#the word seems a bit ableist and derogatory | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

steves-strapcollection · 4 years

Photo

DO NOT REBLOG

This is not a call-out post, this is merely me addressing baseless accusations in the only way I can. If this doesn’t look great for them, then fine.They seem content to smear mine and Amdis’ names behind a block, so I’m going to at least set the record straight on my own blog.

If they didn’t want this made public, they should have approached me privately on Discord where we were friends or even through messenger here on Tumblr.

Regardless.

First, I would like to address the cowardice it takes to not only build your entire platform in calling out ableism, just to react this way when a handful of other people with ADHD expressed discomfort with a certain word being used. To @ people, and then immediately block them so they had to have friends lurk on your blog to just see what was even said to us. Like that is super classy so A++.

I will only be addressing what was said to me, as I’m not here to fight Amdis’ battles or anything.

Now, just to keep my own thoughts organized, because I am ADHD, I’m just going to address this point by point.

(All quotes below pulled word-for-word from Dathen’s replies to me)

“I have ADHD and am autistic...”

I am aware of this, as ADHD especially is something Dathen and I have in common and have repeatedly had discussions about in the past together. We are both neurodivergent.

“... this is not derogatory and projecting that onto me is pretty gross.”

I didn’t project anything onto Dathen, and I didn’t call the post derogatory, and I didn’t even say that “zoomies” was derogatory. I only ever mentioned that it made me, and several others, uncomfortable because it veered a little bit too close to “spaz” and “spastic” which are derogatory terms.

“Also I’m baffled that you’d try to twist my words like this...”

I didn’t try to do anything. I actually said “While I get the spirit behind calling it ‘zoomies’, it also feels too close to ‘spaz’ or ‘spastic’ for my comfort” and simply requested that the behaviour in question be called what it is, which is “stimming.”

“...you’ve followed me long enough to know better.”

Yes, I did know better than to assume they said it with malicious intent and not once thought that they did, and nothing in my reply implies that I did. I followed Dathen for a long while, and given their near-constant discoursing about ableism, and given they are a grown adult about my age, I had figured they would be reasonable enough to have a discussion about how certain words might not be the greatest to use.

“There is so much anti-nd ableism in this fandom...”

I am aware of this. I am literally neurodivergent. Again, Dathen and I have discussed this very phenomena at length prior to this.

“...that coming to an nd person...”

They keep throwing this around as if I myself am not neurodivergent.

“... with ‘you’re projecting onto Jon with the WRONG WORDS’ is really your concern here?? really??”

That isn’t what I said, it wasn’t even the spirit of what I said, and no that isn’t my concern since that is not what I said at all. Like I find it incredibly rich that I was blocked and accused of twisting someone’s words and then my words were just, twisted left and right. And listen, if a word is hurtful to other neurodivergent people, which it was uncomfortable for myself and at least five other people, then yes! Maybe don’t use that word to project on a character. But then again, I didn’t really tell them to not use it. I requested that it be called “stimming” but in the end, I didn’t tell them to do anything.

Now, my request and my discomfort comes from a place of legitimate trauma, from a time where I was abused by caregivers and treated like a dog and threatened with leashes and shock collars for my untreated symptoms of ADHD. I should not have to disclose either my neurodivergence, nor my trauma for my opinion on the subject to be valid. Period.

Their aggression really comes off as them assuming I was neurotypical which really throws their entire platform of being anti-ableism into question. They will post for a month about how calling Jon stupid is ableist, but a handful of people with ADHD express discomfort with them calling stimming “zoomies” and they flip out, @ us, and then block us? Seems massively hypocritical and now I’m just really doubtful about everything they’ve ever discoursed over.

Being neurodivergent doesn’t give you a free pass, and even then, neither Amdis or I thought Dathen was being ableist and neither of us even said that or implied it. We merely presented a perspective they possibly didn’t consider.

But it appears that Dathen is only interested in being agreed with completely, or accusing people of attacking them if they don’t.

