Some language comments for Gray Shelter [Episode 5], just like I promised!
"Do whatever/however you want to. (literally: 'Do it the way your heart desires') You do things how you want to anyway."
"I'm sorry" - the translation is correct, it's just it's funny how Yoondae's level of apology to his friend he just lashed out at last time + he wants to ask him for HELP, and all he says is: 미안 (mian). The most informal and short way of apologizing possible. He's so teenager-minded still.
Even when he asks "Can I leave my stuff in your dad's warehouse?" it comes out grammatically more of a demand, like 'Let me do that'. Yoondae is talking like someone who has a lot of walls and doesn't reach out to people, he doesn't talk kindly but he's honest and straightforward and he cries easily but he's very angry about it.
I especially love his facial expression, even when he's at his most miserable, he'll make it everyone else's problem, as if being pitiful is the worst thing that could happen to him. "I have no one else I could ask for help but you >:(("
Fun fact about Korean's sentence structure, when you quote someone or express your thoughts, you put your sentence this way: "quoted phrase" and then + "that's what they said/what i thought/etc". So oftentimes, I see Kdramas use that trick when characters say a phrase... and then take it back with "that's someone else's thoughts" or "that's what you thought I'd say, right? LMAO". It's funny how the translators' way of transferring this was using the word "Sike!" xD
"It wasn't a mistake to me."
"If it wasn't a mistake, then [what]? Since you started talking [about it], let me ask you. So what if it wasn't a mistake? What do you want to achieve with me?"
"Can I do anything about it? In the past or now, you're the one who runs away and avoids me. I asked you, can I make a decision (do I have any choices)?"
"You made the move but you want me to decide? Fine, then. Let sleep together once and end it once and for all. Go wash up first. I don't have time, I only left office for a short time."
The way they both care about each other but their dialogues and words are very sharp and bitter almost all the time, especially here, aaaah. That's the contrast that hooked me for all these 5 episodes. Soohyuk doesn't swear but he's talking to Yoondae very harshly and emotionless here, and for Yoondae harsh talk is the default, it's like Soohyuk is lowering his manners to talk on his level, to provoke him (or maybe that's also how he distances himself from the discovery that Yoondae has feelings for him).
And Yoondae is holding back his frustration and tears, but he understands the way such words were aimed to hurt him, so instead of lashing out back at Soohyuk, as he probably wants him to, he swallows and unusually calmly, almost softly says: "Let's talk when you can be honest. Because I will shut up and wait for you."
And it makes Soohyuk stand there in shock and contemplate.
I'll add next scenes in READ MORE since this post is getting long!
Here's the moment when the boss asks their youngest employee to write something more 'trendy' for their marketing text xD It's very true that trends in Korea come and go very quickly, they also love to invent new terms and phrases all the time. Like "MZ slang", there are many phrases, and the one trendy phrase the boss uses as the example is 킹받네 (king-pad-nae) which literally written as 'receive the king' but means "I got angry" - but with a teasing/playful subtext, like friends could say each other 'ah you're so cute, it makes me angry'.
If I'm not wrong, this phrase was widely used like 1-2 years ago and not really in its trendy peak as well right now but kudos to boss to even learning it xD And it's funny how translator chose to (I assume) use "[living in my head] rent-free" phrase as a substitute. Another fun fact, they ended up using some trendy lingo in their ad that translator gave us as "no cap!" but that part of phone msg was so blurry, I couldn't see which exact Korean phrase they ended up using x)
"Hyung, if you have any ask for help, say so. For you, 2 million... No, I'll try to give you until 3 million won in any way."
Can I just say that we had this character for one moment and I'm so not ready to let him go, I want Jeongwan to have his own storyline and everything and he's too sweet and also caring for strangers/his colleagues, and so he stole the spotlight for me xD
Yoondae said there's no food at home. But also, as you can see, there is: beer, water, rice that you can cook in the microwave, kimchi for a side dish and some other microwaved food. According to my Korean friends, typical Korean person (poor like student) can survive if they have rice, kimchi and also ramyeon. That's their the most basic food. Just a fun fact. xD
Also he was on his third can of beer, and he already made a drunken longing call on the verge of tears to Soohyuk, lying about being hurt and bringing trouble just so he'd return home. "Is that okay with you?" - just shoot me, please. :')
"I called [the cleaning service/you] to tell you to stop it [sleeping outside of home]"
"Let's have that dinner [that I promised you] today. Wait for me."
