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Mr Poltroon

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  1. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darklord Rooke in News   
    That's definitely true, there is a certain ‘if I’m going to die from a cock-up, then it darn well better be my cock-up’ aspect to those fears, a decent dollop of 'I don't trust Terminators' going on. But at the moment, not at this very moment but a fairly general sort of moment, I’m driving a car where one of the windows no longer goes down because the electrics are screwed, every so often my dear vehicle will choose to remain locked for a couple of days due to a problem with the electronic unlocking mechanism the mechanic has no explanation for (‘it just doesn’t like you, mate,’ isn’t a valid explanation,) and not too long ago the computer chip was telling the car to change gears at the wrong speed (I drive an automatic.) I really don’t want to add complex decision making and navigational tasks to its responsibilities. And if the mechanic is right and my car actually doesn’t like me, it will be a very cold day in hell before…
    But anyway, I’m sure you're right and one day it will be an incredibly safe way to travel, but I’m going to wait at least a decade or two after it's introduced before I go anywhere near it. Because seeing facts and figures is all well and good, but certain real world experiences indicate there's some significant problems to overcome first. And if this does become a ‘thing’ in the near future, and all cars become driverless, I swear to God I’ll bike everywhere. And I’ll do so in really tight and inappropriate shorts. Because if I have to be inconvenienced, then I’m going to try my darndest to ruin everybody else’s day also.
    Oh I see, a glass-half-full fellow. Your optimism and good faith will have no impact on my stubborn and irrational pessimism, good sir  
  2. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darklord Rooke in News   
    I actually do agree. I'd be much more likely to distrust the drunk driver in front of me than machine that's currently driving itself. I don't really know he's drunk until it's too late, you see, when he ends up in a face-to-lightpost situation and I end up in a face-to-trunk phenomenon.
    If he wants to talk about glitches, the other day my friend's fuel gauge broke and he ended up stuck smack dab in the middle of Australia, never to be seen again. I know this 'cause a little birdie told me. It was also a vulture, though that's probably not a good sign.
    It's not the newfangled machinery that's going to make this phenomenon much worse than it already is. I'm going to be at risk either way. Might as well be the thoroughly tested and bug-fixed machinery than to make a point of never driving at night lest I run into the next national car race championship candidate.
    And then somehow still run into someone who's driving out there without a wink of sleep, simultaneously on his cellphone; which is good, it'll be that much easier to phone the hospital that way.

  3. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Fred the Barber in Oh, The (Tricky) Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 2 of ∞)   
    No, no, you are entirely mistaken. My interest in male genitals increases threefold per giant, blurry pixel.
    As for the translation choice, I'm not a native, tricky sounds as English as any other word to me. Same goes for useless. If anything, I found it curious how it had been translated as "tricky", which I hadn't seen before, but that's about it.
  4. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darbury in Oh, The (Tricky) Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 2 of ∞)   
    No, no, you are entirely mistaken. My interest in male genitals increases threefold per giant, blurry pixel.
    As for the translation choice, I'm not a native, tricky sounds as English as any other word to me. Same goes for useless. If anything, I found it curious how it had been translated as "tricky", which I hadn't seen before, but that's about it.
  5. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Deep Blue in Oh, The (Tricky) Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 2 of ∞)   
    No, no, you are entirely mistaken. My interest in male genitals increases threefold per giant, blurry pixel.
    As for the translation choice, I'm not a native, tricky sounds as English as any other word to me. Same goes for useless. If anything, I found it curious how it had been translated as "tricky", which I hadn't seen before, but that's about it.
  6. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to storyteller in Save the Visual Novels! Eat the Whales!   
    Sure. But "trash tier" is a fairly pompous (and unconstrucive, I might add) way of critiquing.
    One would expect some levels of credential from someone willing to make such statements.
  7. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darbury in Save the Visual Novels! Eat the Whales!   
    You very literally (which, of course, means figuratively) killed me with this sentence: "That’s what gets things done in the real world, not 48-hour marathons every random.randint(1,6) weekends fueled by Red Bull, Hot Pockets, and intense self-loathing."
    As for the rest of it, I've got to agree. Mostly because I take most of my outside work projects in bursts, and I know just how bad productivity is like that.
  8. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darbury in Save the Visual Novels! Eat the Whales!   
    Mom, I told you not to stalk me on Fuwa. 
  9. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Deep Blue in Save the Visual Novels! Eat the Whales!   
    I was missing this blogs, glad to have them back 
  10. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Decay in Ask sanahtlig: Answers to Common Issues and Concerns in the VN community   
    Meh. I'll stick with not learning Japanese.
  11. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darklord Rooke in Ask sanahtlig: Answers to Common Issues and Concerns in the VN community   
    There seems to be a similar theme to your answers, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. I think you’re being a little too subtle...
  12. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Redpanda in [Fuwa exclusive][Rant] Promoting VNs in a culture of apathy   
    About your methods and way of life:
    I've talked with you for a while some time ago. I don't know if it got through, but I absolutely love what you do. Promoting VN's, trying to make himself heard.
    Admittedly, this has made me think of you as arrogant on more than one occasion, but that can't really be helped when you're trying to be, as you said, an activist.
    I tend to agree with sound logic, and I believe that most of the time what you say is sound. It's always nice to read what you write, even when occasionally I can already tell "he's gonna get flamed to bits for this" as I read your content.
     