DO NOT REBLOG

#discourse tw #salt tw #do not reblog #long post #long post tw #longpost #longpost tw

12 notes · View notes

goodguyjean · 6 years

Note

I've noticed one of the main differences between your interpretation of Jean and other interpretations of him is that you view his honesty and morals as a choice or a standard by which he holds himself to rather than a more involuntary process or personality trait. For example, reading him as having a commitment to honesty vs lack of filter (or an under development filter). Or reading him as having ethical standards vs compassion born out of human "weakness." Could you speak to this a bit more?

Jean’s defeatism in the draft of chapter 1, published in Englishin the first Attack on Titan guidebook. Sorry for the fuzzy picture!

Hiya, anon! No worries, I got the meaning of your messages :) Ican speak to all these questions a bit more and defend my interpretation ofJean; I think there’s enough evidence to support my reading in the manga, evenwhen it is separated from the initial draft, although I see where yourquestions come from. I agree with you that Jean is much more explicit aboutsome of his thoughts and motivations in the draft of chapter one, but I don’tthink they’re any less present in the actual manga, and may actually bepresented with a greater degree of subtlety in their published form.

(Preemptively, I’m going to say that I don’t think we should use the word sp*zzy; many people with disabilities consider it derogatory. I’m sure you didn’t mean it as such! But just soyou’re aware! I myself am currently trying to unlearn ableist language)

More under the cut :)

Tospeak to your first question, I do think Jean’s honesty is a conscious choicebased on the way the text frames it, but I also don’t think him valuing and choosing honestyis automatically at odds with it being an aspect of his personality. He has animpulse towards honesty and openness (just think of how he blurts out to Mikasathat she has beautiful hair or of his fight with Eren where he vents hisfrustrations in chapter 17; he also calls it his “bad habit” in chapter 15, suggesting it’s kind of automatic for him). I’ve argued elsewhere that by chapter 90Jean has developed a sense of kairos (timingof an argument) which I believe he lacks in the opening of the series–part ofhis evolution might be that he learns to distinguish when honesty is mostimportant and useful, whereas in the beginning some of his honesty might becounterproductive, I admit. But I think people do misunderstand Jean when theyportray his honesty as a complete lack of a filter, unthinking and uninformed.Because Jean does have a filter: he does make choices about when to say certainthings, and when he’s honest it mostly does seem related to important subjectslike the value of individual human life or his criticism of Eren. Tellingly, we actually see him apply a filter early on in the manga: after hisinitial encounter with Mikasa does not elicit positive results, Jean completelyclams up about his feelings for her, only thinking of revealing them when he ison the verge of death, when Mikasa is not even present herself.

Chapter 7. This scene comes before weknow about Jean’s crush on Mikasa in the manga, so it was very confusing for mewhen I initially read it—in the anime it comes after the training sequences, sowe know that Jean is probably talking about Mikasa. Still, the Englishis vague. According to @mirandafandomette who checks the French translation forme whenever I have a question (thanks, bro!), Jean says “faire ma déclaration”here, which has a heavy romantic connotation.

Jeandoes not flirt with Mikasa, he does not hound Mikasa to earn her attention(despite fandom portrayals). He leaves her alone. He creates a filter, andalthough he develops a rivalry with Eren after this event, he keeps thisparticular motivation for it under wraps. Hardly what we would expect of someone whohad absolutely no ability to control his speech or did not care about hurtingpeople. This is not to say that hiding his feelings for Mikasa is dishonest: he never denies them, forinstance, and as such I don’t think his secret-keeping runs counter to hisvalues or his personality. It’s just that, in this instance, he can and does recognize aboundary, and upholds it.

Ibelieve we also see Jean choose to be honest at an early stage of his career inthe military. When Shadis asks him why he’s enlisted, we have a panel whereyoung Jean pauses before answering. He doesn’t just blurt his motivation out,but grits his teeth and gives an honest reply.

Chapter 15.

Ithink it’s important we get this panel of pausing here: I think it shows that Jean isthinking, being deliberate in what he says as a response. For Jean, even at soyoung an age, being honest within the military is a political move. He’s openabout his motivations, refuses to go along with the charade of wanting to do aservice for the king or wanting to be a hero for fighting the titans. Hecritiques both Eren and Marco for their idealism, believing it masks their fearand insecurities. Instead, he chooses to live with his fears exposed.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 15.

