A fan translator going by the Twitter handle Retro Translator, also known as Tom, decided to delete all his tweets and post up a message indicating that he “can’t continue” after being unduly harassed by Social Justice Warriors like Hardcore Gaming 101, SNES Central, ResetEra, and the hordes of mentally ill people that congregate on Twitter, all because he didn’t censor the English translation of Goemon 3.

It started when a patch was released for the SNES ROM of Goemon 3, giving gamers the option to finally play the game in English. Social Justice Warriors took note of a line in the game that was accurately translated, which read “I’m actually a tranny… Should I tell my boyfriend the truth?”

They scurried to Twitter like rats racing through the forest toward the open doors of a cheese factory to lambaste Tom and his translating partner, DDSTranslation, for not censoring the line.

(TW: transphobia) is it too much to ask for right wing fan translators to NOT stick slurs into their work? pic.twitter.com/BYQDFe0FLs — Hardcore Gaming 101 (@HG_101) January 25, 2020

Hardcore Gaming 101 even did a follow-up tweet acknowledging that the line was accurately translated from the Japanese version.

I booted up my Japanese copy to check and it used “newhalf” but it’s still a shitty word to translate it as pic.twitter.com/CTsI3mvWpH — Hardcore Gaming 101 (@HG_101) January 25, 2020

As is typical with witch-hunts on Twitter, others began to join in to target the translator for not censoring the line, with gaming hub SNES Central also advocating for the ruination of gaming via censorship.

One of the benefits of doing a fan translation 2020 is the possibility to remove discriminatory language that, while still wrong then, was in common use three decades ago. It is a shame that the authors of this hack decided to mar their hard work by using a slur. https://t.co/BpgQfbjvKT — SNES Central (@snescentral) January 25, 2020

Cue a bunch of butthurt crazy people on the ResetEra forum who – after revving up their outrage on page 2 – decide to go in on the translation from page 3 and onward.

All during this time both DDSTranslation and Tom were receiving all sorts of hate from the usual crowd on Twitter.

DDSTranslation brushed it off and noted that he still thought ResetEra was cancer.

I just removed it because I couldn’t fit in “Goemon” in my bio at the same time. They’re still cancer. — DDS (@DDSTranslation) January 26, 2020

Tom, however, took the bombardment with a little less gumption.

According to the Wayback Machine, his Twitter page was always somewhat light on content, but on January 26th, 2020 he decided to remove all his previous tweets and post up the following message.

If you’re unable to view the image, it reads…

“My apologies to everyone. I needed some time to mull over this mess. “I want to clarify that whatever scripts I’ve translated don’t reflect who I am, or what I believe. People are calling me a far-right extremist now. Me? These people know nothing about me. “And the word that set off this whole mess? I didn’t even know anybody considered it completely off limits. I thought it was just a silly abbreviation, a slightly taboo word, something only a bit edgy, but well within the realm of a reasonable translation of the original Japanese line. “Yes, the original Japanese line in the game is insensitive, but please don’t think that having translated it in an insensitive way means that I’m somehow a hateful person, because I’m not. It crushed me to see the fallout of this. Anybody who has followed me for any amount of time knows that I wear my heart on my sleeve. I love all people, and every single living thing on this planet. “And I care about the games, too. I started working on fan translations because I care… I just wanted to share these experiences with people. “Seeing how all of this has turned out… It’s really crushed me. If one single word that I didn’t even know was so inexcusable caused this sort of uproar, what other words are off limits without my knowing? To be honest, the very thought terrifies me. “This whole thing has crushed my passion for translating, video games, and even simply writing in general. I can’t continue with it.”

Screw this guy.

Never apologize.

These people are mentally ill freaks. They’re not normal. They need psychiatric help. Why embolden them? Why give them a platform and presence to further spread their degenerate lunacy? They’re freaks. Abominations. Societal rejects. Don’t give them the time of day.

Never. Apologize.

You can grab the uncensored version of the translation right now (while it’s still available) from ROMHacking.net.

(Thanks for the news tips Ebicentre and Iswear12)