This Is A Great Idea And A Great Offer. Rebloging!

This is a great idea and a great offer. Rebloging!

Also, does ‘white man’ include non-cis white men? 

whole thread from post calling for "any POC interested in Japanese translation". so understand full context.

DM @/lhkuroda on twitter if interested, for real.

Twitter thread:

(Link: thread 1) (Link: thread 2) (Link: quote retweet) (Link: 2023 Upcoming Japanese Fiction Releases article)

@/lhkuroda on twitter (April 10, 2023):

"Cannot believe how much Japanese fiction is coming out in English this year. Almost unreal.

this list also reveals that more than 90% of Japanese literature translators are still white men. we desperately need more translators who are not that. please.

i'm literally begging.

Japanese in particular seems to be worse than almost any other translated language i can think of. ask yourself why that is.

i count 32 books of translated japanese fiction coming out this year. out of those books, 8 are translated by women [of any racial background]. 6 are translated by people of color [of any gender].

if you are a person of color and you are even remotely interested in becoming a japanese literary translator (all caps): Please D.M. me. I will Help you. This is an S.O.S. (end of all caps)

and if you are a white man and you feel that translating japanese literature is your calling i am begging you to do anything else."

two years ago Kenji Liu and I got funding from @/poetswritersinc to run a free, online workshop for people of color interested in learning about japanese literary translation. more than 30 people attended.

would anyone like to fund me to run another one? idk it feels urgent.

i can share tips for getting started, basic industry info around pitching, plus some 101's of translating literary fiction in general

every year more and more white men become japanese literary translators, and more and more women and people of color are discouraged and bullied and manipulated out of projects they deserve to work on bc these assholes are powerhungry and there are a lot of them.

a very prominent white male translator of japanese bullied me into quitting a project this year because he insisted there was something wrong with every single sentence of my story, and refused to let me publish until i accepted every one of his edits. i almost quit translating.

then i remembered that he can go fuck himself. so anyway if you are anyone that's not a white man and want advice about starting out in translating japanese literature i'm more than happy to help or offer advice."

@/kalauapuwailani on twitter:

"same offer stands here!"

Oh man. I really want to write something like this? This sounds like so much fun and is so up my alley. (I am that slightly unhinged dude risking all of time to bring back the extinct birds. It is me.) 

...subplot of the wildlife photographer who is dead set on personally documenting mid-pliocene Brazil or something and tries to do everything by the book! But repeatedly ends up needing to get slightly rescued because they totally forget in the rush of getting That Shot that sometimes stepping on that twig will have effects down the timeline...

here is a concept: time travel cop, fish & wildlife division

most of their job is dealing with the kinds of assholes who think black market tiger cubs are a great idea right up until someone gets mauled, except these are even bigger assholes with black market Smilodon cubs that they are even less equipped to care for

this is the most straightforward and therefore relatively headache-free part of their job, because it’s the same “put that thing back where it came from or so help me” song and dance every time

it’s also significantly less depressing than the trophy hunters who don’t even want an alive extinct animal. those are extra annoying because you have to undo the time travel that let them kill that poor Megatherium or thylacine or anklyosaur or whatever, and it’s always so much extra paperwork.

and those people suck, definitely, and have fully earned a stint in Time Jail. no question. but they still do not create anywhere near as much work as the obsessive hobbyists with their exhaustively careful best practices and worryingly good track-covering. also, weirdly, it’s almost always birds with them?

like. the guys who will flagrantly abuse Time Law to bird-nap breeding pairs just long enough to raise one clutch of eggs apiece, and return them seamlessly to their spots on the timeline. who are so determined to keep their pet (ha) projects going that no one even realizes what they’re doing until they have an entire stable breeding population of passenger pigeons up and running. who are now the reason that reps from six different zoos are about to start throwing hands right in front of you over who gets dibs.

those guys cause the most paperwork. and half the time they’re snapped up by the same zoo or wildlife preserve that gets their colony of ivory-billed woodpeckers or Carolina parakeets or — once, very memorably — giant fucking South Island moa, and they never even spend a day in Time Jail.

Oh this art is so nice!

Been wanting to do an Art Giveaway this year and y’all ended up voting on a piece of character art as the prize, so here’s a quick n dirty Art Giveaway! 

+Winner will receive 1 flat colored full body character piece +Must reblog to qualify (no giveaway accounts and no spam reblogging!) +Must be following this account at the time of winner selection +Winner will be selected via Random dot Org +Giveaway ends on Friday, September 30th at 6pm EST Good luck and as always, thank you all for your support!

Me who’s been going ‘guess I’ll die’ every time the fire alarm went off in my apartment building because I’m on the fifteenth floor and can’t make it down all those stairs: THIS IS NEED TO KNOW INFO. SPREAD IT!

Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

I will add a note to support self-care!

Okay fuck it if this post reaches 666k notes by the end of 2023 I'll practise basic self care

Why 666k? Because it's funny and impossible so good fucking luck