     
     
    About the title of the Reddit "article":
    Expecting people to carefully consider every single word, its denotation, and its context is your first mistake. Miscommunication is the cause of most conflicts. You can interpret your title however you want. If the average person doesn't you can't entirely blame them.
    You will notice that most people believe your title to be clickbait, and that you had to provide paragraphs of justification over the chosen title just so people would even remotely understand its "carefully chosen-ness".
     
    Perhaps because I'm not a non-native, I would have never thought of interpreting "Fans" and "fury" as you did, when there was a much more obvious meaning I could easily reach.
     
    I'll give you a badly made example which likely has nothing to do with this.
    In Portuguese, the word "eventually" means "possibly". Perhaps because of the English language's influence on Europe and education, most youths believe it has the English meaning. This can very easily lead to certain misunderstandings.
    While the one who uses it with the Portuguese meaning is categorically right, the one who misinterprets it can't fairly be held responsible when the misinformation actively spreads among people.
     
    With this I'm trying to say, your interpretation of the title may be the most correct one, but it is not the one most people will arrive at, and your carefully chosen wording is entirely to blame.
  13. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Fiddle in Editors Are Not Proofraeders   
    Can confirm the above. I may not be qualified for any of the positions, but I've checked Translations before and in the wise words of my current employer: "Your virgin eyes do miracles for spotting the nonsense that slipped through the cracks."
  14. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darbury in Editors Are Not Proofraeders   
    Can confirm the above. I may not be qualified for any of the positions, but I've checked Translations before and in the wise words of my current employer: "Your virgin eyes do miracles for spotting the nonsense that slipped through the cracks."
  15. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Nosebleed in Editors Are Not Proofraeders   
    Oh how I've fallen trap to this so many times when I typeset manga.
    I tell myself "Well, I've typed it out and seen the lines with my own eyes, it can't be wrong, I know my spelling", after which I proceed to upload the work without even reading it over once, only to then be met with comments pointing out 2 or 3 typos in different pages and forcing me to OCD and turn my computer back on at 2AM to photoshop those pages again.
    For shorter things (definitely not applicable to big VNs), when you don't have someone to QC/Proofread (as in, someone qualified for said position), my suggestion is to at the very least read the entire finished product a couple times yourself and show it to one or two people, chances are they'll spot a lot of the basic errors pretty easily. I've found that just having a couple people review my work before I upload it has significantly decreased the amount of typos I make.
  16. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from sanahtlig in [Fuwa exclusive][Rant] Promoting VNs in a culture of apathy   
    About your methods and way of life:
    I've talked with you for a while some time ago. I don't know if it got through, but I absolutely love what you do. Promoting VN's, trying to make himself heard.
    Admittedly, this has made me think of you as arrogant on more than one occasion, but that can't really be helped when you're trying to be, as you said, an activist.
    I tend to agree with sound logic, and I believe that most of the time what you say is sound. It's always nice to read what you write, even when occasionally I can already tell "he's gonna get flamed to bits for this" as I read your content.
     
     
     
    About the title of the Reddit "article":
    Expecting people to carefully consider every single word, its denotation, and its context is your first mistake. Miscommunication is the cause of most conflicts. You can interpret your title however you want. If the average person doesn't you can't entirely blame them.
    You will notice that most people believe your title to be clickbait, and that you had to provide paragraphs of justification over the chosen title just so people would even remotely understand its "carefully chosen-ness".
     
    Perhaps because I'm not a non-native, I would have never thought of interpreting "Fans" and "fury" as you did, when there was a much more obvious meaning I could easily reach.
     
