn’ faster. I can’t say for sure if they lag in other areas of learning a language - but in the area of basic comprehension of the gist of content, to the point where consuming immersion content is bearable, they win. Every study activity they do helps to make this task easier for them as quickly as possible. A traditional learner, depending on their own study methods and how their class/textbook taught, may not have developed these skills and may not have had as many study activities that specifically focused on building THESE skills. Being able to basically comprehend, is when people can start to do things with the language - watch, listen, read, and communicate (comprehensibly, if not perfectly). Maybe an mia learner, depending on how they studied, cannot do buisness emails or talk about college majors in chinese - but maybe an mia learner CAN read an article in chinese ABOUT business emails, about college majors, and quickly look up the unknown words that involved the details they don’t understand. Maybe they’d still have to practice to learn to do such things. But maybe the mia learner’s goal was being able to discuss video games instead, so they know a whole bunch of topics specifically in their area of interest (because of the sentence mining). Whereas the traditional learner maybe never practiced reading novels so is still slogging through, where a different learner practiced that from day 1 and is much better at doing it. In the end... at this level of language proficiency, I think either learner who used any study methods, at this point will have difficulty/ease depending on what practice they personally did and what vocab/grammar they personally studied up to this point. And also at this point, practice for anyone will generally be showing where their knowledge lags and needs to be improved. So... this part is hard, no matter how you studied a language. And this part is years, maybe your entire life.

Does the mass immersion approach take effort? Yes.

It is one of probably a plethora of independent study approaches that will work for learning a language. (Probably the most important thing, I think, is just whatever methods keep you studying consistently, since consistency over time is what will ensure improvement eventually no matter what else you’re doing.) The mass immersion approach seems to be very ‘front-loaded.’ As in, the bulk of the ‘hard work’ is in the first several months to first year.

It seems very make-or-break. Learners are expected to study and review a broad overview of the language within the first year (most common words, overview of all grammar, overview of writing system), and also expected to practice comprehending target language material from day 1 (which for any learner, is a process that starts out difficult and only gets easier with lots of practice, and as you learn the language). So learners will either give up during that initial year of studying tons of words, *characters, grammar points, while also constantly regularly immersing and attempting to practice comprehending what they can while their comprehension is at it’s absolute lowest beginner-levels. When trying to comprehend anything in immersion content is likely to be the most draining, intensive, that it is ever going to be.

Then, if the learners get past that initial front-load of constantly studying and immersing, things ease up a little. They’ve made themselves go through all the ‘hardest’ parts of studying. Comprehension of immersion material becomes more bearable, now their study material will largely be words/sentences/grammar they choose to pick based on their own goals (so study material is creative and self directed). All new words/grammar will be surrounded by a lot of context the learner already understands. Any new grammar that a learner runs into, will be something a learner already has at least some other grammar basis to compare it to and build it from. The immersion portion of study will be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding. The new word/concept initial study will be relatively rewarding too - it will be based on content the learner cares about, and will be surrounded by context the learner understands and so easily can digest. The only real ‘slog’ will be reviewing new concepts/words every so often (like srs flashcards). Which is not too hard of a task, it’s just flashcards to jog your memory until you don’t need them. And beyond the structured sentence mining, any immersion will now be word/concept study review for you for any material you can comprehend. And you will eventually be able to learn some new words only from context in the immersion content and repeated exposure, so not everything will require any structured study at all. At the point when that becomes a relatively normal occurrence, SRS flashcards won’t even be necessary - they will just be an option to use if you want that particularly efficient review method.

Now, this second part - any language learner will eventually get to this part. I and the level of difficulty at this part I think will probably be mostly the same. Any learner is going to have to get through the initial hurdle of understanding-almost-nothing and struggling to comprehend anything. mia learners go through it throughout those first few months. Traditional learners either will go through it from day 1 (if they start immersion immediately) until whenever their textbooks/courses give them the basis needed to reach the immersion-while-comprehending-the-gist stage (or until they self-study to learn those things early). Traditional learners who wait to do this until after all their courses/textbooks, will hit that initial difficulty - and may find it a bit more bearable since they likely will have way more stuff they comprehend than an mia learner did on day 1. And then that difficulty will soon wane until they’re also at immersion-while-comprehending-the-gist stage.

Mass immersion approach seems like a good study method to consider looking into if you are a self-study learner, or if you’re learning from a textbook/course and are considering some other study activities to add onto what you’re already doing. Mass immersion approach seems geared on getting the learner to comprehend the basic gist of immersion content as quickly as possible, so that they can learn from the context within immersion material as quickly as possible. That means a lot of intense study in the beginning. That means that although there isn’t a lot of focus on doing exercises. But there’s still a lot of focus on studying/reviewing basic common vocabulary, getting an overview of all the grammar, and on ‘practicing’ the language in other ways such as attempting to comprehend immersion material every day from the very start.

#review #study method #mia #mass immersion approach

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byrachel · 4 years

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I really want to start writing to but english isnt my first language and i see you said it wasnt your first to do you have any tips?

Wow you’re coming to me for advice??? 👁👁

I don’t know if these actually help but here are some things I did when I first started out :)

Well especially the first year I just started with reading a lot more in English. It can be actual published books, articles, fan fiction even watching YouTube videos and Netflix with English subtitles. Anything (with well used grammar of course) you can find and find interesting read it to improve your English.

Write down words you don’t know and look them up so you can expand your vocabulary. Even after 4 years of writing in English I noticed how many words I still don’t know when I’m reading. Learning never stops.

And then you start with short stories about stuff you wanna write about. I found it really easy to write from the first person perspective when I started because it was easier for me to put myself in the characters shoes. (But of course this is not the same for everyone).

