Jumin Deserves It

This is a comprehensive masterpost linking to every chat I've translated in chronological order. Here are however some things to know before you proceed :

↳ I do this in my own free time, and I'm not being paid to do it. I pitched this idea randomly at 1AM on my other sideblog on a whim, and I'm still making this on a whim. ↳ Neither English nor Korean is my first language. I am however fluent in both. I'm only mentioning it in case one of my translations completely misses the mark. I can't be perfect all the time, lol. ↳ I'm doing this in real time. I don't have anything backed up, which means that I'll have to go through the entire game from the beginning and translate each chat as they go. Please understand that I might not be able to update this blog every day and that it's likely going to take a while. ↳ Translating from Korean to English is tricky. Some things are bound to still get lost in translation despite my efforts. I'll have to take some liberties at some points to keep the meaning intact if translating word-for-word makes it hard to understand. ↳ I am not going to be translating every possible answer with every possible outcome. I'm crazy enough to take on this project but I have my limits, lol. The version I'll be posting is the one from my own game, with the answers I pick to get to the good ending. These may not be the "canon" answers, but there will be enough of them to get the good ending. (Also ! I will add a "♥" whenever there's an answer I give that Jumin likes.) ↳ However, I am open to translating other interactions in the game, even if they aren't in Jumin's route. As long as they involve him, it's fair game. Anything he says that makes you stop and think "wait, that's weird", just ask and I shall deliver (I've done every route except Yoosung's. It's likely that I'll be able to find the Korean line in my own game, but in case I don't, you'll have to send it to me.) ↳ Since this is meant to be about Jumin, I'll only be translating the chats, calls and story modes that concern him (if a character talks about him in a chat he's not in, I might also translate it if I think it would give more insight on Jumin's character overall). Tackling the ENTIRE thing will drive me insane, lol.

Thank you for your patience and support.

This chat's title is "역시 그건 나쁜 징조였어요" (I Knew it Was a Bad Omen) but honestly a more accurate one would be "주민 너무 웃겨 미치겠음" (Jumin is so fucking funny I'm losing it)

I know I disappeared for a whole year (again) but I have some good-ish news? I have all the chats & story modes up to Day 8 (not included) translated, literally all I have to do is format them. Unfortunately this is the part that takes me the most time lol but at least half the work is already done, so... I should be able to post more in the upcoming days.

So I'm back working on translations and I'm onto the Day 5, 8:55PM chat in Jumin's route and something really interesting happened that made the English version make a lot more sense to me, lol.

So, in the English version, Jumin calls Sugar Round a "complete no-name", to which the MC replies "being so hostile doesn't suit you, but okay" which always felt weird to me bc using the word "hostile" to describe what Jumin said feels a bit much ?

Well, you guessed it, the Korean version explains that answer. What Jumin actually said is "슈가라운드는 ‘듣보잡’이야." (Sugar Round is a 'deutbojap'.) You'll notice that Jumin puts the word 듣보잡 in quotations, and there's a reason for it : it's a slang term, short for 듣도 보도 못한 잡것 (deutdo bodo mot-han japgeot), which translates to "worthless piece of trash I've never heard of".

Choi Saeyoung, bisexual king?

Still laughing at the thought of Jaehee making Jumin read the Urban Dictionary, lmao. (Also I didn't put this in the footnotes so I'll mention it here - in case you're not very familiar with South Korean culture, ~30% of South Koreans are some denomination of Christian, with rich families more likely to be so. A little more than half the population is irreligious.)

I'm back on the grind my dudes! I've got all the chats up to Day 6 done so I should be able to upload more frequently for a little bit. Sorry this took so long to get out, life really got busy for me in the past year. Anyways. This chat isn't that different from its English version save for a few subtle changes. The noticeable differences in translation mostly happen in Jumin's actual route starting on Day 5, but I still want to get the Common Route ones done first.

Saeyoung has never been more relatable honestly.

It's the chat on Day 4 at 11:45AM with Yoosung where they're talking about Seven changing his legal name to Luciel. The English version goes like this :

MC : Yeah, I thought the name Luciel was a bit too cartoonish. Yoosung : Really ? Jumin : Doesn't the name remind you of a character in a fantasy novel ? Yoosung : How would you know that ? Jumin : I do have common sense.

But — you guessed it — that's not what he says in Korean. The Korean version actually translates to :

MC : I did think the name “Luciel” sounded a bit like a character from a comic book. Yoosung : Really ? Jumin : Doesn’t it feel like middle-school syndrome ? I mean, “Luciel”? Yoosung : Hyung;; how do you even know the term “middle-school syndrome”? Jumin : It was in a “Modern Language Dictionary” that Assistant Kang told me to read.

I'm not a Jumin fan necessarily, and there are times during Jaehee's route where I would like to guillotine him, but I do think he's a good and compelling character with understandable flaws. The MysMes characters all have really well-done flaws that can make them more compelling if you like them, or make them seem like monsters if you don't.

I assume you're not getting to Jihyun's route for a good while, but I am curious about that. He's the only character that I feel completely flopped. The game's writing and design works against him from just about every angle, and I'm curious how much is different in the Korean.

Hi ! Thank you so much for taking the time to send me this ask.

To answer your first point, after playing through the game several times, I think the reason some characters are easier to hate in certain routes is bc some routes exacerbate their flaws more than in others. The game is super well designed in that aspect - it's like MC is adopting the POV of whoever love interest they choose. Jaehee's story puts her at odds with Jumin, and the game is trying to make it easier for you to agree with her, so of course Jumin's flaws will be brought to the frontline.

I think it's okay not to like Jumin. There is no one, irl and fictional, who is going to be loved by everyone. I just hate that 99% of the backlash he gets comes from mistranslations and a lot of hate posts about him just reek of ableism (no kidding, they sound the same as my ableist family members do when it comes to my autism) which is just shitty. I just want to set the record straight.

About Jihyun, playing his route in English is actually what pushed me to play the game in Korean at first. The amount of weird sentences I couldn't understand (first example that comes to mind is the first solo chat with Jihyun on Day 1 where the English translation says "so we've been holding parties as best as we could, with rewards such as the rewarding feeling" - like wtf does that even mean) completely threw me off. I just HAD to look up the Korean version. Eventually it led to me replaying Jumin's route in Korean and that's where it hit me how much was lost in translation. It's not always blatantly obvious but every little change adds up over time.

idk but currently pursuing Jumin's route, i feel him day by day (minus the rich part and spoiler alert the arranged marriage with him and Sarah Choi aside from the relationship with him and his mother, him and i are both sheltered AF growing up)

i also got sterotyped as robot, bitch and many times just because i has trouble expressing and processing me emotions (i am a tsundere towards me friends irl and also keep them at arm's length at le fear of getting attached)

it makes me feel pain for him the same way i do with my life but like a closure and a good one

note: jumin deserves the world indeed, justice for jumin

he reminds me of this song based on his route and lore (my fave song rn): The Moon Will Sing — The Crane Wives (https://open.spotify.com/track/4c0tJe2ENJwrZbn9Bap2qs?si=jn713RlCQty1aCcULbMNig)

No fr I feel you so much on this. I remember playing MysMe for the first time and thinking "Jumin is literally me wtf" and it blew my mind bc I'd never felt that way about any character in any piece of media ever. He helped me make sense of a lot of the behaviors I exhibited that I couldn't explain and it's thanks to him that I was able to get my autism diagnosis. He put into words what I'd been feeling all my life, it's almost scary how much our lives mirror each other minus the whole billionaire CEO thing, obviously. But his relationship with both of his parents ? Yeah. Not gonna trauma dump on this post but it's the same for me.