    I'll give you a badly made example which likely has nothing to do with this.
    In Portuguese, the word "eventually" means "possibly". Perhaps because of the English language's influence on Europe and education, most youths believe it has the English meaning. This can very easily lead to certain misunderstandings.
    While the one who uses it with the Portuguese meaning is categorically right, the one who misinterprets it can't fairly be held responsible when the misinformation actively spreads among people.
     
    With this I'm trying to say, your interpretation of the title may be the most correct one, but it is not the one most people will arrive at, and your carefully chosen wording is entirely to blame.
  17. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darbury in Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah (Editing Onomatopoeia in VNs)   
    No no, that's not a bad thing at all. You just have to make sure to keep consistent.
  18. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darklord Rooke in Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah (Editing Onomatopoeia in VNs)   
    You know, there's nothing wrong with literal translations provided they are accompanied by a shitload of translator notes. If no translation notes (or explanations) are forthcoming, then leaving Japanese words in the script is poor translation philosophy. In fact I'll go one step further, leaving unexplained Japanese words in the script is an incomplete translation. It's why literally translated literature come with 400 odd translator notes in the back, and it's part of the reason why official anime is localised (because it's not a medium that can support such TL notes well.) 
  19. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darklord Rooke in [Fuwa exclusive][Rant] Promoting VNs in a culture of apathy   
    Mate, I have no idea why you even pay attention to people complaining. People don't like that you advertise? Tough. People don't like what you have to say? Tough. People don't like the way you say things? Tough. A significant number of people on the internet need to learn how to ignore shit they don't like without a piece of software to do it for them. It used to be a valuable skill back in the day.
     
    On the other hand they are also free to complain, and whine, and bitch, just as you're free to ignore them. Do as you wish within the rules, you're lucky enough to live in a free country. and let people react how they react *shrugs*
  20. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Fiddle in Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    I love the Oxford comma. And that is just one more reason why I constantly mess up when writing in Portuguese.
  21. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darbury in Ojousamas for All! (AKA, The First Reference Rule)   
    I'd comment on the helpfulness or how interesting this blog post is, but I'm more interested in finding a bowl of ojiya myself.
    I might have to scour the country for it, and it's still easier than scouring an American state.
  22. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darklord Rooke in Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    Rook - Admittedly, through everything I said, there are indeed a lot of ellipsis in fan translations.
     
    The kind you can see don't bother me much (although ellipsis have 3 dots, there's no need to use more than one ellipsis to indicate a pause. 3 dots are enough. Not 6. Not 4. Not 12. Japan loves using more than three.), for instance, three dots at the start of a sentence is so incredibly normal and usual in a VN I've learnt to process them as some kind of pause before speaking (or in this case, monologuing, because he seems to be suffering from brain lapses on a regular basis).
     
    Of course, it doesn't make much sense to have a dialogue of "..." followed by more ellipsis, but in context it just means he had no reply and instead transitioned to thinking/monologue.
     
    Personally, ellipsis in a monologue are nigh on useless unless you're in the middle of rationalising or making deductions. That's what I figure happens in the second set of ellipsis that starts a sentence. Indeed, if you want to fix it in English, the ellipsis itself isn't the problem, but its positioning. Just move the ellipsis to the end of the previous sentence and it's much less offensive.
     
    As for that mammoth of a dash, it indicates his thoughts were interrupted, or trailed off (because Japan does it differently). Presumably the writer was suffering from cramps and the "-" became a "---------".
     
     
    Although this is all mostly irrelevant in the context of this blog post. While there are lots of ellipsis, if used correctly they aren't a problem.
     
    Darbury has the problem of attempting to match the voice (which I personally consider an important factor. I don't know Japanese, but it throws me out of the flow when a complicated Japanese sentence magically transmutes into a one word reply; or when the -kun's accidentally dress up as -san's) to the textbox.
     
    As it is dialogue, I think this shouldn't have become a problem, but apparently there were too many ellipsis. Logically one doesn't speak like the hyperbolic example we were given, so how do sentences end up like this?
    "So … at times … the script reads … like this."
    I'd say "Don't base yourself on the Japanese use of ellipsis, but feel free to follow dialogue pauses in speech."
  23. Like
    Mr Poltroon reacted to Darklord Rooke in Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    TiagFromVenice - (I don't intentionally muck up people's names, honest ) that reply is hella insightful, and is fairly on the money. VNs replace a lot of written narration with pictures, and most VNs are prose light, which could be a reason a lot of ellipses are used.
     