Jeanprides himself on knowing the stakes. He doesn’t claim to be something he’snot, even when it makes him look bad or runs counter to military discourseabout bravery and service. This honesty serves him well: as Marco says, peopletrust him because of it, following him when he’s willing to put himself at riskfor a cause because they believe he’s adequately assessed the situation andthought through the risks.

Chapter 18.

Chapter 23. Jean successfully gets Reiner and Armin to follow his plan.

Allof this honesty goes beyond just not having a filter. Sure, Jean canoccasionally pick inopportune times to voice his opinion, but he never does sowithout fully comprehending the risk involved in doing so. That facet of hishonesty, more than anything, is calculated and brave. We see Jean, forinstance, pause and consider before telling Levi that he thinks he’s going toofar with Historia. Jean is the only one who voices a direct critique, and wesee him building up to confronting Levi about his methodology beforehand.

Chapters 55-56.

So Ithink my answer to your question is that Jean both has this natural impulsetowards honesty, but also chooses it as his life philosophy, which he nuancesover time and as he gains experience.

Tomove on to your second point, I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but I actuallycan’t think of a moment in the manga where Jean behaves in a particularlyimmature or goofy way ^^’. Which scenes were you thinking of, in particular? Ithink one would be hard-pressed to read him as a comic relief character in themanga. And sure, he’s growing and maturing post-chapter 50, but he’s notstarting from a really immature point, particularly because he’s alreadyundergone a lot of growth since the beginning of the manga. We don’t see thetype of immaturity and shenanigans incorporated into the cooking contest OVA,for example, and Jean pretty much never gives us the cocky grins he’s known forin the anime—in the manga he’s almost always frowning or making creepy faces,actually ^^’. I’ve read the interview where Isayama claims to have beeninfluenced by the anime’s portrayal of Jean and his VA in particular, but Ipersonally don’t see this influence coming through very strongly (perhaps inthe HS AU Jean?). Jean is pretty consistently serious, and scenes that aremeant to be humorous involving him often involve Sasha and Connie—Sasha stealingbread and Jean and Armin lecturing her, Jean and Connie trying to prevent Sashafrom eating up all the meat at a feast, Sasha and Connie dunking Jean in theocean … I guess Jean drinking from the ocean can be read as goofy, but Iread the ocean scenes as people being giddy and ecstatic at having encounteredthe ocean at last—an understandable reaction! And when Jean challenges Erenafter the events of the Reiss cave, he seems genuinely worried about him andlike he’s trying to provoke him into a fight to get his old spark back—it’s nothim being goofy and stumbling into something that works, it really seemscalculated on his part, given how many times he tries (three!) and Armin’sknowing look.

Chapters 70, 72. My close-reading ofthese scenes can be found here.

Mypoint is, if these scenes are funny it’s because Jean is so serious andsomething distinctly not serious is happening to him, or because everyone iskind of in a lighter mood, or because Jean is actually saying something kind offunny. These jokes don’t really seem to about Jean’s immaturity or naturalgoofiness. I’d be curious to hear if I’ve missed something, but I just don’tsee this behavior you’re talking about, I’m sorry.

To goon a bit of a tangent, I think the comparison to Reiner is apt though, and Ithink it is something that pops up within the manga itself. While Reinerinitially disparages Jean as “not a real soldier,” Jean actually turns out tobe someone Reiner desperately wants to be: someone who lives by his convictionsand never actually hides himself. Whereas Reiner is confused about hisloyalties and develops multiple personas to cope with the disconnect betweenhis feelings and his actions (as well as to just manage everything that’s goingon around him), Jean balks at pretending he’s someone he’s not (Eren, onmultiple occasions, and possibly now Helos) and is very open about hismotivations. We even see them compared in their reactions to a former-comrade-nowenemies’ death, and we can tell they’re being compared because of theirpositioning in these panels.

Chapter 77. These incidents, the former aflashback, both occur in the same chapter. Reiner and Jean both address theircrying comrades, whom they have been leading, after they have killed a formerfriend.