After days, Yoondae was ready to give up, he "tricked" Soohyuk to return home just so he could tell him he'll move out and stop pushing any talk. And then, Soohyuk brought up the dinner (the feelings) that he kept avoiding. No wonder Yoondae looked so struck and confused. It just gave him his hopes back (and viewers too, but we probably should've known better with this kind of series haha)
Interesting cultural context: they are getting samgyeopsal - grilled meat, chosen by Soohyuk because Yoongdae said there wasn't anything he wanted to eat. And usually, the youngest one has to set the cutlery and grill meat, out of respect for the seniors. And here we see that Soohyuk is the one choosing the place, menu and even grilling the meat and pouring soju for Yoondae.
Once again, it shows that despite Yoondae's emotions and pleads, he is not mature enough, he is not ready to focus on other people. We know he can't plan his own future, he doesn't know what to do, and we see where their relationship stands now - Yoondae is still more of a burden than an equal partner to Soohyuk, and Soohyuk is more of a parent.
Even when they drink soju (in Korean drinking etiquette usually you don't drink alone, you toast together and drink together), notice how they don't even clink their glasses together, then Soohyuk is the only one drinking and Yoondae wants to follow him but puts the glass back. He's taking a shot later, when Soohyuk grills the meat again. They are totally unsynchronized at this point of their lives, and it's painful to watch.
"I said he [my father] was dead because that's the truth/reality for me. There was no other [hidden] meaning. I didn't plan to lie to you."
"I moved out completely. If I don't organize my life starting from doing this, then I don't think I'll be able to live like all the other [normal] people."
The fact that Yoondae started thinking about improving his life (the word 'organizing'), immediately made Soohyuk stop in surprise. So he started asking what does the normal life like others mean to him, hopeful to find that equal adult footing from Yoondae... but Yoondae's thoughts stopped there. And Soohyuk offered his own goal and life meaning: "to have a place to go back to, that's enough for me".
Here's when Yoondae thoughtfully agreed with him: "It's important to have a home", and took the meat tongs from Soohyuk, saying how high-maintenance he is. Yoondae embraced that realization, he took the responsibility (even a small cultural gesture) and even though Yoondae nagged him, Soohyuk smirked. Because it wasn't a completely hopeless situation. And Yoondae proved it, by saying how eating like this and going home together is his normal life as well. (and yet they were still unsynchronized until the very end! we can't have happy ending yet)
AND HERE IS WHERE I HAVE TO MAKE A SECOND POST! Because tumblr only allows 30 images in one, and I can't stop screenshotting the last conversation so I'm going to make another post that you can find in 'gray shelter comments' or 'dropthemeta' tags (upd. or here's the link to the post!)^^
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When Complete BS Becomes "Common Knowledge."
Someone told me they stopped paying attention to someone who reviews movies after one too many mean-spirited jokes about trans people, and it was one of those cases where the reviewer in question definitely had the vibe of someone who'd go around doing that, but I couldn't think of any real flagrant examples. Cut to me watching a movie the other day, remembering that oh yeah, I skipped that one guy's review of it because I wanted to go in blind, and sure enough, that review has this big long crappy 5 minute aside of an out of left field "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" routine. So that's a shame.
Now this particular guy rather famously Does Not Get Out Much. Pretty sure he hasn't really have any exposure to a single trans person, or to any real die hard transphobes, and most likely what happened here is he saw I dunno, an episode of South Park or a facebook post from some bigoted aunt, or some Tiktok video, something like that, and just blithely assimilated it into his world view.
But you know, the reality is... to the best of my knowledge no trans person has ever actually said this, or anything similar to this, and we sure as hell don't live in a world where anyone would have the back of someone who did? But you know, here we are.
Now I want to be clear, this isn't some kinda thing where trans people can't take a joke or anything. Literally while I was typing this, some cis guy just tossed this out, and this is a real tired old hokey one, but I cracked a smile, because oh yeah, the whole "programmer socks" bit really is a weirdly accurate stereotype.
And there's plenty of other trans jokes I'll laugh at. Ones directly at my expense. Some real dark ones even. You wanna go off on trans women all having the same like 10 names and them all sounding like we were born in the 1800s, go for it. Other stuff about how we all dress? Coping mechanisms? Low standards? Being too into pickles and sriracha? There's plenty.