When I don’t know exactly how to word things I just write it down in Dutch (my native language) and then translate it. This doesn’t always goes smoothly especially when you start writing at first because certain phrases aren’t the same in English as in your native language (at least for me). Sometimes Dutch has words English doesn’t even have and then I’m like “what now 👁👄👁”.

DONT be afraid to make mistakes! Maybe you can find someone who can read your work and correct it for you.

Read your old works from time to time to see your progress. I even rewrite my old works sometimes and it’s so satisfying to see how much I’ve grown in my ability to write.

There are a lot of tumblr blogs who have much better tips! I can’t think of them right now, but if you want you can send me a message and I’ll send you links to all the blogs I follow :)

Thesaurus.com is also a good site to find synonyms when you use certain words too often.

I hope this helps! ❤️

#thaliawritesasks

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 4 years

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Akudama 2

I think one or two of the reviews I read of this anime picked up the names of each episode are based on movies and it seems they’re right. Namely, episode 1 is Se7en while episode 2 is Reservoir Dogs...so they’re crime movies specifically.

Kanto, Hikari etc. are the names of certain shinkansen.

Playing with your own blood in front of a no violence sign and smoking in front of a no smoking sign…LOL. So edgy and yet simultaneously so fun.

…*blinks* Welp, that OP was…an experience.

…hey, Funi are hypocrites…they gave HypMic a language warning, but not this???

Come to think of it, this anime is already exactly how I’d imagine the HypMic MTC episode to go…but with more cyberpunk, of course.

…why is “are you gay?” an insult…? I thought we were past this point years ago.

…what’s up with these puppets? The shark’s shirt says “fool” on it…

The rabbit and shark’s shirts keep changing every time they spin. When they talk about poverty/rich, the rabbit shirts says “poor” and the shark’s “rich” (or something of the sort). When the shark talks about Kansai burning to the ground, his shirt says “nervousness”.

Wow, Hiroshima vers. 2…Rabbit: peace/shark:war

Hoodlum’s just a sycophant…

…ooh, so if the girl and Hoodlum aren’t part of the plan…they could f*** s*** up?

LOL, plasma shield.

“Lil’ stick”? That’s a jitte! A non-bladed weapon which is still plenty nasty by itself!

Ken the 390??? I knew UraShimaSakataSen were on this ED and I knew this was a rap ED because I heard it in AMQ before I was able to finish this ep, IIRC, but I didn’t expect the guy from BATTLE BATTLE BATTLE....

Taiso 2

A-hah! I was right on the money! Tomoyo is an actress!

Oh, it’s senu. That’s an old-timey way of negating your verbs (it’s shinai now), hence “retires not”.

I think they’re hailing Minamino as the first winner in 45 years if I understood the newspaper article on the screen right…?

Does this mean Minamino will join Leo and Aragaki…? The OP shows him with them.

The AnimeLab translation of the title is “Duelling Samurai”, but the translation on the hardsubs is “Rock-Bottom Samurai”. The word donzoko indicates the latter is correct.

I think Leo said “Rei-chan”, not “Rachel”. It’s a bit hard to hear because he’s eating though…

I think there’s only one line where he doesn’t talk like a ninja in his intro to Ayu and that’s the line where he uses keigo instead.

I think the card says “acupuncturist Kawa????” (can’t read the last character due to Britney’s thumb), but…welp, Britney’s kinda disturbing in their (not sure what pronoun to use) own way. There also appears to be an address in Ikebukuro on the card.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo learnt how to speak Japanese fluently from ninja movies – that’s a pretty common anime trope, like in Tada-kun’s Rainbow Samurai case. “Always make your heart rainbow!” and all that jazz.

…so that’s what the card said - Kawamoto Orthopedic Clinic.

“My shoulder would…”

Seriously, this anime is just an excuse to look at Aragaki in different outfits (and also shirtless) and I love it, LOL. (I’m such a simpleton.)

Ah…sometimes, people ask me about the days when I used to learn piano and I bring up the fact there is such a thing as “overpractice”. I thought gymnasts would know when they hit their limits in that regard, but…I guess they don’t because they’re so consumed in their passion, or they can’t see what they’re doing to themselves (because it occurs under the skin and doesn’t ache)…?

Minamino is basically Yurio…LOL.

That’s a cute, laidback ED. It’s called Yume? (yes, with the “?”) and it’s by Hatena, hence Leo’s shirt saying “Hatena”.

Welp, I don’t think anything supernatural will happen anymore, but…it’s still a fun anime. They toned down BB too, which should please a huge number of reviewers who found him obnoxious.

Yashahime 3

Hitokon? Short for “hito control” (hito = person)? Update: It seems the name was also kanji for “flying head root”.

“…puts one to sleep.”

“…from a place like that?”

Can a Dream Butterfly steal memories?

Moriarty 2

“Colum” (sic).

These CGI horses are gonna bug me, aren’t they…?

There is this sentiment that people need to be “saved” from poverty, especially when it comes down to African and Asian people living in slums (these days). I get the same feeling from this.

Maou-jou 3

Free advertising for Maou-jou’s home magazine! LOL!

I was wondering why those things were called “Show the Mary”…remember Mezo Shouji from Boku no Hero Academia? Same pun (the walls have ears and the doors have eyes, or something of the sort).

LOL, instead of yokudekimashita (literally, “you did good”) it’s makura ni narimashita (“you made [the book] into a pillow”). The common sentence ending for verbs means it’s funnier in Japanese, I think.

