Maria-sama ga Miteru:Format
Maria-sama ga Miteru specific formatting
Maria-sama, Gokigenyou
In both of these cases I decided to keep the Japanese iteration. Part of it was a friend bugging me to stay true to the fan iteration of the series. I presume it was kept this way in the anime. I deliberately changed it in the prologue, however, as that felt like a more aloof, realistic and, yeah, specific description.
In the same way, I decided to keep honorifics. -san, -sama, -sensei, unless they were intended to bring a point across "well aren't you a missy!" I don't know if I'll ever run across such an instance in this series, but I'm covering my bases with that heads-up.
If people want me to change things either way (either pure Maria-sama, or changing everything to Virgin Mary or some other variation), make a thread, or something.
Titles
I kept all of the French titles. Rosa Chinensis, Gigantea, Foetida and the en boutons, as well as Rosa Canina and any other specific titles that crop up. I also kept grand souer, souer and petite souer as they were.
Onee-samas is one I struggled with. In Japanese it is written お姉さま方, which is a plural way of saying onee-sama. Onee-sama, incidentally, I counted as a title, as it was a specific way of calling someone. Yumi always calls Sachiko onee-sama - in fact they have a little, cute spat about this. She never calls anyone else specifically onee-sama. In like kind, I felt the usage of onee-samas, the plural, similar. You only really see this usage when it is someone referring to the Roses, but not calling them "the Roses."
Imouto, however, I switched to little sister. I felt this was synonymous to senpai (upperclassmen), kouhai (underclassmen) and a broader usage of the word onee-sama (elder sisters).
Again, if anyone has issues with this formatting, please bring it up with a poll or something.
Perspective
This is one I struggled with. I took a few liberties. Most of the text tends to be in third-person, as the narrator constantly makes reference to "Yumi." However there are moments when the narration switches to a decidedly more fragmented and intimate thought process. "Maria-sama is mean!" in 1.1.1 is a good example. As such, I took the liberty of, when I felt the narration had "switched gears," so to speak, switching into first-person narrative. If people find this to be awkward or confusing, I can try to proof-read and fix things up with whatever solution is brought up and agreed upon.
