What? Huh? Oh.

Sometimes I write/post/spam stuff. Almost purely text. My interests are numerous, but mostly this is about the fandoms I hang around. INxP. Former lurker hermit, currently in transition back into society. Still studying Japanese after 15 or 20 years. Lived on the internet since 1998.

[kamitra]

It is now 4am and I know I cant be the only one that thought this:

The way to resolve the problem with the end of the Avengers movie is to set up for another arc. Im being vague to avoid spoilers, but this, if true (probably not but it could be), would make for very interesting au.

This thought was inspired by, of all things, Atelier Lulua.

[kamitra]

Dream

I had a very.... It was one of those.

We were all movie characters. Or something. But the main point revolved around her, the mother. She was very protective of her husband and would allow no one to make fun of him or anything.

For some reason, there was some sort of apocalypse. We lost touch with the outside world and ours was slowly caving in. At the same time, mother was a tyrant - killing and shooting people that didn't fall in her line.

Well we snuck into her office anyway... And found plans, but nothing substantial as to what was going on. Until I pointed at the radio-looking thing. That was the main point, I knew. They kept showing the damn thing in many scenes. "What does it do?" I asked the others and one said "of course it aligns and convers the..." They finally got it. But the next problem was how to get it to work with the outside world and then if we could even trust them.

"Hello? Does anyone have a converter?" The voice said on the other side. It turned out to be her son. He was somehow stuck inside it.... with his sister, who somehow starved herself to have him live through this.

Of course the husband told his wife and now everyone left was in this together. She had wanted a way out too, but was merely hoping that someone would reveal that they knew how to leave. Except no one did until now.

What resulted was a teleporter of some sort. But we didn't know who would come through the portal until just before it happened. The first batch was the actors of the survivors....

The next was going to be the newer characters to the set, but I stopped that. "You guys would badmouth me online about being selfish and a bitch. Well that's exactly what I'm going to do."

This part I don't remember but it ended up with us getting to another world. Not a real one, of course, but one that wasnt suffocating us all. The mother was with her son, saying how she thought he hated her. It was more true that the son didn't know what to do with his mother, and said that he thought she wouldnt be able to live without his father... But she just replied that she could still see him every once in a while.

[kamitra]

ToV time again

I heard the problems about the dubbing, so I won't get into that. Instead I've veen watching the translation... Which I think is a good example of the leeway that non-cinematic games give. Very fast and loose translation at conversational points and it works out very well. I did actually play the 360 version, but because of this I wouldn't remember every single different line as it plays out... Nevermind that I had a hard time with the arte names... (I still do but at least i can hear them say it besides watch their movements)

If anything, only two things are bothering me and they have nothing to do with translation. The first is that they keep covering people's faces in dialigue bubbles, even when not necessary. This doesn't seem important until you find out this never happened in Japanese. The second is more obvious: if they managed to stuff to lines for dialogue for battle ender when it wasnt there before, ADD THEM for boss fights! Yes this is harder, but the dialogue is 1) amazing 2) incredibly long sometimes and 3) busy so at least you could record your fight and watch it again later.

Only two points where the translation got weird so far (I'm getting towards the end of part 2). One was a very minor spoiler where they name a name before they are supposed to know of it (mantaic). The other was somewhat unavoidable... Which is all i can say to avoid spoilers.

[kamitra]

Did the test again on seeing someone recommend it. And knowing that I'm in my thirties now should make it interesting. Sort of.

So the J/P thing is skewed, I think, because of a lot of things with how I am and how I was raised. But for big decisions, I've learned to weigh alternatives first, then go on whatever I feel.

So really, INFP and INTP. Like usual. But this is a weird combo so it's gratifying to see others with it.

[kamitra]

Twitter

I'm mostly on Twitter. Have been for over a year now. If for some godforsaken reason anyone is looking for me, they can follow me there.

[kamitra]

My current theory about raising kids:

You can't. Mostly because we are failed, flawed, hypocritical people.

So the argument against spanking has finally got me to consider against it (you'd think I would be considering my leanings), but only on the requirement that you avoid trauma and unethical manipulation. This includes jokes that imply a kid is unwanted (adopted) or emotional abuse to make up for not being able to hit (like what I see a lot of women do).