…argh! I can’t read all of Alazif’s info because of the hardsubs! Umm…”Current worry: Princess” and “Worry of the past hundred years: Destroying the demon clan” is in the box next to the logo. “Powerful magic techniques are recorded inside this book, so the demons feared it and sealed it away as a ‘forbidden grimoire’.”/”Currently, under the control of the princess, they’ve been bestowing magic and magic techniques to her, so they haven’t been used for the purpose they were made for and they’re wishing the princess would use them for not-so-stupid things” (I don’t know what pronoun to give Alazif, so I gave them 3rd person “them)…ah, someone translated the stuff for me! (That saves me a lot of time.) So Alazif is a “he”, huh?

OHKO to Demon Cleric, LOL.

SAN…? Oh, “sanity”?

Oh, Demon Cleric’s ears are black goat ears. No wonder you can’t see ‘em.

This sword is like Ex from Princess, ‘Tis Time for Torture!

HypMic 4

From here until episode 6-ish, I’ll be paying extra attention to characters’ role language. I normally do that, but I picked this anime for an assignment because I knew it had a lot of examples…yes, you heard me right. An assignment! I should be happy, but I’m wondering if my taste is going to get roasted by the normies or if I’ve gone too far with my unabashed love…

I was discussing with some of my peeps in a Discord server and…is it possible MTR will get an ED from here on out if you divide the episodes up for an almost equal amount for each division? We’ll have to wait and see.

…Oof. I’m sort of scared for this episode. It’s gonna have swearing galore…and yup, there it is, right out the gate.

Wait, why not translate wakagashira? It just means “young head” or “2nd in command”.

…well, at least they got some variation in their swearing this time…?

Hmm, normally the translation is “rabbit cop” or something toned down like that. They dialled it up to “rabbity-ass cop”. (Yakuwarigo: Samatoki = na, on the whole = very, very slang – as a former naval officer, you would expect Riou to speak formally, but he speaks as casually as almost everyone else (yamero etc.))

I’ve never seen anyone refer to Samatoki as “Kashira”. *laser stares Rentei for guest VA roles*

(Yakuwarigo: Samatoki (?) = zo)

“…why don’t you ask the cops to deal with it?” – Uh, Samatoki? Jyuto is the cop. (Well, a cop.)

I still have no idea why they subtitle the laughing…

Wait, if there’s a casino…is Dice there?!

…yup, right on cue. I didn’t think Tom and co. would be there too.

Oh, LOL. HypMic is a tourist trap anime = see those buns Tom’s eating? They’re chuukaman (Chinese buns). Makes sense in Chinatown.

It took me several watches to realise who’d passed by, but it’s…MTC in formal clothes?! (You can see part of Jyuto’s face, just to confirm it.)

Why are they wearing glasses? Even Jyuto’s wearing different glasses to the usual, LOL.

I learnt how to do some of the casino stuff while trying to get a job as a gaming customer service assistant in a huge casino joint one time. In a sense, this brings me back to then. (Update: I mean, the sound of the roulette, the sight of the board, the chips and the like. That’s what takes me back.)

(Yakuwarigo: Dice slurs his words a lot, especially when yelling things along the lines of “Please lend me moneyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” This is also true in the game.)

Dice seems to have jumped straight to “Riou”, rather than “Riou-san”.

I wonder if anyone will ever elaborate on that incident where Dice and Riou met?

(Yakuwarigo: Samatoki speaks coarsely, but not outright swearing in the source language…for an example, he says kussotare when roped into being Jakurai’s “female counterpart” for the ARB Halloween event, but he doesn’t do anything of the sort here.)

Even Ramuda uses “san” with Samatoki, most likely to emulate how Samatoki calls himself “oresama” (but with lower formality).

Ramuda-chin? That’s new.

Yakuwarigo: Gentaro spoke normally, just with desu/masu. Maybe the “perchance” was to make it blend in with his -de aru?

Uh-oh…Ramuda’s favours always are things like “dress up for me” and “hang out with me”, if the game is any indication. (One of them happens to be how Ichiro was roped into being a sorta-Kirito for the ARB Halloween event.)

This CGI…it’s not the jankiest, but it is gonna bug me ever so slightly.

I’ve noticed a lot of people in the English-speaking fandom, when they watched the anime, took a shine to MTC (because they seem to embody the entire “refuge in audacity” thing they’ve picked up on…plus that one hamster lyric people got attached to). You can see them being all “cop/gangster husbands” here if that’s your gig – it’s kind of my gig, but to be real HypMic is not a scene where I ship dudes. I’m sorry, but I just like watching pretty boys kick butt.

What warranted the dramatic glasses drop…? (LOL anyway)

That whistle…LOL. It’s like “Look at my boy fight” and “Riou’s got some sweet fightin’ moves” rolled up in one.

For some reason, when I saw the sign for the Organised Crime department, I heard the Student Council theme from Boueibu play in my head…? (Remember that harpsichord theme?) *shrugs* I dunno why that happened.

Hmm…they crossed out the subtitles using Swedish letters instead of strikethrough, huh? Didn’t know that was a limitation.

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto = dazo)

“Wouldya look at that forlorn mug of his?” – Seeing a man taller than you (Riou is a good 190 or so cm, mind you, making him the tallest member of his division above Samatoki’s 180-something and Jyuto’s 170-something) making a sort of demented puppy-dog face…LOL.

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto elevated himself to kimasuyo…maybe to win back Riou’s favour?)

(Yakuwarigo: The translation elevated Samatoki’s “nanda” to “the f***”. “Nanda” is not that bad – it’s casual, but doesn’t imply swearing like “ittai” is supposed to mean “the hell”.)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto doesn’t finish when he says “ore wa hanashi ga”. That’s called an omission, plain as that may be.)

(Yakuwarigo: Taihendaze!...Maybe that’s a bit far to call it “we’re f**ked”…? It could just be “we’re doomed!” or “we’ve got trouble!”)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto uses desune. He’s the most feminine of the trio by virtue of being the smallest height-wise and most polite due to his job, but he seems to bounce between casual and polite a lot.)

