Mdzs Translation - Tumblr Posts

i heard the tgcf translations were fine? what's going on there?? i mean it's suika so i'm Disappointed But Not Surprised

As far as I know, there aren’t any mistranslation issues a la the plot being slyly altered around certain characters, but suika has a nasty habit of changing the dialogue of characters she considers to be low-class or “casual” into Southern (or NYC-Italian mobster or lower class British depending on, I guess, which one sounds better to her atm) caricatures. So you have characters dropping the “g” at the end of -ing words, a ghost at one point in tgcf shouting “BLOODY HELL,” and other mostly American slang and dialect thrown into a story where everyone is supposed to be speaking Mandarin…

And apparently she’s outsourced this habit into the mdzs official, which people have started to pick up on and question because unlike tgcf—which only she has completely translated—mdzs has a thousand and one fan translations by different people predating the official and none of them make the dialogue choices that suika does.

As a American southerner, this is both irritating in its ignorance that she switches between completely different dialects that she thinks sounds low-class without any awareness that they are, in fact, different dialects, and offensive in that she thinks she has to 1) caricaturize low-class characters at all in ways that the original story does not while 2) using real people’s cultures and languages to do so.

Excuse me while I dig through the notes like the nosy little trash panda I am…

Absolutely wild to read through mdzs and tally the sheer amount of lies the cultuvation world tell about and around Wei Wuxian that eventually get debunked:

Wwx purposely and maliciously ordered Wen Ning to kill Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Jin Zixuan died for siding with his cousin in an ambush his cousin created to kill wwx, an invited Jin guest. Jiang Yanli died protecting wwx from a cultivator stabbing him in the back, after Wen Ning was supposedly already destroyed.

Wwx attacked the Nightless City banquet for no reason, killing between 3,000-5,000 cultivators. The major clans and many smaller clans were gathered at Nightless City specifically to go back on their word to the Wen siblings to leave the Burial Mounds settlement, and to pledge to kill wwx. There weren’t even 3,000 present at the whole pledge, and wwx didn’t kill nearly all of them since a good portion of them show up to the second siege 13 years later.

Wwx ordered Wen Ning to attack the cultivators at Koi Tower, and his and Wen Qing’s surrender was a ruse to allow them close access to the clans to do so. Wwx was immobilized for three days, and otherwise does not control Wen Ning like a toy. Edit: the Jin purposely agitated Wen Ning to violence, then ensured that a majority of the cultivators in the room killed were from other clans to secure their support of the pledge conference.

Wwx had a great life at Lotus Pier, treated like he was part of the Jiang main family, only to betray them in the end. Wwx was whipped so gratuitously that he had scars as a child despite having a high-level golden core. Nobody bothered to tell him about his parents, despite Jiang Fengmian supposedly being close to at least his father before Wei Changze left the service of the clan. He was given no tablets to honor them in death, no keepsakes. Still, wwx fulfilled both of the Jiang rulers’ final wish/order to protect their son (above his own life), and wwx’s connections are why either were able to get a proper burial (unlike wwx’s own parents).

Wwx was committing evil acts and took on the Wen remnants as followers/test subjects for his dark arts. All demonic cultivators can be linked to his followers. Wwx rescued the Wen Remnants from labor camps set up, again, against the word of the cultivation world, and lived secluded in the Burial Mounds and Yiling until basically his death. The only “demonic cultivators” we see are Jin disciples who are given wwx’s notes after his death to study in an attempt to recreate his methods and secure the Jin’s power over the other great sects. Nobody cares that the Jin are doing this, even as they use other clans as test subjects.

Wwx created Wen Ning to be a weapon. Wwx resurrected Wen Ning on the request of his sister after the labor camp guards murdered him. The Jin, after lying about his destruction, try to turn him into a weapon and fail.

Wwx was killed by Jiang Cheng in a fitting moment of justice for the crimes committed against the Jiang. While Jiang Cheng’s part in the first siege was integral, he did not kill wwx. The Jiang have committed more crimes against wwx than anyone, and owe their entire continued existence to wwx.

