very tempted to put this on my translation tumblr (tho maybe with less putting them on blast) because like.

I. it's not. it's "that one over there". ko-so-a-do don't have gender in there.

RIGHT.

MY GOD.

IT'S "THIS AND THAT"

you're so right

taking notes of things to include in my post if i do post it

please post it

thank you pepper

aitsu is gendered but it's a gender system that japanese uses for proximity of object you are talking about and it's gender is "over there"

locative!

THANK YOU

japanese is also gendered for "animate/inanimate" but that's less relevant to the converastion

screenshot of a guy who is definitely NOT talking about the girl who replaced his memories, as he stares at her good luck charm, and hasn't thought about any other childhood friend this whole converastion,

(joke)

here also is the essay that prompted the romhack i'm mad about. read this and despair with me. sorry im still on this shit like 6 hours later.

"japanese didn't use unambigiously female pronouns" BECUASE IT DOESN'T HAVE* THOSE

*(IT DOES HAVE THOSE BUT IT DOESN'T USE THEM)

im trying to be so nicea nd i won't put them on blast on tumblr but do you even hear yourself. do you even hear yourself.

pepper's zoom in of the text wall is so very

"the game has shown us that there is no way this is anyone other than kairi..................... BUT WHAT IF WE DID A MASSIVE REACH AND SAID IT WAS RIKU ANYWAY"

in the game about namine deliberately replacing kairi in sora's memories. ah yes. sora was secretly thinking about riku.

i'm so peeved.

NOTABLY THERE ARE PLACES IN KH WHERE YOU CAN MAKE THIS ARGUMENT. THEY ARE NOT THE ONES WHERE A SENTENCE AGO THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT NAMINE REPLACING KAIRI

RIGHT

RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THERE ARE SO MANY PLACES YOU CAN GO ACTUALLY SORA'S SPECIAL PERSON IS RIKU NOT KAIRI. *THESE SCENES IN CHAIN OF MEMORIES ARE NOT THEM*

This is making me think about how, post KH3, there was one person in particular (and a bunch of people spreading their stuff around) doing analysis of the translations with the goal of claiming "the translators are trying to erase/obfuscate references Sora and Riku make to each other to make them less gay".

They presented their points in a convincing way, but the arguments were actually pretty weak if even you didn't know Japanese.

What I'm getting at is that like......I'm very out of touch with the KH fandom these days because of I Don't Fit In Here Anymore reasons, but I wonder if this is a descendant of that line of arguments.

It's very silly, in any case.

it almost definitely is lol, the original document dates back to 2022

(one of their arguments was that the phrase "what matters most" was constructed deliberately to use the word "what" to hide that it referenced a person - Sora - and not a thing. AND IT'S. NO???)

(English speakers can just casually use "what" to reference a nebulous nonspecific concept, especially casually, and because of that it's still incredibly obvious to anyone following the series what is intended. like. literally it's fine please STOP yes I am mad about this five years later.)

(the localizers do not have an evil plan to make the series less gay. if you think it is gayer in Japanese then I have a bridge to sell you.)

honestly, i remember that document and i wish they hadnt bundling everything together into a single document that mixed weird translation ideas with plot threads that might have been interesting to analyse if they hadnt gotten tangled with absolute state of the rest of it

like, it was a fun document, but it made everyone SO made, and was absolutely stretching with some things esp the translations

and its definitely seeped into the water in bad ways on both sides of the argument. this is........definitely another one of those cases. come on. "aitsu"????????

eugh. there is. definitely a reason i dont look into the fandom much these days this is....... auegh.

ill definitely reblog it if you put it on ur translation blog this is definitely uh, egregious

yeah i can't decide if i want to put anyone on blast but like lol lmao etc