But it would require more than that. Something like stable and clear rules... Which I haven't seen anyone do besides my mom (forget my dad). That alone helps pave the way to understanding that things have consequences and meaning. I know the world doesn't believe in any of these things. Laws only apply to the less powerful and fortunate. People respond to their frustrations in violence like all the time. People abuse each other all the time even as adults. People abuse themselves as a virtue.

People think of themselves as good. As better.

In the end, I can't say kids are going to end up any better with the world being proven to have no clear guidelines by disillusioned adults. More accurately, we'll probably see various pigeon responses that are incoherent and unrelated to our reality. Wait, nevermind, that's how we are now.

Basically we all suck and we definitely need help. Maybe the future will record this time as pre-civilization. I certainly do. My proof? We can't do anything without violence. Wars, child rearing, debate.

[kamitra]

Gender counting

So since I've been watching a lot of Youtube recently (for me a lot anyway), I'm inevitably running into political rants from both sides (although it's baffling how the algorithm thinks I might not be firmly left).

So I'm hearing strange things about how "there are only two genders" which is an odd thing to say in gender studies. The count doesn't matter to begin with -- gender is a social construct, and saying there are two says you conform to the construct that says there are two genders. No problem, right? All people have to be one or the other by that construct. I personally don't see a problem with that since everyone knows all women and men aren't the same, right? I mean, unless your gender worldview says you can't have masculine women that act and think more like men and vice versa. Then we have a problem.

Let's put this another way. I saw a video on asking about Japanese stuff. One of them asked about what to call siblings, since there is only older and younger -- no generic address. So they said, "what if one is a twin? What do you do then?" The answer was "one of them is always born first" which the other girl thought was wild -- what difference does 15 minutes make in age? But put another way, it sounds like this. What difference does gender matter for the people in between? Are we trying to fit them into two categories no matter what, or are we going to let them have their own generic category?

Personally I can live with either. I already live in a rather conservative place to begin with so even though I don't fit gender norms, I'm okay with being pidgenholed into female... although I do get irritated by things expected and pushed against me because of that. But I can still brusque my way through... because that sort of thing runs in my family (going your own way, that is).

But that's my personal thing. Naturally, not everyone is going to feel that way (I'd be surprised if they did, actually). And mainland America being them, standing for one's identity and self is a childhood taught virtue. Add that in and you have the natural course of people that don't fit in the middle asking to be called various things. Very natural progression, if you ask me... but of course no one did. I'm just making you suffer to hear my typing voice.

So here's the thing. It's American to stand up for your beliefs. It's American to stand up for yourself for freedom to be. It's American to argue violently with each other and for their to be clear winners and losers. So the /method/ being taken here is American. But the basic concept is not. It's the question of whether we should have more than two pidgenholes or make more of them, and the struggle to reconform society into the acceptance of this new worldview (that not everyone fits into these pidgenholes).

But it's not only about this. It's about people's peace in their minds. To some, any tremor is the sign of the end of times. To others, a tremor is the sign of change and renewal. People react accordingly, without self-awareness.

[kamitra]

Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia Case Files

Or ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 the drama. Watched the first two episodes so far and I think the best thing I like is the time lapse scenes of him (the assistant) doing the legwork.

Yeah so acting.... Is up in the air. And usually i dont notice this sort of thing but I dont like her (the main character). She doesn't come through... Which is kind of upsetting since hers would have been a subtle role. It's an even greater contrast when the schoolgirl in the second episode does a good show of her role...

[kamitra]

Tempted tp replay the audio of Miss Sherlock while i work to check something -- I think Sherlock doesn't use pronouns. And I cant remember demonstratives either.

[kamitra]

Saw eps 1-7 of miss sherlock.

Lost sleep over it because it was late night when i started. Then had my parents watch it, which they really enjoyed. Their comments were really interesting.

The translation is really interesting and good. Doesn't take the literal approach so much as a feeling one with accuracy. There's one instance where Sherlock says, "but squashing bugs isn't your job." Okay so that one could have stayed but meh. I'm not a huge stickler for that sort of thing... Actually i was just focusing on if i could understand what was said, since listening is harder for me than reading.