…wow, even the rap lyrics have the F bomb…and this time, you can see the evidence.

Natsu no mushi = bugs in the summer. Not a perfect match, but it works. (Notably, things like Gentaro’s speech and rap lyrics don’t play by the same yakuwarigo rules because you can play characters within it – e.g. the evil doctor Jakurai sometimes plays. I’ve noticed most of the songs use casual or whatever rhymes, even for someone like Doppo who’s considered more polite than most.)

…Despite the swearing…that song slaps, man! That’s great.

MTC seems to have more tragedy on average than other divisions. This is because FP and BB are quite light-hearted and mostly family-friendly with hidden depths, but MTR mostly has stalker stories. Update: That’s when they’re focussing on MTR solo. FP’s currently could get pretty dark soon and a lot of the dark/tragic stuff is not actually going to make the anime because it’s in the drama tracks/manga.

My gosh, we got to see Nemu animated!

Okay, I’m not well-versed in yakuza slang but kumicho = boss, so Samatoki would have to answer to a kumicho.

(Yakuwarigo: Notably, when Riou bows, he doesn’t elevate his speech.)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto = desukane)

…and randomly, rock solo postcard memory away from the sunset. (LOL) (Also, I believe I befriended Zainou during my time on WordPress. This episode title really does mean things, in a certain sense.)

Ah, it did switch! It’s just…uh, gone to an MTC version of itself (and it has the same name, “Kizuna”). So that means we wait another 6 episodes for MTR. On the other hand…what will the final version be? A whole cast version? A different song? No song at all? *shrugs* Only the future can tell us these things. (Also, why is Jyuto so loud…? That’s why I’m not a bigger fan of him. Much like Ramuda’s minna genki?, his iconic quotes like “In the building!” are so loud and silly-sounding, you just can’t get them out of your head.)

The cityscape in the middle of the disc at the ED’s start seems to have changed. I would assume that’s a Yokohama skyline.

Keiichi Nakagawa is the voice of Rentei…I should stop burning myself on guest VA appearances, this guy’s a rookie. This Nouzenkazura VA (Kenji Hamada) though is voiced by the guy who does Otegine in Touken Ranbu and isn’t as much of a rookie as Rentei’s.

Notably, where BB do the “BB sign” (as it seems to be known), MTC do a finger gun. MTR have the wolf fang, but…what is FP’s, then? Update: It’s a peace sign to the side to make an F.

Today’s new music was “Red Zone (Don’t Test da Master)”, by KLOOZ and DJ WATARAI.

*cringes at the airhorn* *briefly presses fingers to forehead, as if going to massage temples, but then removes them* The airhorn reminds me of crazy sport fans. Crazy anime fans are more civil than them, which is one reason why I don’t follow sports on the regular.

Update: Oh! The pond owl cafe in episode 2! It means Ikebukuro!...Sort of. Fukurou rhymes with ‘bukuro and ike = pond.

Akudama 3

Hmm? Is it just me or is that T in the code the kanji for “bird” (tori)?

“It’s where I belong.” – I know my reason for pursuing Japanese is a purely selfish reason – so I can stay above others in the topics I think matter to me and pursue the endless natural high that comes from the thrill of translation (which may be all one reason or two, depending on how you look at it).

Oh, the bunny and shark again.

The bunny’s shirt said “life” at one point, I didn’t understand the shark’s though.

At one point, shark: Ka (from “Kansai”), bunny: ken (authority).

At the end, shark: heaven, bunny: hell. These broadcasts look like NHK broadcasts at the end.

Most of these words are katakana, making them look foreign.

Kansai 300, 25-1.

“Move-you-s**t!” – It…seems a bit out of character for Swindler to say the swear word there.

Taiso 3

That CGI…is not the greatest.

According to Moon Land, gymnastics operates on a deduction/addition system. You add points for difficulty, but deduct points for errors like how Minamino’s feet are apart.

*sees montage* - Those CGI scenes really take out the budget, huh…?

Gymnastics moves are named after their creators…kinda like scientific names and finders.

There was a lot of commentary in Moon Land so I’m not sure what the moves are called from memory (the dialogue always did that for me), but having the reactions speak for themselves…I think the anime team has enough faith the reactions will convey everything. They did, by the way.

You can see the bone at the base of Minamino’s neck, under the skin…it’s sort of scary.

The fact you couldn’t see Jotaro’s eyes for a shot or two…that kind of unnerved me and built tension.

Oh! The men in black appear after the credits!

#simulcast commentary #akudama drive #HypMic #Hypnosis Mic #Hypnosis Microphone #Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima #Taiso Samurai #hanyo no yashahime #Moriarty the Patriot #Yuukoku no Moriarty #maou-jou de oyasumi #Chesarka watches Taiso Samurai #Chesarka watches Yuukoku no Moriarty #Chesarka watches HypMic #Chesarka watches Akudama Drive #Chesarka watches Yashahime #Chesarka watches Maou-jou

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wilstudies · 5 years

Text

Get a grade 9 in a language GCSE!

Please note:

1. These tips are almost entirely applicable to any AQA language at GCSE. 2. Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE Level is anywhere from A2 to B1 (dependant on the tier and grade) on the CEFR scale, but, there is no official equivalent.

In November 2018, whilst in Year 10, my teacher saw that I was excelling in French, with my extensive knowledge of tenses and idioms. So, she proposed that I’d do the January mocks, alongside Year 11, despite not knowing more than half of the subject content. Then we’d see where I’d go from there.

I followed the AQA exam board, higher paper. Specification. You can find the Kerboodle textbook I used, here.

