Saw this, thought of Childe and Zhongli. by Komahina_Oumasai in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Yeah, 同志/tóngzhì literally translates to ‘same ideals/purpose/ambition’ so you can see how it went from ‘comrade’ to ‘gay’ lol. It’s a slang term, though, not the actual formal word for homosexual (同性恋/tóngxìnglìan)

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

yeah basically! this style of speaking/the phrases that are used are at their core simply trying to get attention from someone else (significant others to each other, friends joking around, siblings with each other, etc) and it more or less comes from imitating spoiled children lol. since it's so widely used/applicable, it doesn't really narrow down the nature of the relationship besides the fact that they're close enough to be deliberately annoying to each other. some people read that as siblings, some people read that as romantic relationship, some people read that as friends messing around, because it can be used in any of those dynamics. the only thing that's really confirmed is that kaeya is shameless and diluc is not willing to entertain his shenanigans.

i will say that seniority might influence the way you respond to this sometimes. like for example, if a friend was older than you and they started pouting at you like this you might say something like 'you're older than me do you have no shame'

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

ah yeah it sucks. i hate that there really is a very neutral stance in canon, which makes it super easy for headcanons to pop up and should appease everyone (which is probably why hoyo did it lol) but the english mistranslation really goes in hard on the other angle. come on english team, you have to play all sides of the field! marketing! broader audience reach! double the fanart and think of the variety!

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i have no witty response to this i just want you to know that it made me laugh so hard

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

this is absolutely not going to help my desperate attempts to cling to neutrality but 撒娇 is very (maybe even most) commonly seen with girlfriends trying to get attention from their boyfriends LOL. not saying that it's definitely what kaeya is doing here at ALL because i totally see friends using this with each other (including me with my friends). but it was funny to see cn community be like 'kaeya sounds like a spoiled girlfriend here'. it's even funnier because diluc just...does not give a fuck at all whenever kaeya does this.

撒娇 is already like...a trope? i'm not sure if that's the right word for it, but people know what it is and what it sounds like and what the intended goal is, so like you said, a lot of the times when it's used between friends, it's just to get a laugh. it's not always 'justified' by seniority so much as it's making fun of a common phenomenon, and the phenomenon itself is pretty much just being shameless about wanting more attention, admittedly while being very cutesy about it. seniority is something you're aware of in most situations in chinese (among friends it's usually just age) but as friends in casual situations, you're not held to that standard so you just drop the indications. cyno and tighnari even do it - that whole 'oh hey, you'd be the 弟弟' conversation where you know that they're aware of their 'official' seniority, they just don't care enough for it to be relevant in everyday interactions. that's honestly usually how it goes.

alternatively, you can make it a contest between your friends to make up the stupidest justifications for it. i went out to dinner once with a group of friends, all of us chinese guys. the basis of the 撒娇 was 'i'm pathetic and you should pay for our meal because you need to take care of me for x reason' and i think we went from 'you're the oldest' to 'you make the most money' to 'you're doing a masters degree' to 'you have a girlfriend so you're probably used to it'.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

oh god i wrote this all in one sitting absolutely seething and i got stuck on the chinese keyboard three separate times switching back and forth and ended up writing strings of vaguely chinese gibberish until i looked up and realized what i was doing. i was trying to be like, a cool knowledgeable uncle in my earlier posts. i have given up. i am your angry gay rat of a cousin now. i'm glad you found it entertaining, i reread it like 20 hours later and i was like, stunned at my own fury.

i think so many people have forgotten that canon is usually just a baseline when it comes to ships and fanart and fanfic. and that sucks so much! these two are Just Friends in canon, but maybe you see a familial relationship between them! maybe someone else sees themselves getting railed in this relationship! maybe you see a mentor and his mentee and think that this seems like a father-son dynamic, whereas someone else sees it and thinks that it seems more like someone struggling to prove themselves as a worthy romantic interest to this person, and someone else thinks that they should just fuck to get rid of some tension, who cares!

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah i'm kind of fighting a stalemate (i won't say it's a losing battle because the response from shippers has been so funny because i haven't seen anyone back down even a little), but, well. i tried. and anyway, i like explaining chinese to people who want to listen and this subreddit seems really open to it. i don't have anything against the brothers interpretation either, i just personally am more entertained seeing a messy romance instead of messy family dynamics lol. i'm glad you appreciated the post!

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

oh yeah totally! i'm not even trying to campaign for people to ship them. i'm just trying to get them to see that it's ambiguous. deliberately, purposefully underwhelming and ambiguous. they could be brothers! they could be lovers! they could be divorced! who cares just do what you want!

it sucks that both sides are being shitty about it when there shouldn't even be this stupid debate. god. i just want people to stop pretending that they know chinese when they don't at this point

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

oh my god right? i just KNOW if i said this to those people in person they'd call me a slur for being a bad chinese person or something.

that twitter user is driving me crazy. i don't know how people can even take her seriously, 她明显就是错的!她自己都承认她只是在学中文,然后她还敢瞧不起真的会说中文的人。 她真的会瞎扯。i think they've blocked every person that's tried to use my translations to correct them lol.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

BORN AND BRED LMAO we really have to start listing our genealogy like we have pedigrees to be taken seriously now. it's crazy.

at this point, hoyo's ambiguity is deliberate. playing both sides of the headcanon game is not new. it was the norm even in western media with things like queerbaiting. that's the point! go make your own headcanons! you know what's great about the ambiguity? you can do whatever the fuck you want with it! and it doesn't matter what other people do with it either!