And quite frankly I wasn't expecting good acting when i first decided to try it (maybe these days acting has improved? Or is it because they didn't try a western approach with this? Or maybe they actually picked actors, as rude as it sounds.)

Since i got to watch it a second time i got to see more of the details they put in on Sherlock (even when she's off-screen). One of those things that make you feel that they had some sort of brilliance with her.

Next one I like is the mrs (ms in this case). Quite a bit about her is shown through here. I don't know how much of it is my misinterpretation, but she seems (to me) to be lower upper class (somehow not connected with a lot of money so much as social wealth), bit has all the attitude and determination to work her way up. Not really the ruthless kind but can be made angry enough to do so. I imagine that Sherlock got the place through her brother (since they both seem to have connections like crazy). And she does a good job of helping Sherlock out with her smooth attitude.

[kamitra]

Where is a good place to put this? Maybe not here. Maybe here.

I doubt I can learn to do anything about this right without getting myself killed or killing myself. I don't know if there's time enough anymore to try.

People hurt each other because we suck at this. Being too nice has been known to hurt as well, but most people don't think so... even though there's a reason why few people do it.

We want to be free to be who we are and progress in our own manner, but then we tote justice and righteousness and trample over others. In a lot of ways this is because as I said before, we suck at this sort of thing.

We also suck at reasoning, but this is also for a good reason -- it's hard to learn without help and guidance. And we're hypocrites -- in other words, we're horrible at judging equality.

Because we are social creatures (with a great deal of loners, oddly enough), we wish for equality. But equality can also be considered a social contract. You give up your freedom for the right to be equal. For those that have more, this is nothing but loss. Of course, inequality is easy to put up with, but abuse of power is not. And yet, how would one know?

We bare our teeth that no one should look down on us, then look down on others for their failings. We scoff at their bared teeth, without realizing that the need to bare one's teeth is a sign of weakness. And yet we must, for fear of the weak who would not understand otherwise.

We want to avoid hurting each other, but even that avoidance can hurt. We are so weak and lowly that we seem to think that the only progress that can occur is through violence. And yet this is not wholly incorrect -- change can be violent to many. Many would face death before change, as change is a kind of death, several times over.

And yet communication requires a kind of equality -- the ability to be similar enough to convey an idea. The purpose of communication requires a difference to convey.

I wish I could convey my sorrow, frustration, anger, and loneliness at the situation. We are horrible at judging equality, and therefore, communication. We progress with different traits and different speeds. How do we do what's right... or more importantly, how do we move forward?

How much must we hold our heart in courage, and move forward? How much must we be willing to fail, to be seen as failures, to be hated as lies, to move forward?

Some are better walkers than others. Some are better explorers than others. Some are better at holding another person's hand in assistance. Some are better at seeing people. Some are better at seeing themselves.

Saying that one is more important than others is ignoring that we are in this situation because all are important but we don't have enough of any of them. Nor any appreciation for anything other than ourselves or what make up our own worlds.

It takes time. All change takes time.

All change takes the failure of the previous status quo.

All change takes reflection.

All change takes a reason to change. We all need a good enough reason. One that will carry us through despair into ambition.

Whether we'll have one in time before we collapse in ourselves, is a good question. Will we rot before growth? Will we kill each other first in the blindness that is desperation? Or will we actually change?

[kamitra]

Thoughts on Translation (Japanese to English)

Translators have a job like a director in film -- not as high profile as actors, but certainly high enough for people to have an opinion on. But there are a lot of questions to answer as a translator, since one's work is always based on another. These are my thoughts and questions on the matter.

Should readability or fidelity of style be emphasized in a translation? So in the case of whoever is doing Irregular at Magic High School, the translator chose readability -- the original is highly stilted and repetitious in style. The result is that the translation reads smoother than the original ever did. In some writing styles, though, the style is much more appealing and this causes a problem in readability in another language... especially with one as strict about professional writing conventions as English.

Naturally editing is a problem. My own writing here would require heavy editing to begin with to clarify my thoughts.

Another problem is shared concepts and vocabulary. Translating for a beginner is quite different from translating for an experienced fan. The default is the first with the latter viewed with great disdain, but this happens all the time in writing to begin with pop culture references, popular memes, sci-fi terminology, and slang. So the question becomes of the intended audience -- which is probably quite different from the original expectation.