Here’s what I did:

Throughout the year, I was also studying the Year 10 content (Theme 1 - Identity and culture) in class.

In my own time, each month I’d cover one or two units, completing the more challenging activities on each page of the textbook. Luckily, each unit was only 4 double-page spreads long.

In January I completed my mocks. This was the first time I had ever sat in an exam hall, so it was really daunting to be doing it with a bunch of kids who were older than me, even though I knew I had enough knowledge. Overall, I got a secure grade 8, in my mocks, despite not knowing half of the course content.

I also did “pre-exam mocks”, two weeks before each exam. These consisted of specimen papers which are notoriously harder, so my results looked almost exactly the same as past papers, which was upsetting as I couldn’t see that I’d actually improved. But practice is practice!

MY ACTUAL GCSE RESULT:

With a lot of work. I managed to achieve a grade 9 (the top mark, higher than an A*), which was insane. I’m so, so proud of myself, and grateful for all of the teachers that supported me!!!

^Edit from 25/08/2019.

LISTENING

In my opinion, listening is based purely on practice and knowing the exam technique that works for you.

To practice:

frenchpod101 intermediate listening comprehension

Going through every specimen track and listening activity I could find - pausing it after each sentence, saying it once in French, then translating it into English. I’d do this in the shower, on the way to school, wherever.

Know your vocab!

My exam technique:

In the 5 minutes reading time: underline keywords and themes in the questions. This time goes very quickly, but I’d also try to jot down a few synonyms in the French section too.

Multiple choice questions: the process of elimination; key vocab; negative and positive tonality and opinion words - watch out for negative structures!

Completing the sentences: note down words said in French or translate each sentence into English in your head, then remember it when it comes to writing it down.

French section: fill each sentence with key French words that you hear. Don’t worry about accents, unless it helps you determine the word.

Remember each track plays twice.

READING

The January Mock: I didn’t know much of the course content, so I struggled with the translation. I also circled and placed a question mark near any words I didn’t know, as it was a mock and my teacher would be able to note down any translations for me. I think what boosted my grade, to a 9 for this paper, was knowledge of grammar.

T/F/NM questions are usually a gamble. Just look for explicit information and know your negative formations.

Texts change their minds often: look out for counter-arguments and opposing exclamations

Use the method of elimination for multiple choice: rule out if there’s no mention. Be wary that a text can mention an option, but say it wasn’t that.

Texts often refer to things mentioned prior.

If you know a certain type of texts are your kryptonite (it was the classical stories with dialogue, for me), then download as many of that genre as you can. Understand the way speech and dialogue works, and the structure, before you tackle the vocab.

Many say skim read and don’t read the whole thing, but I found it easier to translate big chunks in my head as I went along and lightly annotate each text, which just comes with practice.

WRITING

Top tip: don’t go any more than 10% over word limits!!!!!!! Teachers say they have to mark all of it - no they don’t. If you do double the word limit, your last few bullet points could come after the cut-off point, cutting off access to half of the marks!!!

90 WORD - 99 words maximum! About 20-25 words per bullet point.

150 WORD - 165 words maximum! About 75 words per bullet point.

Which brings me to mention, that you must cover every bullet point: those are your content marks, which cover about half the marks of each question.

90 WORD Question (16 marks)

Content - 10 marks: Making sure your writing covers each bullet point enough.

Quality of Language - 6 marks: Using interesting vocabulary, such as “malheureusement”.

Stick to about one page.

If you’re giving an opinion, great, just stop there. If you explain it too much, you risk going over your word limit.

150 WORD Question (32 marks)

Content - 15 marks: Every. Bullet. Point. Detailed.

Range of Language - 12 marks: get in those adjectives, idioms and grammatical structures!

Accuracy - 5 marks: correct basic tense conjugations (present, past, future simple/future proche)

In order to hit all of these I came up with a mnemonic checklist, and it scored me full marks in a specimen paper I did for my teacher! And I made it into a cute phone background, so I’d start to remember it, I still can now, hehe! You can find it here. If that doesn’t work, then download it here.

SPEAKING

Know your question words! (x)

For the roleplay and photocard, my teacher printed off me a load of practice cards in bulk and annotated two or three every day, using the planning techniques mentioned below.

Roleplay - 2 minutes; can be any theme.

When planning, try to avoid writing out answers, but just keywords and gaps for you to fill in with pronouns or articles etc.

Keep it brief, one sentence per bullet point, but cover each part of each bullet point.

Photo card - 3 minutes (aim to speak for at least 2).

Plan with a small spider-diagram of nouns, opinions, anecdotes etc. for each known question.

Use one or two prepped anecdotes for the prepared questions - e.g. where you went last year, who with, what you did.

For the unknown questions, keep it short and sweet and fill up any time with opinions and reasoning.

General conversation - 5-7 minutes.

Lie and make up stories! Be creative and use the words and structures you know.

I was a little extra and I prepared every theme as flashcards. You can’t get away with only revising your chosen theme!

I made flashcards that could cover several types of questions: I had bullet points of topics and keywords on one side and a sample paragraph on the other.

Pretty sure I made about 80 flashcards oops.

I also went through the mark scheme and see which areas I could secure marks in and which areas I needed to improve.

VOCAB

Learning vocab is SO important!

I started by making spreadsheets of jumbled word lists from the specification and doing a colour-coded match up.

You can access a pdf of all of the vocab grids here. There might be the odd word missing due to copy-pasting errors, but if so, don’t stress, just look it up in a dictionary and note it down - sorry in advance!!!

Then with the vocab that I had to look up in a dictionary, I added to a Quizlet and wrestled it into my noggin.

You can find the Quizlet here.