Wwx turned to demonic cultivation because he was greedy for power. Wwx created the ghost path as his only means of surviving the Burial Mounds without a golden core. He sought no power and blatantly called out those who did (the Jin), only to be ignored because of his status. In turn, he defects from his sect and exiles himself to the Burial Mounds (with the Wen remnants), to which the sects continue to pursue him in a bid to kill the “servant” who won’t bow to them and to steal his power for themselves.

Wwx’s cultivation corrupts people, both in mentality and their health, which is why he became evil. Wwx’s cultivation path is shown to do no such thing, and nobody has precedence for saying this, as wwx’s cultivation is entirely new. On the other hand, the Nie saber technique is known to corrupt body and mind of the Nie who practice is, resulting in horrifyingly violent deaths by qi deviation, and yet no one shows care or concern about that being a problem for the whole cultivation world to have to deal with.

Wwx was ugly. Do I need to debunk this? 😭

And some ones tangentially related to him, but having to do more with the cultivation world lying to make themselves seem better than they were:

The first Burial Mounds siege was a deadly undertaking, but ultimately worth it to stop the Yiling Patriarch’s reign of terror. The siege was hundreds of trained cultivators against around 50 sickly people and a child with no tools to fight back. The only person who could fight back did not. It was the very definition of a massacre.

The participants of the first siege burned all the corpses on the Burial Mounds to release their resentment. The participants of the first siege threw the Wen remnants’ corpses into the blood pool to desecrate them, thereby imbibing them with even more resentment.

Disciples (or anyone connected to her) of Baoshan Sanren who leave her mountain are destined to meet bad ends as they are corrupted by the world. The cultivation world allows righteous people to die and their reputations to be tarnished in order to maintain their facade of “righteousness” while leaning into corruption and constant power grabs. It is often directly the fault of the cultivation world that these individuals are killed in the first place.

The “born with a smiling look” explanation for Wei Wuxian’s character is so interesting, cause the first time I read it through exr’s translation:

Jiang YanLi said that he was born with a smiling look. No matter what unfortunate thing happened, he wouldn’t cling on to them; no matter what situation he was in, he would be happy. Although it sounded a bit heartless, it really wasn’t bad.

—Chapt. 24: Malice (or Malevolence in taming wangxian)

I read it as the narrator calling Jiang Yanli callous for praising how Wei Wuxian’s smiles hide the pain he suffers from, but saying that being dubbed this way “really wasn’t bad” (in wwx’s opinion). However, both fanyiyi and taming wangxian expand on this explanation to show OH LOOK, A CRITIQUE OF THE FANON VIEW THAT CLAIMS WEI WUXIAN’S POSITIVITY AS A TRAIT BORN FROM NAIVETY AND/OR OBLIVIOUSNESS:

Jiang Yanli had said he’d been born with a smiling face and mirthful features. No matter what he suffered through, he didn’t allow his heart to be burdened by it. No matter what kind of circumstances he found himself in, he was still happy. It almost made him sound a bit brainless and heartless, but in fact, it was a very good thing.

—fanyiyi

Jiang Yanli said, he naturally had a smiling face, and a happy disposition. No matter how unhappy he was, he wouldn’t take it to heart. No matter the situation he was in, he could always remain happy. As much as he sounded somewhat callous, it was actually a good thing.

—taming wangxian

any chance of you translating/writing meta about wangxian's first sex scene? i've seen it claimed that there are hints that lwj has actually sobered up by the time they have sex - is that true?

Thanks for asking! Honestly, I don't think I can give any better insight than other people have already done - it's pretty subtle and I didn't catch it in my first read through, myself. What I can do is give some comparative translations of the scenes between "definitely drunk" and "...???". It'll take some time, so keep watching this space ;)

(But the tl;dr answer to your question: "Looks like it, I guess")