In my personal case, since I'm not from the continental US, translation of concrete terms like plants and animals has little meaning. I don't know what a willow or a maple looks like if I saw one so a translation of a tree like kaede would be useless. Whereas here I see mango, keawe, starfruit, and calamansi. In the case of animals, I know simple animals like squirrels from tv... but I definitely know less about them than whatever I last saw on National Geographic. Same idea.

In the case of shared knowledge and honorifics, ATLUS (who does games like Persona) is probably a good example of localization on the matter. But of course this is localization and not translation -- translators usually have less leeway in changing topics and forms of address, especially if it comes up in a later conversation. This causes a lot of problems. So -san is usually translated as Mr. or Ms., but then what of -sama?

Since Americans are known to be overfamiliar, terms like -san usually get dropped and -sama becomes Mr. or Ms. Equally so, in American, terms like shiriai (acquaintence) would become friend, and tomodachi (friend) become either friend or good/close friend, while shinyuu would become best friend. Good luck with nakama (one of ours, perhaps). Osanajimi (childhood friend) is usually left as is, not matter how awkward-sounding. And then sempai (someone that came before in the same group, like oldtimer but not necessarily old)... after that nonsensical meme, probably can be left as is. For non-United States, the formula would surely be quite different.

I brushed over the topic of writing conventions and formulas in English versus Japanese, but there is a very huge difference in styles.... nevermind the likely difference between personalities of the original writer and the translator. Things like a sentence being an entire noun-phrase (Sakura who stands shocked after the cards fly away), the alternation of speakers having a different convention (it tends to follow only if strictly dialogue-only, no narration wheras this follows in English usually even if there is narration), narration and dialogue sometimes having completely different line breaks (I've never seen anyone bother to keep this in style), and the list goes on. Of course it's unlikely that the writer is familiar with old styles of writing, which is as relief in a different sense (think Roman here).

On honorifics, -kun is one of the harder ones to grasp (because there's like three usages of it) whereas -chan is easy to understand. The massive politeness and "directionals" (I call them that) is often translated as a style that tends to harken back to the mid-to-late 1800s. Perhaps this is not a surprise.

Keigo is not usually kept at all in a translation, although oftentimes beautiful (and oftentimes clearer) in its own right. Instead it's done in the style as stated in the previous paragraph, which is definitely not easy. Since Americans generally suck at politeness and in Hawaii, formal speech is when you switch to a local standard of American English (this is probably closer to Japanese on a sociolinguistic scale), I don't have a clue as to how one would approach this with more fidelity.

[kamitra]

5 Things You’ll Find in My Bag 

I’m too practical: 1) medicine 2) emergency food (also like medicine) 3) wallet with id 4) phone 5) book if i get trapped in the hospital again without enough battery life.

5 Things You’ll Find in My Bedroom

Fabric, dust, books, video games, and clothes. Might be in that order of quantity.

5 Things That Make Me Happy

If I had to be honest: good food, deep thoughts, not having anxiety, getting older, and learning.

5 Things I’m Currently Into

Playing with my friends (a rare occurrence), trying to get better at stir frying vegetables, alternating sleep and too little sleep, umm... Not much else but I'm sure I'll fill this up with something else in a month.

5 Things on My To-Do List

Learn some Korean food. Organize the freezer. Sew. ESO when the next update hits. Give late gifts.

[kamitra]

Stuff I've been reading

It's honestly not a lot.

[I Travelled Back In Time and Found Myself as Murasaki Shikibu] ...or something like that.

As someone who did only a little study of the period (learning the language, reading texts, etc.), I honestly thought this was gonna be pretty lame and... historically horrible.

Surprisingly, of course the language is done in modern with some smattering of terminology here and there (or a lot depending on one's perspective), but between the greater realism than usual for a light novel of travelling back into an alien time and culture (no matter how nerdy the girl is) and the way it's written to give exposition and explanation of terms, concepts, and customs -- I am honestly enjoying this. The main character herself, realistically speaking, sounds like she's in her 20's but is supposedly 16 or so but nevermind that.

The connection between a generic fangirl and the purpose of entertainment in the Heian period is rather believable, since that is what makes the writing of this period so interesting -- it's meant to be entertainment. Like light novels (fic) of today.