Remember that:

sauf - except

puisque - since

presque - almost

GRAMMAR

To me, learning tenses was like learning formulae for maths. So find a way to learn rules like that, if it’s easier for you.

e.g. Conditional Tense = subject + (future/conditional stem + imperfect ending)*

*note that future stems are the same as conditional stems.

Know your DRMRSPVANDERTRAMP verbs, and their past participles. These verbs go with ÊTRE and always agree with the subject.

Know your auxiliary and irregular verbs.

MUST KNOW: avoir, être, aller, faire, vouloir

HELPFUL: devoir, pouvoir, vivre, boire, voir, dire, savoir

OTHERS: mettre, prendre, venir, écrire, lire, recevoir

I learnt these by making flashcards, and then brain dumping them on paper over and over again until they stuck - my teacher thought I was insane, madly scribbling away.

Memorise some key structures that can be used in writing and speaking.

If you want 7+ structures, find them here.

MISC TIPS

Always write notes about improvements and errors in practice papers and mocks.

Find a native french internet friend.

In my opinion, music, movies and TV shows aren’t great for revision. However, if you begin to understand them, they are a great confidence boost.

I highly recommend the Skam France series, which you can find with and without les sous-titres (subtitles) here.

And here’s my french music playlist on Spotify.

MORE ASSISTANCE

I’m happy to offer my assistance to anybody who needs it, pop me a dm or an ask if you think others will find it useful too.

Here’s some ways I could help:

Finding some resources about a certain topic (videos, worksheets, mindmaps) - I have them all backed up hehe

Sending you some of my past answers

Sending you pdf of my general conversation/irregular verb table flashcards

Marking practice answers

Talking to you in french

Etc. etc.

Thank you for reading! Please reblog to help any others that might find this useful. If any of the links are faulty, please pop me a dm, and I’ll get them sorted asap!! 🥐

-Wil x

#french #gcse #langblr #studyblr #study #gcses #french language #lovelybluepanda #wilstudies #studies #etudier #francais #emmastudies #a level #b2 #b1 #cefr #masterpost #masterlist #advice #a2

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fatehbaz · 5 years

Note

Hello there! You’ve posted quite a bit about dark ecology, which I absolutely love as a concept. However, I’ve found Tim Morton’s work can be a bit dense for folks without a philosophy background — do you have any “starter” reading recommendations for people who’d like to learn more before diving headlong into Ecology Without Nature? Thanks!

Despite how over-the-top excited I was to see this great ask, I held-off on answeringimmediately because I wanted to make sure that I chose my words very carefully.Thank you so much for reaching out. (And I’m so sorry! I’m always very grateful forquestions and try to respond much more quickly!) Regarding how inaccessible Morton’sjargon-heavy and convoluted writing can be, I deeply relate. It’s dense, andafter 10 years of reading, I still cannot fully vouch for or clearly explainobject-oriented ontology; Morton can be floofy and difficult. However, I think I’m a relatively better acolyte of dark ecologyand Morton’s more overtly ecological material; I also think that Morton is much more accessible in interviews and when speaking in-person and in recorded lectures. Pertinently, the publishers of Morton’s latest book (Being Ecological - 2018) have added a kind of goofy, informal, and marketable subtitle to the book: “A book about ecology without information dumping.”

In my experience, it seems to me that most people with any kind of passionateinterest in ecology – whether or not they had access to a formal universityeducation – already intuitively understand much of what dark ecology proposes.This would include things like the intimidating scale and vastness of systemslike a local microhabitat, “the sea”, or a regional climate itself; the complex interconnectivity and interdependency of differentspecies; the fragility of the biosphere in the face of human activity; how an hierarchical mentality that devalues ecological landscapes willalso devalue human life; etc. I think a lot of people intuitively recognizethese things, even if not everyone can describe them or explain systems ecology in the most technical terms.Dark ecology might be of interest for those looking to more clearly discuss ordefine these “realities.” First andforemost, dark ecology is arguably about defining a more ethical and comprehensive approach to ecological thinking to specifically cope with the complexity of systems ecology, the social and environmentaldegradation of the Anthropocene, the climate crisis, and the sixth massextinction event.

Before I lose anyone’s interest with a wall of text: I think that peopleinterested in the global climate/ecological crisis; the Anthropocene; weirdfiction (!); anthropology; ethnoecology; the intersection of social injusticewith environmental degradation; capitalist realism and retrofuturism; biosemioticsand animal emotion; and ecology in general would be interested in checking out darkecology.I like that the dark ecology concept tries to grapple with the “apocalyptic” feeling of the current ecological crisis, and I also like that the concept tries to bridge the apparent gap between the humanities and ecology by describing how environmental degradation relates to social injustice.

In this egregiously long post, I’ll try to offer some accessiblereading recommendations on dark ecology and I’ll try to use the question as aspringboard to define dark ecology. Unfortunately, I, myself, come across asdense and convoluted, so if you want toavoid parsing through all of my text here, I’ve numbered each of the readingrecommendations/resources below.

Art installations from the Dark Ecology Project art sites - a collaboration with Timothy Morton - in Norway. The first piece is by resident artist HC Gilje.

What is dark ecology?