Althoughit pains him, Jean honestly owns Reiner’s “death” while Reiner disassociates tocope with Marco’s death. Now, Jean has not been put under the kinds of stressesthat Reiner has by any means, and I don’t mean to imply that Reiner’s responseto death is somehow a moral failing since it is really beyond his control, butit strikes me that Jean becomes the honest compassionate soldier that Reinercannot be because of his circumstances (not necessarily in the above scene, but elsewhere, even earlier in the manga when Jean suggests to Reiner that they put themselves as risk to give the Survey Corps time to retreat). They’re both “cool,” as you and Isayamasay, but Jean’s the one who is actually practicing what he preaches—again, thisis not to come down too hard on Reiner, who is in a very tricky situation andis suffering severely, but merely to point out that Jean is actually Reiner’sideal and the vision he tried to live out for himself, but couldn’t. And Reinerstill thinks of Jean as his antithesis, a lazy guy who cares for no one buthimself. Tragic irony!

Chapter 94. Reiner’s recollection of Jean. Reiner may also be trying to talk himself out of his fondness for Jean.

As toyour third question, I do believe that Jean is aware of the stakes of thattitan war and is still a genuine defeatist in the published manga. Although he is less explicit that he thinks the titans are going to burst through the walls, I think that probability has to be on his mind as he talks about the Cull. It comesthrough pretty clearly to me in his discussion about how humanity doesn’t havea chance.

Chapter3.

Jean issomber here. He’s incredibly clear-sighted, as we learn from other places inthe manga, and he can’t be unaware that if the titans broke through the Wallonce, they could do it again, especially since they outnumber the humans. His statement is a blanket one: humanity doesn’tstand a chance against the titans. They can’t fight them, they can’t outlastthem, and they’ll never be free from their influence. It seems pretty clear tome that Jean is under no illusions about the ultimate fate of humanity in thisworld, and that his decision to make it into the MP is about making the most ofwhat time he has.

Chapter3.

Ialso think this mindset is suggested by his reaction to the titans’ secondappearance in the manga. He asks “Why did it have to be today?”

Chapter4.

Not,“oh shit, they actually came back,” but, “just my luck, it was today, the day I wassupposed to make it to the MP.”

Jeanis horrified and has a visceral reaction to the reappearance of the titans, butit was not entirely unexpected to him. As I said at the beginning of this post,Jean’s defeatism may not be as explicitly expressed as in the draft of thefirst chapter where he essentially says they’re all waiting around to die, butit still seems implicit in the way he frames the titan threat. It’sinsurmountable, it’s coming for them, and when it arrives it’s terrifying, butnot a surprise.

MaybeI’m reading too much into these scenes, but it seems to me that Jeanreally does think the titans are coming, and what he wants is to experience theinterior and make the most out of whatever kind of life he has. Jean is not afool, although Eren often reads him as one; he doesn’t seem to have anyillusions that the titans are going to stay outside Wall Rose, or that humanityis truly safe inside the Walls. Just that the interior is the safest spot within the walls and the highest quality of life available to him.

Hopethis answers you questions about my interpretation, anon! Thanks for the notes:)

#replies #anonymous #jean kirstein #snk meta #maybe I've read the draft into the main manga #but I think it's a supportable reading that jean thinks the titans will come back #he's such a defeatist #and a realist

22 notes · View notes

sableaire · 7 years

Text

Here, have a post about what Sangwoo says after pouring porridge in Chapter 2 because that was a surprisingly difficult translation to explain... This is a long post.

I will also say that I am translating things that you will never learn in a structured Korean class. I am translating them because it is a part of the language as it is used colloquially and in the comic. This post contains an explanation of expletives and ableist slurs, but I ask that you do not read this post with the intent to use them. They are important in understanding a language, but there is never a need to use them.

So, with that warning, let’s jump right in.

In the scene where Sangwoo dumps the porridge on Bum’s face, the English reads, “Why the fuck would you like that you fucking retard?” but that’s not what it says in Korean, which is arguably scarier from an emotional standpoint.

“좋단다 병신 새끼 왜 날 좋아해서”

Also, Korean has this thing where it only uses punctuation to indicate tone, so even though the American copy-editor in me is saying to add a comma and an ellipses, I shall refrain. Basically, Korean webcomics write like English internet text, using commas and question marks to imply how it should be read instead of adhering to set grammatical rules.

