extrapenguin

Since this week seems to be all about YouTueb videos, here's a song I found and enjoy:

芒種 ("Grain in Beard"; 6th to 20th of June), sung by 趙方婧 Zhao Fangjing. The video is just clips of various actresses in period dress, but I'm getting a lot of femslash feels and, yes.

(I suspect the subs were done with google translate or equivalent. Ex:
Hanzi:
若佛說~~~~~（無牽無掛）
放下執著~~~~~（無相無色）

Subs:
Buddha said (be free of love)
let it go (be free of love)

EP can use a dictionary and knows some grammar:
As Buddha said (be carefree)
let go of attachments ([we're] colorless without each other)

...so, yeah. Some stuff might be inaccurate.)

Current Music: 芒種音闕詩聽、趙方婧

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

trobadora

Oh, I like that song!

And ha, yeah, that looks very Google translate. It has this bizarre propensity to occasionally just ... skip bits entirely or replace them with other bits for no reason. Or to translate the exact same sentence, quoted three times in a row, differently each time.

From:

extrapenguin

I also discovered a playlist of 20 songs by the same production crew for the solar terms (the 4 last ones are yet to turn up), but haven't had the chance to listen to them. Here.

Or to translate the exact same sentence, quoted three times in a row, differently each time.
I am reminded of the time I asked it to translate a snippet with the name 宋岚 Song Lan repeated three times in a row. The sentence was probably even “宋岚，宋岚，宋岚。。。” ... which Google translated as "Song Yun, Song Chan, Song Hao..."

Also, the translation bothered me enough that I did a quick and dirty TL myself. If nothing else, it's at least differently wrong?

One thought of you and I, and
In vain I hate to part forever in dreams
Burned to ash and buried the willow

Oh, the verdant branches
Wilted out of lack of time for them
It's the price of the answer for the riddle of the harvest

Twilight glistens above
A distant traveler sets out
and puts a hand on the heart in concern, oh, under the bridge

The previous incarnation was late to come (a brief encounter)
Engraved in the hollow of the palm (the next life will remember)
From your misted eyes falls a single drop of ink
If Buddha said (be carefree)
Relinquish your attachments (without each other we're colorless)
How can I not be startled by the great waves and go along?

One thought of you and I, and
I hate the short life, always a prisoner of the sea of bitterness
The new disciple leaves, falling flowers reflected in the river
Yearn uselessly, just laugh at the mountains' oath of old
Say, how can I search?

Plant ten thousand lotus flowers
They germinate at the heart of all living things
Wait for the ten thousand answers of the world of mortals

Prayer beads fall into the sands of time
Wait and give up performing mercy

The previous incarnation was late to come (a brief encounter)
Engraved in the hollow of the palm (the next life will remember)
From your misted eyes falls a single drop of ink
If Buddha said (be carefree)
Relinquish your attachments (without each other we're colorless)
How can I not be startled by the great waves and go along?

One thought of you and I, and
I hate the short life, always a prisoner of the sea of bitterness
The new disciple leaves, falling flowers reflected in the river
Yearn uselessly, just laugh at the mountains' oath of old
Say, how can I search?

From:

trobadora

“宋岚，宋岚，宋岚。。。” ... which Google translated as "Song Yun, Song Chan, Son Hao..."

Yes, that looks like a typical Google Translate experience to me. *g*

And oooh, awesome! Thanks for sharing your translation!

From:

ratbones

Languages are hard, but you said "femslash" and "women with swords" and here I am. This is so gay, like everything between 1:07 and 1:22, wow. THANK YOU. Also the swordswoman in red around 0:31 and the very messy baijiu drinking around 2:49 have me a bit *licks screen*. ...The song is lovely, too! :P

From:

extrapenguin

This is so gay, like everything between 1:07 and 1:22, wow.
Exactly! Hands-on swordplay teaching! Cheek touching! Words cannot describe how UNF I am. Can this be a drama already? The plot doesn't need to be super strong, just have 4+ women interacting with each other femslashily in maximum *licks screen* mode!

From:

ratbones

YES. There must be an audience out there beyond just us for f/f sexual tension plus swords. Please somebody make this drama! Please I'm so hungry.

From:

extrapenguin

Yesss! Surely it must exist? I have asked some better-placed friends in the NIF fandom, though I think F/F + period drama might be a touch niche. If nothing else, at least we can stare at the video some more?

(damn, I need a F/F icon or three dozen)

From:

extrapenguin

Update: at least some of the clips in that video are from some ... fanmade web serial thingy on bilibili? Here's what's probably a fanvid. Here's something that's probably an installment? Actresses are @圣微ViVi for the demonic cultivation master and 唐糖genki for the disciple. Oh, and there's this tropey BTS footage. ... the question is, am I going too deep down this rabbit hole, or not deep enough?

From:

ratbones

Okay, so it wasn't all just us wearing slash goggles, clearly. Thank you for feeeeeding me, this is exactly the cheese I needed. Back-to-back badasses! Coughing up blood! My kingdom for engsubs! Although I suspect we won't find any, even at the bottom of that rabbit hole. *pouts*

From:

extrapenguin

You know, it's 14 minutes long and the Chinese is pretty simple, so ... do you want me to engsub it? I make no guarantees on the quality of the translation, though at least it should be grammatical English.

(I'll see about tracking down source clips for the other two-character interaction scenes, too, but this one was a seriously delightful find to start with, unf. And they did that with zero budget, too!)

From:

ratbones

penguiiiin <3 No pressure but that would be fab, you're the bestest!

Yeah, I'm seriously impressed with the cinematography and costumes and generally how good everything looks. Here's hoping there's more like this lurking about, but even if not, ~whee~ this is good stuff.

From:

extrapenguin

Okay it's easier than I expected (!) and I have the first 6 minutes already. The timings are bullshit, but, hey, I think this should be done by the weekend? Anyway, the little disciple is Ye Xiaoqi and the cool and badass master is Xiao Rufeng. And the boob collision scene's music is even more !!! than I recalled from the first watchthrough!

From:

ratbones

Yaaaay I'm so excited, I'm glad it's going well! I'm certainly not going to complain about timings, as long as it's readable I'll just be grateful. boob collision scene, AHAH. Their dynamic is super cute, Ye Xiaoqi's giggle is infectious.

From:

extrapenguin

After I posted, I subbed up to 8:30. 60% done! Projected schedule: finish up translation on Thursday, get the timings and sanity checks done on Saturday. Xiao Rufeng/Ye Xiaoqi is such a wonderful ship.

From:

ratbones

I am hypedddd to squee about this ship over the weekend. Everything going well still?

From:

extrapenguin

Yes! In fact, everything went better than expected on the back half, and the translation is done! I'm currently fixing the timings. Should be up within an hour?

From:

ratbones

Omg yay, that's awesome!

From:

extrapenguin

And done! Has a 480p .flv and a .srt file with only slightly dodgy subtitles. Come squee with me about Ye Xiaoqi colliding with Xiao Rufeng's boobs!

(I'll make an actual DW post about it soon)