- Essentially, dark ecology is a wayto update ecological thinking for the Anthropocene and for the sixth massextinction event; for an era of “climate anxiety” and loss. It’s a conceptmeant to improve ecological thought and to correct older inadequacies in Westernnaturalism, which often assumes that humans are separate or detached observers fromthe landscapes that we study. - Dark ecology also involves the humanities, and anthropology especially. Thisis because the concept implies an acknowledgment that Indigenous and non-Western cosmologies (world-views) are legitimateand helpful frameworks for building sustainable ecological communities;understanding the egalitarian ecological relationships among organismsincluding humans; and acknowledging that other living things are deserving ofethical treatment. - The concept of “weirdness” is veryimportant in dark ecology, as is anxiety. (To learn more about this aspect of weirdness, see Morton’s article in Changing Weathers, linked below.)- Another concept originally coined and defined by Morton and centrally important to dark ecology isthat of “hyperobjects”: things sobig and/or abstract that humans struggle to conceive of their magnitude,something like “climate” itself or an abstract “object” like an “interspeciesrelationship.”- In dark ecology, there is an implied (and sometimes explicit) critique of the“extractivist” mentality and its friends (industrial resource extraction;monoculture farming). Morton sometimes phrases this as a critique of “agrilogistics”: the industrial-scaleover-harvest of natural resources backed by systemic social inequality, a sharedmentality prevalent in early hydraulic civilization, empires, the European feudalera, and the current era.- There is also an implied critique of socialhierarchy; essentially, dark ecology proposes that the problem of human/industrialmismanagement of landscapes and other species is closely tied with socialhierarchy and human mistreatment of other humans. Thus, dark ecology impliesthat sexism, racism, violence, etc., stem from the same worldviews thatpropagate environmental degradation.- Where object-oriented ontology arguablycomes most into play in Morton’s writing is regarding biosemiotics and animal/plant “emotion.” Dark ecology can be readas implying that every other living thing has some kind of subjectiveexperience and agency, even if it doesn’t translate into recognizable humanemotions or doesn’t resemble the sentience of humans. OOO suggests that othernon-human things are still “real” or “alive” at some scale. (This is the aspectof dark ecology that I understand least!)- This aspect of biosemiotics also unites dark ecology with the ontological turn in anthropology, arecent and still active movement to decolonize anthropological thinking. Theacademic discussion of OOO and dark ecology around 2007-2012 was very influentialon anthropologists working to validate non-Western cosmologies that perceive the natural world as a sort of collective, with cooperation among species.- Dark ecology is also useful for evaluating urban geography and urban planning in the 21st Century (“theera of the city”), because related concepts like “hyperobjects” help to conceiveof urban areas as vast entities with sometimes invisible influences overculture and ecology planetwide.- Playfulness and joy are important in Morton’s understanding of the relationship between humans and landscapes/animals/ecology. (You can read more about this aspect in a couple of the resources listed below, including the first video resource listed and the article about “dark ecological podcasts”!)- Mark Fisher’s “capitalist realism” is now a widely recognized concept, Morton has done something similar with the very popular concept of “hyperobjects”- Thinking of landscapes like this – animals being “alive” in their own uniqueway; ecology being complex and “weird”; seeing ecology and human/social justiceas interlinked – isn’t exactly new at all, especially compared to millennia ofIndigenous cosmologies and environmental knowledge.

Resource 1 - If you don’t want tobe confronted with this long post, one of the best introductions to darkecology comes from the person who coined and popularized the term, TimothyMorton. Since Morton’s really theoretical and sometimes convoluted whenwriting, listening to him speak and answer questions directly seems (to me) tobe an easier way to hear a clear definition of dark ecology and what itentails. So, I’d recommend checking out Morton in this hour-long interview.Here, he explores environmentalism; naturalism; ethical treatment of animals;industrial resource extraction; weird fiction; and the connection between environmentaldegradation and social injustice/hierarchy.

Timothy Morton in Conversation withVerso Books – Verso Books, on YouTube~

This is a great video! However, if I could recommend just one written exploration of dark ecology, it would be this article from Morton.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180316024548/www.changingweathers.net/en/episodes/48/what-is-dark-ecology (What Is Dark Ecology? -- TimothyMorton – Changing Weathers, 2016)

Resource 2 - Here’s a shortervideo (9 minutes) where Morton briefly describes ecological thought; biosemiotics;the development of the dark ecology concept; and the concept’s relationships toenvironmentalism and natural history. ~ Beautiful Soul Syndrome: Towards aDark Ecology (YouTube) ~

Resource 3 - It seems that Morton’smost influential texts are these 4 books:

-- Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics (2007)-- The Ecological Thought (2010)-- Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (2013)-- Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence (2016)

You can read the entirety of Dark Ecology (2016) for free online,here.

Resource 4 – A good related book(with much more accessible writing!) is this: Shadowing the Anthropocene: Eco-Realismfor Turbulent Times – Adrian Ivakhiv – 2018

These are 6 “classic” books that explore dark ecology:

Resource 5 - One of the best andmost concise written explanations also comes from Morton himself. Ironically,this introductory was taken off the internet only one week ago, but you canaccess it through the Wayback Machine here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180316024548/www.changingweathers.net/en/episodes/48/what-is-dark-ecology

~ What Is Dark Ecology? -- TimothyMorton – Changing Weathers, 2016 ~

And the original URL, which you can plug into the Wayback Machine:

www.changingweathers.net/en/episodes/48/what-is-dark-ecology

Resource 6 - A fun read – and agood example of the application of dark ecology, especially involving therelationship between ecology and weirdness/playfulness – would be this article. (It’sa good read even if you’re not a fan of the multitude of “spooky” and “AmericanGothic” podcasts that have been recently popularized.)