The meaning of the Korean is, “[he says he] likes it, this [cripple/fool/retard], why [end up in this sorry state] because you like me[?]” ungrammatical comma splices and all. So, it’s actually unclear which of the two commas would be a full stop in a grammatically correct sentence, meaning that there are actually two ways to read this. As for the words and sentence structure, they can’t be emulated in English, but I’ll try to explain.

To begin with, let’s talk about the vocabulary. The Korean word used where the brackets are is “병신,” which with its derogatory nature, translates to “retard” or “cripple”. To be more exact, a “leg retard” is a “cripple”. And I know, I know, this all sounds so horrible, and I’m actually appalled by how awful it sounds in English because I actually never connected the dots in Korean until just now.

The word “병신” is derogatory in nature, but I don’t believe it is regarded as a slur in the majority of Korean society. If it was, I did not have the opportunity to meet many people who were aware of ableism and willing to speak against the word’s use. As I know it, the word is used in casual sense like “moron”, but it’s a relatively harsh word and does have a direct connotation with intellectual disabilities or brain damage. It is used as a harsher word than “바보” which is the Korean equivalent for “stupid” or “fool”.

For some proper vocabulary, the word for a handicapped individual is “장애인” so please don’t use the above word aha.

Now for this difficult sentence structure. That first part that I wrote out as “[he says he] likes it,” Sangwoo isn’t actually speaking in third person, but it’s hard to... Sangwoo is talking to himself but targeting it at Bum? It doesn’t imply second person, but it simultaneously bears the feeling of “Look at yourself, you’re loving this” and “This guy is loving it!” and wow this is hard to explain.

The literal translation would be “[someone] says they like [something],” with both those things being filled in by context. So, in this case, the [someone] is Bum and the [something] is the general abusive and humiliating situation. It gets difficult to translate the implication because the person Sangwoo is speaking about is the person he is speaking to, so even though he’s speaking in third-person, the implication is very second-person.

I’m sorry, that’s about as good as that explanation is going to get.

So as it stands, the line would read something like, “You’re loving this, you fucking retard[...]”

Now, you might be going “hey, hang on, where did that ‘fucking’ come from, what word translates into that” and gee, that is a good question. The fact of the matter is, the Korean equivalent of the f-word isn’t present in that sentence. It has to do with that word there, “새끼,” which I didn’t realize was such a hassle to translate until I started making these posts;;;;

I already explained in this post what the word “새끼” means in Korean, but used like this, attached to another derogatory phrase, it functions as an intensifier. So basically, the translator has to decide whether they think “retard” is derogatory enough or if they need to add a “fucking” before it. Korean as a language is very context-heavy, so the degree of harshness depends mostly on the tone it is said as well as the surrounding circumstances. For example, it should be translated more harshly if a person who should be using a polite register uses the informal register.

I honestly don’t know whether or not this translation merits a “fucking”, but with Sangwoo it generally seems safer to round up rather than down, so “fucking” gets to be tossed in there. Let me just say, this is the first time in my life I have typed out the f-word or the r-slur so many times.

In any case, the second phrase is even harder to translate, ugh.

“좋단다 병신 새끼 왜 날 좋아해서”

The implication of the bold part does translate to “why [end up in this sorry state] because you like me[?]” but what the words literally say is “why because you like me” and the rest needs to be filled in with context clues. Despite the ‘why’, the phrase isn’t a question to be answered. In fact, in Korean, this sentence deliberately trails off into incompletion, which gives it the feeling of a statement. So, it’s a rhetorical question, but with an added nuance from its incompletion, like how “Why would you...” is different from “Why would you?”

There is literally no way to translate the Korean into a fluid English sentence. The closest it could get is “You’re loving this, you fucking retard, is loving me worth this?” and that just looks completely off because of the comma splices. The English would have to choose a full stop and stick with it. I think the best translation for this line would have been the following:

“You’re loving this. Fucking retard, you love me that much?”

It loses a bit of the literal meaning, but it keeps Sangwoo’s mockery of Bum’s feelings as well as the implication that Bum brought this upon himself because of his feelings. This implication is important in the context of the scene that follows, in which Sangwoo kisses Bum. With that implication in place, the kiss seems a tad more manipulative than in the English version.

#ks lost in translation #killing stalking #ableism//#slurs//#abuse//#lost in translation

310 notes · View notes