    The image you linked to features a voiceless protagonist (I'm fairly certain.) But you're right again when you imply that people are more tolerant of ellipses in dialogue, or internal dialogue, than narration. 
     
    There still tends to be an overuse of ellipses in translations though, which comes from punctuation usage differences between the Japanese and English. Take the image you linked to, for example (WHOA that's an incredibly literal piece of translation.) The first 2 sentences. We have "..." followed by an ... in the narration. What is this actually supposed to denote? A pause ... followed by another pause? Wouldn't you normally just call this one long pause? In English you would, but in Japanese this sort of stuff is common, and you could have text box after text box after text box filled with nothing but ellipses. In English I'd suggest you'd just have one ellipsis here, and it would just be 3 dots, not 6. So you'd delete the ellipsis at the beginning of the second line, otherwise you get people wrinkling their nose.
     
    And if you look at the second set of ellipses, down the bottom of your linked image you'll find an ellipsis separating two sentences. Separating two paragraphs. That's really tricky, in English an ellipsis at the end of a sentence usually indicates you're trailing off, and yet I've never seen an ellipsis stuck at the beginning of a sentence in narration. Sometimes you see one at the beginning of a sentence when somebody intrudes on a piece of dialogue (or narration), so you're catapulted half-way into something. So either way you're doing something considered weird in English. I would probably suggest joining those 2 sentences together to form a single sentence, so the ellipsis would no longer separate two sentences, but rather parts of a single sentence.
     
    But that's not half as weird as that humongous dash at the end of the screen, what on Earth is that meant to mean? I dunno. 
     
    Anyway, the point is that going from Japanese to English, punctuation, and even sentence lengths and structures, aren't fixed. This is because the language techniques of Japan are different from the language techniques of English. As a translator (and editor) there's a degree of latitude to fiddle with these language techniques as long as you keep tone and whatnot consistent, which a lot of fan-translators don't take up and unfortunately keeping things overly literal will result in abhorrent abuse of ellipses (along with other problems.)
  24. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Darklord Rooke in Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    On the context of ellipsis (and in an attempt to spare my life for yet another day), I've glanced through a couple of Portuguese novels, and particularly direct speech, ellipsis are indeed fairly common.
     
    I have incredibly limited knowledge about novels, because, contrary to expectations, I don't often read, if ever. But as far as I know, dialogue doesn't appear too often (or in other words, there's much more narration that draws it out) in novels, and I'd like to say that's the reason there's such a lack of ellipsis. When a person speaks, certainly they make pauses, a novel could cut a piece of dialogue in the middle, fit a bit of narration as the pause and continue.
     
    "I've got something to tell you" John said solemnly, and after taking a deep breath he added "your daughter has gone missing."
     
    I don't know the proper structure in English, I don't even know it in Portuguese properly, but I think what's above is theoretically possible...?
    Actual quote from Portuguese showcasing what I mean:



     
    In short, VN's are mostly comprised of dialogue. They are also usually limited to a simple dialogue box. Under these circumstances one is constricted on the amount they can fit in the box, and each box can be only used for dialogue or can only be used for narration, not both.
    I'd say using ellipsis to showcase the pauses in speech is really the only available option.
     
    Overall it will seem like a huge amount of ellipsis, but I'll blame that on the huge amount of dialogue. VN's who write on top of the screen (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/y26b29CaMe0/maxresdefault.jpg) should theoretically suffer less from this, but since they're still voiced, and they end up getting ports to a console with the smaller box system ( http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5k5wpzVl2qY/maxresdefault.jpg), they're still made with that in mind and little to no dialogue/narration mingling.
     
     
    Of course, ellipsis like these should still freeze in hell:
    ..............I don't know...........maybe it was my father.......?
  25. Like
    Mr Poltroon got a reaction from Chronopolis in Oh, The Editing Mistakes I Have Made (Part 1 of ∞)   
    I see no reason not to use this as advice for any potential instances I feel inclined to... eh... pretend I'm an editor?
     
    Nevertheless, I can wallow in others' misery and learn simultaneously. How can this not be a wonderful blog post!
     
    "But if you don’t use the Oxford comma, you deserve to die alone."
    I redirect you to this wonderful translation team with which, I'm sure, you have a great deal in common:
    http://theoxfordcommaissuperiorsubs.com/
     
    It is highly recommended you read the acutely enlightening blog posts you will find within, relative to the Oxford Comma's Superiority.
    You will finish an erudite man.
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