~ At Home with the Weird: DarkEco-Discourse in Tanis and Welcome to Night Vale – Danielle Barrios-O’Neill andMichael Collins - Revenant, March 2018 ~

A quick definition of dark ecology fromArie Altena:

We have indeed borrowed the term ‘Dark Ecology’ from the work of TimothyMorton. Over the past couple of years he has written a number of booksoutlining an ‘Ecological Thought’ that has no use for the Romantic notion of‘Nature’. He begins to explain this idea in Ecology without Nature (2007) – abook which is also about art and ‘environmental aesthetics.’ In The EcologicalThought (2010) he shows that the ‘ecological thought’ is not nice and green anda celebration of all things natural, but that to really think theinterconnectedness of all forms of life and all things (the ‘mesh’), is dark.[Morton says:] ‘Dark ecology puts hesitation, uncertainty, irony, andthoughtfulness back into ecological thinking. The form of dark ecology is thatof noir film. The noir narrator begins investigating a supposedly externalsituation, from a supposedly neutral point of view, only to discover that sheor he is implicated in it. The point of view of the narrator herself becomesstained with desire. There is no metaposition from which we can make ecologicalpronouncements. Ironically, this applies in particular to the sunny,affirmative rhetoric of environmental ideology. A more honest ecological artwould linger in the shadowy world of irony and difference. …The ecologicalthought includes negativity and irony, ugliness and horror.

In Morton’s own words (from “What IsDark Ecology?” – Changing Weathers):

The ecological era we find ourselves in — whether we like it or not, andwhether we recognise it or not — makes necessary a searching revaluation ofphilosophy, politics and art. The very idea of being ‘in’ an era is inquestion. We are ‘in’ the Anthropocene, but that era is also ‘in’ a moment offar longer duration.

What is the present? How can it be thought? What is presence? Ecologicalawareness forces us to think and feel at multiple scales, scales that disorientnormative concepts such as ‘present’, ‘life’, ‘human’, ‘nature’, ‘thing’,‘thought’ and ‘logic’. I shall argue there are layers of attunement toecological reality more accurate than what is habitual in the media, in theacademy and in society at large.

These attunement structures are necessarily weird, a precise term that weshall explore in depth. Weirdness involves the hermeneutical knowingnessbelonging to the practices that the Humanities maintain. The attunement, whichI call ecognosis, implies a practical yet highly nonstandard vision of whatecological politics could be. In part ecognosis involves realising thatnonhumans are installed at profound levels of the human — not just biologicallyand socially but in the very structure of thought and logic. Coexisting withthese nonhumans is ecological thought, art, ethics and politics.

An art project by Edward Burtynsky, at National Gallery of Canada exploring the Anthropocene (pictured is a scene from a coal mine in Westphalia, Germany - 2015).

Timothy Morton is a close colleague of Graham Harman – Harman being thetheorist who is most credited with defining object-oriented ontology. BothMorton and Harman were colleagues with Mark Fisher, the now-legendary culturalcritic and theorist who popularized the concept of “capitalist realism.” Thebranch of OOO that Harman and Morton subscribe to is usually referred to as “speculativerealism.”

OOO and dark ecology are closely related - at least in Morton’s work - and tend to be mentioned together(with good reason). An important disclaimer: OOO seems to be even more overwhelming than dark ecology asa concept; I struggle to articulate OOO and really do not understand too muchabout it (so I’m not sure I can provide the best resources for learning aboutit).

From an interview with Morton at WASH magazine:

OOO deals with concepts like “hyperobject” and “mesh.” Can you give us some brief definitions of these concepts?A hyperobject is an entity that is so massively distributed in space and time that you can’t point to all of it at once. Even if you use very advanced prosthetic devices like fast supercomputers, it might still be difficult to map one. The biosphere is a hyperobject. Climate is a hyperobject.The mesh is the interconnectedness of beings in the biosphere. Nowadays I have a higher resolution image for this: I call it the symbiotic real. It’s a loose network of precarious affiliations between beings where who’s “the top” and who’s “the bottom,” who’s “the friend” and who’s “the enemy,” is always in question. It’s a whole that is always less than the sum of its parts, however weird that sounds. (End quote.)

So, I am hard-pressed to define OOO, and I can’t personally critique it wellor vouch for OOO as a “good” framework. That said, I take more of a liking tothe dark ecology concept.

Art from the cover of Morton’s 2016 book, Dark Ecology.

Moreaccessible reading resources:

(7) - One of the best applications of the hyperobject concept is this fantastic essay on how urban megaregions and big cities function as ecological forces: The Urban Hyperobject - Lisa Bremner

(8) ~ Four Questions for the Author: Timothy Morton,Being Ecological – Orion Magazine –September 2018

(9) ~ Dark Ecology InterviewsTim Morton – Lucas van der Velden and Arie Altena – Dark Ecology dot Net – 2014

(10) ~ (Video) Timothy Morton:Dark Ecological Chocolate – YouTube –2017

(11) ~ A Mutable Cloud: On “DarkEcology” and “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays” –Jennifer Peterson – LA Review of Books– 2017

(12) ~ ‘A Reckoning for our species’: The philosopher prophet of theAnthropocene – The Guardian – June 2017

(13) ~ A Polar Bear Called Susan: Interview with Lisa Doeland – De Groene Amsterdammer – 2013

(14) ~ Timothy Morton: Ecology Without Nature – We interview the philosopherTim Morton, author of “Dark Ecology”, who proposes that we rethink the way wesee ecology, anthropocentrism and art – Roc Jimenez de Cisneros – CCCB Lab -- December 2016

(15) ~ Timothy Morton regularly posts onand maintains a blog on Blogspot: EcologyWithout Nature

(16) Timothy Morton had collected a list of interviews with other ecologists, theorists, philosophers, etc. that relate to dark ecology. Available here.

Again, I think that a lot of people interested in ecology already intuitively grasp much what dark ecology entails. But, I guess it’s nice that the concept specifically tries to grapple with the Anthropocene and what is essentially an “apocalypse” of sorts. It’s a useful framework (at least, it’s been helpful for me).

OK. Yikes.

Very sorry for the ridiculous length of the post. I hope this is useful for someone.

Thanks again for reaching out!

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