But "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" and while we're at it, "I identify as..." don't even have the vague shape of something you're ever going to encounter in reality. Like if I didn't know the context of where these came from and hadn't had them posted a thousand times or so by people with swastikas for avatars and such, these probably would get a laugh from me the first time I heard them, because they sound like weird surrealist humor. Like, "don't you hate how every time you go to the laundromat, you have to play chess with the dragon before they let you in?"
But, again, I know the context. And the context is a bunch of fascists want people like me dead, and they're both too scared to pick up a gun to do it themselves and too incompetent to know who to point it at or where to find them. So they sit around with each other and go "hey, what sort of person does everyone hate? Let's all say trans people talk like them!" And because they haven't spoken to a single human being besides each other and the rich parents they're sponging off since getting banned from the Something Awful forums in the 90s/punk bar in the 80s/whatever, they settled on "rich white person calling the cops on somebody for walking down the street" and "didn't I first get into being a hatemonger because I was stupid enough to think that time I saw someone roleplaying he really thought he was a big scary dragon?" Which has honestly worked out weirdly well for them when you stop for half a second to appreciate just how absolutely ridiculous it is to ever imagine cops coming to the aid of trans people.
Like... here's a situation that actually plays out in reality. I have a bad tooth. Dentist says I need a root canal, and she doesn't do them. Refers me to another dentist like an hour and a half away. I walk in, write my Victorian sounding name on some paperwork, fill in all my various medications, wait a bit, hop into the big dentist's chair, so far so good. This dentist busts out the pick and the mirror about to have a look, and goes "hey, so I noticed on your medications you're taking a ton of something called divigel? What is that?" I say "oh, yeah, I'm trans, so I'm on supplemental estradiol." She almost drops the mirror, stares at me like she just realized I'm Venom and if she bent down to look at my teeth I was about to swallow her whole head. She stands bolt upright, says, "your teeth are fine, get out." I'm a bit confused, but I can read a room, so I say "well that's weird, but OK..." and start to leave. I get a "have a nice day SIR!" shouted at me. And then I go out, call the cab company to say my appointment ended early, and get told too bad, it's coming when it's scheduled, and someone snickers. See, at some point in having to take cabs to all my appointments, a driver worked out that this woman he'd been picking up from this address for the past year has a similar voice to and maybe vague family resemblance to who he'd been picking up from that same address the year prior, and after getting the courage to ask me, guess who's constantly having cabs show up late, or not at all, or on time with a driver staring angrily into the rear view mirror while blaring AM radio with someone shouting about all "the gays" needing to be rounded up so they can burn in hell. And I just need to suck it up and live with it. I'm sure as hell not going to pick a fight over it. I'm just gonna stand out in the cold (fortunately with nice warm knee-high socks) waiting for this cab for an hour because I sure as hell can't stay in this lobby.
But again, the whole weird myth here posits a world where trans people are all-powerful and control the government and stuff. And the basis for that is like... sometimes people refuse to pass ridiculous laws to stop trans people from doing things we only do in bigots' imaginations at great taxpayer expense, and SOMETIMES someone is responsible enough to double check what's up before they allocate the funds. Like... hell, you know what's exactly as completely divorced from reality and honestly the same people doing to same crap? That wild BS about "schools keeping litter boxes in classrooms because all this acceptance of trans people means we also have to accept kids who think they're cats!" Like... how the hell can anyone actually be stupid enough to believe that anyone else could be stupid enough to believe that they're actually stupid enough to believe such an OBVIOUSLY made-up narrative? Like... lawmakers bring that one up and try to get bills passed on it. Everyone else in the room is socially obligated not to laugh and ask whether they also want to pass legislation against Bat Boy and UFO abductions. This is Ralph Wiggum tier absurdity.
But like... what do you do about this sort of thing, really? As the person ultimately has to deal with the dentists who think I'll bite their heads off, ask to speak to their manager, and drop trou over a sandbox the state mandates they keep in the middle of the room, I'm... not in the room when this BS gets concocted, or discussed, or shared in Minions meme some film critic sees and imitates to try and be relatable and relevant. Can someone else start grabbing all these people by the lapels and shake them and shout questions about how they can be this stupid, maybe invite them back to reality for me?
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you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.
you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.
so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.
you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.
you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.
you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.
you know you broke the rule by interacting.
but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.
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