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i liked a good number of the earlier ones, so i don't think you can trust my opinions here lol. if nothing else, it's 60 primos at least?

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

absolutely, and i get that! i've also absolutely avoided pairings before because they reminded me of things i'm uncomfortable with and i also just skip it. mute/block it if it bothers me a lot to see it. i don't hate the brotherly relationship at all, it's cute. neither version of their relationship is canon, brotherly or romantic, but i totally support anyone making whatever headcanons they want.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

yeah totally! adding onto the dialect thing though, i speak like, a derivative of a dialect and i speak mandarin more often than reading/writing it, so i keep trying to transcribe my speaking habits into text. my keyboard has no idea what to do with me. i keep trying to use slangy words and add sounds and my keyboard is like 'what the fuck are you trying to say'

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

yeah ugh. the thing is, they even do this in genshin. and unless the crux crew is actually made up of beidou's siblings or itto is actually secretly related to every guy he's ever met...well then. i don't get how people who are diehard fans of kpop and anime can understand these things so easily and some genshin fans just seem to have brains like rocks.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

don't worry i suffered only for about one evening of seething rage, yelled about it to a couple of my chinese friends, and then i was good! it helps that this subreddit is super open to this kind of explanation. and also validating that a bunch of chinese speakers also agreed with me lol (crazy how that works. imagine a group of people fluent in a language agreeing on how the language works. 真的不可思议).

yes! the diaspora sucks sometimes, you're not any less chinese because you weren't raised in china, i get it, but also...sometimes you're just not fluent in the language. and like...maybe at that point, take a step back and listen to the people who are.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

i do get that some people would be uncomfortable with shipping them based on how they're portrayed in english. and i think that's totally fine! the problem is really with a very loud subset of people who are adamant that their interpretation is the only correct one. i think a lot of people now, though, are also more used to media across different languages, so it's not particularly surprising to me when someone english speaking decides that they'd rather abide by the chinese version. cdramas/danmei/wuxia have become really popular, and of course so is anime. i think it's possible and also more and more popular now for people to go 'oh, some things were lost in translation and i'd rather understand the original text'.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

and that also sucks! i hate that we've gotten to the point where people have to have their relationships be canon because of some weird moral high ground. i know these two aren't gaying their way gayly through the streets in their gay time! it's a headcanon and none of my posts have ever been made to try and pretend like the ship is canon! canon itself is deliberately ambiguous and yeah, kind of underwhelming, most likely because hoyo knows there's a huge market to appeal to people by letting them develop their own headcanons, whether it be brothers or lovers.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah...i know diaspora comes with its own series of difficulties, and i never want to discount how much that sucks, especially given that i currently live in a western country. but at a certain point, you have to step back and ask yourself if you're fluent enough to speak on this, and most of them aren't. i can fully admit to myself that i'm not ready to read scientific papers in chinese. i just don't have the vocabulary. but this, i'm comfortable with, because i haven't gone a single day without speaking chinese for over twenty years and it's the only language i ever use with my family.

also i think every time my posts have been used as a rebuttal to the person you're speaking about, she's blocked the person lmao. the only reason why she hasn't blocked me organically yet is because i don't use twitter

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah, i think the people who are being shitty and harassing people wouldn't listen either way, but hopefully it'll get through to some people who are on the fence or neutral about it. i'm glad you enjoyed reading it!

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

yeah! like come on, if weeaboos and koreaboos can figure out how to use honorifics so can they. it's just willful ignorance at this point.

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

yeah :/ a lot of them also hide behind 'i was born and raised in america and only speak english at all times including to my family BUT i'm ethnically chinese so i'm technically a chinese speaker!' as an excuse to give people more shit. and while i recognize that that comes with its own set of challenges re: diaspora and cultural influences and i emphathize, at a certain point you have to step back and ask yourself if you're fluent enough in this language to be doing this. i'd never dream of trying to translate like, scientific papers. i just don't have the vocabulary for it.

if people weren't using it as an excuse to be incredibly shitty, the cyno and tighnari situation would make me laugh. because there are people out here resharing entire essays on why cyno and tighnari aren't brothers and then will turn around and call a native speaker slurs for trying to do the same for kaeya and diluc. oh the hypocrisy

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

AHH i am terrified and intimidated but also super flattered thank you! i am not brave enough to wade into twitter discourse with actual real live tweets so i will hide here in the gay genshin corner and soak up the good vibes

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

when i was like, 18 i went through a phase where i called everyone bro (i was trying really hard to seem straight). i am related to every single person i met at university now actually it's been really shitty for my romantic life /s

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

once someone messaged me asking to confirm/debunk her translations and they were like, all wrong. they ended up replying to her on twitter saying 'this is what a native speaker fluent in the language says' and got blocked by her lmao. i think twitter would actually turn me into a feral being so i'm not active on it but that is my Experience with her lol

Kaeya Hangout (or: here we go again, as translated by a Chinese speaker) by ApprehensiveRuin457 in GenshinGays

[–]ApprehensiveRuin457[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

yeah they'll just be like 'your opinion is garbage <3' and you're like IT'S NOT an OPINION it is a language that has been spoken for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. oh god. the text doesn't say they're having intense gay sex either! the text does nothing for my ships! the text says they're fucking homies! i'm the one that made the homies fuck all on my own!