[An Otaku Girl, I Reincarnated as the Evil Young Lady]

So the title is somewhat deceptive in this one because first off, the girl is a yaoi fangirl. Second, she's never played the game she's stuck in before. Third, surprisingly, she has an auto mode where she talks and moves like the character she's supposed to be so there's nothing too 'off' about her to the others.

Now, not much else about this story is really surprising besides the fact that the girl was in her 20s or 30s before reincarnation and has the attitude of a working adult. The actual biggest surprise of this story is that the way they talk actually sounds like what I read in the memoirs of an aristocrat, which is actually more polite than just about every anime-related thing I can think of makes it out to be.

...

And finally, I found out that the reincarnated holy sword story is going to be a series. Yess.

[kamitra]

Things that should go with the argument against abortion:

1. The conviction of attempted murder for any person or organization that harms or otherwise tortures a pregnant person.

2. Health and welfare for the man, woman, and child in question, at least a year before and after birth. For the child, until the age of 16 or so.**

3. The linking of responsibility of both parents for the child's lifelong wellbeing without question.*

*(Does this mean a woman can rape a man and collect benefits? Yes it does. Much like how a man can rape a woman and get off without any consequences while women are currently told just to not have sex if they didn't want kids.)

4. Free contraceptives. I mean, if you didn't want kids, these should be easy to get, right?

Now all this being said, I'm not actually for or against abortion (but there's always exceptions to someone that will need it because life is like that so I guess I'm more on the pro-choice side). But I really am very angry that anti-abortionists claim to be for children when they won't bother to undergo the massive social requirements needed to ensure the wellbeing of these children, as well as the parents that will probably not be ready for them.

**(This is assuming health is not going to be covered universally anyway. And if you're worried about people having kids just so they can the medical to survive... be worried.)

5. Oh yeah and not have pregnancy a reason to drop someone from employment. And then require that women have an employment ratio of at least 3:7 (or have a company that hires women to have some sort of benefit, alternatively) so they can't just claim to not hire women. While making sure the minimum wage doesn't go to hell and tip-based wages are dropped from the system.

[kamitra]

As a (broad) generation of future crotchety and senile people, I can only think that we will be a suspicious of everything, disbelieving of everything but ones own ideals, simultaneously coveting financial stability but unable to give the trust required... And ultimately discounted for being mentally unsound. Because we are mentally unsound already. The current situation is set up to make us the ultimate hidebound people and feeling self-justfied just for our survival through these times. And people will lament over how backward we are... Because our times are so backward that we cannot look ahead.

[kamitra]

Political symptoms

At least, in this country (USA). And some days I wonder if everyone will get disgusted enough to revolt or something. And then such a revolt would simultaneously not know what the revolt was about (probably two or three lines of argument will emerge that have little to do with each other) and also be crushed (by an unwilling military) for being rioters.

This is perhaps a time when hypocrisy (swathed with a very very broad brush) is at an obvious point:

suspicion towards women is making obvious gestures while women rage against the fact that women are proven to have reason to be suspicious of men;

People clamor for a right to arms, but I seriously doubt they mean anything other than certain people to have access to guns, because of course proper folk don't shoot each other like those other folks do;

mental health is a joke (literally) and I honestly think that future, better, societies will judge most of our people as unfit for duty due to this (nevermind unfit for guns);

nevermind physical health which is basically under fire for being so damned expensive because of course it is -- we don't care about health (prevention and maintenance) (to be fair I'm not sure this country has ever cared since lives are the one thing it can afford to spend.);

a country that is obsessed with winning (wars, arguments) is pretty much calling itself (by proxy) a loser;

that fiscal irresponsibility, nevermind it crushing (perhaps kill because remember that lots of people couldn't pay enough for their survival aka healthcare) people's lives, is more or less proven to be unpunishable (so much for justice);

and that all my anger and complaints are useless because 1) it's too long 2) it doesn't offer a solution (that doesn't break the national identity) 3) someone could just claim how lame of a person I am and how this invalidates all my thoughts... as if that works as an argument, but yeah, it's seen to win. And winning is everything.

Because our political reality is several things all vying for power and control: self-deceit (self-meaning), shared deceit (social meaning), and the truth (tools for meaning).